The Haunted Cartridge

*The Haunted Cartridge*
Written by	Alex Hall
Duration	September 7 to September 15, 2010
Protagonist	Jadusable
Videos	Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines - Rosa; Prototype: All Consume Kills (Warning: Extremely Graphic); day four.wmv; BEN.wmv; DROWNED.wmv ; jadusable.wmv; free.wmv
Documents	day four.wmv summary; BEN.wmv summary; DROWNED.wmv summary; jadusable.wmv summary; TheTruth.rtf
Other media	CHILDREN.wmv summary (unreleased); Matt.wmv (cut and released as jadusable.wmv)

This article is about the story arc. You may be looking for the story this arc is part of.

The Haunted Cartridge is the first story arc of Ben Drowned. It details the acquisition of a haunted video game by a college student known only as Jadusable. Over the next week, Jadusable would be plagued by the presence of a seemingly-omniscient being called BEN.

It is followed by Moon Children.

The following is the complete Haunted Cartridge story, followed by a summary listing the chronological order of events, including those described in TheTruth.rtf. It is highly recommended that you read the original story before anything else; for a more authentic reading experience, it can be found here, hosted on youshouldnthavedonethat.net. Alternatively, the entirety of the story is below, and each individual chapter can be found on its respective video's page.

Two videos were uploaded over a year before the incident, which present themes that are carried over to The Haunted Cartridge and Moon Children. These videos are covered in this timeline.

The Haunted Cartridge: The Complete Story

Three versions of this story exist. The first, containing the full original /x/ posts, was published between September 7 and 15, 2010. The second, posted on youshouldnthavedonethat.net, was published on September 20, 2010. The third and most recent, posted on Within Hubris, was published on February 17, 2011; this is considered to be the optimal version for first-time readers. All three versions are present below.

This topic is a preserved archive of the events surrounding the incident known as "the Haunted Cartridge". In September of 2010, a user posting under the screen-name "Jadusable" appeared on various internet message boards with a disturbing claim. Each post is exactly as it originally appeared without any alterations. The date that the post was made is listed next to the title of the post. For each entry, read the story and then watch the corresponding video. Viewers also noticed that Jadusable had another Youtube video on his account - uploaded a year before any of this began - a suspicious video of a character named Rosa. It is recommended, but not required, that viewers read this optional entry first.

Prologue: Rosa

On September 07, 2010, when day four.wmv was first released, Jadusable only had two other videos on his Youtube account profile - one of random gameplay footage from the videogame Prototype (seemingly unrelated), and a more cryptic video by a character named Rosa (both of these videos were uploaded a year before the "Haunted Cartridge" investigation began). While the Prototype video was standard fare for someone to have on Youtube, the Rosa video was almost curiously out-of-place. All it contained was the dialogue of an unimportant character in a game made back in 2003 and that was the extent of it. Rosa, in Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, has a mutation which causes her to predict the future and she gives cryptic clues as to what that game's plot is.

At first, she was only a side-thought to those desperately trying to help save Jadusable from the haunted cartridge, but as the story progressed people began to notice there were some disturbing simliarities between Rosa's cryptic messages and what was happening to Jadusable. The video description itself contained hidden words that were central to the haunting - "drowned", "stoned", "lone wolf", "fourth wall", and viewers suddenly realized that this was too much of a coincidence to be unrelated:

[...] after talking to her you end up being drowned in dialogue. [...] several of the things she alludes to are kind of vague, though, like the lone wolf. [...] when I first played the game at night stoned.

Horrifyingly, over the course of the story, all but a few of Rosa's predictions would come true, from describing the locales Jadusable would visit, to the foes he would face, all leading up to her now-infamous phrase in the video:

Player: "Any advice at all? Something that's going to save my life?"
Rosa: "Don't open it"

With such a vague phrase to go on, no one really knew what it could mean. At first everyone assumed that Rosa was telling Jadusable not to open the game's save file because it was haunted, but as it was later discovered, Rosa was trying to warn the very viewers themselves about an incident that would happen after Jadusable had released his fourth and final video.

Chapter 1: day four

I recently moved into my dorm room starting as a Sophomore in college and a friend of mine gave me his old Nintendo 64 to play. I was stoked, to say the least, I could finally play all of those old games of 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 up the computer players.

That weekend I decided to drive around a few neighborhoods about twenty minutes or so off campus, hitting up the local garage sales, hoping to score on some good deals from ignorant parents). I ended up picking up a copy of Pokemon Stadium, Goldeneye, F-Zero, and two other controllers for two dollars. Satisfied, I began to drive out of the neighborhood when one 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't explain it. All I can tell you is that if it wasn't in the middle of the afternoon and there were other people within shouting distance, I would not have even thought of approaching this man.

He flashed a crooked smiled at me and asked what I was looking for, and immediately I noticed that he must be blind in one of his eyes; his right eye had that "glazed over" look about it. I forced myself to look to 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 would tell 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 his table. Littered across his table were rather... peculiar paintings; various artworks that looked like ink blots that a psychiatrist might show you. Curious, I looked through them - it was obvious why no one was visiting this guy's garage sale, these weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing. As I came to the last one, for some reason it looked almost like Majora'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 Freudian bullshit was projecting itself into the ink blots, but given the events that happened afterward I'm not so sure now. I should have asked the man about it. I wish I would have 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 at me. I'll admit I jumped out of reflex and I laughed nervously as he handed me a Nintendo 64 cartridge. It was the standard gray color, except that someone had written Majora on it in black permanent marker. I got 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 here anymore. There was something weird about how the man phrased that, but I didn't really pay any attention to then, I was too caught up in not only finding this game but getting it for free.

I reminded myself to be a bit skeptical since this looked like a pretty shady cartridge and there's no guarantee it would work, but then the optimist inside 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 nine. 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 masks and 3/4 remains of the bosses. I noticed that he had used an owl statue to save his game, he was on Day 3 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 save for a few minor hiccups here and there (like textures being where they shouldn't be, random flashes of cut-scenes at odd intervals, but nothing too bad). However the only thing that was a little unnerving was that 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 just out of respect of the game's original owner, it's not like I needed two files anyway), hoping that that would solve the problem. It did and it didn't, now NPCs wouldn't call me anything, where my name should be in the dialogue there was just a blank space (my save file name was still called "Link", though). Frustrated, and with homework to do, I put the game down for a day.

I started playing the game again last night, getting the Lens of Truth and working my way towards completing the Snowhead Temple. Now, some of you more hardcore Majora's Mask players know about the "4th Day" glitch - for those who don't you can Google it but the gist of it is that right as the clock is about to hit 00:00:00 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 and 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 the Majora 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 area (but still creepy). Immediately my palms began to sweat - this was definitely not normal. Skull Kid NEVER appeared here. I tried moving around the area, and no matter where I went, Skull Kid would always be facing me, looking at me, not saying anything. Nothing would happen though, and this kept up for around sixty 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 recognized that text - you get that message when you get the Room Key from Anju at the Stock Pot 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 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 this was absurd. Sure enough, fifteen seconds later another message appeared on the screen, and again like the first one it was already a preexisting phrase "Go to the lair of the temple's boss? Yes/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 "||||||||" beneath it. Where I was ported to filled me with the most intense sense of dread and impending fear I had 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 am 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 Clock Town. I walked out of the Clock Tower (as you normally do when you start from Day 1) only to find that all of the inhabitants were gone. Usually with the 4th Day glitch you can still find the guards and the dog that runs 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 to my name and the Hero's Bow, but at this point I wasn't even considered 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 straight from the game itself, but played in reverse. The music would get louder, building up so 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, just quiet enough so that I wasn't sure if I just hearing things but just loud enough to keep me determined to find him. I looked in all four zones of Clock Town, only to find nothing.... No one. Textures were missing, West Clock Town 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 50th time, I just remember standing in the middle of South Clock Town realizing that I had 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 and I had no idea why. I hardly ever cry, something had gripped me here and this powerful sense of depression that was both foreign and crippling.

I tried leaving Clock Town, but every time I attempted to zone out, the screen would fade to black and I would just zone in to another part of Clock Town. I tried playing my Ocarina, I wanted to escape, and I did NOT want to be here, but every time I played the Song of Time or Song of Soaring it would only say "Your notes echo far, but nothing happens". By this point, it was obvious 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 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 Mask Salesman smiling at me - not Link - me with Skull Kid's scream playing in the background and when the screen returned I was staring at the Link Statue from playing the song Elegy of Emptiness. I screamed as the thing just stared back at me with that haunting facial expression. I turned around and ran out and back into South Clock Town, and to my horror the fucking statue followed me in the only way I can compare this 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 fucking 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 even seen him do before, he would flail his arms around or spasm randomly and the screen would cut to the Happy Mask Salesman smiling again for a brief moment before I was face to face with that fucking statue again. I ended up running into the Swordmaster'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. Confused, 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 4th wall was completely shattered while I ran out of the dojo terrified. Suddenly the game warped me to an 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 Clock Town. As I ran aimlessly - in a sheer panic - suddenly a Redead screamed and the screen faded to black as "Dawn of a New Day" and "|||||||||" appeared again.

The screen faded in and I was standing on top of Clock Tower with 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 fucking 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 off 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 box appeared saying "That won't do you any good. Hee, hee." and I was picked up off the ground, levitated upwards on my back, and then Link screamed as he burst into flames, instantly killing him.

I jumped when this happened - I had never seen this move used by ANYONE in the game and Skull Kid himself didn't HAVE any moves. As the death screen played, my lifeless body still burning, the Skull Kid laughed and the 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 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 Links 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 had 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 thirty seconds of this, the game simply fades out with the message "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before kicking you out to the title screen.

Upon getting 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 3 hearts, 0 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 Kid's laughing looping again and again. I quickly hit the reset button and when the game booted up again there was one more save file added, below "YOUR TURN", entitled "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 is WAY too fucked up even for 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 Clock Town. 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 there alone), only to find that there's a For Sale sign in the front yard and when I rang the door no one was home.

So now I'm back here writing down the rest of my thoughts and recording what happened, sorry if some of this has grammatical errors and whatnot, I'm running on no sleep here. I'm terrified of this game, even more so now that I relived it a second time writing this all down, but I feel like there's still more to it than meets the eye, and that there's something calling to me to investigate this further. I think "BEN" is something in this equation, but I don't know what, and if I could get 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, its already taken a toll on my sanity I feel like, but next time I do this I'm going to be recording my footage all the way through. The idea to record only came to me towards the end, so you see the last few minutes of what I saw (including Skull Kid and the Elegy statue), but it's on Youtube here.

Chapter 2: BEN

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 that thread. But last night, that Elegy of Emptiness statue, I had a dream about it. I dreamed that it was following me in my dream, that I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hairs stand up on end. I would turn around that thing... that horrible, lifeless statue would be staring with those empty eyes right at me, merely inches away. In my dream I remember calling it Ben, 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, putting off playing the game as long as I could, I drove back up to that neighborhood to see if the old man came back. As I expected, the car was still gone and no one was home. As I was walking back to my car, the man next door mowing the grass 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 here, 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 this 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 and started playing again, I loaded up the game and immediately I 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 pitched. 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 seems 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 they 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 Stone Tower Temple, but that's about all that was expected. The zone itself wasn't called Stone Tower Temple, but rather "St o n e", 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 monotonous, 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 had never seen before, some kind of note, but pressing 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 laugh or something playing in the background. I had all of two minutes to take in the environment before another one of those fucking Elegy of Emptiness statues was summoned and immediately after I was cut into the "Dawn of a New Day" screen, except this time it was without the "||||||" subtext.

I was a Deku Scrub in Clock Town - this scene would normally play after the first time you traveled back in time. Tatl would say "Wh-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 Mask Salesman played in the background. I was put back in control of my character, but from a fucked up camera angle - I was looking from behind the door to the Clock Tower, watching my avatar run around as a Deku 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 Mask Salesman who simply told me "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before the screen whited out.

I was in Termina 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's 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 Epona. As I approached them, to my horror I saw the Happy Mask 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 Epona, and the Elegy of Emptiness statue was doing what it has 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 where-ever 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 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 Mask Salesman's own song and the song that had been playing on loop back in Day 4 - the Song of Healing.

I finished playing the song and as I did, a ear-piercing shriek blasted on my TV, the sky immediately started flashing, the Happy Mask Salesman's twisted theme song sped up, intensifying the fear inside me, and Link exploded into flames and died. The three figures stayed lit up during my death screen as they watched my lifeless body burn. I can't describe to you how sudden and terrifying the transition from eerie to terror it is, you're going to have to watch the video if you want to see first-hand. 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 a horrible fate, haven't you?" for the third time. There has to be some kind of meaning behind that.

I had little time to ponder as I was immediately given another small cut-scene of transforming into a 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 Epona. I wondered why the game had decided to put her 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 Epona 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 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 Zora's can breath 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 re-spawn 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 files 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 have tried to escape the Day 4 Clock Town. 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 shit. 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 and 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 fuck with it anymore).

Chapter 3: DROWNED

I know its 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 type about this, the less I dwell on this the better, I think the video just speaks for itself. I did what you guys told me to do, I played the Elegy of Emptiness song at the first prompt by the game I was given, but I think that's what the game or Ben (Jesus Christ, 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 blinds shut - that way I know he can't watch me. But he still gets me when I play, when I play he can still see me. The game is scaring me now. It talked to me for the first time - not just using text that's already in the game - it spoke to me. Talked to me. It referenced Ben. It talked to me. I 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 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 - just 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.

Chapter 4: jadusable

Let me just clear things up - I know you guys are worried but "Jadusable" is 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 guys probably know more than I do. I'm "Jadusable's" roommate and obviously I knew something was wrong 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, and I'm pretty sure he hadn't been eating 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 in to my room to get stuff that I need. 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 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 has been going on, gave me the account info to his Youtube account, and he gave me instructions on how to post with his Name code on specifically this board, apparently he said you guys had been helping him along the way and you deserved to see the end of it.

He 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 of done that, and to upload the footage and inform people what happened. I told him that he could do it himself and he got this wild look in his eye 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 was hoping I'd at least get a chance to meet his parents when they picked him up, but they were in and out so quick I never saw them.

I honestly cant tell you what happened, when he spoke it was kind of hard to understand him and his fucked up appearance really distracted me. On the flash drive there was the footage of the game last night, a text document with his name and password for Youtube, and a third document called TheTruth.txt containing what he told me were "his notes" that he'd taken about this. 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 request over a fucking video game, but the way he spoke and the way he looked made me know this was really serious.

I've had this video since yesterday, but had to have someone help me use pinnacle, that's not really my forte. That 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 really confused. The video I'm releasing tonight, TheTruth.txt will be released on September 15th just like he requested; I don't know why he wants to wait for his notes to be published but after what that he's been through, I'll honor that request. I haven't dared peek at it yet, so the first time I see it will be the first time you see it out of respect to my friend. To answer your questions, no, I haven't tried calling him yet, 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 Jadusable 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 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. He really wanted you guys to see this, and the video starts then, after that I just think the game got too personal for him.

Chapter 5: The Truth

As promised, Jadusable (or rather, his roommate) posted a link to download TheTruth.txt at 11:04pm. Jadusable's post was uncharacteristically short and consisted of simply "Honesty is the best policy" followed by a download link.

This document contains all of the notes that Jadusable had been taking during the entire ordeal and now they were made available for the entire world.

http://www.mediafire.com/?6t16r3dp7gt2wbt

Chapter 6: free

Exactly 108 minutes later, a new video was uploaded to Jadusable's Youtube account, simply entitled "free.wmv". Jadusable changed his Youtube profile picture and added the quote, "Now I am everywhere" to his profile. Viewers were made to draw their own conclusions as to what this video signified.

Post #1 - 9/7/10

Okay, /x/, I need your help with this. This is not copypasta, this is a long read, but I feel like my safety or well-being could very well depend on this. This is videogame related, specifically Majora's Mask, and this is the creepiest shit that has ever happened to me in my entire life.

Having said that, I recently moved into my dorm room starting as a Sophomore in college and a friend of mine gave me his old Nintendo 64 to play. I was stoked, to say the least, I could finally play all of those old games of 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 beggers can't be choosers, needless to say it didn't take long until I became bored of beating up LVL 9 CPUs.

That weekend I decided to drive around a few neighborhoods about twenty minutes or so off campus, hitting up the local garage sales, hoping to score on some good deals from ignorant parents). I ended up picking up a copy of Pokemon Stadium, Goldeneye (fuck yeah), F-Zero, and two other controllers for two dollars. Satisfied, I began to drive out of the neighborhood when one 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't explain it. All I can tell you is that if it wasn't in the middle of the afternoon and there were other people within shouting distance, I would not have even thought of approaching this man.

He flashed a crooked smiled at me and asked what I was looking for, and immediately I noticed that he must be blind in one of his eyes; his right eye had that "glazed over" look about it. I forced myself to look to his left eye instead, trying not to offend, and asked him if he had any old videogames.

I was already wondering how I could politely excuse myself from the situation when he would tell me he had no idea what a videogame 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 his table. Littered across his table were rather... peculiar paintings; various artworks that looked like ink blots that a psychiatrist might show you. Curious, I looked through them - it was obvious why no one was visiting this guy's garage sale, these weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing. As I came to the last one, for some reason it looked almost like Majora'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 Freudian bullshit was projecting itself into the ink blots, but given the events that happened afterward I'm not so sure now. I should have asked the man about it. I wish I would have 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 at me. 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 got 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 here anymore. There was something weird about how the man phrased that, but I didn't really pay any attention to then, I was too caught up in not only finding this game but getting it for free.

I reminded myself to be a bit skeptical since this looked like a pretty shady cartridge and there's no guarantee it would work, but then the optimist inside 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 nine. 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 masks and 3/4 remains of the bosses. I noticed that he had used an owl statue to save his game, he was on Day 3 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 save 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 too bad). However the only thing that was a little unnerving was that 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 just out of respect of the game's original owner, it's not like I needed two files anyway), hoping that that would solve the problem. It did and it didn't, now NPCs wouldn't call me anything, where my name should be in the dialogue there was just a blank space (my save file name was still called "Link", though). Frustrated, and with homework to do, I put the game down for a day.

I started playing the game again last night, getting the Lens of Truth and working my way towards completing the Snowhead Temple. Now, some of you more hardcore Majora's Mask players know about the "4th Day" glitch - for those who don't you can google it but the jist of it is that right as the clock is about to hit 00:00:00 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 and 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 the Majora 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 area (but still creepy). Immediately my palms began to sweat - this was definitely not normal. Skull Kid NEVER appeared here. I tried moving around the area, and no matter where I went, Skull Kid would always be facing me, looking at me, not saying anything. Nothing would happen though, and this kept up for around sixty 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 recognized that text - you get that message when you get the Room Key from Anju at the Stock Pot 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 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 this was absurd. Sure enough, fifteen seconds later another message appeared on the screen, and again like the first one it was already a pre-existing phrase "Go to the lair of the temple's boss? Yes/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 "||||||||" beneath it. Where I was ported to filled me with the most intense sense of dread and impending fear I had 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 am 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 Clock Town. I walked out of the Clock Tower (as you normally do when you start from Day 1) only to find that all of the inhabitants were gone. Usually with the 4th Day glitch you can still find the guards and the dog that runs 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 to my name and the Hero's Bow, but at this point I wasn't even considered 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 straight from the game itself, but played in reverse. The music would get louder, building up so 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, just quiet enough so that I wasn't sure if I just hearing things but just loud enough to keep me determined to find him. I looked in all four zones of Clock Town, only to find nothing.... No one. Textures were missing, West Clock Town 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 50th time, I just remember standing in the middle of South Clock Town realizing that I had never felt so alone in a videogame 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 and I had no idea why. I hardly ever cry, something had gripped me here and this powerful sense of depression that was both foreign and crippling.

I tried leaving Clock Town, but every time I attempted to zone out, the screen would fade to black and I would just zone in to another part of Clock Town. I tried playing my Ocarina, I wanted to escape, and I did NOT want to be here, but every time I played the Song of Time or Song of Soaring it would only say "Your notes echo far, but nothing happens". By this point, it was obvious 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 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 Mask Salesman smiling at me - not Link - me with Skull Kid's scream playing in the background and when the screen returned I was staring at the Link Statue from playing the song Elegy of Emptiness. I screamed as the thing just stared back at me with that haunting facial expression. I turned around and ran out and back into South Clock Town, and to my horror the fucking statue followed me in the only way I can compare this 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 fucking 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 even seen him do before, he would flail his arms around or spasm randomly and the screen would cut to the Happy Mask Salesman smiling again for a brief moment before I was face to face with that fucking statue again. I ended up running into the Swordmasters 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. Confused, 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 4th wall was completely shattered while I ran out of the dojo terrified. Suddenly the game warped me to an 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 hurrily made my way out of the tunnel and appeared in Southern Clock Town. As I ran aimlessly - in a sheer panic - suddenly a redead screamed and the screen faded to black as "Dawn of a New Day" and "|||||||||" appeared again.

The screen faded in and I was standing ontop of Clock Tower with 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 fucking 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 off 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 box appeared saying "That won't do you any good. Hee, hee." and I was picked up off the ground, levitated upwards on my back, and then Link screamed as he burst into flames, instantly killing him.

I jumped when this happened - I had never seen this move used by ANYONE in the game and Skull Kid himself didn't HAVE any moves. As the death screen played, my lifeless body still burning, the Skull Kid laughed and the 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 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 Links 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 had 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 thirty seconds of this, the game simply fades out with the message "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before kicking you out to the title screen.

Upon getting 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 3 hearts, 0 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 Kid's laughing looping again and again. I quickly hit the reset button and when the game booted up again there was one more save file added, below "YOUR TURN", entitled "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 supersticious but this is WAY too fucked up even for 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 Clock Town. 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 there alone), only to find that there's a For Sale sign in the front yard and when I rang the door no one was home.

So now I'm back here writing down the rest of my thoughts and recording what happened, sorry if some of this has grammatical errors and whatnot, I'm running on no sleep here. I'm terrified of this game, even moreso now that I relived it a second time writing this all down, but I feel like there's still more to it than meets the eye, and that there's something calling to me to investigate this further. I think "BEN" is something in this equation, but I don't know what, and if I could get ahold 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, its already taken a toll on my sanity I feel like, but next time I do this I'm going to be recording my footage all the way through. The idea to record only came to me towards the end, so you see the last few minutes of what I saw (including Skull Kid and the Elegy statue), but it's on youtube here.

I’m going to stay in this thread for a little while longer before I fall asleep to answer any questions you guys might have or hopefully listen to your ideas or theories to help me shed some light into 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 shit, but this is a little fucked up, but maybe this BEN guy is just a really good hacker/programmer, I don’t want to think about the alternatives if he isn’t.

That’s the end of the copy/paste, I’m hoping that maybe this is some kind of running gag the developers had and that other people have gotten “gag” or “hacked” copies of the game like this. This just really scares me.

Post #2 - 9/8/10

Sorry it took me so long guys. I'm back.

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 that thread. But last night, that Elegy of Emptiness statue, I had a dream about it. I dreamt that it was following me in my dream, that I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hairs stand up on end. I would turn around that thing... that horrible, lifeless statue would be staring with those empty eyes right at me, merely inches away. In my dream I remember calling it Ben, 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, putting off playing the game as long as I could, I drove back up to that neighborhood to see if the old man came back. As I expected, the car was still gone and no one was home. As I was walking back to my car, the man next door mowing the grass 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 here, 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 this 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 and started playing again, I loaded up the game and immediately I jumped at the title screen where the mask flies by - the sound that played was not the normal "woosh" sound, it was something much more higher pitched. 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 seems 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 they 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 thrusted into complete chaos. Sure enough, I was outside Stone Tower Temple, but that's about all that was expected. The zone itself wasn't called Stone Tower Temple, but rather "St o n e", 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 monotonous, 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 had never seen before, some kind of note, but pressing 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 laugh or something playing in the background. I had all of two minutes to take in the environment before another one of those fucking Elegy of Emptiness statues was summoned and immediately after I was cut into the "Dawn of a New Day" screen, except this time it was without the "||||||" subtext.

I was a Deku Scrub in Clock Town - this scene would normally play after the first time you traveled back in time. Tatl would say "Wh-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 Mask Salesman played in the background. I was put back in control of my character, but from a fucked up camera angle - I was looking from behind the door to the Clock Tower, watching my avatar run around as a Deku 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 Mask Salesman who simply told me "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before the screen whited out.

I was in Termina 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's 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 Epona. As I approached them, to my horror I saw the Happy Mask 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 Epona, and the Elegy of Emptiness statue was doing what it has 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 where-ever 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 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 Mask Salesmans' own song and the song that had been playing on loop back in Day 4 - the Song of Healing.

I finished playing the song and as I did, a ear-piercing shriek blasted on my TV, the sky immediately started flashing, the Happy Mask Salesmans' twisted theme song sped up, intensifying the fear inside me, and Link exploded into flames and died. The three figures stayed lit up during my death screen as they watched my lifeless body burn. I can't describe to you how sudden and terrifying the transition from eerie to terror it is, you're going to have to watch the video if you want to see first-hand. 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 a horrible fate, haven't you?" for the third time. There has to be some kind of meaning behind that.

I had little time to ponder as I was immediately given another small cutscene of transforming into a 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 Epona. I wondered why the game had decided to put her 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 Epona 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 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 Zora's can breath 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 respawn 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 files 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 have tried to escape the Day 4 Clock Town. 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 shit. 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 and 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 fuck with it anymore).

I'm trying to get ahold of a camera so I can take a picture of the cartridge, but I have a feeling that once I do that then those same people will not be content with having an unexplainable event and want me to jump through more hoops for proof - I promise you that I will, but just for the rest of the day I just want to distance myself from this thing and recooperate. I will answer all of your questions and give you all of the pictures I can tomorrow. Some of you guys may give me shit for this, but you can't imagine how taxing this is for me emotionally - its one thing to see this footage and read what I have to say, its another entirely when you're playing this by yourself and its like the game is actually trying to reach out to you personally.

Having said that, here is the link, maybe there is more to analyze here, hopefully we can figure this out without the need for additional playthroughs, I really don't think I can keep subjecting myself to this guys.

Post #3 - 9/10/10

I don't have a long string of paragraphs for this one. I know its 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 type about this, the less I dwell on this the better, I think the video just speaks for itself. I did what you guys told me to do, I played the Elegy of Emptiness song at the first prompt by the game I was given, but I think that's what the game or Ben (jesus christ 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 blinds shut - that way I know he can't watch me. But he still gets me when I play, when I play he can still see me. The game is scaring me now. It talked to me for the first time - not just using text that's already in the game - it spoke to me. Talked to me. It referenced Ben. It talked to me. I 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 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 - just 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 videogame - 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.

Post #4 - 9/12/10

let me just clear things up - i know you guys are worried but "jadusable" is 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 guys probably know more than i do. i'm "jadusable's" roommate and obviously i knew something was wrong 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, and i'm pretty sure he hadn't been eating 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 in to my room to get stuff that i need. 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 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 has been going on, gave me the account info to his youtube account, and he gave me instructions on how to post with his name code on specifically this board, apparently he said you guys had been helping him along the way and you deserved to see the end of it.

He 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 of done that, and to upload the footage and inform people what happened. i told him that he could do it himself and he got this wild look in his eye 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 was hoping I'd at least get a chance to meet his parents when they picked him up, but they were in and out so quick I never saw them.

(sorry, i dont have any avatar pictures to post with each post i make here, so im just using sample pictures that came with windows 7)

i honestly cant tell you what happened, when he spoke it was kind of hard to understand him and his fucked up appearance really distracted me. on the flash drive there was the footage of the game last night, a text document with his name and password for youtube, and a third document called TheTruth.txt 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 request over a fucking videogame, but the way 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. that 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 really confused. the video I'm releasing tonight, TheTruth.txt will be released on september 15th just like he requested. i don't know why he wants to wait for his notes to be published but after what that he's been through, i'll honor that request. i haven't dared peek at it yet, so the first time i see it will be the first time you see it out of respect to my friend. to answer your questions, no, i havent tried calling him yet, i think i'll give him a call tomorrow to see if hes 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 jadusable 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 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. he really wanted you guys to see this, and the video starts then, after that i just think the game got too personal for him.

the video link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE7YUEtpHoY

Post #5 - 9/15/10

Honesty is the best policy.

http://www.mediafire.com/?6t16r3dp7gt2wbt

Bonus Chapter - Rosa

On September 07, 2010, when day four.wmv was first released, Jadusable only had two other videos on his Youtube account profile - one of random gameplay consuming footage from the game Prototype (seemingly unrelated), and a more cryptic video by a character named Rosa from Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (both of these videos were uploaded a year before the "Haunted Majora's Mask" story began). While the Prototype video was standard fare for someone to have on Youtube, the Rosa video was almost curiously out-of-place. All it contained was the dialogue of an unimportant character in a game made back in 2003 and that was the extent of it. Rosa, in Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, has a mutation which causes her to predict the future and she gives cryptic clues as to what the game's plot is.

At first, she was only a side-thought to those desperately trying to help Jadusable beat the Majora's Mask game to stop the haunting, but as the story progressed people began to notice there were some disturbing simliarities between her cryptic messages and what was happening to Jadusable. The video description itself contained hidden words that were central to the haunting - "drowned", "stoned", "lone wolf", "fourth wall", and viewers suddenly realized that this was too much of a coincidence to be unrelated:

[...] after talking to her you end up being drowned in dialogue. [...] several of the things she alludes to are kind of vague, though, like the lone wolf. [...] when I first played the game at night stoned.

Horrifyingly, over the course of the story, all but a few of Rosa's predictions would come true, from describing the locales Jadusable would visit, to the foes he would face, all leading up to her now-infamous phrase in the video:

Player: "Any advice at all? Something that's going to save my life?"
Rosa: "Don't open it"

With such a vague phrase to go on, no one really knew what it could mean. At first everyone assumed that Rosa was telling Jadusable not to open the Majora's Mask file because it was haunted, but as it was later discovered, Rosa was trying to warn the very viewers themselves about an incident that would happen after Jadusable had released his fourth and final video.

Chapter 1 - day four

Guys, I need your help with this. This is a long read, I'm sorry for that, but I feel like my safety or well-being could very well depend on this. This is videogame related, specifically having to do with the Zelda game called "Majora's Mask", and this is the creepiest shit that has ever happened to me in my entire life.

I recently moved into my dorm room starting as a Sophomore in college and a friend of mine gave me his old Nintendo 64 to play. I was stoked, to say the least, I could finally play all of those old games of 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 beggers can't be choosers, needless to say it didn't take long until I became bored of beating up the computer.

That weekend I decided to drive around a few neighborhoods about twenty minutes or so off campus, hitting up the local garage sales, hoping to score on some good deals from ignorant parents). I ended up picking up a copy of Pokemon Stadium, Goldeneye (fuck yeah), F-Zero, and two other controllers for two dollars. Satisfied, I began to drive out of the neighborhood when one 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't explain it. All I can tell you is that if it wasn't in the middle of the afternoon and there were other people within shouting distance, I would not have even thought of approaching this man. He flashed a crooked smiled at me and asked what I was looking for, and immediately I noticed that he must be blind in one of his eyes; his right eye had that "glazed over" look about it. I forced myself to look to his left eye instead, trying not to offend, and asked him if he had any old videogames.

I was already wondering how I could politely excuse myself from the situation when he would tell me he had no idea what a videogame 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 his table. Littered across his table were rather... pecuiliar paintings; various artworks that looked like ink blots that a psychatrist might show you. Curious, I looked through them - it was obvious why no one was visiting this guy's garage sale, these weren't exactly asthetically pleasing. As I came to the last one, for some reason it looked almost like Majora'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 Freudian bullshit was projecting itself into the ink blots, but given the events that happened afterward I'm not so sure now. I should have asked the man about it. I wish I would have 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 at me. 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 permenent marker. I got 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 here anymore. There was something weird about how the man phrased that, but I didn't really pay any attention to then, I was too caught up in not only finding this game but getting it for free. I reminded myself to be a bit skeptical since this looked like a pretty shady cartridge and there's no guarentee it would work, but then the optimist inside me interjected that maybe it was some kind of beta verison or pirated verison of the game and that was all I needed to be back on cloud nine. 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 ningling 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 masks and 3/4 remains of the bosses. I noticed that he had used an owl statue to save his game, he was on Day 3 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 save 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 too bad). However the only thing that was a little unnerving was that 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 just out of respect of the game's original owner, it's not like I needed two files anyway), hoping that that would solve the problem. It did and it didn't, now NPCs wouldn't call me anything, where my name should be in the dialogue there was just a blank space (my save file name was still called "Link", though). Frustrated, and with homework to do, I put the game down for a day.

I started playing the game again last night, getting the Lens of Truth and working my way towards completing the Snowhead Temple. Now, some of you more hardcore Majora's Mask players know about the "4th Day" glitch - for those who don't you can google it but the jist of it is that right as the clock is about to hit 00:00:00 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 and 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 the Majora 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 area (but still creepy). Immediately my palms began to sweat - this was definately not normal. Skull Kid NEVER appeared here. I tried moving around the area, and no matter where I went, Skull Kid would always be facing me, looking at me, not saying anything. Nothing would happen though, and this kept up for around sixty 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 recognized that text - you get that message when you get the Room Key from Anju at the Stock Pot 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 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 this was absurd. Sure enough, fifteen seconds later another message appeared on the screen, and again like the first one it was already a pre-exisiting phrase "Go to the lair of the temple's boss? Yes/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 "||||||||" beneath it. Where I was ported to filled me with the most intense sense of dread and impending fear I had 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 am 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 verison of Clock Town. I walked out of the Clock Tower (as you normally do when you start from Day 1) only to find that all of the inhabitants were gone. Usually with the 4th Day glitch you can still find the guards and the dog that runs 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 to my name and the Hero's Bow, but at this point I wasn't even considered 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 straight from the game itself, but played in reverse. The music would get louder, building up so 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, just quiet enough so that I wasn't sure if I just hearing things but just loud enough to keep me determined to find him. I looked in all four zones of Clock Town, only to find nothing.... No one. Textures were missing, West Clock Town 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 50th time, I just remember standing in the middle of South Clock Town realizing that I had never felt so alone in a videogame 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 and I had no idea why. I hardly ever cry, and that's not just some macho guy front I'm putting on, but something had gripped me here and this powerful sense of depression that was both foriegn and crippling took hold of me through a TV screen and I didn't know how to cope with it.

I tried leaving Clock Town, but every time I attempted to zone out, the screen would fade to black and I would just zone in to another part of Clock Town. I tried playing my Ocarina, I wanted to escape, and I did NOT want to be here, but every time I played the Song of Time or Song of Soaring it would only say "Your notes echo far, but nothing happens". By this point, it was obvious 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 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 had the Goron Mask, and if I lost enough hearts by falling in water I'd die) 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 Mask Salesman smiling at me - not Link - me with Skull Kid's scream playing in the background and when the screen returned I was staring at the Link Statue from playing the song Elegy of Emptiness. I let out an audible yelp as the thing just stared back at me with that haunting facial expression. I turned around and ran out of the Laundry Pool and back into South Clock Town, and to my horror the fucking statue followed me in the only way I can compare this is like the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. Every so often, at random intervals, the animation would play of the statue appearing behind me like I was summoning it with my Ocarina. It was like the thing was chasing me, or - I don't even want to fucking 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 even seen him do before, he would flail his arms around or spasm randomly and the screen would cut to the Happy Mask Salesman smiling again for a brief moment before I was face to face with that fucking statue again. I ended up running into the Swordmasters 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. Confused, 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 4th wall was completely shattered while I ran out of the dojo terrified. Suddenly the game warped me to an 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 hurrily made my way out of the tunnel and appeared in Southern Clock Town. As I ran aimlessly - in a sheer panic - suddenly a redead screamed and the screen faded to black as "Dawn of a New Day" and "|||||||||" appeared again.

The screen faded in and I was standing ontop of Clock Tower with 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 fucking 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 off 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 box appeared saying "That won't do you any good. Hee, hee." and I was picked up off the ground, levitated upwards on my back, and then Link screamed as he burst into flames, instantly killing him. I jumped when this happened - I had never seen this move used by ANYONE in the game and Skull Kid himself didn't HAVE any moves. As the death screen played, my lifeless body still burning, the Skull Kid laughed and the 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 eere silence. I remembered 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 Links 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 had 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 thirty seconds of this, the game simply fades out with the message "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before kicking you out to the title screen.

Upon getting 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 3 hearts, 0 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 Kid's laughing looping again and again. I quickly hit the reset button and when the game booted up again there was one more save file added, below "YOUR TURN", entitled "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 supersticious but this is WAY too fucked up even for 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 Clock Town. 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 there alone), only to find that there's a For Sale sign in the front yard and when I rang the door no one was home.

So now I'm back here writing down the rest of my thoughts and recording what happened, sorry if some of this has grammatical errors and whatnot, I'm running on no sleep here. I'm terrified of this game, even moreso now that I relived it a second time writing this all down, but I feel like there's still more to it than meets the eye, and that there's something calling to me to investigate this further. I think "BEN" is something in this equation, but I don't know what, and if I could get ahold of the old man then I would be able to find some answers. I need another day or so to recooperate before tackling this game again, its already taken a toll on my sanity I feel like, but next time I do this I'm going to be recording my footage all the way through. The idea to record only came to me towards the end, so you see the last few minutes of what I saw (including Skull Kid and the Elegy statue), but it's on youtube. I'll update you guys tomorrow when I play again.

Chapter 2 - BEN

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 posting what happened. But last night, that Elegy of Emptiness statue, I had a dream about it. I dreamt that it was following me in my dream, that I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hairs stand up on end. I would turn around that thing... that horrible, lifeless statue would be staring with those empty eyes right at me, merely inches away. In my dream I remember calling it Ben, and never before had I had a dream that I could remember so vividly. Today, putting off playing the game as long as I could, I drove back up to that neighborhood to see if the old man came back. As I expected, the car was still gone and no one was home. As I was walking back to my car, the man next door mowing the grass 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 here, 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 this 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 and started playing again, I loaded up the game and immediately I jumped at the title screen where the mask flies by - the sound that played was not the normal "woosh" sound, it was something much more higher pitched. 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 seems to fluxuate 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 they 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 thrusted into complete chaos. Sure enough, I was outside Stone Tower Temple, but that's about all that was expected. The zone itself wasn't called Stone Tower Temple, but rather "St o n e", 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 permenently disfigured. Link's expression was dull, almost monotonous, 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 had never seen before, some kind of note, but pressing 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 laugh or something playing in the background. I had all of two minutes to take in the enviornment before another one of those fucking Elegy of Emptiness statues was summoned and immediately after I was cut into the "Dawn of a New Day" screen, except this time it was without the "||||||" subtext.

I was a Deku Scrub in Clock Town - this scene would normally play after the first time you traveled back in time. Tatl would say "Wh-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 Mask Salesman played in the background. I was put back in control of my character, but from a fucked up camera angle - I was looking from behind the door to the Clock Tower, watching my avatar run around as a Deku Scrub. Seeing as how I really had no place to go because I could't see anything, I begrudgingly went inside the door. There, I was greeted by the Happy Mask Salesman who simply told me "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before the screen whited out.

I was in Termina 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 verison of the Happy Mask Salesman's 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 Epona. As I approached them, to my horror I saw the Happy Mask 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 Epona, and the Elegy of Emptiness statue was doing what it has been doing all along - just standing there eeirely. 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 where-ever 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 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 Mask Salesmans' own song and the song that had been playing on loop back in Day 4 - the Song of Healing.

I finished playing the song and as I did, a ear-piercing shriek blasted on my TV, the sky immediatley started flashing, the Happy Mask Salesmans' twisted theme song sped up, intensifying the fear inside me, and Link exploded into flames and died. The three figures stayed lit up during my death screen as they watched my lifeless body burn. 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 a horrible fate, haven't you?" for the third time. There has to be some kind of meaning behind that.

I had little time to ponder as I was immediately given another small cutscene of transforming into a Zora (the species of creatures that live under water in Zelda) and now I found myself in Great Temple Bay. Hestitant but curious to see what the game had in store for me, I slowly made my way towards the beach, where I found Link's horse Epona. I wondered why the game had decided to put her 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 Epona 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 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 Zora's can breath 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 respawn 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 files 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 have tried to escape the Day 4 Clock Town. 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 shit. 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 explainations. 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 and 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 fuck with it anymore). Some of you guys may give me shit for this, but you can't imagine how taxing this is for me emotionally - its one thing to see this footage and read what I have to say, its another entirely when you're playing this by yourself and its like the game is actually trying to reach out to you personally. I... I don't know anymore..

Chapter 3 - DROWNED

I know its 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 type about this, the less I dwell on this the better, I think the video just speaks for itself. I did what you guys told me to do, I played the Elegy of Emptiness song at the first prompt by the game I was given, but I think that's what the game or Ben (Jesus Christ, 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 blinds shut - that way I know he can't watch me. But he still gets me when I play, when I play he can still see me. The game is scaring me now. It talked to me for the first time - not just using text that's already in the game - it spoke to me. Talked to me. It referenced Ben. It talked to me. I 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 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 - just 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.

Chapter 4 - jadusable

let me just clear things up - i know you guys are worried but "jadusable" is 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 guys probably know more than i do. i'm "jadusable's" roommate and obviously i knew something was wrong 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, and i'm pretty sure he hadn't been eating 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 in to my room to get stuff that i need. 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 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 has been going on, gave me the account info to his youtube account, 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 of done that, and to upload the footage and inform people what happened. i told him that he could do it himself and he got this wild look in his eye 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 cant tell you what happened, when he spoke it was kind of hard to understand him and his fucked up appearance really distracted me. on the flash drive there was the footage of the game last night, a text document with his name and password for youtube, and a third document called TheTruth.txt 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 request over a fucking videogame, but the way 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. that 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 really confused. the video I'm releasing tonight, TheTruth.txt will be released on september 15th just like he requested. i haven't dared peek at it yet, so the first time i see it will be the first time you see it out of respect to my friend. to answer your questions, no, i havent tried calling him yet, i think i'll give him a call tomorrow to see if hes 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 jadusable 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 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 just think the game got too personal for him.

Chapter 5 - The Truth

As promised, Jadusable (or rather, his roommate) posted a link to download TheTruth.txt at 11:04pm. Jadusable's post was uncharacteristically short and simply the words "Honesty is the best policy" followed by a download link.

This document contains all of the notes that Jadusable had been taking during the entire ordeal and now they were available to the entire world.

Download Link

(Read the above document before continuing)

Exactly 108 minutes later, a new video was uploaded to Jadusable's Youtube account, simply entitled "free.wmv". Jadusable changed his Youtube profile picture and added the quote, "Now I am everywhere" to his profile. Viewers were made to draw their own conclusions as to what this video signified.

Summary

Prologue: Rosa

June 14, 2009

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines - Rosa is uploaded to Jadusable's YouTube account by either himself or a friend.
- This video predicts concepts and recurring dialogue that would be presented to Jadusable after he receives the cartridge the next year. The Father is referenced multiple times, as are locations Jadusable would see. Tags on the video would later change in reference to events that occurred in the Third Cycle.

June 16, 2009

Prototype: All Consume Kills (Warning: Extremely Graphic) is uploaded to Jadusable's YouTube account, most likely by himself.
- This video predicts concepts that would be seen by those who discovered youshouldnthavedonethat.net after Jadusable's disappearance. Alex Mercer shares the name of Alex (the lone wolf mentioned in the prior video), consume references the cult's apocalypse theories, and Mercer's amnesia coincides with the "blackout," in which Alex goes missing.

Chapter 1: day four

September 5, 2010

Jadusable acquires an odd copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask from a shady old man. It has no label and the word "Majora" written on it in permanent marker.

Upon starting the game, Jadusable finds that a file called "BEN" already exists. Assuming that this was the name of the previous owner, he respectfully leaves it and creates his own file, "Link."

While playing his own file, the NPCs switch between calling him Link and BEN.

Fed up and unnerved, Jadusable deletes the BEN file in hopes that the NPCs would stop calling him BEN. Instead, they call him nothing; there's just a blank spot where his name should be. He gives up and puts the game down.

September 6, 2010

Jadusable begins playing the game, getting as far as Snowhead.

He attempts the famous "4th Day Glitch." It succeeds, but as he exits the telescope he finds himself in the final boss room. However, Majora was replaced by Skull Kid, floating in the middle of the room just as he does on top of the Clock Tower. This was odd, as the Skull Kid does not normally appear there. He would move to face Link no matter where Jadusable moved him.
After a minute, Jadusable moves to reset the console when a text box saying, "You're not sure why, but you apparently had a reservation..." appears. This is usually seen in the game when you get the Room Key at the Stock Pot Inn.

Jadusable tries to find some sort of trigger in the room before another already-existing text box appears, asking, "Go to the lair of the temple's boss? Yes/No." Hesitant, but unable to select no, he selects "Yes" and the screen fades to white. "Dawn Of A New Day" with the subtitle "IIIIIII" appears.

He is transported to Clock Town, now completely abandoned, with a reversed version of the Song of Healing playing in the background instead of the normal Clock Town theme. Also audible to him was the laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman, loud enough that he could hear, but quiet enough that he questions whether it was actually there.

The bare version Clock Town begins taking a toll on Jadusable's sanity. He states that the missing textures and complete emptiness of the area made him feel alone and broken. By the time he finds his way to South Clock Town, he is on the verge of tears.

As he tries to leave, he ends up in just another part of Clock Town. When he attempts to play the Song of Time and the Song of Soaring, all he would get is the message, "Your notes echoed far... but nothing happened."

With no other options, he decides to drown himself at the Laundry Pool. When he arrives, an image of the Happy Mask Salesman appears, accompanied by the laughter of the Skull Kid.

When the image disappears, a statue of Link - the one that would normally appear only when you play the Elegy Of Emptiness - appears in front of Jadusable.

At this point, Jadusable tries to run out of the Laundry Pool in terror. To his surprise, the statue follows him. With every few steps he takes, the statue simply spawns behind him. As he tries to run away from the statue, the Happy Mask Salesman's image would pop onto the screen for one tenth of a second. Other times, Link spasms in odd ways.

Back in South Clock Town, Jadusable begins to record his experience.

He runs to the Swordsman Dojo, hoping to find someone, but to no avail. Here, the statue corners him in the back room, where he attempts to attack it. After several seconds of slashing the statue, the Happy Mask Salesman appears once again, this time with the scream of the Skull Kid, leaving both Link and the statue facing the camera, giving Jadusable the impression that they are staring directly at him.

Jadusable flees the dojo in fear, but instead of being taken back to West Clock Town, he is warped to the tunnel used by the Bombers below the town. Only a few moments pass before the statue shows itself again, this time spawning every four or five steps.

Jadusable exits the tunnel into the ghost town, looking for an escape from the Elegy statue. Suddenly, the controls cut off to the sound of a ReDead scream. "Dawn Of A New Day" with the subtitle "IIIIIII" appears once again.

As the screen fades in, Jadusable finds himself on top of the Clock Tower with the Skull Kid and the moon looming overhead. The Ikana Valley theme, reversed, plays in the background.

Running out of ideas, Jadusable equips his bow and fires three shots at the Skull Kid, causing him to say, "That won't do you any good, hee hee!" Link is then lifted off the ground and set on fire. Among the flames are surges of electricity, an animation normally seen when hit by a dragonfly.

The screen fades out, then back in on the exact same spot on the Clock Tower. Feeling desperate, he charges the Skull Kid but, once again, is lifted off the ground and set on fire. This time the death screen is accompanied by the reversed Song Of Healing.

After spawning on the Clock Tower for the third time, Jadusable remembers the in-game event that takes place at this location and attempts play the Song Of Time, but is incinerated before he can complete the song. The screen begins to "chug," as if the cartridge is attempting to process an excessive amount of data.

As the screen fades back in, Link is now on the ground with his head tilted toward the camera. Jadusable tries to move, but is unable to. After 30 seconds, the screen fades and displays the Happy Mask Salesman's introductory phrase, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?", along with a screamer. Jadusable is then sent back to the title screen.

Back at the file select screen, Jadusable finds that his file was replaced with a file named "YOURTURN." He selects this file.

Jadusable is returned to the Clock Tower, with Link still lying on the ground and the Skull Kid's laugh looping in the background. He quickly hits the reset button and returns to the title screen.

Upon reaching the file select screen, he finds that the BEN file has returned, just as it had been before he deleted it. He stops recording and puts the game down for the night.
He begins taking notes, beginning the document we later would know as TheTruth.rtf.

September 7, 2010

Early in the morning, Jadusable begins writing down the events of the past few days, and attempts to sleep. He is plagued by sights of the statue, and is unable to fall asleep.
After getting up later that morning, he decides not to go to his classes and brings his friend Tyler to the old man's house, only to find it empty and with a For Sale sign on the lawn.
Jadusable returns to his room after grabbing lunch, swearing he could see the statue as he returned.
He begins uploading the captured footage from the previous night to his computer. This triggers an incident in which he believes he saw the Elegy statue's face on his desktop for a split second.
The video is uploaded to YouTube, titled day four.wmv. Jadusable notes that he does not remember uploading the Vampire: The Masquerade video to this account, and suggests that the account may have been shared with a friend, who possibly uploaded it.
Jadusable finishes and posts the summary he started earlier that morning to several places; most notably, 4chan's paranormal board, /x/. He stays to answer questions before crashing due to his lack of sleep, but only manages to answer one:
- Inunah: Can I post this entire story onto my website? I'll credit you for it, and even put the video up with it.
  btw, my site's here: http://inuscreepystuff.blogspot.com
- Jadusable: Yes, you can do whatever you want with this, I just want to get my story out there. I just feel really, really fucking scared for my life right now, and it makes me feel better that if something does come after me that at least I'll have spread the word about it.

Chapter 2: BEN

September 8, 2010

Jadusable wakes up after having a dream about the statue; it followed him wherever he went, and he even called it Ben.
Needing an excuse to not play the game, he drives out to the old man's neighborhood again, hoping that he had returned, but arrives to the same For Sale sign as yesterday.
As he walks back to his car, the next-door neighbor approaches him and asks him if he was looking for someone. Jadusable learns the old man never had any kids or grandchildren. However, there was a boy who used to live around there named Ben. He, apparently, had an accident eight years ago on April 23. The man would not divulge anything further.
Jadusable begins getting headaches at random, most likely due to his recent lack of sleep.
Something happens at 3:00pm as noted in TheTruth.rtf, but the entry is blank. For the next hour, Jadusable would converse with BEN via a bot-chatting website called Cleverbot. During this discussion, he reveals that Jadusable had given him control of his computer during the upload of day four.wmv from his capture device.
Jadusable summons the courage to play the game once more. This time, he selects the BEN file. It had changed a bit since he last saw it: this time, it was an Owl Statue save and Stone Tower had been completed.
Upon starting the game, Jadusable finds himself just outside the Stone Tower Temple. However, Link's avatar was cocked to the side and unnatural sounds played in the background over the otherwise-normal music. Only two minutes pass before the Elegy statue appears again. Shortly afterward, the "Dawn of a New Day" message appears on-screen, this time without the subtitle.
The screen fades in, and Jadusable finds himself in front of the Clock Tower as Deku Link. With the camera fixed behind the Clock Tower door, there was nowhere else to go but inside.
While inside the Clock Tower, he meets the Happy Mask Salesman again. He utters the same familiar line, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?," before the screen fades to white.
Jadusable is teleported to Termina Field. As he examines the surrounding area, he notices four figures in the distance. As he approaches them with caution, he sees that the four are Epona, Skull Kid, the Elegy statue, and the Happy Mask Salesman. The Salesman's head would follow Link wherever he stepped.
Gathering his courage, Jadusable equips the ocarina and plays the Song of Healing, as it had been a recurring theme on the prior night. Immediately, Link is killed by fire as a sped-up version of the Happy Mask Salesman's theme plays and the screen repeatedly flashes black. He is again presented with the line, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"

Jadusable is shown the Zora transformation cut-scene, in reverse before segueing to normal. He finds himself at Great Bay with the music for that area playing in reverse.

Seeing Epona on the shore, he approaches her. After contemplating her significance, he eventually concludes that she is pointing to something out in the distant sea.

Taking a chance, Jadusable swims out to find something. While in the depths of Great Bay, he spots a small dark figure at the sea bottom. As he approaches, he discovers that it is yet another Elegy statue.

After a moment of close inspection, Zora Link began choking and died quickly; this is odd, because Zoras can breathe underwater.

He is taken back to the start screen and, upon pressing start, was greeted by two save files that reveal Ben's fate: BEN and DROWNED. The Game Over music plays instead of the usual music.

Jadusable quickly realizes that the files have given him the answer to his question, though he does not understand why. Too freaked out to play anymore, Jadusable shuts off the system and writes the next summary, uploads his next video, titled BEN.wmv, and submits both to /x/ as he did with the previous entry.
BEN calls Jadusable back to Cleverbot again and describes a process by which Jadusable can free him from his restraints. Realizing that BEN has total control, he weighs his options. BEN claims to have only been having fun, but also notes that if he wished to harm Jadusable, he would've been able to.
Jadusable ignores BEN's messages for the next two hours. He begins to feel different, as if the atmosphere in his room is now altered due to his interaction with BEN.
He begins seeing the Elegy statue in places he shouldn't.

Chapter 3: DROWNED

September 9, 2010

Just after midnight, Jadusable realizes that BEN is censoring his summaries. In the BEN.wmv summary, he had mentioned the Moon Children, who appear inside the Moon in-game.
He attempts to contact BEN and ask why he censors the entries, but is unable. He falls asleep soon afterward.
Jadusable wakes up around 11, having dreamed about the Moon Children, horribly disfigured and crawling with maggots, sewing his arms to his body and attaching a mask, the face resembling that of a younger person, to his face. As he writhed in pain, the Happy Mask Salesman would simply face him and utter the phrase, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" He was unable to wake up until the children had turned him into an Elegy statue.
He immediately attempted to contact BEN, this time successfully. He asks why BEN is doing what he does, to which he replied that it was for his own amusement. He refuses to answer any of Jadusable's further questions.
Jadusable's sanity is wearing; he senses more changes around him and begins to question every aspect of his interactions with anyone or anything. Responses from others to his summaries begin to look like they were constructed by BEN in order to keep him from reaching out to others.
He contacts BEN through Cleverbot again and asks what the point of playing is when all he does is die. BEN tells him that he dies because he can't figure out the secret, and that there is beauty in his suffering, before disconnecting.
Jadusable begins playing the game again; he selects the DROWNED file.
He starts out at the very beginning of the game, where Link is in the forest after the opening cutscene.
It is silent as he runs through the Lost Woods, with only a few quiet sounds present.
He falls into the catacombs and has the normal conversation with the Skull Kid. Most of the text here is jumbled and unreadable. The only thing that wasn't jumbled was, "Aww, boo-hoo, why the sad face? I just thought I'd have a little fun with you."
The scene cuts to Skull Kid using Majora's Mask to transform Link into a Deku Scrub; the scene flickers and is cut off by a reversed ReDead scream. However, Link stays in Hylian form through the rest of the scene, until it is cut short by an out-of-place song prompt.
After comtemplating his options for a while, Jadusable plays the Elegy of Emptiness, but quickly realizes his mistake when the screen cuts to black and gives him the haunting message, "You shouldn't have done that..."
For the next minute, he is sent to various locations from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Signs, gossip stones, NPCs, and text boxes all give the same message: "You shouldn't have done that..." After being teleported to the Happy Mask Shop, the game freezes. Navi shouts, "Watch out," as the screen cuts to black with a chilling beep.
The first in-game reference to Ben, aside from the save file, is made. "BEN is getting lonely..."
Jadusable is taken to the grassy field inside the Moon, though the Moon Children are absent. The reversed Song of Healing begins playing, and Jadusable looks behind him to find another Elegy of Emptiness statue. As he aligns the camera, the statue creeps closer each time Link's head blocks the camera's view.
He looks directly at the statue, but is given a short clip of an angry Happy Mask Salesman with a high-pitched scream, then black.
The next three phrases appear: "You will be given one last chance..." "Back to where it all began..." "Come play with us." The last one is accompanied by the Happy Mask Salesman's laugh.
He is shown the "Dawn of the Final Day: 24 Hours Remain" screen, then taken to the title screen, where he finds that his original file is restored, as well as the BEN file.
Jadusable quits playing, then types up the summary of this playthrough. He names it DROWNED.wmv.
Three hours later, Jadusable presumably types a summary for a playthrough we are not shown, titled CHILDREN.wmv.

September 10, 2010

Jadusable posts the summary and video for DROWNED.wmv at a very early hour in the morning.
Later, he wakes up with no recollection of posting the latest summary; however, he notices that it has been censored, once again, as it makes no mention of the old man or his in-game experience.
He finds the summary for CHILDREN.wmv, which he does not remember typing. He attempts to post it, but we never see it or the video it describes, assuming it ever existed in the first place. He tells us that the shadow of his chair moved.
Jadusable discovers that BEN will not allow him to access YouTube, but will not stop him from doing anything else.
After hours of hearing the reversed Song of Healing and feeling constricted by the air of his room, he notices, at exactly 4:23pm, that the old man is standing outside and staring up at his window from the middle of campus, students not acknowledging his presence.

Chapter 4: jadusable

On or prior to September 11, 2010

Jadusable records the final playthrough of the game, which he names Matt.wmv
He leaves his room with the cartridge.

September 12, 2010

Shortly after midnight, Jadusable uses a library computer to type out the final paragraphs of his notes. He emphasizes that the document is safe, and that he is taking no chances regarding BEN's escape.
At 12:08am, Jadusable disappears with the intention of burning the cartridge and destroying his laptop, and is never seen again.

For the final video, Jadusable's roommate posts in his place, explaining that he had left behind a flash drive and specific upload instructions for its contents. He says that Jadusable had moved out and gone back home with his parents, and that they were in and out so fast he didn't even see them.
The roommate posts jadusable.wmv, the second half of Matt.wmv, according to Jadusable's instructions. He claims he cut out the save screen because he didn't think it was important at the time, and apologizes for cutting it. He also notes that the document Jadusable had just finished typing, TheTruth.txt, will be uploaded on September 15.
The video shows Jadusable in Ikana Canyon by the Owl Statue. He puts on the Mask of Truth a few times before making his way to Castle Ikana.
Inside the castle, Jadusable makes his way to the throne room, where he is greeted by Igos du Ikana. He speaks jumbled dialogue much like Skull Kid did in DROWNED.wmv. A song prompt appears, and Ikana teaches Jadusable the Elegy of Emptiness. The scene plays out, the dialogue still jumbled.
Jadusable finds himself trapped in the corner of the room as it turns a dark shade of purple. Stone Tower Temple's mini-boss, Gomess, appears and kills Link with one hit. The screen turns into a blood red shade as the death sequence plays out.
A black screen appears, showing the message, "Why is he smiling? The father." along with the sound of Link shivering. The screen fades in and Jadusable is taken to Ikana Graveyard.
In the graveyard, Jadusable reads three grave stones. One reads, "The melody that summons the tears of angels rests here." The second reads, "A brave soldier from the Kingdom of Ikana rests here." The last reads, "The vessel that can hold spirits rests here." The sound of Bongo-Bongo from Ocarina of Time can be heard, playing louder after each time.
After reading the last grave stone, which an Elegy statue was hiding behind, Jadusable falls in. The message that appears reads, "It'll be our little secret, okay?"
He enters the twisted corridor before the Clock Tower. At the end of the hallway sits another Elegy statue. The screen freezes, cuts out, and another message is displayed: "You can't run."
Link, the Happy Mask Salesman and the Elegy of Emptiness statue all stare at the camera for a while, in the Clock Tower. Another statue begins to spawn before the screen cuts to black. The final message of the video appears: "Please... help me..."
The title screen appears, and upon entering the file select screen, two files are shown: Link and MATT.

Chapter 5: The Truth

September 15, 2010

On schedule, Jadusable's roommate posts the promised link, accompanied by the message, "Honesty is the best policy."
The download link contains a document entitled TheTruth.rtf, the contents of which have mostly been described in this summary. It explains that BEN has hijacked Jadusable's computer and censored his posts and videos. It also notes details that BEN censored, such as the Moon Children and two other videos, entitled Matt.wmv and CHILDREN.wmv. Matt.wmv was never released in its entirety. It is in this document that we learn that Jadusable never had a roommate, and that the summary for jadusable.wmv had been entirely fabricated by BEN. The missing video CHILDREN.wmv was later uploaded more than 9 years later, in 2020, during Awakening.

Chapter 6: free

102 minutes later, a video called free.wmv was posted to Jadusable's YouTube channel. The video was of a black screen, showing the following message: "The counter resets. I'm glad you did that." It then briefly shows Link's bedroom from Ocarina of Time.
TheTruth.rtf implies in several ways that the document was, despite Jadusable's attempts, tampered with by BEN:
- The following phrase, the closing paragraph, is uncharacteristic of Jadusable's writing: "Lastly, thank you for taking the time to open this and open yourselves up to me by 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 am finally free of this."
- The document was specifically referred to by Jadusable as TheTruth.txt, but it was released as a Rich Text File (.rtf).
- The document contains three instances where the word "believe" (or a variation) is used. In these instances, a different letter is capitalized: "beLieve," "belIeve," and "beliEving." The capitalized letters spell out "LIE."
- Before Jadusable's salutation of, "Thanks Again, Jadusable," the letter "a" is present, though corrupted.
- In his notes for September 8, 2010, the 3:00pm entry is missing. Whether or not this is significant is unknown.
- Jadusable states that he was living in a single dorm room while these events unfolded, meaning there was no roommate in the first place.
As readers realized that they had helped release BEN onto the Internet, some believed that it was present on their own computers due to their downloading the document. Jadusable was presumed missing at the time, but the truth about his disappearance was explored in THE FATHER.wmv, his true final video, released during Awakening in 2020.

Timeline

Preceded by

N/A

Current Arc

The Haunted Cartridge

Followed by

Moon Children

The Haunted Cartridge

Contents

The Haunted Cartridge: The Complete Story

Prologue: Rosa

Chapter 1: day four

Chapter 2: BEN

Chapter 3: DROWNED

Chapter 4: jadusable

Chapter 5: The Truth

Chapter 6: free

Post #1 - 9/7/10

Post #2 - 9/8/10

Post #3 - 9/10/10

Post #4 - 9/12/10

Post #5 - 9/15/10

Bonus Chapter - Rosa

Chapter 1 - day four

Chapter 2 - BEN

Chapter 3 - DROWNED

Chapter 4 - jadusable

Chapter 5 - The Truth

Summary

Prologue: Rosa

June 14, 2009

June 16, 2009

Chapter 1: day four

September 5, 2010

September 6, 2010

September 7, 2010

Chapter 2: BEN

September 8, 2010

Chapter 3: DROWNED

September 9, 2010

September 10, 2010

Chapter 4: jadusable

On or prior to September 11, 2010

September 12, 2010

Chapter 5: The Truth

September 15, 2010

Chapter 6: free

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