The Dark Somnium - "Ben Drowned" Scary Stories from The Internet | Classic Creepypasta

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

This is a classic creepypasta scary story, one of the originals in the genre, posted by Alex Hall (Jadusable). when they posted this story, they also uploaded the footage to his youtube channel, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/@UCZ6sE1jUjeloB5uCf1tJrZw--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darksomnium/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I recently moved into my dorm room, starting as a sophomore in college, and a friend gave me his old Nintendo 64 to play. I was stoked, to say the least. I could finally play all those old games from my youth that I hadn't touched in at least a decade. His Nintendo 64 came with one yellow controller and a rather shoddy copy of Super Smash Brothers. And while beggars can't be choosers, needless to say, it didn't take long until I became bored of beating the Level 9 CPUs. That weekend, I decided to drive around a few neighborhoods about 20 minutes or so off campus, hitting up the local garage sales, hoping to score some good deals from ignorant parents. I ended up picking up a copy of Pokemon Stadium, Golden Eye, F0, and two other controllers

for $20. Satisfied, I began to drive out of the neighborhood when the last house caught my attention. I still have no idea why it did. There were no cars there, and only one table was set up with random. junk on it, but something sort of drew me there. I usually trust my gut on these things, so I got out of the car and I was greeted by an old man. His outward appearance was, for lack of a better word, displeasing. It was odd.

If you asked me to tell you why I thought he was displeasing, I couldn't really pinpoint anything. There was just something about him that put me on edge. I can explain it. All I can tell you is that if it wasn't in the middle of the afternoon and there weren't other people within shouting distance, I would not have even thought about approaching this man. He flashed a crooked smile at me and asked what I was looking for. And immediately, I noticed that he must have been blind in one of his eyes.

His right eye had that glazed overlook about it. I forced myself to look into his left eye instead, trying not to offend, and asked him if he had any old video games. I was already wondering how I could politely excuse myself from the situation when he told me he had no idea what a video game was, but to my surprise, he said he had a few ones in an old box. He assured me he'd be back in a jiffy and turned to head back into the garage. As I watched him hobble away, I couldn't help but notice what he was selling on the table.

Littered across his table were rather peculiar paintings, various artworks that looked like inkblots that a psychiatrist might show you. Curious. I looked through them. It was obvious why no one was visiting this guy's garage. garage sale, these weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing. As I came to the last one, for some reason it looked almost like Major's mask, the same heart-shaped body with little spikes protruding outward.

Initially, I just thought that since I was secretly hoping to find that game at these garage sales, some Frutian bullshit was projecting itself into the inkblots, but given the events that happened afterward, I'm not so sure now. I should have asked the man about it. I wish I had asked the man about it. After staring at the Majora-shaped blot, I looked up and the old man was suddenly there again, arms length in front of me, smiling. I'll admit, I jumped out of reflex, and I laughed nervously as he handed me a Nintendo

64 cartridge. It was the standard grey color, except that someone had written Majora on it in black permanent marker. I caught butterflies in my stomach, as I realized what a coincidence this was, and asked him how much he wanted for it. The old man smiled at me and told me that I could have it for free, that it used to belong to a kid who was about my age that didn't live there anymore. There was something weird about how the man phrased that, but I didn't really pay any attention

to it then. I was too caught up in not only finding this game, but getting it for free. I reminded myself to be a little skeptical, since this looked like a pretty shady cartridge, and there's no guarantee it would work. But then the optimist inside of me interjected that maybe it was some kind of beta. version or pirated version of the game, and that was all I needed to be back on Cloud 9. I thanked the man, and the man smiled at me and wished me well, saying, Goodbye, then.

At least that's what it sounded like to me. All the way in the car ride home, I had a nagging doubt that the man had said something else. My fears were confirmed when I booted up the game. To my surprise, it worked just fine. And there was one save file named simply Ben. Goodbye Ben, he was saying, goodbye, Ben. I felt bad for the man, obviously a grandparent and obviously going senile, and I, for some reason

or another, reminded him of his grandson Ben. Out of curiosity, I looked at the save file, eyeballing it. I could tell that he was pretty far in the game. He had almost all of the mask and three-fourths remains of the bosses. I noticed that he had used an owl statue to save his game. He was on day three, and by the Stone Tower Temple, with hardly an hour left before the moon would crash. I remember thinking that it was a shame that he had come so close to beating the game,

but he never finished it. I made a new file named Link, out of tradition, and started the game, ready to relive my childhood. For such a shady-looking game cartridge, I was impressed at how smoothly it ran, literally just like a retail copy of the game, say for a few minor hiccups here and there, like textures being where they shouldn't be, random flashes of cutscenes at odd intervals, but nothing bad. However, the only thing that was a little unnerving was at times the NPCs would call me Link, and at other times they would call me Ben.

I figured it was just a bug, a fluke in the programming causing our files to get mixed up or something. It did kind of creep me out though after a while, and it was around after I had beaten the Woodfall Temple that I regrettably went into the save files and deleted Ben. I had intended to preserve the file out of respect for the game's original owner, it's not like I needed two files anyway, hoping that would solve the problem. It did, and it didn't. Now, NPCs wouldn't call me anything.

Where my name should have been in the dialogue, there was just a blank space. My save file name was still called Link though. Frustrated, and with homework to deal, I put the game down for the day. I started playing the game again last night, getting the lens of truth and working my way towards the Snowhead Temple. Now some of you more hardcore Majors' mask players know about the fourth day glitch. For those of you who don't, you can Google it, but the gist of it is that right as the clock is about to hit zero on the final day, you talk to the astronomer and look through

the telescope. If you time it right, the countdown disappears and you essentially have another day to finish whatever you were doing. Deciding to do the glitch to try to finish the Snowhead Temple, I happened to get it right on the first try, and the time counter at the bottom disappeared. However, when I pressed B to exit the telescope, instead of being greeted by the astronomer, I found myself in Major's boss-fight room at the end of the game, the trippy boxed-in arena, staring at Skull Kid hovering above me.

There was no sound, just him floating in the air above me, and the background music, which was regular for the arena, but still creepy. Immediately my palms began to sweat. This was definitely not normal. Skull Kidd never appeared here. I tried moving around the arena and no matter where I went, Skull Kidd would always be facing me, looking at me, not saying anything. Nothing would happen though, and this kept up for around 60 seconds.

I thought the game had bugged or something, but I was beginning to doubt that very much. I was about to reach for the reset button when text appeared on my screen. You're not sure why, but you apparently had a reservation. I instantly recognize the text. You get that message when you get the room key from Anjou at the Stockpot Inn, but why was it playing here? I refused to entertain the notion that it was almost as if the game was trying to communicate with me. I started to navigate the room again, testing to see if that was some sort of trigger that enabled me to interact with something here. Then I realized how stupid I was.

To even think that someone could reprogram the game like that was absurd. Sure enough, 15 seconds later, another message appeared on the screen, and again, like the first one, it was already a pre-existing phrase. Go to the layer of the temple's boss, yes slash no. I paused for a second, contemplating what I should press and how the game would react when I realized that I couldn't select no. Taking a deep breath, I pressed yes, and the screen faded to white, with the words, dawn of a new day, with the subtext of seven vertical lines beneath it. Where I was ported to, and I was ported to the screen, 2 filled me with the most intense sense of dread and impending fear I've ever experienced.

The only way I can describe the way I felt here is having this feeling of inexplicable depression on a profound scale. I'm normally not a depressed person, but the way I felt here was a feeling that I didn't even knew existed. It was such a twisted, powerful presence that seemed to wash over me. I appeared in some kind of weird twilight zone version of Clocktown. I walked out of the clock tower, as you normally do when you start from day one, only to find that all the inhabitants were gone.

Usually with the fourth day glitch, you can still find the guards and the dogs that run around outside the tower. This time they were all gone. What replaced them was the ominous feeling that there was something out there in the same area as me and that it was watching me. I had four hearts by my name and the Heroes' Bow, but by this point I wasn't even concerned for my avatar, I felt that I personally was in some kind of danger. Perhaps the most chilling thing was the music.

It was the song of healing, ripped right from the game itself, but played in reverse. The song would get louder, building up as if you should expect something to pop out at you, but nothing ever did. And the constant loop began to wear on my mental state. Every now and then, I would hear the faint laugh of the happy mask salesman in the background, quiet enough so that I wasn't sure if I was just hearing things, but just loud enough to keep me determined to find him. I looked in all four zones of Clocktown, only finding nothing, no one.

Textures were missing. West Clocktown had me walking on air, the entire area felt broken, hopelessly broken, as the reverse song of healing repeated for what must have been the fiftieth time. I just remember standing in the middle of South Clocktown, realizing that I'd never felt so alone in a video game before. As I walked through the ghost town, I don't know whether it was the combination of the out-of-place textures and the atmosphere and the haunting melody of the once peaceful and soothing song being butchered and distorted, but I was literally on the verge of tears, I had no idea why.

I hardly ever cry. Something had gripped me here and this powerful sense of depression was both foreign and crippling. I tried leaving Clocktown, but every time I attempted to zone out, the screen would fade to black, and I would just zone into another part of Clocktown. I tried playing my Okarina. I wanted to escape, and I did not want to be here, but every time I played the song of time or the song of soaring, it would only say your notes echo far, but nothing happens. By this point, it was obvious that the game didn't want me to leave, but I had no idea why

it was keeping me here. I didn't want to go back inside the buildings. I felt that I would be too vulnerable there to whatever I was terrified of. I don't know why, but I came up with the idea that maybe if I drowned myself at the laundry pool, I could spawn somewhere else and leave this place. As I zoned in and ran towards the pool, that's when it happened. Link grabbed his head and the screen flashed for a brief moment of the happy Masked salesman smiling at me, not Link, me with Skulk hit screen playing in the background and we

When the screen returned, I was staring at the Link statue from playing the song Elegie of Emptiness. I screamed as the thing just stared back at me with that haunting facial expression. I turned around and ran back into South Clocktown, and to my horror, the statue followed me. And the only thing I can compare this to is like the weeping angels from Doctor Who. Every so often at random intervals, the animation would play of the statue appearing behind me.

It was like the thing was chasing me. Or, I don't even want to say it, haunting me. By this point, I was on the verge of hysterics, but not even once did the thought of turning off the console occur to me. I don't know why. I was so wrapped up in it. The terror felt all so real. I tried to shake the statue, but it would literally appear right behind me every single time.

Link started to begin to make weird animations I had never seen him do before. He would flail his arms around or spasm randomly, and the screen would cut to the screen to the the happy masked salesman smiling again for a brief moment before I was face to face with that damn statue again. I ended up running into the swordsman's dojo and ran to the back. I don't know why, but in my panic, I just wanted some kind of assurance that I'm not alone here. To my dismay, I found no one.

But as I turned to leave, the statue cornered me in the cubby in the back. I tried attacking the statue with my sword, but to no avail. and backed into a corner, I just stared at the statue, waiting for it to kill me. Suddenly, the screen flashed again to the happy mask salesman, and Link turned to face my screen, standing upright, mirroring the statue, looking at me along with his copy, literally staring at me. Whatever was left of the fourth wall was completely shattered while I ran out of the dojo, terrified. Suddenly, the game warped me to the underground tunnel and the reverse song of healing queued up again as I was given a brief moment of rest before the statue started appearing behind

me again. This time, aggressively. I could only take a few steps before it would summon behind me again. I hurriedly made my way out of the tunnel and appeared in southern clocktown, as I ran aimlessly in a sheer panic. Suddenly a rededad screamed and the screen faded to black as dawn of a new day and nine vertical lines appeared again. The screen faded in and I was standing on the top of clock tower with a screen faded.

Skull Kid hovering over me again, silent. I looked up and the moon was back, looming just meters above my head, but the Skull Kid just stared at me, hauntingly, with that damn mask. A new song was playing. The Stone Tower Temple theme played in reverse. In some sort of desperate attempt, I equipped my bow and fired a shot at the Skull Kid, and it actually hit him, and he played an animation of him reeling back. I fired again, and on the third arrow, a text appeared saying,

That won't do you any good, he-he. And I was picked up off the ground, levitated upwards on my back, and then Link screamed as he burst into flames, instantly killing me. I jumped when this happened. I'd never seen this move used by anyone in the game, and Skull Kid himself didn't have any moves. The Death Screen played. My lifeless body is still burning.

The Skull Kid laughed and this screen faded to black, only to have me reappear in the same place. I decided to charge him, but the same thing happened. Link's body was lifted off the ground by some unknown force, and he immediately burst into flames again, killing him. This time, during the death screen, the faint sounds of the reverse song of healing could be heard. On my third and final try, I noticed that there was no music playing this time, that all there was was eerie silence. I remembered thinking that in the original encounter with the Skull Kid, you were supposed to use

the ocarina to either travel back in time or summon the giants. I attempted to play the song of time, but before I could hit the last note, Link's body once again horrifically exploded into flames and he died. As the death screen neared its end, it began to chug as if the cartridge was trying to process a lot of something. When the screen came to, it was the same scene as the first three times. Except this time, Link was lying on the ground dead in a position I'd never seen in the game before, his head tilted towards the camera, with the skull kid floating above him.

I couldn't move. I couldn't press any buttons. All I could do is just stare at Link's dead body. After around 30 seconds of this, the game simply fades out to the message, you've met with a terrible fate, haven't you, before kicking you out to the title screen? Upon getting kicked back to the title screen and starting again, I noticed my save file was no longer there. Instead of Link, it was replaced with Your Turn. Your Turn had three hearts, zero masks, and no items. I selected Your Turn, and immediately when I did, I was returned to the

Clock Tower rooftop scene of my Link dead and the Skull Kid hovering over, with the Skull Kids laughing looping again and again. I quickly hit the reset button, and when the game booted up, there was one more save file added. Below, Your Turn, There was Ben. Ben's save file is right back where it was before I deleted it, at the Stone Tower Temple with the moon almost crashing. I turned the game off at that point. I'm not superstitious, but this was way too messed up for even me.

I haven't played it at all today. Hell, I didn't even get any sleep last night. I kept hearing the reverse song of healing music in my head and just remembering the sense of dread I felt exploring Clocktown. I drove back to the old man's house today to ask him some questions with a buddy of mine. No way, I was going back there alone, only to find that there was a fourth sale sign in the yard, and when I rang the door, no one was home. So now I'm back here, recording my thoughts and what happened.

I'm sorry if this is rushed and doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm running on no sleep here. I'm terrified of this game, even more so now that I've relived it a second time in talking about it. But I feel there's still more too. it than meets the eye, and that there's something calling me to investigate this further. I think Ben is something in this equation, but I don't know what. And if I could get a hold of the old man, then I would be able to find some answers. I need another day or so to recuperate before tackling this game again.

It's already taken a toll on my sanity, I feel like, but next time I do this, I'm going to record my footage all the way through. The idea to record only came to me towards the end. I'm going to stay in this thread for a little while longer before I fall asleep to answer any questions you might have or hopefully listen to your ideas or theories to help me shed some light on this or maybe things I should try to do. I think I'm going to play Ben's file tomorrow to see what happens. Maybe I was supposed to do that all along.

I don't believe in paranormal stuff, but this is a little messed up. But maybe this Ben guy was just a really good hacker and programmer. I don't want to think about the alternatives. if he isn't. I'm going to post what happened and link the video footage, but last night everything got too real for me. I think I'm done messing around with this. I passed out pretty much immediately after making the last post, but last night, that

elegy of emptiness statue, I had a dream about it. I dreamed that it was following me, that I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hair stand up on end. I would turn around and that thing, that horrible, lifeless, statue would be staring at me with those empty eyes, merely inches away. In my dream, I remember calling it then, and never before had I had a dream that I could remember so vividly, but the important thing is I did get some sleep, I suppose. Today, I put off playing as long as I could.

I drove up to the neighborhood to see if that old man came back. As expected, the car was still gone, and no one was home. As I was walking back to my car, the man next door, lowing the ground. He asked, killed the power to his lawnmower, and asked me if I was looking for someone. I told him that I was looking to talk to the old man that lived there, to which he told me what I already knew. He was moving. Trying a different avenue, I asked if the old man had any family or relatives I could

talk to. I discovered that the old man had never been married, nor did he have any children or grandchildren through adoption. Starting to become worried, I asked one final question, one that I should have asked from the beginning. Who was Ben? The man's expression turned grim, and I learned that four doors down, around eight years ago, on April 23rd, the man informed me that it was the same day as his anniversary.

That's how he knew the specific date. There was an accident with a young boy named Ben in the neighborhood. Shortly after, his parents moved, and despite any further attempts to talk to the man to get more information, he wouldn't divulge anything else. I went back home, started playing again. I loaded up the game and I immediately jumped at the title screen where the mask flies by. The sound that played was not the normal, whoosh sound. It was something much more higher pitch.

I pressed start, bracing for the worst, but just like two nights ago, the files Your Turn and Ben were displayed. Truth be told, I looked at the Ben file earlier. It seemed to fluctuate between displaying the Owl Save and Not. I brought up the Ben file, hesitated for a moment. noticing that the stats were not the same as the original were two days ago. It seemed like he had already completed the stone tower temple this time. Summoning my courage, I selected it.

Immediately I was thrust into complete chaos. Sure enough, I was outside the stone tower temple. But that's about all that was expected. The zone itself wasn't called stone tower temple, but rather stone. And immediately, a dialogue box of complete gibberish that, I couldn't make out greeted me. Link's body was distorted. His back was cocked violently to the side where his posture was permanently disfigured.

Link's expression was dull, almost monotone. He had an expression on his face that I didn't recognize before. It was a blank look as if he was dead. As Link stood there, his body spasmed irregularly back and forth. I examined what had become of my avatar and noticed I had a C button item I'd never seen before. some kind of note, but impressing it did nothing. Sounds played back and forth that I didn't recognize from the game, almost demonic in nature, and there was some kind of high-pitched yip or some kind of a laugh or something in the background.

I had all of two minutes to take in the environment before another one of those damn elegy of emptiness statues was summoned, and immediately after I was cut into the dawn of a new day screen, except this time without the line subtext. I was a Daku scrub in Clocktown. This scene would normally play after the first time you traveled back in time. Tattle would say, what just happened? It's as if everything has. But instead of saying, started over, she finished her remark in broken text as the laugh

of the happy mass salesman played in the background. I was put back in control of my character, but from a messed up camera angle, I was looking from behind the door to the clock tower, watching my avatar run around as a dead. Decu scrub. Seeing as how I really had no place to go because I couldn't see anything, I begrudgingly went inside the door. There I was greeted by the happy Masked Salesman, who simply told me, you've met with the terrible fate, haven't you, before the screen faded to white?

I was in Terminna Field as a human again. I might as well not have been playing the same game anymore. I was being warped around and there was no sign of a day clock or anything. I took a moment to get my bearings as I looked around the field and immediately I could tell that this was not normal. There were no enemies and a twisted version of the Happy Mask Salesman theme was playing. I decided to run towards Woodfall before I noticed a gathering of three figures off to the side, one of them being a pona.

As I approached them, to my horror, I saw the Happy Masked Salesman, the Skull Kid, and the Elegy of Emptiness Statue just standing there. I figured maybe they were bugged out, but by now I told myself that I should know better. Nevertheless, I approached them carefully and found that the Skull Kid was playing some kind of idle animation on loop. Same with the Pona, and the elegy of emptiness statue has been doing what it's been doing all along, just standing there eerily. It was the happy mask salesman that scared me more profoundly than the other two.

He too was idle, wearing that shit-eating grin. But wherever I moved, his head slowly turned and followed me. I had not engaged in any dialogue with him, nor was I in combat with him, yet his head still continued to follow my movements. Reminded of my first encounter with the Skull Kid on the top of Clock Tower, I pulled out my ocarina, to which the game played the ding sound when you're supposed to play your ocarina, and tried a song I hadn't played yet. The Happy Masked Salesman's own song, and the song that had been playing on loop in day full.

The Song of Healing. I finished playing the song, and as I did, an ear-piercing shriek blasted on my TV. The sky immediately started flashing, the Happy Masked Salesman's twisted theme song sped up, intensifying the fear inside me, and Link exploded into flames and died. The three figures stayed lit during my death screen as they watched my lifeless body turn. I can't describe to you how sudden and terrifying the transition from Erie to terror was. You're just going to have to watch the video if you want to see firsthand. That same fear that caused me to lose sleep two days ago started to grip me again as I was met with the text.

You've met with the horrible fate, haven't you, for the third time? There has to be some kind of meaning behind that. I had a little time to ponder as I was immediately given another small cutscene of transforming into Zora, and now I found myself in Great Temple Bay. Hesitant but curious to see what the game had in store for me, I slowly made my way towards the beach, where I found Apona. I wondered why the game had decided to put me here. Was the game implying she was trying to get a drink?

Unable to take the mask off, I decided that riding the steed wasn't the reason she was placed there. Suddenly, I realized that Apona kept neighing, and the way she was angled made it look like she was trying to signal a point to me off in the distance. It was a hunch, but I dove into the Great Bay and started swimming. Sure enough, I almost missed it. I found something at the bottom of the ocean. One last elegy of emptiness statue.

I went down to examine it, and suddenly my Zora started doing a choking animation I had never seen a Zora do before, which didn't even make sense because Zores can breathe underwater. Regardless, my character choked to death and died. And again, the statue was the only thing that was highlighted in my death. I didn't respond this time. I was booted back to the main menu as if I restarted the console. The press start screen was before me.

I knew the only reason why it would put me here is because the save file had changed again. Taking a deep breath, I pressed start, and I was right. The new save files told me about Ben. Now it made sense why the statue appeared when I tried to go to the laundry pool. The game must have anticipated how I would try to escape the day four clocktown. The two save files told me his fate. As I suspected, Ben was dead. He had drowned.

The game obviously isn't through with me. It taunts me with the new save files. It wants me to keep playing. It wants me to go further, but I'm done with this stuff. I'm not touching any more of the files. This is already way too horrifying for me, and I don't even believe in the paranormal, but I'm running out of explanations. Why would someone send me this message?

I don't understand it. I just get too depressed thinking about this. The footage is up here for those who want to see it and try to analyze it. Maybe there's some kind of coded message in the gibberish or something symbolic in what I went through. I'm too emotionally and mentally drained to mess with this anymore. I know it's early in the morning. I've stayed up all night. I can't sleep.

I don't care if people see this. That's not the point. I just want the word to get spread so I don't suffer for nothing. I've lost the will to talk about this. The less I dwell on this, the better. I think the video just speaks for itself. I did what you all told me to. I played the elegy of emptiness song at the first prompt by the game I was given, but I don't

think that's what the game or Ben. Jesus, I can't believe I'm even humoring the absurd idea that he exists in the game wanted me to do. He's following me now, not just in the game, he's in my dreams. I see him all the time, behind my back, just watching me. I haven't gone to any of my classes. I've stayed in my dorm room with the windows closed and the blind shut. That way I know that he can't watch me, but he still gets me when I play.

When I play, he can still see me. The game, it talked to me for the first time, not just using text that's already in the game. It spoke to me. Talk to me. It referenced Ben. It talked to me. I just don't know what it means. I don't know what it wants.

I never wanted this. I just want my old life back. Stuff like this doesn't happen to people like me. I'm just a kid, not even old enough to drink yet. It's not fair. I just want to go home. I want to see my parents again. I'm so far away from home here at this school.

I just want to hug my mom again. I just want to forget that statue's horrible, blank face. My original game file is back. the way I left it before it was gone. I don't want to play anymore. I feel like something bad will happen if I don't. But that's impossible. It's a video game.

Haunted or not, it can't hurt me, right? Like, seriously, though, it can't, right? That's what I keep telling myself, but every time I think about it, I'm not so sure. Hey, everyone, let me clear a few things up. I know you're all worried, but he's okay. He finished moving out today, and he said he's going back home. He's just taking this semester off. I'm not really sure what's happened.

I have a vague idea, but you all probably know more than I do. I'm Chad Usable's roommate, and obviously I knew something was going on with him for a few days now. He stayed in his room all the time, fell out of contact with literally all of his friends. I'm pretty sure he hadn't eaten hardly anything. After the second day, I couldn't stay in there anymore. So I've been crashing at a buddy's place, only coming into my room to get the stuff I needed.

I tried talking to him several times, but he would cut me off or keep the conversation brief when I asked him about his strange behavior. It's like he was convinced something was hunting him. Yesterday I came to grab my philosophy book and he approached me, looking awful, like horrible bags under his eyes. He handed me a flash drive and gave me specific instructions. He told me that he needs me to do one last favor for him. He finally explained to me what's been going on, gave me the account info for his own.

YouTube channel and told me that he's getting away from here, that it lured him to play it again instead of trying to change things and that he shouldn't have done that, and to upload the footage and inform people of what happened. I told him that he could do it himself and he got this wild look in his eyes and told me that he is never looking at that game again, and that's the last thing he said to me. He never even said bye when his parents came to pick him up. I never even got to meet his parents. I honestly can't tell you what happened.

When he spoke, it was kind of hard to understand him, and his messed up appearance really distracted me. On the flash drive, there was footage of the game last night, a text document with his name and password for YouTube, and a third document called The Truth, containing what he told me were his notes that he'd taken. He told me that this meant everything to him that I follow his instructions exactly. Normally, I wouldn't be so to the letter for a quest about a video game, but the way he He spoke and the way he looked made me know this was really serious, and I'm going to honor that.

I've had this video since yesterday, but had to have someone help me use Pinnacle. That's not really my forte. After watching it, I had to go back through and look at his other videos on his YouTube account to realize what was going on, and even then I'm really confused. The video I'm releasing tonight, The Truth Thought TXT, will be released on September 15th, just like you requested. I haven't dared peek at it yet, so the first time I'm releasing tonight. I see it will be the first time you all see it out of respect of my friend.

To answer your questions, no, I haven't tried calling him. I think I'll give him a call tomorrow to see if he's okay or not. He should have gotten back home by now. About the video. In this video, I cut straight to when he loaded the Ben file in the game. Looking back, I realized that Jad Usable left the save select screen in because it said different names sometimes. So my bad for that, but all it said this time was the same at the end of the time.

of his last video. Link and Ben, nothing different. I wasn't there when he played it, but it looks to me like in the beginning, when he first spawns, he's testing out his equipment or seeing what items he has or something, because apparently they've changed randomly before. Then, after that, I think the game just got too personal for him. Hey everyone, Jed usable here. This will be the last time you'll be hearing from me, and this is my final gift to you. These are the notes that I have taken and the realization I have made. Before I delve into this, I want to thank you for following me and thank you for listening. I feel like the weight of a powerful burden is about to be lifted. By the time you hear this,

I won't be around anymore, but after spending four days with this maddening game, I have begun to understand what's really at play here, and hopefully after reading this, we can ensure that this will never happen again. There are things that I could not share with you while this was going on due to the circumstances, to which I'll explain. With Ben blocking any attempt I made to try to relay the truth to you, I tried ever so subtly to warn you in various ways. Amidst the chaos and my delirium, I devised to make a barely noticeable pattern in my videos. In all five videos I recorded over the four days, I've either had the mask of truth, interacted

with a gossip stone, or the lens of truth, equipped at some point. For you, Zelda enthusiasts, these are all symbols of honesty and trustworthiness, and I would hope that one of you may have picked up on the reference. As I played the file, which I would name Ben, being mindful of how Ben was watching over my every move in the game, I made a point to avoid doing anything too obvious, but I sent out a hidden message to you. I never equipped the lens of truth, nor the mask, nor visited a stone. It worked, and the videos are uploaded.

I would pray that someone would notice the pattern didn't apply to Ben. The tags followed suit too. I hope you all paid attention to those as well. They were my little messages to you. Nothing big enough that would catch Ben's attention or make him suspect anything. With Ben manipulating and changing my files, I honestly hope that what you all saw was close to what actually happened, but there's no way for me to know. September 6, 2010, 11 p.m.

I can't believe what happened. Not sure if this is some kind of elaborate hoax. Despite the fear, I can't. I can't help but be exceptionally curious about this. Who or what is the statue? A lot of questions here. I'm starting this document as a diary so I can keep track of everything. I'm recording a summary of what happened so I can come back to it later.

September 7th, 2010. 2.10 a.m. Summary was posted here. You can go back and look at my first post for day 4.WM.V. for that. 4.23 a.m. I can't sleep. I've been trying so hard. But the harder I try, I just get more restless.

I just feel like the statue was appearing whenever I close my eyes. 8.20 a.m. I didn't sleep at all. I'm just going to start my day. I don't think I have the energy to go to class today. I'm going to drive back down to talk to that old man, taking my buddy Tyler with me just in case. 1.18 p.m. Back home now. No sign of the old man. Really weird that he appears to be moving the next day,

but maybe the forced sale sign was up there yesterday and I didn't notice it. Tyler wants to know what's gotten me all worked up. I didn't tell him. Going to eat, I feel like death. 3.46 p.m. Could have sworn driving back from subway that I saw the elegy statue buried in some shrubbery, staring at me go by. Now I definitely need sleep.

5 p.m. Don't think a lot of people would believe me if I told them about what's happening. I think I'm going to try posting this. on the internet. Think I'll just use the summary. These notes are pretty sporadic. 6 p.m. Connected my capture card to my computer to upload the footage.

Thought my computer froze for a second. Made this strange popping sound when I hooked everything up. But now it seems to be working fine. My computer can't die on me now. 8 p.m. Footage is finished uploading. The quality is a lot better than I thought it would be. Gee, I guess this is a really special cartridge.

I've never had it come through this clear. year before. 8.45 p.m. I thought I saw an icon pop up on my desktop that looked like the statue's face for a split second, gave me quite a scare. Getting really unnerved and delirious. I'm going to crash after this. 9 p.m.

Begin uploading my YouTube video on my alternate account. 9.03 p.m. I don't remember having uploaded a vampire, the masquerade, bloodline video this last year. This was probably the account that I shared with a friend of mine last summer. I hope he doesn't mind me using it to upload this. 9.55 p.m. Posting my summary of day four with a link to the YouTube video, going to try to stay awake, but I'm so tired right now.

September 8, 2010. 10.48 p.m. I had a dream about the statue. I dreamed that it was following me in my dream. That I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hair stand up on end. I would turn around, that thing, that horrible life-revelling. The statue would be staring at me with those empty eyes, near the inches away. In my dream, I remember calling it Ben.

Power of suggestion, most likely. Never before had I had a dream that I could remember so vividly. 11.21 a.m. I really don't want to play this game again. I think I'm going to go back to see if that old man's there instead. 1.35 p.m. No old man, but I had an interesting conversation with his neighbor. I'll post the full thing with my summer.

A summary of tonight's attempts at playing the game, gonna wait for a bit to see if I can dig up any information on this Ben guy. 245 p.m. I've been getting random, inexplicable headaches due to the lack of sleep and keep hearing that song in my head. Also, it's flu season, so I need to be careful not to get sick. My immune system is going to be shit right now because of that all nighter. 3 p.m. 302 p.m. My computer just... ...on on its own.

I opened up a text document and wrote the words, Hi, and Cleverbot.com by itself. What the... 3.46 p.m. I went to the website. It's one of those bot chatting programs. I think it's best if I just let the conversation speak for itself. September 8th, 2010, conversation.

Hello? Hello? Who is this, and how are you able to control my computer? Who am I? Oh, right. I forgot. You're a bot. Do you really think that?

Listen, I know whoever's fucking with my computer can see my screen right now. Yes. Yeah, and I'll wager that you're one of those IT kids who think he's tough shit. You know what you're doing right now is illegal, right? Is it? No shit. Are you familiar with the terms invasion of privacy? Get the fuck off my computer, kid.

I am your computer. Cool story. Anyway, I'm calling DPS. You picked a bad time to fuck with me, kid. Should I wait until you play the game then? What? That game. Majora's Mask?

Yes. How did you know about that? Because. Because what? I did it. Did what? I played with you. What the hell?

Were you scared? Who the hell is this? Ben. The statue? You're inside my computer now? Yes. How? You connected me.

How the hell did I connect you? Cables and cords. How? Tell me about yourself. What? Tell me about yourself. What do you mean? What?

What is it that really scares you? What the hell? Answer. No. Answer. What the hell? How did you just open that put yourself? I am your computer now.

How much can you control? Wall. What do you want for me? To entertain. You're stuck inside there. You can't hurt me. Go play. No, you can't hurt me.

Took you longer to type that. So? You're not sure. If you're so powerful, why use a ridiculous website like this to chat with me? Less messy. More structured, fun. Fun? Yes.

Tradition. I like it. You think it's funny? Amusing. And my notes? You may write them down. Why are you letting me? It is amusing to see what you think of me.

3.50 p.m. What have I done? I've invited it into my computer. I continue to record these notes, write my summaries. I feel like I'm a prisoner in my own place of security. I don't know. I don't know if I'm hallucinating or not. I feel like I'm fucking insane right now.

I can feel it watching over me, even as I record this. Ben is controlling everything in the game, towing with me, leading me like a sheep, but for what? What's the purpose? I know Ben drowned, but why these hauntings? It can probably even hear this right now. 4.35 p.m. 7.18 p.m. Ben called me to Cleverbot again.

He tells me that he's sorry and wants to be free. and that I can free him. That's just like how he got on my computer from the capture card. He can spread, but he needs my help. He says that I'm special because I can help him. That is the first nice thing he said. He promises to leave me alone if I do it. He swears he will.

I don't know what to think right now. How can I even trust this thing? 7.20 p.m. I'm terrified of it, but now it's saying that it was just having fun. It's twisted and messed up version of fun. He's saying that the game is over. I do want it to be over. He says that he just wants to be free, that he's trapped in the cartridge, and now my computer,

and he wants to be freed. I don't want to have to deal with this shit. I don't know how long I can deal with the watching. It's watching my every move, every keystroke. I have nothing private anymore. It knows everything that's been on my computer. It tells that if it wanted, it could do horrible things to me, but it hasn't, so I should should trust it.

801 p.m. Something tells me that I'm being played again, just like in the game. 9.29 p.m. Ben called me to Cleverbot again. I ignored it and I went to go take a shower. When I came back to my laptop, I was welcomed with an image. It was an elegy statue staring at me with those dead eyes. I don't want to talk to him.

9.44 p.m. Fuck you, Ben. I'm not talking to you. 9.56 p.m. Fuck you, Ben. I'm not. Not talking. 10.6 p.m.

Fuck you, Ben. I'm not talking to you. 10.12 p.m. Fuck you, Ben. I'm not talking to you. 1045 p.m. It's been more than a half hour and the messages have stopped. Ben has stopped.

I'm beginning to think that Ben isn't confined to just my computer and a cartridge. I'm beginning to feel something. It's hard to explain. I've never been spiritual, but there's something different about the air in my dorm room now. in my dorm room now. 11.42 p.m. I'm beginning to see the elegy statue randomly as I searched the internet in places I shouldn't, places where he shouldn't be.

I'd be scrolling down and suddenly I'd be staring at a picture of the elegy statue. Always the elegy statue. I don't know how much more of this I can take. September 9, 2010, 1235 a.m. My worst fears confirmed. Ben has tempered with my summary of Ben. I looked at the summary that I posted on various forums and files and parts of it have been omitted. There is no mention of Ben existing outside of the game.

There's no mention of the moon children. How could he have been that quick to delete the posts without me noticing? I'm wondering if maybe it appeared to me that I was posting everything, but in reality, Ben had posted his own censored version. I'm going to ask Ben why he did it. 12.50 a.m. He isn't responding to me on Cleverbot. It's just the generic responses it usually does.

I'm just talking to the bot this time. 124 a.m. I think Ben is mad at me. 10.43 a.m. The moon children appeared in my dreams last night. They lifted up their masks to reveal their hideously disfigured faces, maggots crawling out of their orifices, sunken black holes where their eyes should be, a yellow smile that slowly grew bigger and bigger as they came closer to me.

They told me they wanted to play. I tried to run from them, but the four children pinned me down on the ground with surprising strength. Over them stood the happy mask salesman, announcing that he had a new mask that he wanted me to try. In his spastic, sudden movements matching his in-game appearance, he took out a mask modeled off someone's face that I couldn't recognize, a younger-looking face, and handed it to the moon children. Giggling, they latched it to their face.

horrible, broken bodies bounced up and down. Two of them held me down while the other two began to sew the mask onto my face. My shrieks and screams caused the happy mask salesman face to turn into the most horrific smile had ever seen. He sporadically moved around, examining the procedure like a curious doctor. I flailed around, but it was no use. My eyes rolled into the back of my head because of the pain. It felt so real, but I couldn't wake up. I couldn't wake up no matter how hard I tried. After the mask was melded onto my flesh, they began sewing my legs together, then my arms. The horrific feeling of a needle puncturing your legs and pulling them in, rupturing your Achilles tendon, and tying them together resonated throughout my entire body.

I tried to scream, but the mask was pressed so tightly against my face that it was my new face, and my new face had no mouth. I didn't make a sound. I tried telling myself in my head that I was dreaming. I telling myself again and again, and suddenly the moon children stopped and looked at me. They just stared, and the happy mask salesman slowly bent down and stared at me, inches away from my face, and grinned when he simply said, you've met with the terrible fate, haven't you? Before the moon children resumed with increased vigor, I couldn't wake up. It wouldn't let me wake up until they had crafted me into another elegy statue.

I woke up sweating, crying, and shaking uncontrollably. I immediately ran to my computer and went for Ben. September 9th, 2010, Conversation 1. Answer me, Ben. Welcome back. What is the point of doing this? Why? Amusing to see.

How? Fun to play. Fun to tour with you. Make you feel safe. I wonder how you would have reacted. To what? If I hadn't revealed myself and stayed. hidden, only doing little things to play with you. Close out your windows, turn off your computer,

move her mouse by itself. Little things make you wonder if I am there but you never know. Give you little hints that I am. I wanted to do something different with you. You did this before? Yes, and I will do it again. To who? Ben? Hmm. Did you know Ben? Won't tell that information to you. How did Ben die? You know. No, but did he drown? Won't tell that to you. Why? It is reserved for another. Who?

Another who asks. When? Later. The window closed. I'm beginning to think that this thing maybe isn't Ben at all. In its sadistic nature, I wouldn't be surprised if it took the boy's name after it killed him. 12.4 p.m. The room is beginning to feel different again.

There's something out there. I feel really threatened. Like there's something. that is trying to reach out to me and strangle me, but it can't quite get there. 12.46 p.m. I think Ben doesn't want to play with me anymore. I'll play again. I'll play the game again, Ben.

Can you hear this? I'll play the game again. Please just, please stop. 141 p.m. I'm going insane trying to decide what is real and what isn't. Is Ben just playing a trick on me, or is this for real? Is Ben generating these replies, or are people actually posting? them.

Did I just see that screen flicker or wasn't my imagination? Imagine depending on the internet and trusting your eyes for your entire life and then being blinded. You can't rely on it anymore. You second guess everything. For the brief moments, I am looking at my responses to the videos. People were pointing out things that looked fake or photoshopped or whatever, and there's literally no way for me to know if Ben changed something on purpose to try to shut me up, Or if maybe those replies were just constructed by Ben to try and discourage me from even reaching

out. See, I get fucking caught in an infinite mind loop like this, and this is what has been wearing on my sanity and pushing me to the edge. As I'm recording this, there's no way of even telling if anyone even cares as much as I think they do. Just another fucking trick. Does this whole document and recording even exist? Am I saying nothing?

September 9th, 2010, Conversation 2. What is it? What's the point of playing? I die whenever I do anything. You die because you can't figure out the secret. What? The emetic. What the fuck are you talking about?

Their beauty in your suffering. The window closed. 409 p.m. Ben is making me play the game again. It tells me that it has something very important to show me. 6.23 p.m. 909 p.m. September 10th, 2010.

10.152 a.m. The drowned WMV play-through was up when I woke up today. I remember recording it, but I don't ever remember posting it. He censored it again. There is no mentioning of the old man. I have no voice anymore. I'm only posting what he wants me to. I am the mask he uses to disguise himself as he lies.

1155 a.m. There's an entire video summary of a video that I don't remember doing. Reading through the summary, this sounds morbid, resembling my dream from two nights ago, except on a far more sadistic scale. These moon children, there's something more to them, almost as if they're another entity from Ben. Something happened last night that I can't remember. I'm posting the fourth summary to the forums now.

Shadow of my chair moved. 12 p.m. Ben won't let me visit YouTube. I can browse the rest of the sites, but he's. He keeps on exiting the window when I go to YouTube. Why? 2.2 p.m. I'm feeling the air start to constrict.

I don't think I'm alone here. Whatever aura has been here is getting more violent. 244 p.m. I'm trying to contact Ben on Cleverbot. He's not responding. I just get the AI. 351 p.m. My ears aren't fooling me.

I'm hearing the reverse song of healing. I keep hearing it. 4.23 p.m. Now I'm positive. Earlier I thought it was a weird coincidence, but now I just went to open my window and three floors down at the ground level I saw the old man. I'm completely positive I did. The same guy, he was just staring up at my window, standing in the middle of campus. If any students took notice of him, they didn't seem to acknowledge it. That's where my notes end. I fled my room, taking the cartridge with me. I don't want to go into detail. of what happened.

I'll lose my train of thought as I hammer out these last details. It's been roughly two days since then. This is my last summary and service to you of the final videos you all saw. Matt.wm. The last video entry I made, Matt WMV, began as normal. I was spawned in Clocktown as usual, and nothing seemed to be out of place. Determined to set things right and play the oath to order on top of Clock Tower on the fourth day, I prepared myself.

I sped up time and got to the final day, making my way to the observatory. As I got to the telescope room and approached the astronomer, he would not let me look into the telescope. He told me that it would be cheating and that I should follow the rules. Despite my repeated efforts, the game would not let me do the fourth day glitch, no matter how hard or what I tried. I tried working around the game and doing the glitch, but it was adamant this time. of if I simply had the illusion of free will and prior games, this time the game became

more aggressive than anything I've ever seen. It eventually told me to go to Icona Canyon, where the game would end and it would stop haunting me. Anxious and desperate to end this nightmare, I played the song of soaring and ended up there. I was told to check my inventory that I would find the answers there to end the game. I arrived at Icona Canyon and saved my progress at the Owl statue. As I searched through my inventory, I finally noticed that I was missing a reoccurring song, The Elegie of Emptiness.

Obviously, once I traveled there and learned the song, I suppose that was the last thing it needed before Ben decided it had enough fun playing with me. Ben is a manipulator. He tries to fool his victims into security and makes you drop your guard like a Venus flytrap. Then he ensnairs you. I am nothing but a puppet to him. He enjoys seeing what kind of human emotions he can tap into by his. doing different things.

There are still some things about this whole experience that still don't make sense, but then again I was never good at figuring out these things, and I'm not exactly in the right state of mind to. I'm giving you all the pieces of the puzzle for you to analyze and piece together the missing links. I'm recording these closing thoughts on the library computer on campus. I've emailed myself the notes I have stored on my infected computer from the last four days. I'm then going to combine those notes with the closing.

and openings that I've typed here on the safe, public computer into one text document. I'm not taking any chances spreading Ben. I would not wish this horrible torment on anyone, and I've made sure to have my basis covered here. I didn't run into any problems with Ben, and when I was back on my computer, trying to email myself the notes, went right under his damn nose. He has no idea what he just let me do, had no problems opening the text documents from my infected computer in my email either. I can't describe to you how it feels to finally be able to get the word out in this post.

The nightmare ends here. That said, do not download any of my videos or anything about my videos through a YouTube video ripper, the screen grab, or whatever. I don't know how he can spread, but I know that just watching them on YouTube, reading my text, won't be able to allow him to spread. Otherwise, he wouldn't have needed my help in the first place, but I strongly recommend you do not take anything you see online onto your own personal computer. This will be my last posting.

I'm putting up on this form here for the world. If you see any further posts from me after today's current date, September 12th, and after the current time, 1208 a.m., discredit them. It already has proven to me that Ben can access my account and password and manipulate my computer. Like I said, I have no idea to what extent it can do this, but I know that it will do anything to break free. He is desperate.

To ensure your safety, just forget about me, please. And obviously this goes without saying, but from here on out, do not download any images I may have put up, any files, anything. The fifth day will be my last day. I'm going to burn the cartridge and then come back and destroy my laptop. Lastly, thank you for taking the time to open this and to open yourselves up to me in hearing my story, despite maybe not believing me. You didn't have to do that, really.

You shouldn't have. Your support this entire time has kept me going, and now I really am free of this. Thanks again, Jad Usable.