Afraid of the Dark

Chapter One

Buzz, buzz!

The sound of his phone pulled Mark out of his train of thought. He put down the items that he was holding and pulled out his phone from his pocket, seeing the little blue light which indicated that he had a new message. His phone, like many new modern smart phones, had facial recognition technology to save him from having to put in a password each time, which granted, only saved a few seconds of time. He simply looked at his phone, causing the home screen to light up, before opening the new message.

"Hey, Mark, we are all settled in here. Just eating a take away and then we will head off for the night. I know that we said we were going to FaceTime, but we decided that when we hadn't been delayed by hours, lol. I hope that's okay with you. Just texting to check that you have gotten to Jack's and stuff. Tell him and Gab that we said hi. Text us when you get this message. See you tomorrow. – Wade."

Mark smiled a bit with amusement. Wade was clearly beyond tired. Most of Seán's friends would usually make an effort to call him Seán instead of Jack, so Wade's slip up was clearly an obvious pointer to his energy levels right now. He quickly started to type out a response. "I'm all good here. Arrived five-ten minutes ago, just unpacking my stuff. And yeah, no FaceTime for now, ha-ha. Have a good night." He pressed 'send' and waited a few moments, noticing how it was taking much longer than usual for his message to send. Ten seconds later, there was a disapproving beep and a little red notification popped up at the top of the screen.

"Message Failed to Send. Please Check your Network Connectivity then Try Again." He did as the message directed, but was surprised at the results. He had full 4G connection. There was no reason why the message shouldn't have sent. So, he tried again. The same result popped up. The American made a mental note to ask his hosts for the Wi-Fi password, before putting his phone back into his pocket.

It didn't take Mark long to finish unpacking his suitcase. With his clothes in the wardrobe, and his other belongings neatly on top of the desk or within its drawers, he looked around at his work, satisfied. He had also brought with him a small rucksack, which contained a change of clothes for a single day. That was for Saturday. With his task out of the way, he left his room and began to make his way downstairs, meeting up with Evelien as she left her room too. Before leaving the second floor, he quickly stopped off at the bathroom so that he cut drop off his small bag of wash stuff and a change of clothes for later that night.

Evelien Smoulders, more commonly known as GirlGamerGab, GG Gab, or Gab Smoulders, was a thirty-year-old Dutch streamer, although she did also have a YouTube channel. BB was technically her cat, but like any household pet, both her and Seán were like his parents. But like with any cat, BB most likely thought that it was he who owned the house and its inhabitants. Evelien's eyes were both a shade of brown however she had minor heterochromia which meant that one eye was a darker brown while the other was a lighter brown, as if it had been mixed with amber. She had long, mousey-brown hair that went to below her shoulders. On her right arm she had a tattoo sleeve, which consisted of swirling clouds, a moon, an Oni face – which was a Japanese demon – along with Japanese writing, stars, and flowers. It was in a variety of blues, reds and yellows. On the upper part of her left arm, she had an alchemy circle tattoo, and on her forearm, she had a Caduceus tattoo. She also had the tattoo of a feather under her left collarbone. Seán had a single tattoo himself. On his right forearm he had the symbol of the Hunter's Mark from the gothic horror game called Bloodborne. Evelien was dressed in some simple clothing, which was logical considering how late at night it was. She wore a black tank top, grey track suit bottoms, and a pair of royal-blue slippers.

Walking down the stairs and through a hallway, the two of them eventually came into the living room. It was very large, with the lounge area on one side and a dining area on the other. The whole room had cappuccino-coloured walls and brown wooden floorboards. There were two small fake-crystal chandeliers evenly spaced across the ceiling, which lit up the room nicely. The lounge area consisted of two large armchairs and a medium sized sofa that was pointed at a fireplace in the corner of the room. The seats were brown but had red cushions on top of them. The fireplace itself seemed like it was just for decoration, as instead of having a blazing fire inside, there were simply strands of warm white fairy lights. Above the fireplace, there was a very large plasma screen television with various game consoles set up beneath it such as the PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch. Between the fireplace and the sitting area was an oval coffee table made of a light birch wood, that had a rug which was the same colour as the walls underneath it. There were multiple red china plant pots, and each one contained a green cactus, a few of which had some flowers. On the walls in the lounge area, there were three staggered pictures with the phrase "Home Sweet Home," written down them. In the dining area of the room, a large chest of drawers was flushed against one f the walls, with some shelves directly above it. Beside this there was a cat stand, which was a multistage jungle gym for felines, equipped with scratching posts and kitty-sized pillows and hammocks. On the shelves, and on the top of the drawers, were some books and a few red ornaments such as paper weights, wooden statues, and also a black and heavy looking china owl which was around the size of a tennis ball. There was also the table of course. A light birch coloured rectangular table had a vase at the centre of it, containing a single white chrysanthemum. Around the table were six chairs, each made of the same wood which the table was made of, but with padded red seat covers. A large window was near the dining table, but the curtains had been drawn across it. The living area connected to both the hallway where Mark had come from, but also to a kitchen which Seán was now walking out from, a tray in his hands with a steaming plate of tomato pasta with cheese and herbs on top, along with two slices of readymade garlic bread, a glass of water, and one mug of hot coffee. He set it down on the table gently, in front of one of the chairs, before distributing the drinks to different seats nearby.