Majora's Wrath

Majora's Wrath



It seemed like a normal N64 cartridge to me.

The label was scratched off, sure. But someone had kindly written the name on the back, in Sharpie: "Majora." Majora's Mask had always been my favorite Zelda game (really, my most favorite game in the entire world, but details like that are rather tedious, don't you think? Especially considering now, when I don't know if I'll ever be able to look at the game in the same way again), so who was I to complain when it showed up on a card table at a local yard sale? I remember grinning in conceit and pleasure as I looked down with pride at the blank grey cartridge; pride that I, Aly, would find such a treasure in plain sight.

The moment I recovered from my childish fit of glee, I quickly scanned the remaining N64 games: Pokemon Stadium (I came, I played, I raped), Goldeneye (here I would roll my eyes and think "noob"),  a beat-up old copy of Super Smash Brothers (acceptable), F-Zero (what-ever.) Satisfied that I wasn't missing out, I approached the old guy in charge of the yard sale.

At the sight of the worn cartridge held so tenderly in my experience-point-calloused hands, he balked. "Keep it. Just keep it, okay?" I stared. Was this guy really giving me a free classic? I pointed out that it was pretty valuable for its condition, but he insisted. "Please… just take it." After a few more minutes of arguing, I let him give me a free copy of the original Majora's Mask-- yet, somehow, as if I knew subconsciously that something was wrong, I felt worse off in the bargain than he.

Nonetheless, the discomforted feeling of being screwed over faded away as my spirits shot through the roof at the thought of having my own copy. For years I'd begged and hunted and haggled and never had a copy of my own. And it looked good, for all that its only identifier was a handwritten title on the back.

There was some story all over the Internet a couple of months ago… a lot of rag about Majora's Mask. When I read it at the time, I was genuinely creeped out-- I couldn't sleep for a week. But now, going back and reading it over, I realize that it's nothing-- nothing-- compared to what I went through. I met terror, that week. I wonder if Jadusable ever really destroyed it… I never found out whether my cartridge was the same that ruined his life, or just something else altogether. But that doesn't matter anymore-- I'm trying to preserve the truth, as I saw it happen, and hopefully he won't find it and hide the truth.

At any rate, there are eerily similarities between his story and mine. For instance, the cartridge itself: no label, no identification whatsoever except for the handwritten name on the back. And… well, other things will appear that you may recognize. When I started a new file, there were no previous files waiting to "haunt" me-- it was like a new game. I started my own file and named my avatar Aly (my conscience has always been torn between loyalty to the old form and longing to pretend that I actually did something awesome for once, instead of sitting around on my lazy ass controlling some enigma known as "Link.")

I guess the first time I really realized that something was up was the night I was reading "Majora" by Jadusable and playing MM at the same time. At first, I thought maybe I was too spooked, maybe I was fooling myself into seeing things-- but no. By the time I'd gotten through Woodfall, I had figured out that something was definitely up. Link would occasionally turn and face me when I wasn't moving the controller. Whenever he did this, his face had a dull expression to it, the eyes half closed, the mouth turned down. He looked as though he were dead. At other times, I would encounter brief flashes of the Happy Mask Salesman smiling at me-- almost like subliminal messaging. Immediately, my mind went straight to my laptop, where "Jadusable's" tale was splattered like a crime scene.

What happened next left me speechless with terror and devoid of all doubts. As I slowly shifted my eyes back to the television, a brief shadow seemed to flash across the screen of my computer, then across the screen of the tv. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Surely I did not just see what I thought I had seen. As I stared at the little tv, waiting for something, anything to prove me wrong, I realized that I was completely alone in this. My parents were asleep, my siblings upstairs, and all of the lights were out downstairs-- except for the light coming from my laptop and the tv. Moreover, no one would be fast enough to save me if something bad really happened.

As if reading my thoughts, Link turned to face me again, with that creepy dead face, and a wave of paranoia sent a chill down my back. And then a text box popped up: "Alyssa? Can I ask… a question?" I flinched and dropped the controller-- because it had called me by my full name, not the name I gave my avatar, not Aly, but Alyssa-- but the text continued as if I had pressed the continue button. "Your true face… what kind of… face is it?" The question that Gyorg's remains asks you on the moon. As I continued to stare dumbly, the text started again. "Come and play with us…"

"This isn't real." My own voice made me jump. "You're not real. Jadusable… he isn't real. This is just some puffed-up prank, by someone who knows me well enough to know my real name."

And then, the game answered. It answered me, as if it had heard exactly what I said.

"He was lonely… the Skull Kid."

I was reduced from shock to a whisper. "You mean, Jadusable?"

"The power of the mask made him do it. It was too much for the Skull Kid to handle."

"What did you do to him?!" I shrieked, forgetting my sleeping parents and filled with fear for this boy I'd never known.

"Its 'cause he doesn't know his place! On top of having a weak will and no strength of heart… he's a fool!" Majora continued. (I say Majora, when I really don't know who's saying this now…) "Certainly, he had far too many weaknesses to use my power. A puppet that can no longer be used is mere garbage. This puppet's role has just ended…"

I could no longer speak at this point. I could only stare. My parents hadn't even heard me; at least, there was no movement throughout the house, almost as if the house itself were holding its breath. (Did it have something to do with that???)

"You're not sure why, but you apparently had a reservation…" The game rebooted-- just like that, with no warning, it simply restarted itself. Dreading the worst, I went to the file menu, and sure enough:

YOUR TURN
BEN

I didn't sleep. I couldn't. Every time I drifted off, even the slightest disturbance had me lurching awake, eyes wide, staring into the dark of my room. It was as if I could hear them, sitting in the shadows: "your turn… your turn…" The next day, I decided against going to class due to the prickling paranoia that stuck to me like glue. Of course, like a complete idiot, I waited until I was alone in the house to plug up my faithful N64 and dive deeper into the mystery. The files were still there, "Your Turn" and "Ben." I got angry. Who would dare screw around with me? I always get my own way, and this game wasn't about to show me who was boss. Ever the contrary. I deleted both files, then started my own all over again. Instead of starting the normal way, it took me straight to the field in the moon. As I approached the tree, that feeling came over me again-- that overwhelming paranoia and utter certainty that someone (something?) was watching me. Something in me screamed to look at my laptop and as I did-- I know this happened, I'm not insane, although I may be now-- I just caught a fleeting glimpse of that damned elegy of emptiness manikin before my screen went back to Facebook. No sooner had I looked away from the tv when the shriek that Skull Kid lets out while calling the moon played, and when I looked back the tv's screen was black. A text box popped up.

"You shouldn't have done that…" Anger drove through me and I yelled at the screen.

"And you shouldn't be taking over my tv and my laptop!!!"

"Aww, boo-hoo. Why the long face?" My anger drained away, replaced by growing horror. The text sounds were now coming from my laptop. As I turned to look again, the elegy of emptiness' face reappeared, along with the face of the Happy Mask Salesman. A Microsoft Word document loaded itself before my eyes, and words typed themselves on the screen. "Hello, Alyssa. Ben has been watching you. Ben wants to play, too. Ben is getting lonely…" A Redead scream behind me jolted me to my feet with a little shriek of my own. The tv screen went black, then "Dawn of a New Day" appeared, with "||||||||" as a subtext. My avatar found himself on top of the clock tower, with the Skull Kid hovering where he usually is in the air, staring silently at Aly-- no, at me. After a moment, I remembered what Jadusable had tried to do-- play the Song of Time-- and I quickly pulled out my ocarina to play the song that would take me back. No sooner had I played the first three notes than Link suddenly burst into flames with electricity running through his body.

I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't sit there and watch what Jadusable had to watch. I jerked my precious N64's power plug from the outlet and tore the cartridge out.

The screen remained exactly as it was, and the text began again.

"What, you don't want to play anymore?"

I could not move, paralyzed with shock.

"Fine. I'll play without you."

The screen went blank, like I'd only just shut off my 64. Behind me, my laptop shut itself down as well. When I managed to reboot it, everything was gone-- my icons, my music, pictures, video, documents, downloads. The only thing left was my wallpaper: the empty statue, grinning like he'd just committed murder.

YOUR TURN
MATT

The next day, as drove to work, I clearly saw the statue, standing there and Cheshire-cat-ing it from ear to ear. Immediately I slammed the brakes and sped off (as best I could in a '99 Plymouth Voyager-- not exactly modern technology) to the neighborhood where I'd first found the game. The same house was there, but as I approached the door, the neighbor one house over called to me. I already knew what she would say, the moment she began to say it-- it was all in her eyes. The middle-aged couple had moved-- and not, apparently, for the first time. She'd seen the wife the day they left, and had asked what brought them to disappear so suddenly and so hastily. "All they said was that they were very tired of their son following them, and that they finally had the chance to get away," she whispered. She had no idea that the couple even had a son. After asking what year they'd moved to her neighborhood-- only a year before-- I left and hurried to the college library. (It's really amazing, the things you can look up on a school computer. I think they lied when they said they monitored the screens.)

Sure enough, the couple had only been there for hardly a year, with no third person at all involved. I dug deeper, trying to figure out why they'd moved there in the first place. Only by accident did I come across a mine of information-- a newspaper article on the couple, from three or four states north. Their son had drowned himself in their bath tub, then left a file-- only one file-- on his computer claiming that a haunted game cartridge had caused him to kill himself. The suicide (murder) had been written off as a mentally deficient accident, and the game itself was never found. The couple had not left a forward address or any other way to find them once they'd vanished.

As I drove home (to my home, or Ben's?),  I filled in the blanks myself. The game took care of itself. It must have managed to magically appear every time the parents moved. I could imagine why they'd left so hastily. But I was going to fight. For them, for Jadusable, for everyone who could have been or had been destroyed by the game (even Ben; I knew now that the monster inside had simply stolen his name.) But how could I fight someone who had to make almost no effort in tearing down my life?

YOUR TURN
BEN