Story (Full) 1
Johnisdead shares many elements with Ben Drowned - an ARG created by Alex Hall in 2010. This page will be dedicated to retelling the story of Ben Drowned so that readers will have full context required for Johnisdead.
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Alex - a sophomore in college.
On September 7th, 2010, a young man named Alex made a post on /x//x/ is the name of an image board on 4chan. Here, users often discuss supernatural and paranormal subject matters. that detailed his strange experiences over the past few days. Alex was a sophomore in college who had just recently moved into his dorm room. His only form of entertainment was a Nintendo 64The Nintendo 64 is a cartridge-based videogame system created by Nintendo in 1996. and a copy of Super Smash Bros.Super Smash Bros. is a party/fighting game created by Nintendo. It features various characters from other Nintendo videogames. given to him by his friend. Alex had quickly become bored with the game. That weekend, he decided to drive around searching for more via local yard sales. Alex was successful, finding several classic games. However, just as he was about to head home, Alex was drawn to a humble yard sale being hosted by a strange Old Man.
Alex
"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, but something sort of drew me there. I usually trust my gut on these things."
The Old Man was strange. He seemed to be blind in his right eye and he was selling an assortment of strange inkblot paintings. Alex asked the man if he had any videogames for sale, expecting him to not even know what one was. To his surprised, the Old Man shuffled back into his home to retrieve one. When he returned, he handed Alex an old copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's MaskThe Legend of Zelda is a videogame series created by Nintendo. Majora's Mask released in 2000 for the Nintendo 64. It is often considered the black sheep of the series due to its strange tone and atmosphere.. The Old Man gave Alex the game for free. As Alex turned to leave, the Old Man said "Goodbye, Ben!".
An example of one of the Old Man's paintings.
The old Majora's Mask cartridge.
Alex returned to his dorm room and booted up the game. Here, he discovered that it already contained a save file simply named "BEN". Saddened, he believed that perhaps the senile Old Man once had a grandson named Ben and was reminded of him by Alex. Ben had made it fairly far into the game, having just reached the final level - the Stone Tower Temple. Out of respect, Alex allowed the "BEN" save file to remain and instead created his own named "Link"Link" is the name of the protagonist of The Legend of Zelda series.". As Alex played the game, he noticed several oddities. Textures would occasionally appear where they shouldn't. Random snippets of cutscenes would flash on screen. Strangest of all, characters would sometimes refer to Link as "BEN". Unnerved, Alex decided to delete the "BEN" save file, hoping this would solve the issue. It didn't. Instead, characters would now simply refer to Link with blank spaces. Frustrated, Alex stopped playing for the night.
