Dark Side - A Markiplier Fanfic

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

The next day, I woke up with a strange mood. I wasn’t sure how things would be with Mark and I wasn’t very sure how to feel about him either. I mean, he had been close to slitting my throat, after all. Of course, he could have just been playing that up. Maybe he wouldn’t have actually done it, but still. It didn’t put us on very good terms.

I showered as soon as I got up. I disappeared into the bathroom before I could even see Mark. I wanted to stall because I hated awkwardness. Apparently Mark did too, because he approached me as soon as I came into the kitchen afterwards. I had avoided going in there for the rest of the night the day before, just in case he felt the urge to grab a knife again. However, I couldn’t avoid it forever. I was hungry.

“Hey,” Mark said as he walked into the kitchen after me.

“Hi,” I answered. I didn’t look at him when I said it. Instead, I focused on pouring myself a bowl of cereal. The day before, I almost wanted eye contact. Today, however, it was the opposite.

“Will you please look at me?” Mark asked. I didn’t want to, but I did. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said. “I just didn’t want you to get away.” He seemed truthful. He seemed sincere. He was still speaking as a technically psychotic, unstable guy, though. And yet, I forgave him. I didn’t want to, but I knew I couldn’t be mad at him forever. I couldn’t help but forgive him when he looked at me with such apologetic eyes.

“Okay,” was all I could say to him.

“My parents and brother are coming over tomorrow, by the way, so you’ll have to lay low for a while,” he told me. I wondered why they were coming for a moment, until I took the milk out of the refrigerator. I saw the calendar on the front of the fridge and did the math. Yep. It was Christmas Eve. Tomorrow was Christmas, that’s why his family would be here. He still got to spend time with his family while I had to be hours away from mine with them wondering where I could possibly be.

“Do they get to see me at all?”

“No. They would be too suspicious if I said you were just a friend, but I can’t say you’re my girlfriend because then they’d tell everyone and my friends would find out. It would be best if they just didn’t know you were here,” Mark decided. I sighed. Now I didn’t even exist, practically. “But we will do some publicity tonight. I was thinking maybe an Instagram post of us? It’ll show up on everything: Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter…you’re going to be a part of my channel soon, so people are going to have to know about you. It’ll be better to advertise than to just have you show up out of nowhere in a video,” he added. Oh, great. That makes everything better.

Mark did his normal video recording routine but this time I didn’t stay and watch. Instead, I resorted to my normal routine of watching TV. Since it was Christmas Eve, there were plenty of holiday programs on, but I wasn’t interested in any of them. They were all about family and friends, and I didn’t want to think about mine. I didn’t know if I’d ever get to see or talk to them again. I hadn’t thought about that too much since I had been kidnapped, maybe because I wanted to avoid the topic, but now I couldn’t avoid it. I wanted to try my best not to think about it, though.

Just when I had begun to heighten my mood, Mark stole the remote from me and changed the channel. “Hey, I was watching that!” I yelled, annoyed.

“It’s Christmas Eve. We should be watching Christmas movies,” he reminded me. He put it on a channel that was playing Home Alone. I didn’t complain about the movie. It was one of my favorites. But I did cry. I had never thought in a million years that I would ever cry because of Home Alone, but I did this time. I realized I was just like the main character. I had been alone and in trouble. I had no family. The only difference was that the main character of the movie was saved. He got his family back. I couldn’t avoid the danger I had been in that night my parents left me home alone, and I couldn’t get my parents back, either.

“Hey? Is something wrong?” I had forgotten that Mark was there. I didn’t even worry about hiding my tears or my red face because I was feeling so alone that I guess I thought I was completely alone.

“No,” I said as I wiped away a tear. What did he care, anyways?

“This movie isn’t THAT emotional. It’s by no means a tearjerker. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m hours away from my family who I won’t get to see for Christmas tomorrow. I no longer have contact with anyone I care about. I’m still not sure at all if I’m even safe here or not. So everything’s pretty much fine,” I said shakily. For a moment, we just sat there. Then, Mark turned the TV off.

“You know what? Let’s go make a video,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“Let’s make a video. You and me. We can do any game you want,” he clarified.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. We can record it now and I’ll post it tomorrow. It’ll be a Christmas special,” Mark said. I refused to move, so he grabbed my arm and pulled me until I was on my feet. He led me to his room and sat me down on his bed, where he wiped away my last few tears. I shuddered at his touch but he blew it off, so I did the same.

Mark had to get everything set up since he had turned his equipment off after he thought he was done recording for the day. I was thankful for that, because it gave me a chance to calm down a little. By the time he was ready to record, my face was a lot less red and it wasn’t quite as obvious that I had just been crying.

I wanted to play a horror game, so that’s exactly what we did. We went through some of his messages and looked at the recommendations people had been giving him lately. There were quite a few people who suggested a game called Into the Darkness. I had never heard of it, but Mark said he had been hearing a lot about it lately, so we decided to give it a shot. When he started recording, I was on edge. I couldn’t focus on anything except for the fact that I was being filmed and over a million people would see me. I tried really hard to say the right things. But after we got into the game, I forgot we were making a video. I was enveloped in the storyline, the game play, the jump scares.

It actually was a really frightening game. It reminded me a lot of Vanish, a game that Mark had played a while back. It had managed to scare him more than any other game had, and I honestly felt for him when I watched him play it. This time, though, I was with him, and I was feeling the same emotions as he was. It was a cool experience, honestly. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Except for seeing my family and friends again, maybe…

That was when it hit me. My parents blew Mark off. They knew of him, because I talked about him constantly, but they would never think to watch his videos. My best friend Stephanie, however, was a fan of his. She didn’t follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. She wasn’t as dedicated to the fan base as I was. However, she watched his videos when she could. Maybe she would see this one. Maybe she’d see it and contact my parents, because they probably had already spoken to all of my friends by now, asking them if they had any idea where I was. She knew Mark lived in Cincinnati, and so did my parents, who had heard about him so much. They could come here and find me. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before, but now that I had, I felt hopeful. Of course, I wouldn’t mention any of this to Mark.

“So, how’d you like being in a video?” he asked me after we were done recording.

“It was really fun,” I admitted. “That game was amazing.”

“Yeah, it was pretty good. A lot better than I had expected. So, how about we advertise?”

“Sure.” We put on Christmas-themed outfits and took a selfie for Instagram. He put his arm around me for the picture, which, of course, sent a chill down my spine. I didn’t understand why I was still so affected by him after the way he had acted the day before. He was dangerous. He was scary, even. But that was only when his dark side came out, right? I mean, he was being nice now. He was being himself. Maybe it wasn’t so bad that I still had a bit of a crush on him.

I went to bed about an hour later, after hearing that a lot of people couldn’t wait to see our video together after seeing the post on Instagram. I probably should have been happy about that, but I really wasn’t. I was back in a crappy mood when I went to bed. I wasn’t that upset anymore, just not very joyful either. I honestly just wanted to escape what had become my reality. It was probably the first Christmas Eve where I had absolutely no trouble falling asleep. That wasn’t surprising, though. It was also going to be the first Christmas where I would have nothing to look forward to in the morning.