Back at Square One (BEN Drowned)

1

Claws and chains strewn around.
What is lost will not be found.
Sinking to a final breath
Only hope to see your death.

I remember having a weird dream before I jumped and checked my alarm. 4:00 in the morning. The usual. I groan to myself and sit up in bed, eyes still groggy and trying to stay open.

This would be the time to reminisce, but I'm not in the mood for that right now. Hastily looking around for something to take my mind off what must have been some kind of drug trip, I grab my laptop and sigh in relief upon seeing it's still at 70%.

I instantly boot up iTunes and put on some generic alternative rock band to soothe myself. It's one I don't exactly recognize but can still appreciate. Besides, I'm too lazy to skip anything at this point.

My weird fever dream slowly comes back to me in chunks as I check my social media. I find myself staring blankly at the screen for about 30 seconds before snapping out of it.

Monsters, monsters, everywhere.
You'll soon find yourself in his lair.

I scroll through my feed and chuckle to myself. There's some humanitarian blog who reposted an article about yet another school shooting. Unfazed, I go further down to the rest of the new content. Someone's selling keychains of some cute cartoon characters, and I feel myself give out to a tiny smile.

Maybe I'll buy one. Just one.

Oh. Here's something interesting.

Some sixpence-esque account posted a new story about what could be lurking in your fridge, or behind your TV, or whatever, I didn't look at the details. I tell myself I'll read it later, and then laugh to myself. That's such a huge fucking lie.

Play with me, play with me.
Or be trapped for eternity.

I still save it anyway. It could be something to look at in the middle of the night when I'm actually in the mood to scare myself shitless.

Haunted Majora's Mask ARG continued!

I furrow my eyebrows at what might be the stupidest title I've ever seen. I've played Majora's Mask a couple times in my childhood, mostly because my friends told me it was a type of scary-fun. It probably should have put me in an existential crisis, but I guess kids just don't really have that much of a grip on things yet.

A broken heart, a long-lost life.
Why prevent this world from strife?

But anyway, I'd heard of a haunted copy of the game a couple years back. Intrigued, I read the story and immediately called bullshit. Jadusable is interesting, sure, and pretty well written. But the creator outright confirmed it was fiction. BEN Drowned doesn't exist.

Looks like the buzz is up again, though.

I sigh to myself, somehow slightly disappointed upon remembering it. Glancing at the title again, and narrowing my eyes at the screen, I quickly save it and scroll past.

Claws and chains, claws and chains.
Play the game, it's all that remains.