Author: Alex "Jadusable" Hall
Year: 2010
I'm going to post what happened and link to the video footage, but everything got too real for me last night. I think I'm done messing around with this.
I passed out pretty much immediately after making my last post, but I had a dream about the Elegy of Emptiness statue. I dreamed it was following me. I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hair stand up on end. I would turn around and that thing...that horrible, lifeless statue would be staring at me with those empty eyes, merely inches away. In my dream, I remember calling it Ben. Never before had I had a dream I could remember so vividly. The important thing to take out of this is that I did get some sleep, I suppose. Today, after putting off playing the game as long as I could, I drove back to that neighborhood to see if the old man returned. 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 came up and asked if I was looking for someone.
I told him I was looking to talk to the old man that lived here, to which he told me what I already guessed: he was moving. Trying a different avenue, I asked if the old man had any family or relatives I could talk to. I discovered 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 I should have asked from the beginning. Who was Ben? The man's expression turned grim. I learned that four doors down, around eight years ago, on April 23rd (the man informed me it was the same day as his anniversary, which is why he knew the specific date), there was an accident with a young boy named Ben in the neighborhood. Shortly after, his parents moved. Despite any further attempts to talk to the man to get more information, he wouldn't divulge anything else.
I went back home and started playing again, bracing for the worst. Loading up the game, I immediately jumped at the sequence where the mask flies by. The sound that played was not the normal "whoosh" noise but something more higher pitched. I pressed start and braced for the worst, but just like two nights ago, the files "YOUR TURN" and "BEN" were displayed. Truth be told, I took a look at the BEN file earlier. It seems to fluctuate between displaying the Owl Statue icon and not. I brought up the file and hesitated for a moment as I noticed the stats were not the same as they were two days ago. It looked like he had already completed Stone Tower Temple this time. Summoning my courage, I selected it. Immediately, I was thrust into chaos. Sure enough, I was outside Stone Tower Temple, but that's about all that was expected. The area itself wasn't called Stone Tower Temple - instead, the area name showed up as "St o n e" - and I was immediately greeted with a dialogue box of complete gibberish.
Link's body was distorted. His back was cocked violently to the side and his posture was permanently disfigured. Link's expression was dull, almost monotonous. It was an expression I didn't recognize, but it was completely blank, as if he were dead. As he stood there, his body spasmed irregularly back and forth. I examined what had become of my avatar and noticed a C-button item I never saw before. It was some kind of note, but pressing the button it was on did nothing. Sounds played back and forth that I didn't recognize from the game. They were almost demonic in nature. There was some kind of high-pitched yip, or some kind of laugh or something, playing in the background, too. I had all of two minutes to take in the environment before another of those fucking Elegy of Emptiness statues was summoned. Immediately after, the game cut to the "Dawn of a New Day" screen, except this time without any 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, but from a screwed-up angle. I was looking from behind the door to the Clock Tower, watching my avatar run around as a Deku Scrub. Seeing as I had no place to go because I couldn't see anything, I begrudgingly went inside. There, I was greeted by the Happy Mask Salesman. He 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 Hylian again. I might as well have not even been playing the same game anymore. I was being warped around and there was no sign of a clock or anything. I took a moment to get my bearings as I looked around the field. Immediately, I could tell this wasn't normal.
There were no enemies and a twisted version of the Happy Mask Salesman's theme was playing. I decided to run toward Woodfall before I noticed a gathering of four figures off to the side. One of them was Epona. As I approached, I saw the Happy Mask Salesman, the Skull Kid, and the Elegy of Emptiness statue standing there as well. I figured that maybe they were bugged out, but by then I should have known better. Nevertheless, I approached them carefully and found Skull Kid and Epona were doing some kind of idle animations on loop. The statue was doing what it had been doing all along: standing there eerily. It was the Happy Mask Salesman that scared me profoundly more than the other two. He, too, was idle and wearing that shit-eating grin. However, wherever I moved, his head slowly turned and followed me. I had not engaged in any dialogue with him, nor was I in combat with him, yet his head still continued to follow my movements.
Reminded of my first encounter with the Skull Kid on top of the Clock Tower, I pulled out my Ocarina (to which the game played the ding sound that tells you you're supposed to play a song) and tried to play a song I hadn't played yet: the Happy Mask Salesman's own song, the song that had been playing on loop back on the 4th Day. The Song of Healing. As I finished playing, an ear-piercing shriek blasted the TV speakers. The sky immediately started flashing and the Happy Mask Salesman's twisted theme sped up, intensifying the fear inside me. Link exploded into flames and died. The three figures stayed lit up during the death cutscene, watching my lifeless body burn. I can't describe how sudden and terrifying the transition from eeriness to terror it is. You'll have to watch the video if you want to see it firsthand.
That same fear that caused me to lose sleep two days ago started to grip me again as I was met with the text, "You've met with a terrible 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. Now I found myself in Great Bay. Hesitant but curious to see what the game had in store for me, I slowly made my way toward 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 her wasn't the reason she was placed there. Suddenly, I realized that Epona kept neighing. The way she was angled made it look like she was trying to signal a point to me off in the distance. It was a hunch, but I dove into the water and started swimming.
The statue was there, staring at me. As I neared it, Link choked to death and died. 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 title screen was before me and I knew the only reason it would put me here is because the save files changed again. Taking a deep breath, I pressed start and found out 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 4th Day 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, though. It taunts me with the new save files. It wants me to keep playing. It wants me to go further. I'm done with this shit, though. 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 and I get too depressed thinking about it. The footage is up here for those who want to see it and try to analyze it. Maybe there's some kind of coded message in the gibberish, or something symbolic in what I went through, but I'm too emotionally and mentally drained to fuck with it anymore.
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