Cursed objects are, on a shallow level, pretty silly. To think that an item can carry with it the ability to affect someone’s life on any level deeper than perhaps value is absurd. Yet, if you take the idea and really hone in on the implications, it’s terrifying. Something you’ve just stumbled across, that you perhaps sought after or came across because of pure happenstance, is now going to alter your existence; haunt you, in the most honest sense of that word.
That’s spooky.
Now I’m sure you’ve come across the stories of various paraphernalia that carry some such ramifications with them but none, perhaps, are as chilling as the story of something as innocuous as a video game cartridge that had more than just a programmed story to tell. A Nintendo 64 cartridge weighs a measly five ounces but for one college sophomore, it ended up carrying a lot more weight with it.
The internet can be a crazy thing, full of reductive and toxic environments, but one thing it can also do is carry on the tradition of storytelling. In the modern era, we’ve been able to use forums and sites such as 4chan, Reddit and others to create our own mythos, tall tales, and legends. Creepypasta has become the campfire story of our generation. And one of the most chilling tales is all about a single used copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.
While the full story is quite long, we’re here to give you an annotated version of this modernized tale of terror. An unnamed student is paired up with his roomie who has an old N64 and that weekend he decides to peruse some garage sales to try to find something other than Super Smash Bros. After a successful round of purchasing, he’s about to head home when one last sale catches his eye; one lone man at a table full of random items. Although on edge because of the odd appearance of the man, upon asking if he has any videogames the man heads inside to grab a box of them, and returns with a single cartridge with no artwork. On the back in sharpie scrawl, the word “MAJORA.”
When asked for a price, the man says free, it belonged to a kid who no longer lives there. With a strange gut feeling, the kid takes the game, and the man mutters “goodbye, then.” Or so he thought. He gets home and starts the game, and one save file exists: BEN. Like a cinematic flashback, it makes sense. It wasn’t “goodbye, then,” it was “goodbye, Ben.” And Ben was nearly done with the game, most bosses defeated, at the Stone Temple and an hour before the moon crashes. He respects the file and starts his own, naming himself LINK.
After a few hours of playing, he’s impressed the beat up cartridge runs so well but starts noticing NPC’s start calling him BEN.
(Side note, this is when this writer would have thrown that thing in the trash.)
Chalking it up to a glitch in the game, he lets it ride for a bit but after it happens more frequently, he erases the BEN file in hopes of clearing up the glitch. It works, kind of. Now he’s not being called LINK or BEN, but an empty space is his new given name. He continues to play and looks to take advantage of a well known glitch in the game that gives the player infinite time. You look in a telescope, exit at the right moment, and presto! You’re gifted with endless minutes. Now instead, the kid exits the telescope and finds himself transported to a boss room with the creepy Skull Kid floating silently above him. Like some messed up version of linear perspective, wherever he moves Link, the Kid is always looking at him. His sweaty palms reach forward and he extends a finger to hit reset when a text prompt appears. “You’re not sure why, but apparently you had a reservation…”
How terrifyingly apt.
His shaking hand freezes. The student has played the game a dozen times, recognizes this phrase from another area of the game. He realizes that to even think a glitch like this has appeared is out of the realm of possibility and in his moments of reflection, the game spurs him on. “Go to the lair of the temple’s boss? Yes/No.” Curiosity gets the best of him and a “yes” click later, the screen fades. Suddenly, much like people in haunted houses claim to feel, the student is gut punched by an indescribable sadness; an inexorable dread.
His Link was standing in Clock Town but not like one that exists in any version of the game. All the inhabitants were missing. Yet, for some reason, he felt as though people were watching him from just outside the screen, one d-pad push away from the prying eyes of the missing citizens. He realizes slowly the song playing is distorted, jumbled. He doesn’t even recognize it… until he does. It’s the Song of Healing but playing backwards, a glitchcore fever dream. He thinks he can hear the laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman but it’s so faint and random, he’s unsure if its just his brain playing tricks on him.
He resorts to his ocarina to escape but nothing happens; the game tells him that “your notes echo far, but nothing happens.” As he continues to play the game, things continue to devolve into a Lynchian nightmare. NPCs start to move in ways they never have, that they graphically shouldn’t be able to, glimpses of Skull Kid of the Happy Mask Salesman flash at random. Finally, Link’s body bursts into flames before booting the student to the main menu. His save file is gone, replaced by a new one. YOUR TURN, the ominous name reads. He selects it to find a screen of Link dead, the Skull Kid floating above him, his maniacal laugh on loop. He hits reset again.
YOUR TURN: BEN.
Days go by and things get stranger. The student starts to have dreams of statues from the game following him, screaming Ben’s name. He returns to the house he purchased the game from and the man has moved. A neighbor, though, is able to shed some light on things. He did know a Ben; he was a young kid who was in an accident and died. His parents moved not long after. When pressed for details, he clams up. Although feeling a sense of madness, the student continues to play the game. As he delves deeper in, he begins to realize that Ben is speaking to him through the game. He’s trying to tell him what happened and finally, his story is told.
Using the tools at its disposal, the game has found a way to tell the story. But it hasn’t changed anything. Ben isn’t just following the student in the game anymore. He hears him in his sleep, he can feel him behind him travelling the halls of the school, he’s afraid to leave the dorm or even go to bed. He can’t stop playing the game. It dawns on him: Ben wants more. Then after one haunting night of play, he finally knows what Ben wants.
The next entry in this blog post is from the student’s roommate. Assuring that although he has left, he is fine. The roommate is left with details on more videos to upload. One final, harrowing message. A new save screen after a video that ends with the simple plea: “help me.”
With clever video editing skills and a deep wealth of knowledge, the online user Jadusable is able to craft one of the scariest legends of recent memory. Like storytellers before him, using paintings or ink to craft the tale, he uses the devices of our advanced time to make something that the kids of the nineties can latch onto. You can find the whole story here.
I dare you to read it, watch those videos, and not find yourself questioning whether or not you want to hit that power button on your old 64…
