“Ben Drowned”: A Haunted Nintendo Cartridge from 2010

In 2010, there was a blog online about a young man who bought an old cartridge at a second-hand game store: the Nintendo classic The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

When he got home and played it, he found something was off: the save file was named “Ben,” not something he had entered himself; an NPC in the game kept turning its head to stare at him; strange blocks appeared in places; the originally cheerful music had become low, distorted, and eerie.

He recorded videos and posted them online, saying he wanted to figure out what was going on with this cartridge. He started investigating and discovered that the cartridge's original owner was named Ben, a child who had already drowned.

Subsequent updates grew increasingly creepy: the game would save itself, pop up a line of creepy text; it would trap the player in a room they couldn't escape; the game's protagonist would suddenly stop, turn around, and stare straight at the screen. The blog author himself also began to be haunted by something, and his updates became fewer and fewer.

For a time, this series was very popular online, and many people believed it was true, with some even going to second-hand game stores to look for that cartridge.

Later, the author came forward to explain: it was a creation, a “ghost story in the digital world,” and the strange events in those videos were made by him using modified programs. He wanted to try telling a story online that people would believe.

“Ben Drowned” later became a classic in internet horror stories. Even today, people still ask on forums: has anyone actually played that cartridge?

#Paranormal #网络转载 #网络怪谈