The End of the Dream

Epilogue

It had been a long day, that was all.

You went through the motions that accompanied arriving home; keys out, shoes off, bag down. Your mind was somewhere else entirely.

You couldn't—shouldn't—complain. You were doing well for yourself, all things considered. You had a stable place to live. You had friends and family, people who cared about you. Hobbies and creative pursuits you dabbled in. Sure, times weren't exactly easy for anyone, but you were keeping afloat.

Yet every so often, when you were worn down, or in the quiet hours of the night, all alone, it felt like something was missing.

A yearning, for something far bigger, or far deeper. Something you couldn't quite place or make sense of, an itch you couldn't scratch because you didn't even know where it was coming from.

You were fine. You had a good life. So why did it still bother you, the sense you were meant to be somewhere or someone else?

It was tugging at the corners of your mind again tonight. Something pulling at you. Maybe fate. Maybe destiny. Maybe your brain being a little bitch.

You needed a mindless distraction to keep your thoughts occupied, nothing more, you resolved. A video, a game, something that would make you laugh, perhaps.

You opened up YouTube, scrolling through the recommended section in search of a fit for your criteria.

A thumbnail caught your attention. Not for the video itself, but the face of the YouTuber. Humorously exaggerated as the image was, he seemed... familiar somehow.

Then again, you surmised as you investigated a little further into the channel, he must have been someone popular. Tens of millions of subscribers. There was every chance you'd simply scrolled past other people posting about him, or seen him in memes, or any other sort of internet osmosis.

It would keep bothering you unless you checked, though. So, you clicked into the video.

The conviction of familiarity only grew stronger, and, oddly, slightly sickening. Your stomach knotted tightly. You knew that face; you just didn't know how.

Then he spoke, and the floor dropped out from under you.

"Hello, everybody," he smiled, "my name is Markiplier."