Ben Drowned

 ( Novels First Published Online ) 

The first and third arcs are set across the homes and locations, dealing with several college-age adults in multiple unspecified locations, set in the United States, and within the Internet, while the second arc is solely set within the Internet.

Throughout several sessions over a series of days, Jadusable writes in painstaking detail about each bizarre scenario he finds himself in, including spontaneously bursting into flames and lying unconscious (or dead) as the Majora-possessed Skull Kid looks on in silence. In a desperate attempt to return the cartridge to the old man who sold it to him, he sees the house empty, the old man's neighbor informing him that he has moved away. Jadusable, after hearing from the neighbor as to what happened in the house that the old man lived in, concludes that the cartridge is possessed by the spirit of its previous owner, a 12-year-old boy named Ben who had drowned almost eight years prior. Subsequently, a figure calling themselves "BEN" seemingly begins contacting him in and beyond the game itself, including changing his computer screen wallpaper to depict the Elegy of Emptiness and speaking through the online artificial intelligence Cleverbot. Using the Elegy statue as its physical form, BEN seems to take pride in being able to manipulate Jadusable, who subsequently describes a series of dreams about the Moon Children depicted in the game's finale, including himself physically transforming into the Elegy, and how he believes he saw the old man who sold him the cartridge on his street looking into his window. Eventually, BEN is revealed to have been hijacking Jadusable's computer and providing a false account of the story's narrative and resolution to 4chan and YouTube, using it to escape the cartridge onto the Internet, declaring, "Now I am everywhere." A secret note from Jadusable after an apparent epilogue from his roommate Tyler (who accompanied Jadusable to the old man's former house after the first time he played the game) offers the "true" telling of events and references videos that were never published, seemingly because BEN had deleted them. After publishing his final account of the past week's events, called TheTruth.rtf, Jadusable is never seen again.

The following day, the website is reestablished in an unfinished glitching state, with posts from the previous incarnation being posted again with current dates, revealing that in-game actions from Majora's Mask have effects on the website. Over the following day, the follower uses in-game actions to advance the story, establishing contact with Rosa, the sister of Matt, whom Rosa says has disappeared, as well as the soon-to-be-ascended moderators Kevin F. "Insidiae", Christopher "Nekko", and Spencer L. "Duskworld23". However, as a result of the follower's actions, Rosa was taken away by a resurrected Kelbris, Alex was killed while working to prevent the actions of the cult, and time is reset again. Time is subsequently revealed to reset every three days, as in Majora's Mask. Alex, apparently resurrected by the reset of time, returns under the guise of "TheLinkMissing" with an additional warning before disappearing, apparently for good, as a result of careless player actions.

On October 6, the website undergoes several drastic design changes, signaling the return of the story. Through clever URL changes, the follower discovers several hidden files ranging from used assets to cryptic documents aimed directly at them. Their biggest discovery is found to be the 59th file, mhftt.txt, a final message left by Ifrit before his disappearance. This file names a fellow reader to the follower, Kayd "Ryukaki" Hendricks, who had been in contact with Rosa prior to her death, as having been warned by him of being in danger. Over the next two days, Ryukaki uploads a series of videos indicating that his life is indeed at stake. As of 2020, the videos uploaded by Ryukaki are now seen as ambiguously canon, with many of the things posted in the videos coinciding with the current arc, but others are never referenced again.

On November 8, another video uploaded on Jadusable's channel by BEN signals the beginning of the arc's epilogue, with the coming months seeing small changes made to the Moon Children website. On February 17, 2011, a new forum called Within Hubris is launched as a central hub for the follower and others like them during the next portion of the story. Shortly after its discovery, a hidden section of the forum was revealed to contain the spirits of former members of the Moon Children. Within a week of the site's discovery, the follower begins receiving newspaper clippings in their mail that detail an apparent murder-suicide that took place "three months ago" in New York, including an apparent message from BEN. On February 26, another video is uploaded to Jadusable's channel, predicting the final warning for the following day. On February 27, a video, known as h b i s r e a l is uploaded featuring the interior of the house in the newspaper. Following those events, Alex Hall put the story on hiatus for an indefinite time.

After this, an overjoyed Abel resumes communication with Sarah and muses over the interaction. He then claims that the game has been reverted to its pre-Jadusable state and that BEN — which he explains to be the Behavioral Event Network — is a hive mind consisting of both the souls of Moon Children who have been successfully digitized and of various artificially intelligent programs from Majora's Mask which he believes gained sentience either from a lack of input or by a trigger, with the entity being named after the original Ben as a tribute, due to their soul having been the first human soul to have been successfully digitized. He ends his monologue and then says Sarah's part in the experiment is over, explaining he will be "coming over" to relieve her of the cartridge, before suggesting she 'stick around' to see other things he wants to show her.

Despite Abel's request, Sarah continues playing the game. In place of the Happy Mask Salesman, she finds Ifrit in the form of an unused NPC, who tells her that Ben has been "restored" into his enslaved state, and that she needs to disrupt the simulation or replicate the same "fourth-day" glitch that freed Ben to defeat the Father. When she exits the area, she is suddenly confronted by two duplicates of the first boss of Majora's Mask, which she easily dispenses before continuing deeper into the game.

Sarah eventually encounters a Moon Child, who asks her to leave its "home". When she pursues it, she finds in its place a heart, which she collects. Ifrit then contacts her, saying she must collect three hearts to free the souls trapped within the cartridge. Progressing further, she is confronted by several more Moon Children, who are seen apparently tormenting another NPC. After thwarting their attack, Sarah encounters this NPC, who now claims to be Rosa, who, as thanks, gives her a pendant containing her memories, which she claims will be able to free the others. She continues onwards, finding a second Moon Child's heart and encountering another NPC who "knows exactly who he is" and thinks of Sarah as a monster, due to all the souls contained in the mask making her seem like a monster consuming them.

On August 23, 2020, a new video called The Showdown.wmv premiered, the contents giving another revelation to the story. Sarah, after escaping the clutches of one of the Moon Children, meets the once thought dead Jadusable, the original player from the Haunted Cartridge arc. Dismayed, Jadusable is discovered to be now working with The Father, and after facing Sarah in one-on-one combat, kills her, leaving the story without a player character. The same video at the end shows a link to a new site called the Eternity Project, a web page established by those who belong to a group of people called The Family with the purpose of achieving ascension to escape the world-ending event due to happen in 2020. On that website, users were able to confirm the current status of many of the characters from the entire story, such as Sarah, Jadusable, and Rosa. The site promises prospective members to join the Eternity Project and to escape from the hell of the current world and embrace a new future through ascension, becoming Enlightened and free from the world. As is the tradition in sites belonging to this story, members could dig into source codes and puzzle-solving to discover hidden messages and pages. Here, Abel eventually contacted players (or rather, a "pity hire" at the Eternity Project) and gave them passwords allowing access to the 'heart' of World Alpha - now known to be the Haunted Cartridge, which all of the Eternity Project's subsequent virtual worlds are apparently built off of. Here, players were met with an option to upload "code" directly into the heart of World Alpha — an action which Abel hoped would stop the virtual world from imploding, along with the rest of the Eternity Project and everyone still trapped within.

Eventually, one of the players' uploads was accepted, and the option to upload anything further disappeared. The uploaded code would successfully revive Sarah in Clock Town, albeit without the Ocarina of Time or the Adult form she previously had, with only 12 in-game hours remaining before the Moon would crash into Termina and start the entire game over again. Noticing that Clock Town is empty, she attempts to enter the buildings in the area, but all but one are inaccessible. Upon entering this building, Sarah finds herself in the code with Rosa and the rest of the humans digitized into Majora's Mask. They argue over whether to let the Moon fall and just reset everything, which Rosa believes will not result in what the rest expect it to, or to allow Sarah to perform the day four glitch, at the risk of unleashing the already looming Father all over again. Ultimately, Sarah races to the Observatory and prepares to perform the glitch; however, the choice to actually do it is left up to the players.

The players chose to perform the glitch, and after having done so, the world returns to a glitched state. Ifrit suddenly reappears and explains that by doing the glitch, she has killed the game's inhabitants and that with the Father freed once more, he intends to use his power to transform the world into a "nightmare". Clock Town becomes filled with cultic worshippers of the Father as Sarah runs to the clock tower, where she finds Jadusable and a newly freed Ben hiding. Jadusable explains that he was trying to stop Sarah from performing the glitch, and admonishes her for simply believing everything that the game's inhabitants had told her. He explains that Alex had passed the responsibility of being World Alpha's protector to him, and that now, he was going to do the same to her. Jadusable gives up his soul and joins his strength with Sarah, turning her back into Adult Link. Sarah confronts Ifrit, now joined by the last remaining Moon Child, and briefly battles the latter as it assumes the form of Majora's Wrath — the third phase of the final boss of Majora's Mask. Suddenly, instead of fighting back, Sarah uses her ocarina to play the Song of Healing, and Majora's Wrath suddenly disappears. Ifrit briefly reappears to threaten her, but he is suddenly overcome with static and disappears. The Father appears in his place, demanding that Sarah explain her actions. In response, she gives him the Pendant of Memories, and Circle explains that the inhabitants of World Alpha are just scared and only want to live. In response, The Father 'changes his parameters' to heal World Alpha by removing all "anomalies" that wish to harm the natural order of the world. He also explains that, as users interfacing with World Alpha's code, they too will be removed, and that to pacify the inhabitants' mental traumas, he will need to reset their memories as well. Above all, The Father assures Sarah and Circle that World Alpha will continue and that Ben will be given a real host body, commenting that his imprisonment within the Elegy statue was an "oversight" made by dated A.I. When Circle asks what will become of Sarah after The Father 'removes' her, he says he doesn't know and fades away. Sarah fades away soon after.

The series ends with a shot of Ben, now in the body of Child Link, standing next to a now unpossessed Elegy statue and waving to the audience.