Ego Sickness: The Archives.

In-Depth Summary - Afraid of the Dark (1/3).

The In-Depth summary for this story is so bloody long that I'm making the executive decision to split it into three parts. I do not want to post a single chapter over 10,000 charecters ever again, good god...

This section contains the Prologue, and Chapters One to Fourteen.

Context:

This summary is much longer than the summary of AMTSC:R, simply because the story was almost three times the length. The characters, in order of oldest to youngest, are as follows: Tyler Scheid (Tyler), LordMinion777 (Wade), Markiplier (Mark), muyskerm (Bob), jacksepticeye (Seán/Jack), CrankGameplays (Ethan).

Prologue:

AOTD begins from the perspective of a London taxi driver who had moved to Brighton in hopes of easier work, which proved to be impossible to find thus making him grow irritated at a job he once enjoyed. He's working a late shift and has just dropped four people (who are CrankGameplays (Ethan), Tyler Scheid (Tyler), LordMinion777 (Wade) and muyskerm (Bob)) from a nearby train station to a hotel. However, he still has one more passenger in his cab, which is Markiplier (Mark), and takes him to another location to be dropped off at. The driver and Mark make small talk on the journey which allows the reader to understand the context as to why five the American men are in England.

They are there for some sort of "community event" linked to their line of work, which they only found out about very recently. Because of this, they had to make last minute bookings at hotels. There is an event in Brighton called "Brighton Pride" which is a gathering of LGBTQ+ people and its supporters to celebrate Pride Month in England, an event which attracts many people to Brighton. This meant that it was very hard to book hotels, and the only room available could house four people instead of five. Luckily, as the group had friends who lived in Brighton, the person who was left out of the hotel was allowed to stay at one of their houses close by.

The driver pulls up to the area which Mark is going to depart at and gets a very bad feeling (intuition) and gives a warning to the American man to be careful, although Mark just shrugs it off as he doesn't see what could be wrong. He takes a short walk to reach his final destination: the house of his friend, jacksepticeye (Seán, although he is sometimes called Jack).

He rings the doorbell and waits, randomly looking around as he does so. Eventually, he looks to an area containing a lot of bins and sees that one contains a Diamond YouTube Play Button, which is a very special award given to any YouTuber who reaches ten million subscribers. The award is damaged, but it doesn't look irreparable, so Mark is confused as to why it was thrown away. However, the door is finally answered and he gets to see Seán for the first time in the story, noting how he looks a little worn out. However, due to how late it is at night, Mark doesn't think too much about this. They greet each other and catch up on life, joking about the major flight delays that the group of Americans had faced (making them over five and a half hours late) while Mark also greets the house cat Big Boss (who is called BB for short).

Seán leads Mark through the house to the guest room, saying hello to GirlGamerGab/Gab Smoulders (Evelien), who is Seán's girlfriend. The Dutch woman and the American man speak briefly, before the two men go to the guest room where Mark starts to unpack. Seán asks if Mark wants anything such as a coffee, to which Mark asks for a water. Seán also offers to reheat some left-over pasta and sauce so that his friend can have something to eat. The Irish man looks like he is about to leave, so Mark continues his unpacking task, but turns around towards the door to see that Seán is in fact still standing there. He seems preoccupied with looking at his reflection in a standing mirror that is in the corner of the room, and ignores Mark's questions until finally coming back to his senses, asking the American man if he has sugar and milk in his coffee. Mark is obviously confused, and once again asks for water. Seán this time leaves, and Mark wonders if anything was wrong. However, he says that he is overthinking things and just continues to unpack.