Magic Hag 64

''PROLOGUE: To the readers - the events transcribed here are all from memory when they took place almost 20 years ago now, outside the provided footage of course, so please forgive me if there are any inconsistencies. Regardless, I don't expect anyone to believe my experience so take from this what you will.''

It was 1996 when I first got the Nintendo 64. I had been saving up money from my part-time job during the Summer working as a McDonald's employee to buy the system along with Super Mario 64. As a 16-year-old at the time, I had no bills or school to be worrying about, so my free time was dedicated solely to 100% completing the game once I got it. Finally, after a painstaking month-and-a-half of working, I saved up my paychecks and went to the local Walmart and purchased my N64 along with the copy of SM64. After returning home from my Walmart trip, I immediately unboxed the console and proceeded to set it up. It was all so satisfying - smelling the fresh, new console out of the box, every part of it felt nostalgic for some reason almost as if I had done this before somewhere...maybe in some alternate universe?

Turning on the N64, the Super Mario 64 logo appeared along with the "Itsa me, Mario!" audio cue. I'll always remember that iconic quote as being a staple of my mid-childhood. For the rest of the summer of '97 I would wake up, eat, then play SM64 until the day's end. Then, repeat the cycle over-and-over. Eventually, school would start and I would have to focus my attention on my education seeing as it was gonna be my senior year before graduation. I was planning on attending an Ivy League school in the hopes of getting connections as well as a high-paying career. Throughout senior year, I spent most of my free time focused on my school and social life. As a result, I wasn't able to touch my N64 for most of the year, and the few times I did, it would usually be at a friend's house where we would play Super Smash Bros or Mario Kart.

At my graduation, my parents gave me a VHS camera as a graduation gift (they were expensive at the time). Eventually, the summer of '97 came around and now was the time for me to focus on my future. My parents wanted me to start preparing for college for the end of the summer, but I also wanted to enjoy what last bit of free time I would have. I decided to start a new file for SM64 seeing as I 100% completed my last one. After making some progress after awhile, I started to notice some strange happenings.

I had my camera rolling at the time; I was about to go to Bob-Omb Battlefield to collect the remaining star there, but as I entered the painting, the screen began to glitch out - the star's name was now covered in blue text and eventually blurred out by a blue censor line altogether. I couldn't select any other stars either, so I just decided to start the mission. But when I did, an audible laugh played, and the game cut to the screen becoming a bright red static, and afterwards, the game over music began playing alongside an error message reading "ERROR 77616B65207570". There was also some audio of what I assumed to be a Japanese woman reading the error code verbally? I just thought maybe the cartridge was damaged from dust collecting inside it, so I reset the console.

This didn't help, however. As the SM64 logo popped up, the game glitched out as Mario said "Itsa me--", and a loud screech came from the game, also, the game cut to black. What happened next incredibly disturbed me.

A painting of Bowser slowly began to fade into view from the darkness. A strange song began to play in the background as well. I didn't know what to make of this, I knew it wasn't a glitch, it couldn't be - it was far too sophisticated for that to be a possibility. I couldn't help but watch in fear as I had no idea what would come next, but I kept the camera rolling to capture what was going on. The game cut to black again, I hear a laugh, then it then transitioned to Mario being in Wet-Dry World. I didn't even take the efforts to go there, so it was confusing how it went from that cutscene to the game being playable. I didn't know if the game was "glitching" anymore. I picked up the controller and began to play. After navigating Mario through for a bit, the game briefly began to static, and in it I saw the words "HELP". At this point I knew for certain the game wasn't glitched. My heart began to pound, the adrenaline and fear began rushing through me, and even so I continued to play solely out of curiosity. I noticed that the game would static whenever I punched/kicked the solid objects, so I decided to do a jump-kick and see if it made any difference. When I did, an ear-screeching sound effect penetrated my ears - I had never felt so scared in my life before.

I eerily continued. I began to hear creepy choir chanting coming towards the left of Mario. I was very anxious as to what the game was probably about to show me, but I decided to turn towards it anyways. As I began turning Mario's POV towards the left, the choir noises got even louder, and as I finally faced where it was coming from - a disfigured, bloody-looking character appeared to be impaled in the spike that was in the middle of the map. The game flashed as I faced it, and I began to hear extremely loud screaming, but then the game cut to black for about 5 seconds. I felt like my heart was about to burst out of my chest.

What looked like a game over screen came up, but instead it showed a shadowy picture of something I couldn't quite make out. As I tried to discern what was in the photo, it began to slide up-down the screen like a movie projector. It began to shift faster, and I began to hear laughing, then screaming again, getting louder and louder. It doesn't show it in the video footage, but the screaming turned into an extremely loud static and eventually my camera decided to go haywire, along with my N64 console, and started sparking (it happened at the point where the footage cuts out), then the console exhausted blue smoke then powered off permanently. I stood still for about a solid minute to comprehend what just happened. It was 12:30 AM and I didn't want to wake up my parents or anybody to explain what just happened since they either wouldn't believe me or make a big deal out of it. I just decided to clean everything up and tried to sleep it off.

https://youtu.be/4tlpq7yCTVU

That night would be the only night where anything of that nature happened for the rest of my current life. I would move into my dorm at the college I wanted the following week, and college life and its events began to take my focus more than this seemingly supernatural event. I never experienced anything like that afterwards.

4 years would pass until that memory came back to haunt me. Around that time, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask would be released. I had never been much of a Zelda fan, but it wasn't until I started hearing and seeing things that it came back to remind me of that day. Specifically, a part of the game involving the Magic Hag's Potion Shop. I was watching one of my friends play in his dorm when he encountered Kotake at the Magic Hag's Potion Shop. I recognized the laugh coming from her as the same one from the events 4 years ago. I sat back in shock as I realized that this character was in my copy of Super Mario 64 those years ago. Not knowing what to think of it, I told my friend I had to go do something important.

Immediately I commenced my 3-hour drive back home and called my parents to let them know I'd be home early. After a brief explanation of why I came back (I just said I forgot something important), I began to search my old room, garage, and shed. After about an hour of searching, inside a dusty cardboard box I found my destroyed N64, as well as the broken SM64 cartridge. But this time I noticed something strange: The cartridge was blue on the inside. I had asked my parents if they might have ever had it come in contact with paint, spray paint, etc. and they said they haven't moved it in the 4 years I've been at college. After staying for the weekend, I took back the broken 64 and cartridge to my dorm.

After doing research online, I found that Koume/Kotake originally appeared in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as the bosses you fight at the Spirit Temple. I also found that in Majora's Mask, they run a potion shop. One interesting fact that stood out to me is that, despite being shown in-game, obtaining Blue Potions is near to impossible without the "Mask of Scents" (you use it to find mushrooms which you give to Kotake, who brews them into "Blue Potions" which become available afterwards). However, despite this, my friend, as well as others online, have stated that even when completing the quest, the Hag simply refuses to sell them to you, claiming that they are "out of stock" (despite them clearly being in stock, BEHIND her no-less).

I don't know if I might've had a hacked cartridge or if it was simply beyond my understanding, or maybe these events were foreshadowing some other in-game event in Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask? To this day I'll never know. All I know is that I can't see the Magic Hag in the same way ever again. It's been almost 20 years now (19 to be exact) and I haven't seen anyone else online saying they've had a similar experience so I feel I may be the only one who knows about the horrors of the Hag, even despite the vast ocean of the internet. To anybody who has experience in the paranormal, supernatural, etc. If you have any (legitimate) leads as to the origins of this, please contact me at [PERSONAL INFORMATION REDACTED]. Although it's been 20 years and I'm nearing my 40's, as well as raising a loving family, I'll continue to investigate this further, should the opportunity present itself. Thanks for reaching the end of my recounting of this shit, it's been a LONG time since I thought about this...