Community:Ben Drowned

The Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge Hoax is a retelling of pseudo-paranormal events that occurred between the days of September 7 and September 15, 2010 to Jadusable, a sophomore in an undisclosed college. Upon receiving a second-hand Nintendo 64 from a friend and buying a non-descript Majora's Mask cartridge from an eclectic old man, the narrator begins to notice seizure-like graphics and strange connections to a boy named Ben, who was said to have drowned as a child in a lake, from within the game. The hoax attracted believers from all across the Zelda community; however, Jadusable has since revealed the story, on his site, as being simply an experiment in testing the gullibility of readers when presented with a story written and carried out in a believable form.

Chapter 1: Day Four (9/7/2010)
The narrator starts by orienting the reader to his setting: a college dorm. A friend had recently given him an old Nintendo 64, packaged with Super Smash Bros. for his dorm room. Out of boredom, he subsequently drove around the college's neighborhood in search of more games. After purchasing three vintage Nintendo 64 titles from yard sales, he came across a strange house. A "displeasing", seemingly blind, old man greeted him outside the house, and retreated inside after hearing that the narrator was interested in buying old video games. "Peculiar" paintings were displayed on the man's yard table; the narrator notices that one of them resembles Majora's Mask, but does not think much of it. The man returns and hands Jadusable a blank cartridge with the word "MAJORA" written across it, and says that he can have the game for free. Apparently, the game belonged to a child that no longer lived at the house. Fighting with inner skepticisms, the narrator takes the game back to his dorm, but not before thanking the man. He boots up the game at the college to find one save file, titled "BEN". He is astonished to find the save file so close to completion, and starts up his own file. The gameplay was strangely fluid for a non-descript cartridge; only textural problems are evident, and sometimes the NPCs call his character "Link" and at other times "BEN". He decides to delete the BEN save file, but that does not help; the characters now call him "_____". He put the game down for the night. Upon picking the game up again the next day, he attempts to do the famous "4th Day Glitch", but it does not go as planned. His character appears in the Majora boss room, with Skull Kid levitating above. Weirded out, the narrator moved to press the reset button on the N64 when the game flashed a quote, seemingly communicating with him. A choice option appeared next on screen, and upon selecting a choice, the game faded to black and Link appeared in a "twilight-zone", uninhabited Clock Town.

At this point, the narrator felt as if he himself was in some form of danger. Clock Town had the feeling that "something was there", in place of where the normal inhabitants had been. Creepy music began to continuously loop, ascending and descending in volume. The strange atmosphere brought the narrator "on the verge of tears"; an unseen force seemed to be placing him into a void of depression from the screen of the television. He found that he was unable to leave Clock Town no matter what he tried. He then sees a frightening clip of Link clutching his head, the face and scream of the Happy Mask Salesman, and eventually is being followed by the Link Statue that can be summoned using the Elegy of Emptiness. Link is constantly followed by the Statue, the Salesman's head continually flashes on screen, and Link appears back at the top of the Clock Tower where he would towards the end of the normal gameplay of Majora's Mask. Before he can play his Ocarina, Link bursts into flames and dies. The screen fades to black, and returns to the menu screen; the file that was originally LINK is now "YOURTURN" - he selects it only to see a half-minute of Link dead and the Skull Kid levitating just above. Upon reseting, the menu screen not only shows the file "YOURTURN", but one below it that reads "BEN".

Chapter 2: BEN (9/8/2010)
That night, the narrator dreamed about the Link Statue at great length. In the morning, he decides to go back to the house of the man who sold him the cartridge. No one is home. He asks a few questions to a next-door neighbor cutting grass, and eventually asks about Ben: an "incident" occurred with Ben that forced his parents to move from the neighborhood, eight years ago. the narrator returns to his dorm, and selects the BEN file, after a bit of hesitation. The file is a mangled mess of graphics and sound; a mangled, seemingly dead, Link stood outside the Stone Tower Temple amidst devilish sounds - a Link Statue formed out of nowhere, and then everything faded to the "Dawn of a New Day" screen. The screen opened and he was now controlling Deku Link in Clock Town from a strange camera angle, looking from behind the Clock Tower door. The Salesman appeared, and the screen flashed to Termina Field, switching to Link again. The strange music continued; walking through Termina, the Salesman, Epona, Skull Kid, and the Link Statue were all standing in a line near the entrance to the Southern Swamp. The Salesman's gaze followed Link wherever he moved; the narrator took out his ocarina and played the Song of Healing. After finishing the song, a shrill audible sound rocked the room, the Salesman's theme increased in speed, and Link, again, died in spontaneous combustion. Immediately, Link was sped to Great Bay, after a small cutscene of the Zora Mask transformation. In finding Epona on the beach, it seemed that she was signaling something. Thus, the narrator dived into the water to find a Elegy of Emptiness Statue at the bottom of the lake. Suddenly, Zora Link began violently choking, and died, right next to the Statue. The menu screen flashed on the television, and the narrator realized that the game isn't playing with him, but recounting the exact way in which Ben died: by drowning. The file "YOURTURN" is replaced by "BEN", and a new file appears under "BEN", entitled "DROWNED".

Chapter 3: DROWNED (9/10/10)
This short chapter is more of a personal reflection: the narrator tells the reader that BEN seems to have taken over his dreams. He attributes every action he's done in the game to the fact that he thinks BEN is watching him and simultaneously controlling his ideas. The narrator has skipped all of his classes and closed himself in his dorm, so that BEN cannot "watch" him. He notes the game has spoken to him, using Ben's name, but remains confused as to the game's purpose and reason for tormenting him. The game file he created originally has returned, but he has no interest in continuing the game; all he wants to do is go back home to his parents.

Chapter 4: Jadusable (9/12/10)
This chapter is written from the perspective of Jadusable's college roommate, and is grammatically messy. The roommate is sure that Jadusable is alright, having just moved out - he is returning home. However, he does note that he's been rooming with a friend, as he's been wary of Jadusable's recent paranoid behavior: he rarely eats, sleeps, or leaves the room. Before leaving, Jadusable entrusted his roommate with a flashdrive that holds all of his footage from the cartridge. The flashdrive not only contained the videos, the password to Jadusable's YouTube account, but also a document entitled "TheTruth.txt", the latter of which explained as "notes" taken during the gameplay. He reveals that he is to reveal TheTruth.txt to the world on September 15, as per Jadusable's request.

The fourth video that accompanied the text followed Link through a regular run-through of the Stone Tower Temple. However, right before Link reaches the door beyond the dancing Redeads, a sepia photograph of the Salesman and the Link Statue flashes on screen. The interaction with the head of Igos du Ikana in the next room is all gibberish. The head teaches him the Elegy of Emptiness, and immediately a Link Statue materializes. Link is then introduced to Gomess, at a camera angle inside Link's hat, and is soon killed by the miniboss in the thick, blue fog that surrounds him. Link is then warped to the Graveyard, where he checks the statements on some of the tombstones. Link falls into the one gravestone that stands in front of a Link Statue, and is taken to a windy corridor as the quote "It'll be our little secret, okay?" flashes on screen. Link walks the corridor, but is ambushed by a Link Statue and another quote, "You can't run." The screen returns and shows him, dead still, beneath the Clock Tower with the Salesman and a Link Statue by his side. The screen fades to black, with the quote "Please... help me..." The game returns to the menu screen and the file that was once "BEN" is now named "MATT".

Chapter 5: The Truth (9/15/10)
The Truth is a document that describes Jadusable's interactions with the game in a bit more depth than his text or video recounts. He recounts how he originally believed the game to be an "elaborate hoax", but when he was contacted by a CleverBot online by Ben himself, the hoax became real and slowly began to consume his life. It became evident that Ben had enjoyed playing with him, messing with him through the game; Jadusable had realized that Ben went so far as to alter his video of the game and his summaries of the events as he saw them. Ben had mentioned through the chatbot that he had affected others in the same way that Jadusable had been affected by this curse. Thus, Jadusable not only wanted others to know of Ben and the events, but even went as far as to cleverly name his videos in a way so that Ben would be unaware, and never used the Lens of Truth or Gossip Stones throughout any playthrough. The document ends with Jadusable signing off, glad that he was able to transfer the information to the world, though warning others to be wary of the summaries and videos as they may still be tainted with Ben's curse.

The final video uploaded by Jadusable concerning the event was one that had the quotes, "The counter resets." followed by "I'm glad you did that."