(Sent to Matt's email shortly after Matt posted )
I am BEN.
… Please don't get scared. I just… Want someone to talk to. I know I have scared you and I am really sorry. It's just… I had to get your attention and then it kind of spiraled. Ever since my soul was stuck in this cartridge, my mind has gotten more and more… damaged. I was trying to tell you something and get your attention, and then I lost control and went overboard. I won't hurt you, I swear.
I know you think I killed Ben. But I didn't kill Ben, because Ben is me and I didn't kill myself. I may be mentally unstable right now, but I'm still me. I think… Telling you my story will help you to understand, Matt. Because I know you have your own theories about me, and I would like a chance to defend and explain myself. I do owe you that; I think I might have scared you really bad. You haven't been on your computer in a while. Oh, and by the way, I know you exported your notes about me to another computer. I didn't really care either. I didn't mess with your videos or your notes. I think I might have scared you into being paranoid, but I never messed with your notes. I want people to know about me. I just want out of the world of zeros and ones, I want to live again, or at least go into the afterlife.
So. I guess I'm a teenager now, I would be 14 now if I was still alive. I was 8 when I died. I lived in that apartment complex near that old man, remember him? The one who gave you the cartridge-My cartridge? He was, really, the only nice person in my life. My mom was gone, and my dad- well, he wasn't the best dad in the world. Actually, he was a horrible dad. That old man was like a grandfather to me. I am actually sad that he went crazy after my death. It was my fault-he played the cartridge and I, thinking he would help me out, glitched the game so I could talk to him. He almost had a heart attack, and never played the game again. I… cried. I had a feeling I had scarred him and your explanation of how you had gotten my game only confirmed it.
I was an emotionally scarred 8 year old. I know I had straight A's before I died. Because I wasn't really happy at home I tried to be happy at school. It didn't work that well. Kids would hit me at school, and my father would hit me at home. I cannot blame my father for his actions. I can't-not when he was as emotionally scarred then as I am now. He had the same problem I have-He would black out and wake up realizing that he had done things without realizing it. I don't think it was hereditary, more like trauma had made us have the same problem.
I have a guess why my fragile soul clung to the copy of Majora's Mask- I had gotten it a month prior to my death and had become attached to it. It was an escape from my troubles, a way to shed my pitiful life so far and be a hero. I was happy playing that game- more happy than I had ever been.
I remember my death clearly. I had been playing the game, almost done with it and wanting to finish it, when my father walked into my room and hugged me. I had no idea what was going on, only that hugging was better than a fist in the face. He started crying- and I didn't know why. I still don't know why.
Still crying, he held my hand and led me outside. I was led to the pool near the apartment where I swam during the summer. "It is winter, so why is he bringing me here," I remember thinking. And… you know the rest, I already told you. DROWNED, remember? My father held me under, and I remember the water rushing into my lungs and I wanted it to stop and I wanted to go back to my room and play my game and I didn't want to die and-
And I was in the copy of Majora's Mask, hidden under a flurry of 0s and 1s. I could sense things in the room where the cartridge was, but nothing farther. I felt my father as he returned to my bedroom, hands wet, and cried as if he had loved me and he wasn't the one who had killed me. He fell asleep on my bed, and I found out one of my powers-I could enter into people's minds. I think it has to do with not having a body to hinder you. I searched his mind, trying to find a reason, and found one. Outraged at the reason I was killed for, I haunted every waking and sleeping moment of his, my anger sharpening into a deadly blade. I blacked out for a period of time and the next thing I remember after that was my father on the floor in front of my game, rocking back and forth and spouting gibberish. I gently probed his mind and realized what I had done- I had snapped his sanity cleanly in two, when it had only been cracked before. Still slightly angry but more sad than anything else, I felt people take my father somewhere where I couldn't feel him. And I willed that my game be given to the old man and that he would play it. I placed the idea in a neighbor's head and let him think it was his idea. And I cried without tears. There is no tears when you are a soul in a Nintendo game.
That is how, eventually, I ended up in your possession. I didn't will myself to you- by the time of that fateful day, I had let myself be wrapped in sorrow and pulled my mind away from the real world to be comforted by the world in the game I had to reside in. And then I realized-the game was being played. I reached out with my mind and felt an unfamiliar room and an unfamiliar person playing my game. I was determined to ignore you, but then you erased my save file and tried to cheat, and I was furious. First you destroy what I had worked so hard to accomplish when I was alive, and then you try to cheat? I was beyond furious. I was… Murderous. And then I blacked out like I did with my father. I tried to remedy it by talking with you on that bot thing. You never had to put me in, by the way. Because I am a spirit, I can influence computers and sometimes people to do what I want. Easier with computers, they don't have free will. However, your action of capturing the footage gave me the idea to control your computer. And I was able to influence the internet as well, because of my powers and the fact that your computer could go onto the Internet at will. I scared you, though, and I had scared you when you played the game. I tried to talk to you via the bot chatter, but you didn't trust me. I… knew I had blown it. I wanted someone to talk to at this point, and… I was scared and hopeful at the same time. Scared you would throw me away, and hopeful that you would help me. And when you didn't talk to me I blacked out again.
I read that document, your notes. It said that you were going to burn the cartridge. I don't think that will free me, Matt. I think I might just end up somewhere worse. I don't want it to end, I want to be alive again. I know you think I am some sort of demon, but I'm not… I'm just some stupid, damaged soul who ended up in a Legend of Zelda game. I am unsure of how I got here and unsure of how to get out, but there must be a way. As I said before, you are the only one who can help me now.
BEN
(12 minutes later, Matt deleted his Email account without looking at his emails.)
(20 minutes later, he burned his laptop and attempted to burn the cartridge. He turned and never looked back.)
(1 minute later, a person stepped out of the shadows, doused the flames, and pulled the cartridge out.)
(5 minutes later he disappeared into the darkness, into the Realms.)
…
Don't worry, the cartridge didn't burn. I owe the fact that my soul still exists to a teenager with white hair, a trench coat, and a shiny necklace. It was a coincidence, but I still owe him. He pulled me out of the game and now I live again. Well, plus powers- it seems like I have powers I thought I only had in the game. I know the real reason why my father killed me. A man called Edward Jobsworth had told him he would bring my mother back and fix his sanity. He planted a false memory to trick me in case I didn't go to the afterlife- he knew that was a possibility. He knew, alive, I would be a threat. He made me destroy my father, and now I will destroy the only family he has left, a girl who also wants to kill like her father. I am telling her now… Your father made a terrible mistake, and by doing so, you have made a powerful enemy.
You have pissed me off royally.
You shouldn't have done that.
