Afraid of the Dark

The Ego Sickness Trilogy: Part One

The story didn't start here. It doesn't end here either.

The was one before, and there is one after too.

Mark sat awkwardly at a dining chair, his arms crossed and resting on the table. Although he had been given the offer to get something to eat, he still didn't feel like it was right to go and raid someone else's food supply while they weren't there. Furthermore, the lunch at the restaurant having been booked for one o'clock, he wouldn't have long to wait for something to eat either way. He wasn't even hungry anyway. Those three reasons made him feel like it would simply be better to wait for his younger friend to come back downstairs. However, that moment did not come. He heard the noise of a hoover upstairs, which he reasonably presumed was Seán making extra sure that the floor was clear of glass fragments. He heard a few footsteps, but then there wasn't any further noise. The American man didn't want to intrude on his friend, believing that he was staying upstairs to simply think about what had happened. He was most likely worried sick about his pet, and guilt-stricken despite Mark's attempts to help. Part of Mark wanted to go up to check on him, but he also understood how it was important to give his friend some privacy.

Nevertheless, he sat impatiently, tapping his feet in a disjointed rhythm and occasionally checking the time on his phone. The TV from earlier had been left on, and every now and then it would catch his attention. A show named "This Morning" was playing, and it was being hosted by two people. One was a man with silver hair which was cut short, while the other was a woman with long, blonde hair which hung loosely down her back. An advertisement break ended, and the show resumed. The man spoke first.

"Welcome back to the show! After the incident on the tenth of May in which a group of friends were shockingly kidnapped and held hostage, resulting in multitudes of injuries and even casualties, the park was forced to close while the police and Alton Towers staff worked diligently together to help restore peace and protect the identities of the members of the group involved in the horrible event, although they later revealed themselves online with the request that they were given time to process before the media approached them. All of the members of the group were internet celebrities which led some to believe that this was a planned attack..."

- Afraid of the Dark, Chapter Four.

But what really happened at that theme park? What really happened to those people? Well, you can find out in the first book of The Ego Sickness Trilogy, A Message to Scott Cawthon: Reimagined.

Lewis, more commonly known online as Dawko, travelled with his four friends - Ryan (8-BitRyan), Baz (Bazamalam), Will (of DAGames) and Razz/Rhys (Razzbowski) - to Alton Towers for a three-day holiday to give them all a break from the stress of YouTube and to have a relaxing break where they could spend time together outside of work. However, sometimes it's impossible to truly get away from things. Or sometimes, a part of you just doesn't want to let go, or simply won't let you go. For stress can be a very powerful force that sometimes becomes too much to deal with; especially for one of the group's members. But one thing is for sure; this is going to be a holiday to remember.

The full story is uploaded on my profile, so feel free to check it out! If you don't want to read the whole story, and instead just want to know the gist of what happened, I've got you covered. Find the book on my profile called "The Drawing Board" and find the chapter called "Story Summary - A Message to Scott Cawthon: Reimagined," and you can get a 7,500-word summary on a story that was 65,000+ words long. I used to think that 7,500 words was very long, but then I started writing the 6,000-word chapters in this book and it suddenly doesn't seem too bad, ha-ha.

But what about the third story in the trilogy?

Coming in late Spring/early Summer, "Fractured Reality" will be the book to end the series of, and hopefully put all of its demons to rest. A teaser for this story can also be found on The Drawing Board, so if you want to check it out then go ahead!

Whether you continue the trilogy, go back to the start, or leave this little tale here, thank you for reading.

- YTCP