423

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.

—Jadusable, day four.wmv summary

423 (or variations: 4/23, 4:23, "four two three," or "for the fold, number three") is a recurring number in Ben Drowned. Due to its frequent appearance and the events surrounding its origin, it has been seen as an important sign or clue pointing to deeper meaning when it appears.

The number is derived from the date of Ben's death: April 23, 2002.

List of appearances

Instances of 423 will be listed in chronological order below. The numbers 4, 2, and 3 will also be listed if they appear in close proximity to each other.

Haunted Cartridge Arc

• In Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines - Rosa, the in-game song that is playing in the background, "A Smaller God", has a runtime of 4:23.
• In day four.wmv, the text, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" and the Happy Mask Salesman's laugh are displayed at 4:23.
• In the summary for BEN.wmv, Jadusable discovers that Ben died on April 23, 2002. In the video, BEN's file is saved at 23:04 and Link's Zora transformation is completed at 4:23.
• In DROWNED.wmv, Link reads the sign in the Happy Mask Shop and is given the message, "You shouldn't have done that..." at 4:23.
• In jadusable.wmv, Gomess appears in the Stone Tower Temple at 4:23.
• In TheTruth.rtf, Jadusable noted on September 7, at 4:23am that he is unable to sleep. On September 10, at 4:23pm, Jadusable made his final entry, describing the old man staring up at his window.

Moon Children Arc

• Duskworld23's name references the number, as it is commonly abbreviated as DW. D is the fourth letter of the alphabet, and W is the twenty-third. More obviously, 23 is at the end of his name.

• The Blastoff! page contains the repeating phrase, "For the fold, number 3, for the fold, number 3, for the fold, number 3."
• mhftt is an abbreviation of "Matt Hubris four two three," and appears as the title of mhftt.txt.
• matthubris423 was the username required to see The Truth's page on YSHDT.net.
• Downloadable File 16 is an image titled 5342.jpg.
• In Sounds.wmv, Ryukaki focuses the camera on his face at 4:23.
• The description for The Orchard.wmv has four paragraphs, one paragraph has two lines, and three paragraphs have one line.
• In lastwords.wmv, the number 423 is displayed for several seconds; Ryukaki is also revealed to have allegedly moved into Ben's old house, and mentions the date of his death. A close-up of a clock shows the time as 4:23.
• 2 is 43 seconds long.

• According to Jadusable's account on Within Hubris, he was born on April 23.

Awakening Arc

• In hubris.wmv, a static tear clears the screen at 4:23.
• In CHILDREN.wmv, Kamaro's Mask appears at 4:23. If the added Methods of Revolution intro is removed, the Mask fades away at 4:23.
  • The image stitch.png featured on methodsofrevolution.com shows the YouTube progress bar on 4:23 in the video, with the Kamaro's Mask small and visible from behind.
• In KELBRIS.wmv, if the added Methods of Revolution intro is removed, the message "Everything is.. brôïéâ🇷🇷eaking βÀÀÜÜÜÜ" begins appearing at 4:23.
  • Likewise, if the added Methods of Revolution intro is removed, the footage added to THE FATHER.wmv increases the video's length by 3 minutes and 42 seconds.
• After this premiere, on methodsofrevolution.com, several audio files were found, their names containing the numbers. These are:
  • 4324.wav which contained in its spectogram "01100001 00100000 01110111 01101111 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 01100110 01110101 01101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110101 01101110 011010", translating to "a wonderful reun."
  • 42342.wav which contained in its spectogram "01010100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01101000 011001", translating to "They should be h."
  • 4234235.wav which contained in its spectogram "01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100110 01101001 01101110 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110101 01101110 011001", translating to "You finally foun."
  • And the related audio file, found with the others: 534534.wav which contained in its spectogram "00100111 01001010 01100001 01100100 01110101 01110011 01100001 01100010 01101100 01100101 00100111 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110110 01100101 011100", translating to "'Jadusable' neve."
• In baker.txt, Jadus relates that he "woke up on a cold tile floor on the 23rd of April."
• Methods of Revolution (Day 1) was uploaded on April 23rd. Likewise, all clocks in the video are set to 4:23.
• In Methods of Revolution (Day 3), the hotel room's Bible is open to page 423.
• In Methods of Revolution (Day 21), a piece of paper fastened to the Sarah's hotel room door reads "Subject 423"
  • Related, Sarah's image on the Eterity Project website was titled statis0423-500410-00100-010000-10030.webp and her description included "HNDLR / SUB 423".
    • While Sarah's image was the only one to include "423" in a sequence, all of the images associated with character profiles on the Eternity Project website included the numbers "4","2", and "3" in their URLs.
• The Predecessor.wmv was uploaded 4 months and 23 days after awakening.txt
• The End.wmv's credits song, Within Hubris, has a runtime of 3 minutes and 42 seconds.

Notes

• The phrase, "for the fold, number three" is interpreted as an instance of 423 because:
  • "for" = four (4)
  • "the fold" = the tipping of two (2) sides together, ex. a paper folding in half
  • "number three" = number (3)