Work Text:
It wasn’t too long ago when you were out with your mom at this garage sale. You were so bored of going with her to appointments, so you got quite excited when you saw a sign that pointed to a garage sale with a large box of old games. You loved games. It was like all you did in your free time. Play and collect merchandise for every game you adored. Your room was full to the brim, from poster to figure, to tapestry, to device. A whole world of your favorite things. And your favorite game of all? Was The legend of Zelda, Majoras mask specifically. So when you found an old copy of the game at that garage sale, of course you got it. That would probably be the worst decision you’d make so far. You’d gone home and immediately started it up. Finally something fun to do for the weekend. When you started it, it was a bit slow, but you expected that. There was a saved file though. Just one, with the title “BEN.”
Probably someone’s old file…, you assumed. So you had deleted it and started your own. But instantly the glitches got worse. They were weird glitches…like abnormal, not just an old game type. First your screen started turning into pixels. In the dark of your room, sitting on your bed, the bright colorful light of your large screen beamed over your face. The rainbow pixels cast over your whole room. Then your character on the screen you were playing started moving weird. First it just started vanishing then coming back in flickers. Then it would suddenly crank its neck backwards to the side, its little pixel eyes going black with blood pouring out like they’d been pried out.
“What the hell…”
The character started jumping into completely different environments than you even thought were in the game at all. The music started to play backwards, even louder than full volume, with glitchy shrieks in the back. You tore off your headphones with a sharp sound of pain, tossing them across the room. But it didn’t stop. It wasn’t even coming from your headphones. It was coming from….everywhere. You pressed your hands as tight as possible to your ears, eyes squeezing shut in a grimace like that would help. Then you opened one eye to look at the screen again. Your eyes widened, jumping back. Now the whole screen was a face. Close. Closer than close. It almost felt like it was pressing out of it. A pale while sickly face, half pixels with black bleeding eyes like that character was. A neon green glow beamed over your room in the dark as you stared. The face glitched into a black silhouette of itself, then back again, with long ears like an elf that looked like they were pressed against the inside of the screen. Like someone inside of a glass box. Then came the giggling. Or what sounded like giggling. High pitched static like sounds, that almost sounded like giggling. You didn’t understand what was going on, but all you could do was stare. Then your whole room started to shake. Like an earthquake but it almost felt like water. There wasn’t any water anywhere, but you felt like you were drowning. You couldn’t breathe, the room felt so heavy. So loud. So bright yet so dark. You coughed but you couldn’t even hear yourself. Now plastered over the face’s eyes was a long bar with the words “YOU ShOuLDN@T HAVe d0nE thAt~”, flickering over in bright red letters that basically were bleeding themselves. It just kept going. You curled up in a tight ball on your bed with your ears covered so tight, but it wasn’t doing anything. How could your parents not hear?! Why weren’t they noticing?! Why weren’t they coming?! Were you dreaming?
Then the face suddenly backed up. Now you could see half of a small bleeding body with a long stocking-like cap, swaying in some kind of wind. Then you felt the “wind” yourself. It was cold and almost salty. It tasted like salt. It burned your eyes, but if you closed them you wouldn’t see what was happening. So you kept them barely squinted. In the small line of your vision, you saw the silhouette come closer. Then it defied the law of physics, two small hands reaching *through* the screen. Then a head popping out, dripping black water, hair soaking then suddenly dry, then dripping again. Nothing was even possible, but it was happening. The little *thing* was crawling through your computer. By now you had been crying, or at least tearing up ever so slightly. Whatever you were willing to admit. The thing, a glitchy form of what you thought was an elf or a ghost of something, looking strangely like a smaller, filthy, terrifying version of link, was about halfway through your screen. Now in between the high static like frequencies, you heard words. They were robotic and high pitched again, but you could understand them.
“Don’t cover your ears! Pay attention. Pay attention. Pay attention-pay-pay-pay$&7407906#%%+}#####pay attention. You shouldn’t have done that~ you shouldn’thavedonethatshouldnthavedonethat nonononono bad, bad, bad-66666666666666”
Then this choking giggle, sounding like you were gargling water and…laughing. And heaving. Choking. Giggling. Screaming. Shrieking. Shrieking as high and loud as you had ever heard. Now you looked again. The thing was crawling. Not through the screen anymore. But up, up, up your bed…it was slowly tossing things as it went. Tracing its black fingers up one of your blankets before throwing it off. It could fly too apparently. Cause it did. Slowly levitate up, up, up, until its heavy presence was right above you…you couldn’t look, you wouldn’t. Just bury yourself face in a stuffed animal. It was just. So. Loud….
“Don’t hide, d0nt d0nt hide!~ you shouldn’t have done that~…look at me. Look at me. I foundddddd youuuuuu!!~ i seeeeee youuuuuuuu…don’t ignore me!! DONT IGNORE ME!! Look.look.look.look.lOOk.LOOK.LOOK.LOOK.LOOK.LOOK.LOOK.LOOK.-“ it just got higher. Louder, higher frequency, until it was just screaming. It sounded whiny. Like genuine complaining. This thing was mad you weren’t looking. In fact it started tearing up, under the blood already dripping from its eyes. It was like a whiny child…what did it want?! Why was it here?! Why you?! You weren’t paying attention. You weren’t DOING anything….so that’s what you tried. You tried ignoring this thing…you didn’t know what it was, and even if you did WANT to know, you would pretend you didn’t care. You’d just hide in a ball and see if it’d leave…it didn’t. It just got more annoyed…
That was the first day. It *never* left. Your screen never turned off. You’d tried unplugging it, it didn’t matter. You’d been living with this thing for days. Turns out no one else could see it. See him. It was a boy, a young one at that, you’d learned. No one could see him. No one could see your screen. No one could see what was happening to you. No one could see the tormenting that never ended. You couldn’t sleep, even school wasn’t safe. He followed you. Just hovered around, spinning and messed everything up. Here’s how it went. You’d try and ignore him. Ben was his name. He talked. He talked and talked and whined and screamed and glitched your whole world. You’d *really*…really tried. But he would get so upset when you wouldn’t answer…if you wouldn’t acknowledge him. And he’d just make your world worse. Louder and just worse. So you learned the best you could do was listen quietly. If you lost it and yelled and cried he was just getting what he wanted. But if you ignored him he’d lose it himself. One day you did lose it though…the second day he wouldn’t let you sleep, throwing everything off your shelves and whining and making everything around you ring in your ears. You couldn’t take it anymore and that when you broke. You jolted up and tried to grab the little thing’s arm and tug him down from where he was hovering and just started yelling.
“why?! What do you want?! Why are you here and WHY ME?!”, you’d said. That was when you learned it just made him happy. He’d get a high off of your suffering and giggle around, talking on and on and taunting you. Apparently he was 12. A literal child. Well…ok, you were only 14, but still. He was a ghost trapped in the game you’d bought who’d been drowned in a cult and was stuck with whoever owned the game. He wanted to trade places with you…well, forcefully. He wanted to get you stuck inside the game so he could be free, but to do that he had to kill you and you learned he couldn’t kill you if you were older than him…it was just a glitch in his “system”. It had to be a direct age match by the year. He didn’t tell you that part of course, you learned it yourself. Why would he tell you his weakness. Therefore, you were stuck with him…forever…trying to keep him somewhat calm so he wouldn’t keep torturing you. no you couldn’t just get rid of the game. It didn’t work like that.
So now we finally come to today. The fifth day with Ben drowned. You’d gotten used to him floating around and whining and complaining every moment. It was like having a puppy that you had to feed but at any moment could snap and bite your arm off. But, also at the same time like a little brother. You had to bring snacks for him all the time, be VERY careful with your words, or he’d start crying and get angry, then glitch your world out again. Today you had brought up left overs from your breakfast for him, exhausted from every night of him not letting you sleep and just flying around you. You brought a glass of water, half of a waffle, and a bit of extra eggs. So you opened the door to see Ben sitting on your bed kicking his feet, the feet in green pointy boots that were glitching in and out. His face looked impatient and bored.
“Here…breakfast.”, you shoved the plate of food in his lap and instantly he was chowing down. Apparently ghosts ate. You walked to your desk, sitting down the glass of water and cautiously starting to do some homework. It was silent for a second, but only a second was long enough for him to get bored.
“Hey. Hey. Person. What are you doing? What’s that. What’s that.”, he floated up from the bed with his plate and closer, hovering over you.
“What’s that. What are you doing. Why aren’t you answering. Are you deaf? Hello. Hellooooo?? What’s that! HELLO??”
“Nothing.”
“Stop lying! That’s not true! That’s something. What are you doing? What’s that? Why are you ignoring me?! DONT IGNORE ME! STOP!”, and he started whining again, tearing up with his bottom lip trembling.
“STOP! That’s not fair! THATS NOT FAIR!!! I just wanna know!”
When he got upset, the whole place would always start shaking. So then you started yelling to.
“OK!! Stop it! I get it!”
You grabbed your glass of Water tightly in your hand, taking a sip to try and relax.
“NO! You’re so MEAN!”
“SHUT UP!! YOU STUPID LITTLE BURDEN!”
Then you saw him freeze in the air, staring at you. Now he shut up. You thought it was from your words, maybe a little, but no. He wasn’t looking at your face, but your hand.
“Put that away…”
“What….the freaking water? Oh THATS what you have a problem with?! No! You know what, no! I hate you! I wish you’d just disappear!”
And you threw your glass of water at him. The glass was thick e ought to just hit the floor and not break, but the water just soaked the flying green kid. For a short second there was silence. Just you watching him with anger. But he seemed genuinely frozen. Then things started to happen. He started shaking. Abnormally shaking, not just trembling. His entire self seemed to glitch completely in and out, his whole body pixelating. His breathing was just choking as tears started immediately pouring, but then he just started screaming. This shrieking, terrified, no, petrified noise like the static one from before, but now not to annoy, but full of genuine terror. What the heck…it just water, is he really THAT freaking childish…but this was different. The whole room again started to shake, this time lights flickered, and he started darting around, banging into every corner in this frantic panic. He was completely sobbing, trying to get away from the wetness that felt like it was absorbing him.
“Hey— hey, slow down! Gosh!”
“STOP IT!! STOP IT, NO!! NO GET IT OFF!”, he just screamed, sobbing like a broken CD Sounded being played. Then you remembered.
‘Lord…I’m so stupid, he freaking drowned, it’s in his literal name, of course this is what happens..’, you thought…
“Ok!! Ok I’m sorry!! It’s ok!! I just— AGH!! Come here! I’ll get it off! I’ll dry you off! Lemme get a towel- gosh-“
He was still just sobbing and darting everywhere, while you ran to your bathroom attached to your room, and grabbed a white towel. When you ran back, he had given up on hitting corners, and was sliding down the wall sobbing and shaking until he was a pile on the ground against the wall.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know—..well, I guess I sort of did but not really!! Please don’t do that, there’s a lot going on here- I’ll fix it!”
So you crouched next to the small shaking elf and wrapped him in the towel. He flinched, but you took off his little green hat to dry his hair and try and wipe his face. The blood from his eyes didn’t budge at all. It was like it was part of his skin. But he could be dried from what you poured on him.
“Shhh…I know, I’m sorry….you kinda deserved it though..but I’m sorry. Don’t cry, I’ll fix it…”
Then all of the sudden he leaned on you and sort of hid his face in your arm.
He was so annoying. He tortured you. You hated him. But why were you feeling bad….he was just a little kid…why did you kinda feel maternal, or maybe like a big sibling. You always wanted a little sibling…maybe a psychotic one would do…why did you kinda wanna keep him…I mean…you sort of were, but you know.
“You can wear some of my pajamas, they’re just t-shirts and pj pants. They’ll be a little baggy but I think it’ll be ok.”
“Mhm…”, he mumbled, blonde hair glitching at the tips, but otherwise, everything else seemed to calm back to normal. He still was very temperamental, but I think this was the moment it went from solely tormenting you for taunts and giggles, to actually liking you somewhat and just being who he was. Originally he was gonna try and drive you to suicide, but now he didn’t really want to anymore, you gave him food and let him play games. Still sometimes he’d glitch your world around and taunt you for funsies or when he didn’t get what he wanted, be he never actually intended much harm anymore. So maybe it wasn’t so bad.