Afraid of the Dark

Chapter Three

The only lucky thing to happen that day was that the foundation which Mark was given was a perfect match of his skin tone. He had worn makeup before a few times, such as when he went on tour and for the odd forfeit during charity streams, so he knew what he was doing as he started - or at least he knew the basics. It didn't take long until the majority of the reddish and purplish skin had been covered, however the section above his voice box where the bruising was the worst was still a little unnatural looking as it was darker than it would have been normally, even with the foundation on. He had simply tried to add more to that area, but had quickly realised that by doing so he was making the area around that patch lighter than it should be, so he decided to stop and finish his 'makeover'. Today, Mark was wearing dark navy trousers, a black shirt with the outline of golden letters spelling out, 'NO' and a red zip-up hoodie. He zipped it up as far is it could go to try and hide as much as his neck as he could, but it didn't make much of a difference.

He put the foundation in his smaller travel rucksack and was about to head downstairs when his phone suddenly started to ring; it was Wade, trying to FaceTime him. As he picked up the phone, he took note of the time. It was 10:57. Almost eleven o'clock. He was supposed to have rung his friends at half past nine, so it wasn't surprising that they were now ringing him instead. With a bit of delayed realisation, he remembered that after he had gotten the Wi-Fi password, he had never actually resent the message, meaning that he never confirmed with his friends if he had ever gotten to his destination.

Without a second more of waiting, he answered the FaceTime call, nervously tucking his head down slightly so that the people on the other side would have less of a chance to see what had happened - he was going to tell them at some point, but he thought that it would only be right to let Seán and Evelien have their input on it too. The screen lit up with the white words, 'Connecting to the Call' before four men inside of a hotel room suddenly appeared.

The hotel room was unnecessarily large for its purpose, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The carpet was a deep shade of purple, while the walls were painted cream. The ceiling was that strange white bobble-ceiling which was uneven and rather ugly looking. A very large window which reached the floor was visible, with purple faux-velvet curtains which had beeen drawn open either side of it, to give a rather unappealing view of the hotel's carpark. Four large single-beds with white linin and purple foot blankets were spaced evenly across the length of the room, a table between each one to provide storage space for its inhabitants. Along with those tables, there was also a white painted desk with a mirror and hardback chair, a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, and two open wardrobes. There were two doors, one most likely leading to the bathroom while the other would lead to the outside corridor. One person was closest to the phone, while one person was sitting at the desk, and the other two were sitting on a bed.

The first person, who appeared to be holding the phone, was George Barnes - but everyone just called him Wade, which was his middle name. Mark and Wade had known each other since middle school. Online, he was better known by the name 'LordMinion777' and he, like almost everyone else who was currently in the hotel room, was an American gaming YouTuber. The thirty-year-old man had hazel eyes, and brown hair. He had a relatively thick beard, but had thinning hair on top of his head with a receding hairline. He was often the target of the group's collective jokes and light-hearted banter, which was both simultaneously annoying and entertaining to him. He wasn't the most energetic of the group, but he certainly was always up for a laugh, often being able to focus well on most challenges which came his way, thanks to his relatively good patience. Currently, he was wearing a green t-shirt with the words "THIS IS MY LUCKY SHIRT" on the front of it in slightly faded white letters, ankle-length jeans which were an uneven shade of navy blue, and black socks which had a rather obvious hole in one of the toes. He seemed to be slightly stressed, most likely due to the fact that Mark hadn't contacted them since they had left the taxi yesterday night, but the frown on his face and his furrowed eyebrows melted away when he saw that his friend was safe and well - at least, in Wade's perspective he was.