Modified

Most of the stories you read about haunted video games involve someone getting the game from a yard sale or from eBay. However, this is something I brought upon myself.

I love and collect Nintendo 64 games. I usually get them in boxes with other games I bought online and then takes the ones I want to keep and put them in my collection. The ones I don't put in, I mod. I've gotten kind of good at it, so I sold a few to some friends of mine.

About a month of time, one friend wanted me to hack a copy of Ocarina of Time for him. He told me he wanted it for a creepypasta he was writing. Personally, I like some of those sotries, but I didn't understand why he wanted the game for it.

I asked him why he couldn't just do the story without a game. He said he wanted to do a video of him playing it to make the story more "real." I just kind of laughed at the idea. At least I was going to get paid for it.

The story he sent me was nothing special. He gets a copy of Ocarina of Time from eBay. He plays it and odd things happen - pallate swaps, strange sounds, backwards music, bleeding eyes, jumbled text, and other cliches found in these stories.

As you know, modding can take a while. I finally finished two days ago and sat down to test it. I had everything set up to record my playthrough. Why? Because I wanted to see how it looked after I finished testing it.

I turned it on and everything was working fine. The game started with some static, but it was supposed to do that. Like I wanted it to, the game started up a file instantly. Link was standing in the middle of Hyrule Field at night.

Link's tunic and eyes were black. There was some low moaning and some thunder sound effects. The game played just like I wanted it to; it made me feel proud of my work. That's when things started to get weird.

I was walking through Kakariko Village when there was a high-pitched scream, followed by a strange animation from Link. He quickly looked from side to side, like he was in some kind of panic, and drew his sword. This freaked me out. I didn't program that animation, nor was the sound effect anything I had put in.

I sat down the controller and went over to my computer. I didn't remember programming any new animations and wanted to see what the problem was. I looked through my programs for a specific one.

Not that long ago, I got a program named Lace. It allows me to make custom animations for Link. According to the information on it, it was last used a few days earlier. Maybe I did use it, but forgot about it. But...what about the scream? I didn't have anything like it in any of my sound files.

Suddenly, there were noises coming from the game. I went back and Link was surrounded by ten Cuccos in a circle. They were just sitting there, looking at Link. I had made their eyes red to make them look creepy, and it sure did work.

As soon as I moved the analog stick, they all swarmed him and he was dead in an instant. If that wasn't enough, the Running Man (the guy you sell the Bunny Hood to) ran up. A dialogue box popped up for him.

"YOU POOR THING. IF ONLY YOU HAD MINDED YOUR OWN BUSINESS. YOU WILL LEARN. THEY ALL LEARN."

That's when the game froze. I didn't program any of that stuff. In a panic, I turned off the game and went to my computer. I looked at the video to confirm what just happened. None of what I had seen was on the video. The scream, panicked Link, the Cuccos, the Running Man...none of it was there.

It was just Link standing there for a while befor ethe game froze. I went through the game's programming and played it a few times again. I could never get that same thing to happen.I told my friend about it, but he thought I was just messing with him. I'm glad I no longer have that cursed thing.

I even got paid for it.

Black Wind

I don't think a lot of people particularly awaited the release of Wind Waker, seeming as it had cartoon-like graphics. I did. I didn't care about the graphics, if it was a Zelda game, I was going to get it. I wasn't able to buy Wind Waker as soon as it came out due to monetary issues. I would walk by the game in stores over and over and drool on myself for it.

I was driving home from work at Walmart, and I noticed a few yard sales, I didn't stop at any of them, just gawked at them as I drove by, like most people do. I saw the dark and creepy house that I drove by twice daily. I never liked that house. It had spray-painted black windows, and the outside paneling was a faded white color. The house was an old two-story house, one of those that if it was refurbished, it could have been a sight to see.

There was only one table in the front lawn, with only one item on it, and a sign that hung on the table said: "Take what you want". I don't know why I pulled over and walked up to the table for, but once I set my eyes on the item, I had happy butterflies in my stomach. There, on that table, was a retangular item with ducktape on it, and it said: Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker in black sharpie across the tape. I ran to my car and pulled out of the drive way and continued my drive home. I probably should have known better than to take that game.

I got home, parked in a hurry, and ran inside, turning on my TV, and my Gamecube. I struggled with getting the tape off the game case, but once I did, I could behold the glory of the casing, just like those at Walmart I'd seen countless times. I opened the case, and it surprised me that the disk was only a black disk, no title, nothing on it. There was a memory card in the card holder, too. I slid the game and memory card into my Gamecube, and the title screen came up.

You could see immediatly this was not the correct Wind Waker opening, even though I never played it before. The sky was pitch black with nothing dotting the black wall. When the animation went down you could see the sea was a sickening red color, just like blood. Where it supposed to say 'Wind Waker' it said 'Black Wind'

Needless-to-say, I hit start as fast as humanly possible, and there was one other save file called "Evra". I erased it so that I could have the File 1 save slot, and I started my adventure naming Link Usagi. I usually kept Link's name, but this time I didn't. The little beginning story popped up, and I read it with excitement, temporarily forgetting the weird title screen. When the story was over, and the animation to take you around Outset Island came up, it definitely wasn't normal.

The sea was red just like in the beginning, the terrain was just red dirt, and burnt-down houses, there was no bridge, no pigs, no crabs, no nothing. No one was there, and there wasn't even the canoes on the shore. When the game moved to your grandma's house, all you could see apart from the ruins, was an arm that was barely visible underneith all the rubble.

The game immediately switched from that island to Windfall, where, I persume, our hero had escaped to by a canoe, since there was one floating a few feet off the shores of the island in the red sea. I could freely control Link around, and this town seemed undamaged from my point on the docks, but the music was not that of Windfalls, but it was a creepy tune.

I ran into the bomb shop that sat on the upraised part of Windfall overlooking a cliff, inside was an open coffin, and when I walked up to it and looked in it, I immediatly wished I hadn't. It was Medli, her eyes were open, but all that there was was two empty eye sockets, and dried up tear stains that had run down her cheeks from when she was still alive and had eyes. Her beak was bent and broken, and her body was torn and bloody.

I ran out of there, feeling sick to my stomach, and ran to where the grave was supposed to be where the Elvis-impersonator was supposed to be dancing. There was no grave or Elvis-like person. Just the Killer Bees. As you got closer, you could see that one was missing and they were standing over something. They were standing over their dead leader, who had a huge chunk of his stomach missing, and his blood was soaking into the other's clothes, as they had blood stains all over them. I ran out to that cove where the King of Red Lions was supposed to be, and found only the old man that would chase you and try to tell you of his missing daughter.

When spoken to, all he said was:

You better run... run... run... HE'll get you... Evra will...

I tried to head his warning, but to no advail, there was no way off this island. After a few more minutes of wildly running around, and trying to ignore dead bodies and people without eyes constantly trying to stare at you, the game seemed to freeze and went to a black screen.

Before I had the chance to push the power button on the Gamecube, a screen popped up, and you were at the Forsaken Fortress, with huge gusts of wind blowing everything around. The enemies would go flying out into the blood red sea. The wind wasn't shown with the normal white curly lines, but with black lines, and a huge cyclone started to head towards the fortress.

I ran into the interior of the fort, and to my intense dismay, there was a person hanging from the cealing, with stab wounds that were steadily dripping blood on the floor. The person was not one that should have ever been in the game. It was a white man, with only pants on, he had longish black hair. The stab wounds on his chest said 'Evra'. and the man who I had presumed was dead, opened his eyes, and the rope holding him to the ceiling snapped.

Link bounced and landed on the floor, trying to recover from falling, the man advanced apon my character, and I was unable to control Link, who just watched as the man walked to him.

The man I persumed to be the 'Evra' the man had talked about, drew out a knife, and the animation cut off to black, and an ear-splitting scream came from the TV. I turned the game off, and I threw the game into a garbage can, and set wood into the can, and set it on fire. I will never forget this hacked and twisted version of Wind Waker.

The Flood

Why did Hyrule flood? Was it the Gods, as Wind Waker claims, or was it something more?

After Link defeated Ganon/Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time, he was given the choice to either stay as an adult or go back to enjoy his childhood. If he decided to go back to his childhood, he would eventually go to Termina. Because Termina is a parallel universe to Hyrule, the Gods had created an exact replica of Link just in case Ganon was to return, as if they had no idea where Link was.

This brings up another question. Are there different gods in Termina? One could assume that after Link left Hyrule, he was brought out of the Gods' reach. If so, this explains why the Triforce wasn't depicted or spoken about in any way.

The Terminian gods may actually be the four giants. Although they appear to be in an eternal slumber, waiting to be asked forth in using their godly might, the giants are considered to be guardians (not deities); however, they have been told to have created the world.

However, if one considers the term deity, it may bring to mind the form of which Link takes from wearing the Fierce Deity's Mask. The physical attributes Link acquires in this state could only be put as that of a god's. He gains a huge stature, tribal markings, an enchanted sword, and near-invincibility.

The reason you would think he was too powerful is that the mask is only able to be worn during boss fights. The only way to counter this is to perform a glitch or enter a Gameshark cheat that allows you to wear it outside battle. When these requirements have been met, you can easily compare the drastic changes in the green hero's size to that of a normal Terminian.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have Majora. Was the beast from which the mask was carved considered a demonic being? All the factors explaining his malevolent personality point toward this.

The mask was sealed for eternity after being carved because of its extraordinary powers. At the end of the game, the Happy Mask Salesman gets his mask back, but its power is apparently drained. After this, he vanishes out of sight forever.

Now, take a look at Wind Waker. It's based several hundred years after the events of Ocarina of Time. The prologue explains that the hero had saved Hyrule from darkness and left Hyrule in peace. However, it then details an evil coming back to Hyrule, for which the hero didn't appear.

Maybe this hero was too busy somewhere else. Maybe he was in Termina. This could support the theory of Link returning back to his childhood and visiting Termina soon after, leaving Hyrule off-guard to dark forces.

But what exactly are these dark forces? One theory claims that the Happy Mask Salesman went back to Hyrule and used Majora's Mask to take over the kingdom.

From this brings an even more realistic idea. In the events of Majora's Mask, Link has to stop the moon from crashing into Termina. If this were to happen again in Hyrule, what would be the consequences? Could the moon have smashed into Lake Hylia or a bigger body of water to create a flood? Or was it someone else...someone who wanted to gain revenge for meeting his terrible fate? Someone who drowned?

Glitch

I wanted to replay my old N64 games. I love The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, so there was no question as to what I wanted to play first. After a few minutes of plugging my Nintendo 64 console into the TV, I blew the dust off and popped in Majora's Mask.

The game started as normal, so I picked a slot and started a new game. The intro started normally, with Link and Epona in the woods. It continued normally with Skull Kid appearing and stealing Epona. Link was dragged around while trying to hold onto that horse, but when he was thrown off, he died as soon as he hit the ground.

I sat there, surprised. How could that happen? It was playing the death music and showed the Game Over screen. Curious, I pressed continue and ended up back at the forest where you chase Skull Kid.

The health bar was gone and my inventory was full of Ocarinas. Every slot, instead of being empty as it should, was an Ocarina.

I began to feel uneasy, but kept moving forward until I reached the scene where Link was transformed into a Deku Scrub. The scene ended with Link dying again, which made me want to shut off my console. I didn't, however, and continued playing. Nothing of interest happened while on the way to Clock Town; everything was normal except for my inventory.

I reached the scene where Link enters Clock Town and meets the Happy Mask Salesman. When the scene ended, Link died again. I continued on, exploring Clock Town. Oddly, everything that used a text box caused Link to die. Clock Town was relatively fine; nothing was deranged like in other stories. I just died when something happened. There was no health bar and way too many ocarinas, but I kept dying.

I eventually reached the Great Fairy. I ran towards the fountain and she sprang up. Unfortunately, all she said was "000000000000000000" and scrambled words. I proceeded past the gibberish and got the magic bar, but Link died afterward. The scene repeated enlessly and I couldn't do anything, so I shut off my N64.

As of today, I still have the cartridge and my N64. Both work great. I think what happened was some sort of cartridge glitch that happens when the cartridges get old. This happened only once and a few years ago at that, so I have no pictures or video to support my claims.

Oh well...back to playing Majora's Mask.

The Dying Soldier

Has anyone heard of the dying soldier from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time?

Many simply pass by him in Back Alley of Hyrule Castle's Market Town, but in the finished game he appears right after you get the Ocarina of Time and tells you to go to the Temple of Time. After telling you this, he stops moving and is presumably dead.

However, in an early build of the game he played a very different role and led you to a different place.

Just like many who played the finished version, many testers passed over the dying soldier. Those who found him were treated with a surprise. For finding him, they were given a key to Hyrule Castle. Some testers thought this key would lead them to the Triforce, as the key had the Triforce symbol engraved upon it.

They followed the tip the soldier gave and entered the path leading to Hyrule Castle. When they entered, they noticed something was off. There were no guards protecting the grounds from tresspassers. The gate was open. The sound was mute.

As this was an early build of the game, the testers thought this was a simple glitch or bug.

They eventually found their way into an all-new section of Hyrule Castle and continued until they ended up at a locked door. They used the key given to them by the soldier to unlock this door.

Link opened the door very slowly after unlocking it, as if he didn't want to enter, but eventually the door was open and Link walked into the darkness.

A new environment opened up; it was the hall you could see through the window when you first met Zelda. Ganondorf wasn't present and guards were nowhere in sight. But there was...something...that the testers would never forget:

On the other side of the room, they saw the bloody remains of the King of Hyrule. Most testers screamed and some even stopped playing. It was quite a horrific sight. They assumed the king was dead, but when Link walked up to him, a text box opened up.

"He said he would bring help, not a child..."

h b i s r ea l

Here it is, the long awai-;;;..///;'BREAK;///////////;.

Predator

Okay, folks, this is gonna sound very weird, but it’s just what happened to me. I just don’t really know what I should do, probably no one can tell me what to do - this is just really wearing me down, and I don’t think I can carry on much longer.

My name is Richard Talsey, and I live in a small suburb (sorry, folks, not gonna tell you where). I’m 72 years old, I lived a happy life and I still try to make the most of it. My wife died half a year ago, my son made a career selling costumes and I have three wonderful grandchildren. I kind of thought that I mastered most of what life would put up against me - seems I was wrong.

It all started about a week ago, on the weekend. After my wife had died - god bless her - I found that the house we had bought was just too large for me to life in alone, so I decided to move to a smaller apartment that would suit my needs better (less cleaning, less fear of burglars...) I managed to contact a guy downtown who dealt with real estate, and I was able to get myself a good deal. I was supposed to move there next week, but right now, I’m not sure... I just don’t know anymore what is about to happen.

As I said - I was about to get ready to move, so I finally got an excuse to tidy up the attic. I’m not very attached to physical keepsakes anymore, so the mess up there was more because of my laziness than anything else. I had gotten rid of most of my wife’s belongings in the months after her death - some went to my son, my grandchildren wanted some souvenirs, the rest was mostly just sold or thrown away - so it wasn’t THAT much to sort out, mainly old furniture, some old finger paintings from when my son was three years old, some stuff from my grandchildren, old newspapers, stuff like that. I figured it couldn’t hurt try to make some cash out of that (and I had nothing better to do that weekend), so I registered for the garage sale that’s being held in my neighbourhood once every two months and sorted out the stuff I wanted to sell after calling my family to ask if they wanted to keep anything. They said they were fine, so on sunday morning I just threw most of the things and set up the old garden table in front of my house.

I think I shouldn’t have. I wish I hadn’t.

I still remember it vividly - it was a bright, sunny day and I thought to myself “What a wonderful day this is gonna be.” I lazily sat in a garden chair, enjoying the sun, having some hot dogs, just living the life. I noticed I still hadn’t come around to removing the “For Sale!” sign in my front lawn, and that I probably should get rid of it before people called me about it.

My house is situated a little off the main road, so not too many people came around to buy stuff, but I still was able to get rid of most of the furniture, some old paintings and most of the toys of my grandchildren. Granted, it wasn’t as busy as on the main roads, but I was able to sit in the sun - so what’s not to like?

I should have known this was too good to be true.

It was about 4 p.m. when the other shoe dropped. I was just watching a blackbird trying to wrestle a worm out of the ground, when suddenly a chill run down my back. I’m not a superstitious person, but I still looked over my shoulder, it just felt like a bad omen or something. And that’s when I saw him.

A guy, about 18 years old, harmless appearance, average looking slowly drove up to my house. There was nothing special about him, but I can’t put my finger on it - there was just something about him that put me on edge, something in his eye - it seemed as he was being followed, he seemed hunted, some nervous twinkle in his eye. Cautiously, he watched his surroundings as he stopped the car and got out and for a second I thought he was just making sure the coast was clear to mug me - but the street wasn’t THAT empty and I know my neighbours would have come to help right away, so I forced myself to smile and greeted him.

He wouldn’t answer, just stare at me with eyes wide open, with a slight air of disgust on his face. I noticed he stared at my blind eye (I suffered from a cataract a few years ago) with open revulsion and remember thinking to myself how rude this was. After a few awkward seconds of silence I swallowed my hurt feelings, cleared my throat, forced myself to smile again and asked him how I could help him.

As I started to speak, he flinched, like I just awoke him from some weird kind of trance or something, hastily looked over his shoulder and mumbled something about “old video games”. I remembered my grandson used to own a Nintendo, so I got up, told him I’d be right back and hurried to the garage, as I didn’t really trust him being alone with my stand. I picked up the box of games (the console had already been sold) and went back outside, half expecting to see him making off with some of my stuff - but instead he was just gazing at the finger paintings of my son with a moony glaze over his eyes. I started to feel really uncomfortable with this guy pawing paintings of my son, and I started to suspect he was on some kind of drug.

He didn’t notice me until I made it all the way back to the table and cleared my throat. I hadn’t thought he had spaced out that much, but the kid just let out a shriek, jumped and snarled at me like an animal. I instinctively shifted backwards a bit as the snarl slowly mutated into a giggle, which then boiled up into a loud, maniacal laughter while he eyed me with some kind of creepy curiosity that made me feel VERY uncomfortable. After he ran out of air, he kept standing there, slightly bent over as if he was just getting ready to lunge at me, heavily breathing. The twinkle of madness in his eyes had intensified, I think, maybe it was just my nerves - but this kid just had something on him, I don’t know. My instincts told me to just run, to get into the house and lock the doors and just not care what happened to my stuff.

I wish I had done that. I wanted to do it - but I just couldn’t move, paralyzed of fear, while he was standing there, just staring at me, without ever blinking, a crooked smile frozen on his face.

Again, a few awkward seconds passed until I nervously reached into the box, pulled out the next best thing that i found and handed it over to him.

I prayed he didn’t notice my hand was shaking in terror.

With a hasty movement, he snatched the game out of my hand and inspected it, turning it again and again in his hands as if he found something special. About half a minute, maybe a minute passed while he was eagerly inspecting every edge of the game I just handed him - I still don’t know which one it was - until he suddenly froze, his head flipped around to face me and his stare pierced into my heart.

“How much?”, he snarled again, and something about his voice made my instincts boil up again and it took all my willpower to not just run away until I could not run anymore. At this moment, I would have done everything to get as far away as I could, and I had the terrible feeling that I’d better make him happy with the price.

I collected what was left of my courage, licked over my dry lips, smiled nervously and told him he could have it if he wanted to, that it was just something my grandson left here and I didn’t need it anymore - I don’t recall anymore what exactly I said, I just wanted to finally get him to drive away, far away from me. For a short, endless moment he just stood there, staring at me, then his smile got a little broader and he nodded. “Gooood”, he said, at least I think what it was, it was more like a growling noise with the “oo” pulled into length, it lasted about ten seconds, if not longer.

“Thank you.” He nodded again and turned towards his car, and I felt like a giant weight just got lifted off my shoulders. I forced myself to smile and said something about the lines of “Well, have fun with the game... g’bye, man...”, but he completely ignored me, got into his car and made off. I watched his car go down the whole street, where it turned and vanished around a corner, but something stayed behing - the sun just didn’t feel as warm anymore, the birds had stopped singing and I felt a weird feeling of nausea building inside of me.

This evening, I burned all of the finger paintings of my son. They felt tainted, smirched in some twisted kind of way and I couldn’t even stand seeing them anymore let alone touch them. As they burned into ash, I felt like a part of my past burst into flames, but it felt relieving - as if I had traded a part of my memories for being rescued from a greater evil.

If only I knew this was only the beginning.

That night, I had a dream. I dreamt of the creepy guy standing in front of my bed, staring at me with his lunatic gaze, just staring at me, letting out a light snarl every time he would breathe out, while I just couldn’t move a muscle. And while I was just lying there, his face would come closer, become bigger, until his madness-ridden eyes filled up my entire field of vision, and then his snarling started forming words: “I suffer because of you.”

I awoke shaking in terror and started searching furiously for the light switch of my nightstand, knocking over my bottle of water and the telephone in the progress. When I finally flicked the switch, it took me several minutes to realize it had just been a dream. It felt all too real, and I got no sleep for the rest of the night.

The next day, I called my son, Thomas, about the incident. He laughed at first, but he soon realized I was dead serious and agreed to come over to see me, but I couldn’t handle sitting in the house, so we drove downtown and took a stroll in the park while I told him in detail what happened. After I finished, he remained silent for a while we strolled through the tree-edged pathways. “Well, dad”, he finally said, “I think... I don’t know what to think. But he’s gone now, isn’t he?”

I think the situation really got to him. I have never been a person to be scared easily, I never was superstitious and I think this might have been the first time he ever saw me this shaken up. I pretended to feel better and told him that it helped me getting the story off my chest, but I didn’t. There was something that kept sticking to me since I met that guy, some sinister, unquiet essence that I couldn’t get off no matter how hard I tried. I caught myself watching over my shoulder frequently, always fearing to see him sneaking up to me, snarling in his inhuman voice, staring at me with his unsettling eyes...

That night, I tried not to fall asleep. I put myself in front of the television, made myself a thermos can full of coffee and one with black tea and turned on the lights in the whole house. Nevertheless, at about 3 a.m., I started to notice how I kept dozing off, and I finally decided to give in to the temptation and just sleep on the couch, with the lights on.

I woke up half an hour later, screaming. I didn’t remember much of the dream I had, but the animal guy was in there, banging onto my door, and when I didn’t open, he crushed it open, but he had fangs and claws, and when he snarled at me, his eyes would glow in a faint yellow tone... I remembered running through a dark forest, then I felt something hitting my back, me falling down, and then - nothing.

Shivering, I checked the windows. Nothing seemed wrong - it was dark and silent outside, the street lights and the moon lit up the street just enough to see that noone was out there, when suddenly a noise came from up above. Immediately I froze, listening into the silence. Then I heard it again - a faint thudding noise, as if something - or someone - was on the roof.

I was too scared to go check it out, but the sound resumed for about half an hour before it stopped. I managed to get another two or three hours of sleep before the sun set, and I couldn’t get myself to sleep after that, so I made new coffee and showered for half an hour - but even that was not enough to get rid of the haunting feeling that just stuck to me like a barnacle. Afterwards, I forced myself to eat some breakfast and decided to take a walk again to take my mind of stuff, telling myself that I’d be moving soon and will never have to see him again.

It worked. For the first time since I met the kid, I was able to relax a bit, just doing some of the stuff old men my age are compelled to do - feeding some ducks, strolling around aimlessly, having a hot chocolate in a street cafe. The suspense of the encounter started to finally fall off my chest and I was able to unwind, and I felt genuinely relieved when I returned to my house at about 5 p.m. I just drove up the drive as my neighbour, Tyler, waved to me and walked over to my car. I noticed he looked a little nervous.

“Hey, Tyler”, I greeted him. “How are ya?” - “Hi, Richard...” I was not mistaken - Tyler WAS nervous. “Umm, have you been expecting visitors...? Like, a young guy?”

My blood froze.

“There was a young guy, about 18 I guess, ringing your bell earlier. He was also there yesterday, furiously ringing when you were at the park, and today he rang my bell and started asking questions about your family... Do you know who I mean?” I could only force myself to nod faintly, and all the blood must have rushed from my head. “Richard... are you okay?”, Tyler asked me. I only faintly remember him helping me out of the car and into the house. I could have been mistaken, but I could have sworn there was a faint stench in the air as I walked up to my door. A stench of wild animal. A predator’s smell.

My memories do not clear up until about an hour later. Tyler was still with me, I remember him giving me a glass of water. Finally, he was able to tell me what happened. The predator kid came back. He furiously rang the bell, then he knocked on my door. Just like in my dream. He tried to break the door open, but left, went around the house and looked for an entry point. I can only thank god I remembered to lock all the windows, the thought of coming back and him being in my house still haunts me at night.

Finally, the predator kid started to harass my neighbours. He went up to Tyler who had just been mowing his lawn, and Tyler described him just as I remembered the guy - just even more down-and-out. He seems to have had giant bags under his eyes, unkempt hair and a wild, hunting look in his eyes, and he wanted to know things about my family. More specifically, about my grandson.

Tyler was quick on the uptake, always had been, and so he apparently made up some cover-up story about me having no family and my grandson being related to someone else and having died years ago. At this point, I was too terrified to even think and I interrupted Tyler, hurried over to the phone and called my grandson. He was the one who once owned the game I gave to the predator kid. The thought of my grandson being tracked down by him gave me the chills.

He didn’t pick up.

That night, I had another nightmare. I was standing in front of some kind of stone altar, in the middle of the forest. I could see the full moon shining through the leaves, but it was blood red and seemed unnatural and... evil. I can’t put my finger on it, but there was something in the air, something weird, something wrong, and it terrified me to the core.

As I looked around, suddenly I heard a noise behind me. I jerked around, just to see a shadow vanish in the corner of my eye. Then it was silent again. Suddenly something hit me in the back of my head, and I spun around again - and there he was, the predator kid, sitting atop the stone altar. He was now entirely inhuman, but I still know it was him, from the eerie, mad glow in his eyes, even though his skin had been replaced by ruffled, oily fur and his face was a parody of a human’s features wildly mixed with an animal’s snout and large, pointy, yellow teeth dripping with splittle. As he watched me, his facial feature’s slowly turned, mutated, changed, until there was my grandson staring back at me with an expression of fear and agony, propped up on the monstrous body of the unnatural beast. I awoke, shaking in terror again.

After a few seconds of listening anxiously into the darkness, I heard the thumping again. It was here. It was on my roof. For a second, I hesitated, but this had all gotten far too real for me - my grandson was in danger, and for him I would confront the abomination. I would kill it.

Without turning the light, I got dressed as fast and as silent as I could and grabbed the revolver I always keep in my nightstand. I’m not the trigger happy type, and I never had to use it before - hell, I haven’t even fired it for years, and I could only hope that it wouldn’t quit working just now. Cautiously, I climbed the stairs to the second floor, and up the stairs to the attic. My heart pounding, I put my ear against the door. I heard a faint scratching. Someone, no - something was in there. And I knew what it was.

I took a deep breath. I just wished I had thought of taking a flashlight with me, but as it was I had to take it in the dark, but fortunately the full moon was still out and my eyes had already adapted to the darkness - and my attic had large windows. One second passed, two, another deep breath, a short moment of hesitation - then I burst the door open and pulled the gun.

A shadow lunged at me, something heavy threw me backwards and I felt sharp teeth dig into my forearm. Panicking, I fired a shot into the air, and suddenly, the weight was gone and a large, furry shadow scurried through the attic, always cautious to remain in the dark and then jumping out of a window.

It was broken. Someone smashed it open from the outside and I didn’t notice.

The creature had been inside my house all along.

That was yesterday. I moved out of my house with my gun and told my son and grandchildren to go somewhere safe. To not go outside at night. To not speak to strangers. I spend the day following that incident doing research, Tyler, clever, smart Tyler jotted down the license place of that guy’s car. I was able to track him down. I know where the creature lives. And I will confront it.

I spent last night in a hotel room outside of town. I had nightmares again, the creature tormented my grandson again. I will not tolerate this anymore. I will end this, once and for all, for my family, for their future. As I'm writing this, I have my loaded gun next to me and nothing to lose. I do not know how I drew its attention, why it chose me or how my grandson plays into it. Maybe it picked up his smell from the game. Maybe it wants to taunt me by killing my family before it finishes me. Maybe I'm just slowly turning mad. I surely hope so, because if I am, there is no way my family could be hurt.

I will make sure my family doesn’t get hurt. I will email this summary of my last day’s to my grandson - he’s old enough and he has a right to know what might await him if I fail. I will drive to his apartment this afternoon, leave here at about four. That means I will confront the vile beast about twenty minutes later. If my grandson does not hear anything from me after seven p.m., he will know that I failed and spread this file to whomever it may concern.

Thomas, I have always loved you and you are my pride. I could not have wished for a better son. And my grandchildren - I love all of you dearly. I wish I could have been a better gramps for you, but I fear we won’t have too much time together left. I love all of you. Please hold my memory dear.

I love you dearly.

Richard

_________

My grandfather emailed this file to me two days ago. We haven’t heard of him ever since. In his house, we found one of the roof windows smashed, and on the inside, we found traces of blood and animal feces. The police said it was a marten. I don’t know about that.

I asked around, and the college said they knew nothing about an older man on the campus. I don’t know what happened. I just hope he’s okay. So far, I haven’t had any strange encounters, but I had a dream last night. I was on a clearing in the forest, and I started to grow fur, and I howled at the moon and then... I don’t know. This is probably just all too much.

I haven’t told my siblings, Rosa and Matt, of this. Neither does dad know, besides the talk he had with gramps on the second day. I don’t want to drag them into this. I kind of have a feeling that this is something I have to deal with, but it was gramps’ last wish to publish his story, so here you go.

If you know anything about this or have any idea what could have happened, please feel free to drop me a line. I just hope I’ll be alright.

-Ben

(This story is credited to a person called Astartus.)

Jadusable's ARG is Back!

Decided to post this on a new post, since the Majora post was getting way too long to handle.

The ARG that Jadusable started is back in full swing. There aren't any Moon Children this time around; instead, there's this guy called Ryukaki being forced to run the course. (Youtube | DeviantART (Inactive since '07) | Photobucket (Passworded since 10/8) | Mediafire)

Ryukaki has already posted a handful of videos onto his Youtube account, all of which are directly related to the ARG and are slightly disturbing in nature. Of note, there is sounds.wmv - which is mostly uneventful until two eye-like orbs are seen - and music.wmv - a detailing of the strange phone calls that many users got from posting their phone number on youshouldnthavedonethat.net while it was the Moon Children website.

It's really confusing from here on out, guys... I'd just stay out of it and keep track of things here if I were you.

Majora

(Long story + Videos + Ass-ton of Comments = Occasional Page Lockup. If you would rather view this with each video + story being separate, click here.)

I recently moved into my dorm room starting as a Sophomore in college and a friend of mine gave me his old Nintendo 64 to play. I was stoked, to say the least. I could finally play all those old games of my youth I hadn't touched in least a decade.

His Nintendo 64 came with one yellow controller and a rather shoddy copy of Super Smash Brothers and, while beggers can't be choosers, it didn't take long before I got bored of beating up LVL 9 CPUs.

That weekend, I decided to drive around a few neighborhoods about twenty minutes or so off-campus, hitting up the local garage sales. I was hoping to score some good deals from ignorant parents. I ended up picking up a a copy of Pokemon Stadium, Goldeneye, F-Zero, and two other controllers for two dollars.

Satisfied, I began to drive out of the neighborhood when one last house caught my attention. I still have no idea why it did; there were no cars there and only one table was set up with random junk on it. However, something sort of drew me there.

I usually trust my gut on these things, so I got out of the car and was greeted by an old man. His outward appearance was, for lack of a better word, displeasing. It was odd. If you asked me why I thought he looked displeasing, I couldn't really pinpoint anything.

There was just something about him that put me on edge. I can't explain it. All I can tell you that if it wasn't in the middle of the afternoon and there weren't other people within shouting distance, I wouldn't have even thought of approaching this man.

He flashed a crooked smile at me and asked what I was looking for. Immediately, I noticed he must be blind in one eye; his right eye had that "glazed over" look about it. I forced myself to look to his left eye, trying not to offend, and asked if he had any old video games.

I was already wondering how I could politely excuse myself from the situation when he would tell me he had no idea what a video game was, but to my surprise he said he had a few in an old box. He assured me he'd be back in a "jiffy" and turned to head back into the garage.

As I watched him hobble away, I couldn't help but notice what he was selling on his table. Littered across his table were rather...peculiar paintings - various artworks that looked like ink blots a psychiatrist might show you.

Curious, I looked through them. It was obvious why no one was visiting this guy's garage sale; these weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing. As I came to the last one, I noticed it looked almost like Majora's Mask, with the same heart-shaped body with the little spikes protruding outward.

Initially, I just thought that since I was secretly hoping to find that game at these garage sales, some Freudian bullshit was projecting itself into the ink blots. However, given the events that happened after, I'm not so sure now. I should have asked the man about it. I wish I asked the man about it.

After staring at the Majora-shaped blot, I looked up and the old man was suddenly there again, arms-length in front of me and smiling. I'll admit, I jumped out of reflexa nd laughed nervously as he handed me a Nintendo 64 cartridge.

It was the standard gray color and had no label. Someone had written Majora on it in black permanent marker. I got butterflies in my stomach as I realized what a coincidence it was and asked how much the old man wanted for it.

The old man smiled and told me I could have it for free. He said it used to belong to a kid around my age that didn't live here anymore. There was something weird about how he phrased that, but I didn't really any attention then. I was too caught up in not only finding the game, but getting it for free.

I reminded myself to be a bit skeptical since this looked like a pretty shady cartridge and there was no guarantee it would work. However, the optimist inside me interjected that maybe it was some kind of beta or pirated version of the game. That was all I needed to be back on cloud nine.

I thanked the man, who smiled and wished me well, saying "Goodbye then," which at the time is what it sounded like to me. All the way in the car ride home, I had a nagging doubt that the man had said something else.

My fears were confirmed when I booted up the game (to my surprise, it worked just fine) and there was one save file simply named, "BEN." The man was saying, "Goodbye, Ben." I felt bad for him. He was obviously a grandparent going senile. I, for some reason or another, reminded him of his grandson, "Ben."

Out of curiosity, I looked at the save file. I could tell he was pretty far in the game; he had almost all of the masks and 3/4 boss remains. I noticed he had used an owl statue to save his game. He was on Day 3 by the Stone Tower Temple with hardly an hour before the moon would crash.

I remember thinking it was a shame he had come so close to beating the game but never finished it. I made a new file named "Link," out of tradition, and started the game. I was ready to relive my childhood.

For such a shady looking cartridge, I was impressed at how smoothly it ran - literally just like a retail copy of the game, save for few minor hiccups here and there (textures being where they should be, random flashes of cutscenes at odd intervals, nothing too bad).

However, the only thing that was a little unnerving was that, at times, the NPCs would call me "Link" and call me "BEN" at other times. I figured it was a bug, maybe a fluke in the programming, that caused our save files to get mixed up or something.

It did kind of creep me out after a while, though. Around the time I beat Woodfall temple, I regretably erased the "BEN" file. I had intended to preserve the file out of respect for the game's original owner. It's not like I needed two files anyway.

I hoped that would solve the problem. It did and didn't. Now NPCs wouldn't call me anything. Where my name should be in the dialogue was a blank space (my save file was still called "Link," however). Frustrated and with homework to do, I put the game down for a day.

I started playing the game again last night, getting the Lens of Truth and working my way toward completing Snowhead Temple. Now, some of you more hardcore Majora's Mask players know about the "4th Day" glitch. For those who don't, you can google it.

The gist of it is that right as the clock is about to hit 00:00:00 on the final day, you talk to the astronomer and look through the telescope. If you exit the telescope just as the timer hits 00:00:00, the countdown disappears and you essentially have an endless amount of time to finish whatever you were doing.

Deciding to do the glitch to try and finish Snowhead Temple, I went in and tried. I happened to get it right on the first time and the counter at the bottom disappeared.

When I exited the telescope, I found myself in the Majora boss room at the end of the game (the trippy boxed in area), staring at Skull Kid hovering above me. There was no sound, just him floating in the air above me and the background music, which was regular for the area (but still creepy).

Immediately, my palms began to sweat. This was definitely not normal. Skull Kid NEVER appeared here. I tried moving around the area and, n omatter where I went, Skull Kid would always be facing me, not saying anything.

Nothing would happen and this kept up for around sixty seconds. I thought the game was bugged or something, but I was beginning to doubt that very much.

I was about to reach for the reset button when text appeared on the screen. "You're not sure why, but you apparently had a reservation..." I instantly recognized that text. You get that message when you get the Room Key from Anju at the Stock Pot Inn. Why was it playing here?

I refused to entertain the nothing that it was almost as if the game was trying to communicate with me. I started to walk around the room again, testing if that was some sort of trigger that enabled me to interact with something before realizing how stupid I was.

To even think that someone could reprogram the game like this was absurd. Sure enough, though, another message appeared on the screen fifteen seconds later and, like the first one, it was already a preexisting phrase. "Go to the lair of the temple's boss? Yes/No"

I paused for a second, contemplating what I should press and how the game would react, when I realized I couldn't select No. Taking a deep breath, I pressed Yes and the screen faded to white, with the words "Dawn of a New Day" and the subtext "||||||||" beneath it.

Where I was transported to filled me with the most intense sense of dread and impending fear I have ever experienced. The only way I can describe the way I felt here is having this feeling of inexplicable depression on a profound scale.

I'm not normally a depressed person, but the way I felt here was a feeling I didn't even know existed. It was such a twisted, powerful presence that seemed to wash right over me.

I appeared in some kind of weird Twilight Zone version of Clock Town. I walked out of the Clock Tower (as you normally do when you start from the 1st Day) only to find all the inhabitants were gone. Usually with the 4th Day glitch, you can still find the guards and the dog that runs around outside the tower, but they were all gone.

What replaced them was the ominous feeling there was something out there, in the same area as me, and it was watching me. I had four hearts ot my name and the Hero's Bow, but at this point I wasn't even considering for my avatar. I felt that I personally was in some kind of danger.

Perhaps the most chilling thing was the music. It was the Song of Healing, ripped straight from the game and played in reverse. The music would get louder, building up so you should expect something to pop out at you, but nothing ever did and the constant loop began to wear on my mental state.

Every now and then, I would hear the faint laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman in the background. It was just quiet enough that I wasn't sure if I was just hearing things, but just loud enough to keep me determined to find him.

I looked in all four zones of Clock Town only to find nothing...and no one. Textures were missing, too. West Clock town had me walking on air and the entire area felt...broken. Hopelessly broken.

As the reverse Song of Healing repeated for what must have been the 50t time, I remember standing in the middle of South Clock town realizing that I had never felt so alone in a video game before.

As I walked through the ghost town, I don't know whether it was the combination of the out-of-place textures, the atmosphere, and the haunting melody of the once peaceful and soothing song being butchered and distorted, but I was literally on the verge of tears and I had no idea why. I hardly ever cry, but something had gripped me here and caused this powerful sense of depression that was both foreign and crippling.

I tried leaving Clock Town, but every time I went through one of the exits, the screen would fade to black and I would enter another zone of Clock Town. I tried playing my Ocarina. I wanted to escape; I did NOT want to be here. However, every time I played the Song of Time or Song of Soaring, it would only say, "Your notes echo far, but nothing happens."

By this point, it was obvious the game didn't want me to leave, but I had no idea why it was keeping me here. I didn't want to go inside buildings; I felt I would be too vulnerable to whatever I was terrified of. I don't know why, but I came up with the idea that if I drowned myself at the Laundry Pool, I could spawn elsewhere and leave.

As I ran toward the pool, it happened. Link grabbed his head and the screen flashed for a brief moment of the Happy Mask Saleman smiling at me - not Link, but ME - with the Skull Kid's scream playing in the background. When the screen returned, I was staring at the Link Statue usually created by playing the Elegy of Emptiness.

I screamed as the thing stared back at me with that haunting facial expression. I turned around and ran back to South Clock Town. To my horror, the fucking statue followed me in a way I can only describe as being similar to the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who.

Every so often, at random intervals, the animation would play of the statue appearing behind me. It was like the thing was chasing me, or - I don't even want to fucking say it - haunting me.

By this point, I was on the verge of hysterics. However, not even once did the thought of turning off the console occur to me. I don't know why, but I was so wrapped up in it. The terror felt all so real. I tried to shake the statue, but it would literally appear right behind me every single time it went off-screen.

Link started to make weird animations I had never seen him do. He would flail his arms around or spasm randomly. The screen would cut to the Happy Mask Salesman smiling again for a brief moment before I was face to face with that fucking statue again.

I ended up running into the Swordsmaster's Dojo and ran to he back. I don't know why, but in my panic I wanted some kind of assurance I wasn't alone. To my dismay, I found no one. As I turned to leave, the statue cornered me in the cubby in the back.

I tried attacking the statue with my sword, but to no avail. Confused and backed into a corner, I stared at the statue and waited for it to kill me. Suddenly, the screen flashed again to the Happy Mask Salesman and Link turned to face me, standing upright as a mirror image of the statue and looking at me with his copy. Literally staring at me.

Whatever was left of the fourth wall was completely shattered while I ran out of the dojo, terrified. Suddenly, the game warped me to an underground tunnel. The reverse Song of Healing queued up again as I was given a brief moment of rest before the statue started appearing again...this time aggressively.

I could only take a few steps before it would be summoned behind me again. I hurriedly made my way out of the tunnel and appeared in Southern Clock Town. As I ran aimlessly in a sheer panic, a ReDead suddenly screamed and the screen faded to black. "Dawn of a New Day" and "||||||||" appeared again.

The screen faded in and I was standing atop the Clock Tower with Skull Kid overing over me again, silent. I looked up and the moon was back, looming just meters above my head, but the Skull Kid stared at me hauntingly with that fucking mask.

A new song was playing: the Stone Tower Temple theme played in reverse. In some sort of desperate attempt, I equipped my bow and fired off a shot at Skull Kid. It actually hit him and he played an animation of him reeling back.

I fired again and, on the third arrow, a text box appeared that said, "That won't do you any good. Hee, hee." I was picked up off the ground, levitated upwards on my back, and Link screamed as he burst into flames, instantly killing him.

I jumped when this happened. I had never seen this move used by ANYONE in the game and, in addition, Skull Kid didn't even have any moves! As the dead scene played, my lifeless body still burning, the Skull Kid laughed and the screen faded to black.

I reappeared in the same place. I decided to charge him, but the same thing happened. Link's body was lifted off the ground by some unknown force and burst into flames, again killing him. This time, during the death scene, the faint sounds of the reverse Song of Healing could be heard.

On my third and final try, I noticed there was no music playing; all there was was eerie silence. I remembered that in the original encounter with Skull Kid, you were supposed to use the ocarina to either travel back in time or Summon the Giants. I attempted to play the Song of Time, but before I could hit the last note Link's body once again burst into flames and he died.

As the death scene neared its end, the game began to chug. It was as if th cartridge was trying to process a lot of something. When the screen came to, it was the same scene as the first three times, except Link was lying on the ground, dead, in a position I had never seen in the game before.

His head was tilted toward the camera and Skull Kid was floating above him. I couldn't move or press any buttons. All I could do was stare at Link's body. After around 30 seconds of this, the game faded out with the message "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before kicking me to the title screen.

Upon getting back to the title screen and starting again, I noticed my save file was gone. Instead of "Link" was "YOUR TURN." "YOUR TURN" had three hearts and no masks or items. I selected this file and was returned to the Clock Tower Rooftop scene of Link dead and the Skull Kid hovering over, with the Skull Kid's laugh looping again and again.

I quickly hit reset and when the game booted up again there was one more save file added below "YOUR TURN": "BEN." That save file is right back where it was before I deleted it, at the Stone Tower Temple with the moon almost crashing.

I turned the game off at that point. I'm not superstitious, but this is WAY too fucked up - even for me. I haven't played it at all today. Hell, I didn't even get any sleep last night. I kept hearing the reverse Song of Healing in my head and couldn't get past that sense of dread I felt while exploring Clock Town.

I drove back to the old man's house today with a buddy of mine (no way was I going there alone) to ask him some questions, only to find there's a for sale sile in the front yard. When I rang the doorbell, no one was home.

So now I'm back here, writing down the rest of my thoughts and recording what happened. Sorry if some of this has grammatical errors and whatnot; I'm running on no sleep here.

I'm terrified of this game, even moreso now that I relived it a second time just writing this down. However, I feel like there's still more to it than meets the eye and there's something calling me to investigate this further.

I think "BEN" is something in this equation, but I don't know what. If I could get hold of the old man, I would be able to find some answers. I need another day or so to recuperate before tackling this game again, however. I feel it's already taken a toll on my insanity, but next time I do this I'm going to record the entire thing.

The idea to record only came to me toward the end, so you only see the last few minutes of what I saw (including the Skull Kid and Elegy statue), but it's on Youtube here.

"Everybody, Stalfos."

Hyrulian History

There was a long time ago when the Golden Goddesses still walked amongst their people. After the creation of the world, each deity fashioned a race to serve and glorify their names.
Din created the Gorudo, the mountain tribe. They lived upon the slope of the great Mt. Via, where they thrived by mining the mountain for precious metals. Din dwelt among her people and they gave praise to her as she instructed them in the way of the hammer and the blacksmith.

Farore created the Dekiri, the forest tribe. They lived within the depths of the Fairy Woods, living off of the land and profiting off of its bounty. Farore dwelt among her people and they gave praise to her as she instructed them in the way of the bow and the woodsman.

Nayru created the Hylians, the plains tribe. They built villages and lived off of the fruits of the fields and the sea, as well as through trading with other tribes. Nayru dwelt among her people and they gave praise to her as she instructed them in the ways of the farmer and the fisherman.

There was a boy who lived among the Hylians. His nets would not bring in fish, nor would his fields yield crop. “Who is this boy,” the Hylians would ask. “Who is this child who cannot hear what Nayru teaches?” Because the boy could not do these things, they cast him out. “Go and live with the Dekiri, in the Fairy Woods. Surely they will have use of you there.”

So, the boy left the villages of Hylia and joined the Dikiri in the Fairy Wood. He lived with them for some time. His arrow would not fall game, nor would his axe level trees. “Who is this boy,” the Dekiri would ask. “Who is this child who cannot hear what Farore teaches?” Because the boy could not do these things, they cast him out. “Go and live with the Gorudo, on the mountain slopes. Surely they will have use of you there.”
So, the boy left the Fairy Wood and joined the Gorudo on Mt. Via. He lived with them for some time. His hammer would forge no steel, nor would his pick break stone. “Who is this boy,” the Gorudo would ask. “Who is this child who cannot hear what Din teaches?” Because the boy could not do these things, they cast him out. “The Hylians and the Dekiri before us have passed you by. Truly, you are a useless boy.”

So, the boy left the slopes of Mt. Via and began to wander the land. “The Goddesses have rejected me,” he would cry. He truly was alone, a boy without friends. Now, this boy was clever, cleverer than most would dare to imagine. That very night, he hatched a scheme. “The people adore the Goddesses for the skills they preach, so I shall make their power my own!”

The boy climbed to the top of Mt. Via, where sat Din, the Goddess of Power, Fire, and the Earth. “Great Goddess of Power, it is said that your strength is beyond compare,” began the boy. “but I have heard talk from some of the Gorudo that not even you have the strength to hoist this mountain on your back and carry it across the land!”

Din rose up in a prideful fury. “Who speaks as this, doubting the strength I possess? I shall life this mountain upon my shoulders and carry it far into the east!” So the Goddess placed the mountain on her shoulders and began her march.

Within the mountain, the blood of the earth began to seep into the caverns, liquid fire bubbling as Din’s ire fueled it. Where the goddess stepped, the land was scorched, leaving a desert in her wake. She reached the edge of the Hylian Plains and stopped before setting the mountain down on the eastern side of the grasslands.
“Let done doubt my strength again,” came the voice of Din.

“Oh, surely none are as strong as you, Goddess, but what of your people? The men of the Gorudo are within the mountain yet, and the bubbling blood of the earth threatens to burn them alive! The hot sun beats down upon their wives, waiting in a land turned wasteland for their husbands to return to them!”

Din was shocked to see what she had done. She entered the mountain and hardened the skin of the men until it was as rock, so that they might withstand the scorching heat of the magma. She entered the desert and darkened the skin of the wives so that they might endure the sun, raising great cliffs to provide shade.

When the men came out of the mountain and returned to their homes in the desert, their wives screamed in fear at the hardened skin of their husbands. “What curse has Din laid upon us,” they cried. “What provoked her to remove us from our mountain and our men?” They cried this for the mere sight of their husbands caused them to recoil in horror at their grotesque appearances. “We shall have no more of men,” they cried, driving the men from the desert. They settled in the cliffs and named themselves the Gerudo, turning their backs on the Goddess.

The men cried out from the mountainsides. “What curse has Din laid upon us? What has provoked her to remove from us our wives and our homes?” Their anger fueled their strength as they tore into the mountain, carving out caves and vast hollows. So great was their fury that the mountaintop exploded in a rain of fire and rock. They settled in these caves and named themselves the Goron, turning their backs on the Goddess.
Seeing her people reject her, Din fell into despair. In the depths of her grief, the boy came to her and stole her power away, claiming it for himself. “Now none are as strong as I,” he proclaimed. 

The boy then left the mountain and entered into the Fairy Wood. He climbed to the top of the tallest tree in the forest, where sat Farore, Goddess of Courage, Wind, and Nature.

“Great Goddess of Courage, it is said that when you play your flute, the world dances. Yet there are those among the Dekiri who say that not even your music would give the trees reason to lift up their roots and join in the reel.”

“Is that so,” asked the Goddess. “Then perhaps I should play a tune for them.” She raised a flute to her lips and played a jig. The notes wafted through the forest and the trees stirred in their plots. The Goddess increased the pace and roots sprang from the ground as the trees rose to give motion to the lively tune. The Dekiri, who had made their homes in the trees, cried out in fear as they leapt from their homes and avoided being trampled by the reeling trees. They fled to a nearby clearing, where they believed themselves safe.

The Goddess noticed this and stopped playing, but the trees began to hum the tune themselves and continued to dance. The homes they housed in their limbs were torn to pieces as the trees swayed their many arms. In a panic, the Goddess led the trees deeper and deeper into the forest, where she bound them. The trees were dubbed Deku, and the area was named the Lost Woods, as the continuous dancing of the trees made it impossible to navigate. To this day, you can still hear the trees singing the song.

The Dekiri cried out, “What curse has Farore laid upon us? What has provoked her to destroy our homes and possess our woods?”

The Goddess heard these words and was angered. “I did my best to save you from my folly and this is how you respect me? You call yourself cursed, so cursed you shall be! You whine as a child whines for a lost toy, so children you shall remain for eternity!” And so, the Goddess laid the curse of youth upon them, allowing them to never grow old and yet die young with life unfulfilled. To guard over these children, she appointed a guardian spirit to the tree upon which she sat. The Dekiri, in their spite, took the name Kokiri and turned their backs on the Goddess.

Seeing her people reject her, Farore fell into despair. In the depths of her grief, the boy came to her and stole her power away, claiming it for himself. “Now none are as cunning as I,” he proclaimed. The boy then left the wood and journeyed to the great lake of Hylia, where resided Nayru, Goddess of Wisdom, Love, and the Sea.

“Oh Goddess of Wisdom, your knowledge knows no bounds and your word is respected by all. Yet, I have heard some talk among the Hylians that not even your words could tame the seas. Surely if you proved them wrong, they would be grateful to you for easing their lives!”

Nayru smiled, for she had seen through the boy’s scheme and had prepared for this. She stood and raised her hands above the waters. “Be still,” she called out, and the waters became flat and level, with only wind ripples disturbing the surface. The Hylians marveled at this and exclaimed to one another, “Look! The seas have been made calm! No longer must we pray for our safety as we cross the waters in search of fish to eat and goods to sell!” The Hylians began to lose faith, but Nayru fell not into despair.

As the boats set sail, monstrous creatures stirred within the deep. One ship was swallowed whole by a giant fish, one splintered by tentacles of water, and still a giant eel crushed another. The sailors prayed to the Goddess to protect them from these leviathans. Nayru, hearing these prayers, created a race to govern and control these creatures, and named this race the Zora.

Nayru then spoke to the Hylians, “Because you did not turn from me in your time of need, you will be blessed among nations. Your power will grow to encompass the others and you shall rule over them with wisdom and justice.” Nayru then spoke to the Gerudo. “Because you were the first to turn away from your protector in your time of need, despite what she had provided for you, you will be cursed among nations. For a thousand generations, you and your people will remain confined to the desert. Because you have forsaken men, so shall men forsake you. Only once in a hundred years may one of your wombs bear a male, and he shall govern you with fear and cruelty until his death.”

Nayru then spoke to the boy. “Child, why have you caused these terrible things,” she asked. The boy stood and spoke back angrily, “Your people reject me for I cannot learn what you teach! If I could gain the powers and skills that the Goddesses possess, then they would be sure to accept me!” The boy fell into despair as he realized he would not be able to obtain Nayru’s power.

The Goddess of Wisdom came upon the boy, and, in his despair, took the powers which he had stolen and returned them to her sisters. She then spoke again to the boy. “You truly are a lonely and miserable boy, but you have done many terrible things and punishment comes to all. You know of power and courage, but you will never receive from us the gift of wisdom. To you we give the curse of immortality, to live forever and watch all about you wither and die. However, so as you will not bring harm to our land and our peoples once more, we shall imprison you.”

The Goddesses rose into the air in a triangle pattern and surrounded the boy, gesturing towards him. In a spectacular flash of light, the boy disappeared and in his place was a mask. The mask was heart shaped, with two large, yellow eyes peering out above purple lines of darkness, spikes glistening on the edges.

“Your name is no more,” spoke Din. 

“We give you a new one here and now,” spoke Farore.

“You are Majora, meaning trickster,” spoke Nayru.

“But Majora has another meaning,” came the voice of all three. “It also means ‘One who is alone,’ for no matter where you search or how far you travel, you will never find friendship or love.

Din spoke to the others, “My sisters, we cannot allow this evil to remain in our world, for his hatred and despair will surely leak out and corrupt the land!”

Farore sang out in agreement, “Then we shall make a new world to serve as his prison, so that ours is not tainted by his malice.”

“Do what you will,” Nayru said. “but know that I will not lend my wisdom to such a world. Let him craft the order as he sees fit.”

So Din, with her strong, flaming arms cultivated the land and created the red earth. Farore, with her rich soul, created all life forms that would tend the earth. After all of this, Nayru approached and said, “I give but one law for this world. Should all life within it one day extinguished, the prison will collapse and the spirit within set free.”

“Why do you do this, sister,” asked Din. “Why do you allow this window for one who has wrong us so greatly?”

“Because,” Nayru replied. “I pity him.”

Broken Cartridge

A few months ago, I noticed a small classic video game store that had seemingly popped up out of nowhere on a street I walk by quite often. I'm always on the lookout for a variety of older, hard to find games so, naturally, I went inside.

It was a very small shop - about the size of a bedroom - with wooden walls that were bare except for several video game posters on them. They looked like the kind you got in issues of Nintendo Power, but weren't exact matches. There was an Earthbound poster of a frightened Ness staring at the background that shows when you fight Giygas, a poster of Sonic in the drowning position in a very dark underwater city, and several others.

Sadly, the selection of games wasn't very good. They covered systems going all the way back to the Atari 2600, but only had about 10-20 games for each. Most of them were either common ones everyone had or crappy ones nobody wanted. I didn't find anything I was interested in and was about to leave when something caught my eye.

It was a gold Ocarina of Time cartridge. I already had the game, of course, but had to examine this cartridge because of how beaten up it was. The cover was almost entirely torn off, the plastic was cracked and chipped in my places, and there was something that looked like a burn mark on it.

The cart was only $1.99 and for some reason I felt drawn to buying it. The clerk didn't say a word to me; he just took my money and I left with the cartridge.

After leaving the store, I started to wonder why I had bought a copy of a game I already owned, especially one in such horrible condition. Since I had it, though, I decided I might as well see if it actually worked. I put it in my N64 and when I turned it on I was immediately greeted by ReDead shrieks against a solid red screen.

I turned the system off, pulled the cart out and put it back in, and tried again. This time, I saw Zelda's character model lying face-down, slowly rotating, while Ganon's laugh played. I tried once more and actually got the intro screen. It had a slowed down version of Hyrule Castle Town's music playing and the game wouldn't respond to the controller.

Cartridges were capable of some rather odd effects when they were broken or tampered with while a system is turned on. I had heard about cart tilting with N64 games and since I wasn't going to be able to play the game anyway, I decided to try messing with it.

I put the game in once more, getting some glitchy character models while what sounded like cymbals crashed repeatedly. I started slowly tilting the cart and, to my amazement, this actually made the game start the intro screen with normal music and response to the controller.

Two of the files already had saves on them, so I selected the third and started the game. The game started with the Deku Tree's monologue, but the text was different.

"Death is the only thing this cursed land is good for. The cruel goddesses created life only to toy with it and laugh at the the pain of those they gave it to. I wish for death.

The last sentence repeated itself several times, filling up six text boxes. The game finally switched to Link, who was in the middle of having a nightmare. It happened normally, more or less (Ganon had Zelda's face). Link woke up with a scream. There was no Navi, so he got up on his own.

I had control of him, so I exited Link's house. There were no other characters in Kokiri Village. I couldn't go into houses, either, and the hole you crawl through to get the Kokiri Sword was missing. Since Mido was there, I went directly to the Deku Tree without any problems.

No cutscene played, but the dungeon was open and I went inside. The dungeon looked nothing like the one in the normal game. It looked more like the inside of a castle. There were no enemies and I didn't have any items, so I explored. As I went from room to room, I could hear children's laughter as it got louder and louder.

When I finally found a sword, it was sticking through the ribcase of a skeleton, as if he had used it to kill himself a very long time ago. I picked it up and a text box appeared. "You got the Hero's Sword! Will you be wise enough to use it for the right purpose?"

At that point, a Majora's Mask style Wizzrobe (the old man type) appeared. He didn't move as fast as the ones in Majora's Mask and I was able to kill him easily with the sword. He slumped over instead of exploding or fading, as you'd expect a Zelda enemy to do. Instead, he said something.

"You have taken my life, but I will be avenged. My pet will deliver my vengeance."

The doors to the room locked and I began to hear growling and the sound of heavy feet running. This went on for at least twenty minutes. I was becoming more frightened than I should be for a video game character. Finally, a gigantic Wolfos burst into the room.

I tried to fight it, but my sword had no effect. The wolf mauled Link to death, leaving a bloody corpse behind. The game froze on that shot and there was no Game Over screen. I attempted to play the game again, but it never displayed anything except that final shot no matter what I did.

(This story is credited to a person called KI Simpson.)

Zelda 64 Beta

When I was a child, one of my favorite games was the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Anyone who's played it can probably figure out why, even if they don't particularly find it their favorite. Naturally, as a very popular game, it spawned a lot of rumors and legends - especially back in the day when communication through the internet wasn't as common. Most of these legends are false, but sometimes a surprising amount of truth can be found in them.

A while ago, I had read an article about early versions of Zelda 64 (as it was called in development). Apparently, these early versions were incredibly different than the released version. It was modeled after the original Legend of Zelda, rather than a Link to the Past, and as such was a lot freer roaming and adventurous than the one we got. At the time, it sounded awesome; I even found myself wondering why they had abandoned the project.

I concluded that it was probaby due to the technical requirements of such a feat. Still, one thing that expecially struck me were the pictures. Some were nondescript - nothing special. However, one showed a large expansive desert environment. There was just a palm tree and a small oasis near a much more primitive looking Link, as well as some enemies. Past that, however, was just sand stretching to the horizon. The thoughts of what might lay behond that desert seemed to stick the image to my mind.

Skip several years. The article was only a vague recollection. Nothing important. I was hanging out at the local game shop with one of my friends. He's telling me about his day and gets into a story about how some guy came to sell his missing son's old video games. He got them out and showed them to me; they looked like normal games, actually. There were a few Wii games, some Gamecube games, and a lot of Nintendo 64 games. The only one that really caught my eye was a red cartridge with no label except for a piece of tape with the word "ZELDA??" written over it in marker.

Naturally, this got me curious. My friend didn't share my curiosity and mentioned that he didn't think he could sell the game, so he let me take it home for free so I could indulge myself. Excitedly, I took it and went home as soon as I could.

The moment the game started, I realized this wasn't the same Zelda I was used to. The title screen was comprised of nondescript text that said, "The Legend of Zelda." There were no subtitles or fancy font - not even music. It was just those words in black-bordered, white text. The background wasn't from Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask, either. It was an overhead view of what could only be called ancient ruins. They looked very sinister and grotesque - similar to something from Majora's Mask, only without any hint of the mystical atmosphere that usually accompanied Zelda games. They were really unnerving.

Still, this didn't stop me. It only kept me going. As soon as I pressed start, the game began. It skipped over any file screens and dumped a blocky-looking Link into an empty black environment. Though, when I say black, I mean BLACK. There was nothing separating the ground and the sky. There was only blackness. The only thing that let me know the game even worked was what looked like a temple in the distance. From what I could tell, it was similar to the one in the opening. Moving still seemed to work fine, suggesting that something glitched with the textures of the environment. Still, it seemed strange that nothing happened to any other textures. Entering the "temple" was my only choice, since I couldn't see to get anywhere else, so I took it.

One thing worth mentioning is that the game started with no music, only deathly silence. The closer I came to the temple, however, the more music was availble to hear. It wasn't really music, though. It sounded like moaning, similar to the ReDeads in Ocarina of Time, but tinnier and badly recorded. Every once in a while, some sobs could be heard, but they were quickly stifled.

Entering the temple made everything seem more like a Zelda game, but something strange caught my eye. Rather than the textures being worse than those in Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask, they were better. There was more detail in everything, but it was all dingy and rotten-looking. Extra polygons only served to make things look more grotesque. The random blood spatters didn't help anything, either.

It didn't take long for me to realize that the entire "dungeon" could hardly be called Zelda-like. Puzzles usually only consisted of pulling a lever or pressing a switch. In fact, there weren't even any sliding blocks. There were no enemies, either, but the blood spatters on the floor and walls soon served to be warnings of traps. Some became inescapable and sent you back to the darkness again. Others were escapable, but were extremely creepy and depressing.

The dungeon was riddled with low-polygon remains of old adventurers, and sometimes they even had items on them. The items could be picked up, but the game only auto-equipped the first three items picked up since there was no accessible inventory screen.

After several gruesome deaths and retries, I found my way to a door marked with a scratched-on eye similar to the ones on the Lens of Truth and various other objects. Entering this door reveals a boss battle. The music, by this point, as changed; I only realized it by the last room. The moaning had never looped once, but seemed to change according to the mood. A discordant violin melody began to play, but the res to fthe sound remained nothing but moans, sobs, yells, and strange scratching. It was never enough to rise past the level of background noise, but it still remained unnerving. It was almost as if it wasn't music at all, but monsters that were wandering somewhere in the temple.

You know, when I said entering the door revealed a boss battle, I was not entirely honest. It could only be called a boss battle by the most generous standards. It featured an empty room that looked similar to the rest of the temple in every way. The only out-of-place aspect was a giant face on the other side of the room that was about the same color as the surrounding walls. Its skin seemed stretched over its head and lined up with the wall, so it looked as if the wall was growing a face. Moss seemed to be growing over its closed eyes and cracks were apparent everywhere on it.

The door to go back was locked, so the only thing I could do was approach it. I did so, carefully, making sure nothing was waiting for a surprise attack. I walked up to the point where I was nearly in contact with the face. Nothing. It was still there, with its sunken eyes and cracked lips. I attacked it with my sword. The sword went through and made an incredibly vulgar flesh-ripping sound, but nothing else happened. The face remained there. I attacked some more, then more, and still more.

Soon, the cacophony of violin music became even louder and the moans started up even stronger. After that, the face's eyes opened, staring at me with its dry, soulless gaze, and then...nothing. I continued to attack the face with no reaction until it had enough. It went to shreds before falling away in fire - the typical Zelda fashion - and revealing a door. The music had stopped. There were no more moans or screams...nothing at all. I went through the door.

What a fool I was. That was only the tutorial.

The screen turned white, followed by a moment of extremely loud static. I jumped, but it was over almost instantly. What faded in was an endless desert - the one from that image from so long ago. I was in shock. By that point, I was creeped out enough to turn the game off. That respite didn't last long. I had dreams about the game...sometimes even nightmares. They showed me what I hadn't even realized while playing the game, something that scared me: the game changed each time I started over. When I tried to take the same path through the labyrinth, I always ended up lost and confused. By the time I got to the end, I was relying only on instinct.

I kept playing the next day, stopping only to eat and to go to the bathroom. When I turned the game on, I was still at the desert despite the lack of a file screen. This time, it was night. I walked. Sometimes I would walk for twenty minutes, only to find a half-sunken obelisk or the ruins of what looked like some village hut. Other times, I would see great expanses of oases and tropical forests.

This is where I found the first enemies I had seen in the game. They were similar to Tektites, with larger bodies that mostly contained their large eye. They had thin, long legs and would still attack by leaping, but if they hit you they would pin you to the ground.

Soon, the sun rose and I continued on. Sometimes, I would find small tombs. These were almost always similar in style to the first dungeon, only without the moaning and with no bosses. However, I would also find information. Runes were scribbled ono the walls and could be read. The descriptions were always vague, with phrases like "...and knowledge shall guide...way to heavens..." Sometimes they would be followed by other comments, but most writing seemed glitched and unintelligible. However, it seemed to be a sort of history. The maps I'd sometimes find confirmed it.

I simply explored and, after a while, I learned to let instinct guide my way. I soon found the next dungeon: a large pyramid rising out of the desert...upside-down. Over it, straight to the sky, was another large upside-down temple. It stretched so far I couldn't see to the top, but I couldn't keep going. I needed sleep again.

The next day came and I entered the dungeon. It was like all the small tombs I would find, just a bit more perilous. There were more bottomless pits, chasms, spike traps, and monsters this time. Long arms would grab you from out of the wall, similar to Wallmasters; these simply threw you into traps and killed you, though. They were probably what used to be ReDeads and Skeletons.

At the end of this dungeon, I found a large spiral staircase. I followed it up and up until I reached what seemed to be the top. It took two hours of climbing, but the time seemed to fly by. The top was merely a platform with a large ornate arrow pointing off an edge. Since there was nowhere else to go, I jumped off. The screen flashed white again and I was in a new area.

This routine went on for the next few weeks. There were many places to visit and, at times, I could find the borders of where one locale met another. I started to name the locations I had been to but, although I started knowing all the places intimately, there never seemed to be an end for new locations. There were even times where I would go through one door and come out on the other side of the world.

Places didn't behave by constant rules of space, but it became easier to find my way regardless. Each time I revisited a place, it was rearranged in a different, more navigable setup. From every corner, however, I could see the tower in the distance. I quickly realized that I had not reached the top, only fallen into one of the many traps. To this day, I still have not reached the top.

In the few times I took a break from the game and went about the real world, I could tell the game was different. It changed itself. It seemed to react to me. I was sure that a game like this should not - COULD NOT - be able to be created, but they WERE going for a free-roaming experience more similar to the original Legend of Zelda. What if they succeeded? What if they created a world one could always roam? I think they really did create that world.

I had learned of the many gods in that land: the three goddesses, who had created such a perverted physical world, and the the god He Who Sees, who decided to cleanse it. I still did not know my own role, but I felt that if I simply followed my instincts, I could find my goal.

This is why I'm writing this now. My instincts still tell me where to go, but not here. It's not in the game. I have to leave, and I will, but before I go, I feel that I have to leave this message for someone to find.

I should warn you. It may be a game, but it knows you are playing.