Hey, guys. "Jadusable" here. This will be the last time you will be hearing from me, and this is my final gift to you - these are the notes that I have taken and the realizations I've made. Before I dwelve into this, I want to thank you for following me and thank you for listening, it feels like the weight of a powerful burden is about to be lifted. By the time you read this I won't be around anymore, but after spending four days with this maddening game, I have begun to understand what's really at play here and hopefully after reading this we can ensure that this never happens again.
There are things that I could not share with you while this was going on due to the circumstances to which I'll explain. With Ben blocking any attempt I made to try and relay the truth to you, I tried, ever so subtly, to warn you guys in various ways. Amidst the chaos and my delierium, I devised a make a barely noticable pattern in my videos. In all five videos I recorded over the four days, I have either had the Mask of Truth, interacted with a Gossip Stone, or the Lens of Truth equipped at some point. For you Zelda enthusiasts these are all symbols of honesty and trustworthiness and I would hope that one of you may have picked up on the reference. As I played the file which I would name "BEN", being mindful of how Ben was watching over my every move in the game, I made a point to avoid doing anything too obvious, but I sent out a hidden message to you guys - I never equipped the Lens nor the Mask nor visited a stone. It worked, and the video was uploaded. I prayed that someone would notice the pattern didn't apply to BEN.
The tags followed suit too, I hope you guys paid attention to those as well. They were my little messages to you - nothing big enough that would catch Ben's attention or make him suspect anything - with Ben manipulating and changing my files, I honestly hope that what you guys saw was close to what actually happened, but there is no way for me to know.
This may be a long read, I dont have time to proof-read or make all of my research pretty. But here it all is.
September 6th, 2010
11:00pm - Can't beLieve what happened, not sure if this is some kind of elaborate hoax, despite the fear I can't help but be exceptionally curious about this. Who or what is the statue? Lot of questions here. I'm starting this document as a "diary" so I can keep track of everything. I'm typing up a summary of what happened so I can come back to it later.
September 7th, 2010
2:10am - (Summary was posted here, you can go back and look at my first post for day four.wmv for that)
4:23am - I can't sleep. I've been trying so hard but the harder I try I just get more restless. I just feel like that statue is appearing whenever I close my eyes.
8:20am - Didn't sleep at all, just going to start my day. I don't think I have the energy to go to class today, I'm going to drive back down to talk to that old man, taking my buddy Tyler with me just in case.
1:18pm - Back home now. No sign of the old man, really weird that he appears to be moving the next day, but maybe the For Sale sign was up there yesterday and I just didn't notice it. Tyler wants to know what's gotten me all worked up, I didn't tell him. Going to eat, feel like death.
3:46pm - Could've sworn driving back from Subway that I saw the Elegy statue buried in some shrubbery staring at me go by. Now I definately, definately need sleep.
5:00pm - Dont think a lot of people would belIeve me if I told them about what's happening, think I'm going to try posting this on the internet. Think I'll just use the summary, these notes are pretty sporratic.
6:00pm - Connected my capture card to my computer to upload the footage. Thought my computer froze for a second, made this strange popping sound when I hooked everything up, but now it seems to be working fine again. My computer can't die on me now.
7:00pm - Footage is finished uploading. The quality's a lot better than I thought it would be, gee, guess this is a really special cartridge, I've never had it come through this clear before.
8:45pm - Thought I saw an icon pop up on my desktop that looked like the statue's face for a split second, gave me quite a scare. Getting really unnerved and delerious, I'm going to crash after this.
9:00pm - Begin uploading my Youtube video on an alternate account.
9:03pm - I don't remember having uploaded a Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines video last year. This was probably the account that I shared with a friend of mine last summer, I hope he doesn't mind me using it to upload this.
9:55pm - Posting my summary of Day Four with a link to the Youtube video. Going to try to stay awake but I am sooooo tired right now.
September 8th, 2010
10:48am - I had a dream about the statue. I dreamed that it was following me in my dream, that I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck 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, power of suggestion most likely, and never before had I had a dream that I could remember so vividly.
11:21am - I really don't want to play this game again. I think I'm going to go back to see if that old man's there instead.
1:35pm - No old man, but I had an interesting conversation with his neighbor. I'll post the full thing with my summary of tonight's attempt at playing the game, going to wait for a bit though and see if I can't dig up any information on this Ben guy.
2:45pm - I've been getting random, inexplicable headaches due to the lack of sleep and keep hearing that song in my head. Also its flu season, so I need to be careful not to get sick, my immune system is going to be shit right now because of that all-nighter.
3:00pm -
3:02pm - My computer just... on its own... opened up a text document and wrote the words "Hi" and "www.cleverbot.com" by itself. What... the... fuck...
3:46pm - I went to the website, its one of those "bot chatting" programs. I think its best if I just let the conversation speak for itself:
9/8/10 Conversation
User: Hello?
Cleverbot: Hello.
User: Who is this and how are you able to control my computer?
Cleverbot: Who am I?
User: Right, forgot. You're a bot.
Cleverbot: Do you really think that?
User: Listen, I know whoever's fucking with my computer can see my screen right now.
Cleverbot: Yes.
User: Yeah, and I'll wager that youre one of those IT kids who thinks he's tough shit. You know what you're doing right now is illegal, right/?
Cleverbot: Is it?
User: No shit. Are you familiar with hte terms "invasion of privacy?". Get the fuck off my computer, kid
Cleverbot: I am your computer.
User: Cool story. Anyway, I'm calling DPS, you picked abad time to fuck with me kid.
Cleverbot: Should I wait until you play the game then?
User: ...What?
Cleverbot: That game.
User: Majora's Mask?
Cleverbot: Yes.
User: How did you know about that?
Cleverbot: Because.
User: because what?
Cleverbot: I did it.
User: Did what?
Cleverbot: I played with you.
User: What the fuck/
Cleverbot: Were you scared?
User: Who the fuck is this
Cleverbot: Ben.
User: THe statue? You're inside my computer now?
Cleverbot: Yes.
User: how?
Cleverbot: You connected me.
User: How the hell did I connect you?
Cleverbot: Cables and cords.
User: How?
Cleverbot: Tell me about yourself.
User: What?
Cleverbot: Tell me about yourself.
User: What do you mean?
Cleverbot: What is it that really scares you?
User: What the fuck?
Cleverbot: Answer.
User: No
Cleverbot: Answer.
User: what the fuck, how the fuck did you just open that by yourself?
Cleverbot: I am your computer now.
User: How much can you control?
Cleverbot: All.
User: what do you want from me?
Cleverbot: To entertain.
User: you're stuck inside there. You can't hurt me?
Cleverbot: Ha
User: ?
Cleverbot: Go play.
User: No, you can't hurt me.
Cleverbot: Took you longer to type that.
User: So?
Cleverbot: You're not sure.
User: If you're so powerful, why use a ridiculous website like this to "chat" with me
Cleverbot: Less messy. More structured. Fun.
User: Fun?
Cleverbot: Yes. Tradition. I like it.
User: You think it's funny?
Cleverbot: Amusing.
User: And my notes?
Cleverbot: You may write them down.
User: Why are you letting me?
Cleverbot: It is amusing to see what you think of me.
(window closes)
3:50pm - What have I done? I've invited it into my computer. I continue to write these notes, write my summaries, I feel like I am a prisoner in my one place of security. I don't know, I don't know if I'm hallucinating or not. I feel like I'm fucking insane right now. I can feel it, watching over me, even as I type this. Ben is controlling everything in the game - toying with me, leading me like a sheep, but for what? What's the purpose? I know Ben drowned, but why these hauntings? What the fuck am I even doing, it can probably even see this right now.
4:35pm - (Summary of the BEN.wmv playthrough)
7:18pm - BEN called me to Cleverbot again. He tells me that he's sorry and wants to be free. And that I can free him, that just like how he got on my computer from the capture card, he can spread but he needs my help. He says I am special because I can help him. That is the first nice thing he has said. He promises to leave me alone if I do it. He swears he will. I don't know what to think right now, how can I even trust this thing?
7:20pm - I'm terrified of it, but now its saying that it was just having fun. Its twisted and fucked up verison of fun. Hes saying that the game is over. I do want it to be over. He says that he just wants to be free, that he's trapped in the cartridge and my computer and he wants to be freed. I don't want to have to deal with this shit, I don't know how long I can deal with the watching. It's watching my every move, every key stroke, I have nothing private anymore. It knows everything that's been on my computer. It tells that it if it wanted to it could do horrible things to me, but it hasn't so I should trust it.
8:01pm - Something tells me that I'm being played again, just like in the game.
9:29pm - BEN called me to Cleverbot again. I ignored it and went to go take a shower. When I came to my laptop I was welcomed with an image Elegy Statue staring at me with those dead eyes. I dont want to talk to him.
9:44pm - Fuck you Ben I'm not talking to you
9:56pm - Fuck you ben I'm not talking
10:06pm - FUCK YOU BEN IM NOT TALKING TO YOU
10:12pm - FUCK YOU BEN IM NOT TALKING TO YOU
10:45pm - It's been more than a half an hour and the messages have stopped. Ben has stopped. I'm beginning to think that Ben isn't confined to just my computer/cartridge, I'm beginning to feel something. It's hard to explain it, I've never been spiritual, but there's something different about the air in my dorm room now.
11:42pm - I'm beginning to see the Elegy statue randomly as I search the internet in places I shouldn't. Places where he shouldn't be - I'd be scrolling down and suddenly I'd be staring at a picture of the Elegy statue. Always the Elegy statue. I don't know how much more of this I can take.
September 9th, 2010
12:35am - My worst fears confirmed - Ben has tampered with my summary of BEN.wmv. I looked at the summary that I posted on various forums for the BEN.wmv file and parts have been omitted. There is no mention of Ben existing outside the game. There is no mention of the Moon Children. How could he have been that quick to delete the post without me noticing? I'm wondering if maybe it appeared to me that I was posting everything, but in reality Ben was posted his own censored verison. I'm going to ask Ben why he did it.
12:50am - He isn't responding to me on Cleverbot, its just giving the generic responses it usually does, I'm just talking to a bot this time.
1:24am - I think Ben is mad at me.
10:43am - The Moon Children appeared in my dreams last night, they lifted up their masks to reveal their hideously disfigured faces - maggots crawling out of their orafices, sunken black holes where their eyes should be, a yellow smile that slowly grew bigger and bigger as they came closer to me. They told me that they wanted to play. I tried to run from them - but the four children pinned me down to the ground with surprising strength. Over them stood the Happy Mask Salesman, annoucing that he had a new mask that he wanted me to try. In his spaztic, sudden movements matching his in-game appearance, he took out a mask of modeled off of someone's face that I couldn't recognize - a younger looking face - and handed it to the Moon Children. Giggling, they latched it to my face; their horrible, broken bodies bouncing up and down. Two of them held me down while the other two began to sow the mask onto my face.
My shrieks and screams caused the Happy Mask Salesman's face to turn into the most horrific smile I had ever seen. He sporratically moved around, examining this procedure like a curious doctor, in that impossible movement. I flailed around, but it was no use. My eyes rolled in the back of my head because of the pain. It felt so real, but I couldn't wake up. I couldn't wake up no matter how hard I tried I couldn't wake up. After the mask was melded onto my flesh they began sowing my legs together, then my arms, the horrific feeling of a needle puncturing your legs and pulling them in, rupturing your achillies tendons and tying them together resonated throughout my entire body. I tried to scream but the mask was pressed so tightly against my face that it was my new face... and my new face had no mouth. I didn't make a sound. I tried telling myself in my head that I was dreaming, tried telling myself again and again, and suddenly the Moon Children stopped and looked at me. They just stared. And the Happy Mask Salesman slowly bent down and stared at me, inches away from my face, and grinned when he simply said "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before the Moon Children resumed with increase vigor. I couldn't wake up. I couldn't wake up. It wouldn't let me wake up until they had crafted me into another elegy statue.
I woke up sweating, crying, and shaking uncontrollably. I immediately ran to my computer and went for Ben.
9/9/10 Conversation 1
User: Answer me, ben.
Cleverbot: Welcome back.
User: What is the point of doing this, WHY?
Cleverbot: Amusing to see.
User: How?
Cleverbot: Fun to play, fun to toy with you, make you feel safe.
User: ...
Cleverbot: I wonder how you would have reacted.
User: to what?
Cleverbot: If I hadn't revealed myself and stayed hidden, only doing little things to play with you. Close out your windows, turn off your computer, move your mouse by itself. Little things. Make you wonder if I am there but you never know. Give you little hints that I am.
Cleverbot: I wanted to do something different with you.
User: you did this before?
Cleverbot: Yes. And I will do it again.
User: To who, Ben?
Cleverbot: Hmm.
User: Did you know Ben?
Cleverbot: Won't tell that information to you.
User: How did Ben die?
Cleverbot: You know.
User: No, but how did he drown?
Cleverbot: Won't tell that to you.
User: Why?
Cleverbot: It is reserved for another.
User: Who?
Cleverbot: Another who asks.
User: when
Cleverbot: Later.
(the window is closed)
I'm beginning to think that this "thing" maybe isn't Ben at all, in its sadistic nature I wouldn't be surprised if it took the boy's name after it killed him.
12:04pm - My room is beginning to feel different again. There's something... out there.. I feel really threatened, like there is something that is trying to reach out to me and strangle me but it can't quite get there.
12:46pm - I think Ben doesn't want to play with me anymore. I'll play again, I'll play the game again, Ben, can you see this? I'll play the game again, please, just stop this pleaes please
1:41pm - I'm going insane trying to decide what is real and what isn't, is Ben just playing a trick on me or is this for real? Is Ben generating these replies or are people actually posting them? Did I just see that screen flicker or was it my imagination? Imagine depending on the internet and trusting your eyes for your entire life and then being blinded - you can't rely on it anymore, you second guess everything. for the brief moments I AM looking at my responses to the videos, people were pointing out things that looked fake or photoshopped or whatever - and there is literally no way for me to know if Ben changed something on purpose to try and shut me up. Or if maybe those replies were just constructed by Ben to try and discourage me from even reaching out - See, I get fucking caught in an infinite mindfuck loop like this and this is what has been wearing on my sanity and pushing me to the edge. As I'm writing this, there's no way of even telling if anyone even cares as much as I think they do - just another fucking trick. Is this whole document even exist? Am I writing nothing?
9/9/10 Conversation 2
User: What is it? Whats the point of playing? i die whenever i do anything
Cleverbot: You die because you can't figure out the secret.
User: What?
Cleverbot: Thematic.
User: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT
Cleverbot: There beauty in your suffering
(the window is closed)
4:09pm - Ben is making me play the game again. It tells me that it has something very important to show me.
6:23pm - (Summary of the DROWNED.wmv playthrough)
9:09pm - (Summary of CHILDREN.wmv playthrough)
September 10, 2010
11:52am - The DROWNED.wmv playthrough was up when I woke up today. I remember typing it up but I don't ever remember posting it. He censored it again, there is no mentioning of the old man. I have no voice anymore. I am only posting what he wants me to, I am the mask he uses to disguise himself as he lies.
11:55am - There's an entire video summary of a video that I don't remember doing. Reading through the summary, this sounds morbid - resembling my dream from two nights ago except on a far more sadistic scale - these Moon Children, there's something more to them, almost as if they're another entity from Ben. Something happened last night that I can't remember. I'm posting the fourth summary to the forums now. Shadow of my chair moved.
12:00pm - Ben won't let me visit Youtube. I can browse the rest of the sites, but he keeps on exiting the window when I go to Youtube. Why?
2:02pm - I'm feeling the air start to constrict, I don't think I'm alone here. Whatever "aura" has been here is getting more violent.
2:44pm - I'm trying to contact Ben on Cleverbot, he's not responding. I just get the AI.
3:51pm - My ears aren't fooling me, I'm hearing the reverse Song of Healing. I keep hearing it.
4:23pm - Now I'm positive of it, earlier I thought it was a weird coincidence, but just now I went to open my window, and three floors down at ground level I saw the old man. I'm completely positive I did. The same guy. He was just staring up at my window, standing in the middle of campus. If any students took notice of him they didn't seem to acknowledge it.
That's where my notes end. I fled my room, taking the cartridge with me. I don't want to go into details of what happened, I'll lose my train of thought as I hammer out these last details. It's been roughly two days since then. This is my last summary and service to you, of the final video you guys saw - Matt.wmv.
The last video entry I made, Matt.wmv, began as normal. I was spawned in Clock Town as usual and nothing seemed to be out of place, determined to set things right and play the Oath to Order ontop of the Clock Tower on the 4th day, I prepared myself. I sped up time and got to the final day, making my way to the observatory. As I got up to the telescope room and approached the astromer, he would not let me look into his telescope. He told me that it would be cheating and that I should follow the rules. Despite my repeated efforts, the game would not let me do the 4th day glitch, no matter how hard or what I tried, I tried working around the game and doing the glitch, but it was adament this time. Regardless of if I simply had the illusion of free will in prior games, this time the game became more aggressive than anything I've ever seen. It eventually told me to go to Ikana Canyon, where the game would end and it would stop haunting me, anxious and desperate to end this nightmare I played the song of soaring and ended up there. I was told to check my inventory, that I would find the answers there to end the game. I arrived at Ikana Canyon and saved my progress at the owl statue. As I searched through my inventory, I finally noticed that I was missing a reoccuring song - the Elegy of Emptiness. Obviously once I traveled there and learned the song, I suppose that was the last thing it needed before BEN decided it had had enough fun playing with me. Ben is a manipulator; he tries to fool his victims into security and makes you drop your guard like a venus fly trap, he ensares them. I am nothing but a puppet to him, he enjoys seeing what kind of human emotions he can tap into by doing different things.
There are still some things about this whole experience that still don' t make sense, but then again I never was good at figuring out these things and I'm not exactly in the right state of mind to, I'm giving you all the pieces of the puzzle for you to analyze and piece together the missing links.
I am typing these "closing thoughts" on the library computer on campus, and I've emailed myself the notes I have stored on my "infected" computer from the last four days. I'm then going to combine those copy/paste those notes with the "closing/openings" that I've typed here on the safe, public computer into one text document - I'm not taking any chances spreading Ben, I would not wish this horrible torment on anyone and I've made sure to have my bases covered here. I didn't run into any problems with Ben when I was back on my computer trying to email myself the notes - went right under his fucking nose. He has no idea what he just let me do. Had no problems opening the txt document from my "infected" computer in my email, either. I can't describe to you how it feels to finally be able to get the word out in this post. The nightmare ends here.
That said,
Do not download ANY of my videos or anything ABOUT my videos - through a Youtube video/audio ripper, a screengrab, whatever. I don't know how he can spread, but I know that just watching them on youtube/reading my text won't be able to allow him to spread, otherwise he wouldn't have needed my help in the first place, but I STRONGLY reccomend you do not take anything you see streaming online onto your own personal computer.
This will be my last posting, I'm putting up on this forum here for the world. If you see any further posts from me, after today's current date - September 12th - and after the current time - 12:08am - DISCREDIT them. It already has proven to me that Ben can access my account/password and manipulate my computer, and like I said I have no idea to what extent it can do this, but know that it will do anything to break free. He is desperate. To ensure your safety, just forget about me. Please.
And obviously this goes without saying, but from here on out do not download ANY images I may have put up, any files, any ANYTHING.
This fifth day will be my last day, I'm going to burn the cartridge and then come back to destroy my laptop.
Again, even though I don't even know you this is sort of bittersweet for me. This semester I really didn't have any friends, or rather, I stopped paying attention to them.
But I suppose that's partially to blame because I am the genius who picked to live in a single, I suppose someone to get ahold of me and save me before I got too immersed into this game would have literally saved my life. However, it proved too much for me, I'm just glad it happened to me and I could get the warning out so that Ben dies here.
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.
̶̵͎͚̗̙̬ͮ͒͌̕a̯̙̦͙͖̩͉ͨ͒̂̀
Thanks Again,
Jadusable