He knew it was a bad idea to have stayed out so late, he called back to his friends to have a good night as he made his way home. It was only a 20 minute walk so it wouldn't be that bad.

A clap of thunder shattered the night sky of L.A and opened up the clouds, he allowed the warm rain to pour onto his tanned skin, he hadn't even managed to get 5 minutes into the walk before nature decided to screw him over.

"Just my luck" he muttered under his breath as he let the water droplets make their landing onto the smooth skin of his face. He grumbled to himself and pulled the hood of his grey jumper over his head and continued on his walk, standing around was just going to make it worse.

He was sure to be soaked through to the bone when he managed to get home. He stuffed his hands into his hoodie pockets and attempted to keep his head down, trying to stop any more raindrops from staining his glasses. His vision was already becoming blurry.

Watching his feet move long the damp pavement reminded him of being younger, when he would sit in the backseat of his dad's car and watch the blurry world he lived in zoom by. Although, he wasn't that fast; God, was he trying. Anything to get out of this damn rain.

With only 6 minutes left of his journey home, he decided to take a short-cut through his local park. It was about 1am right now so no one would be there and, anyway, it was raining, it's not like anyone was mad enough to be out in this weather. Apart from Mark. 

The illumination of the street lights faded away as he sped through the small woodland area, his trainers being attacked by small blades of grass that thought they were a match for The Markiplier, how silly of them.l

As he passed the small playground he stopped for a moment, letting himself be caught in the storm that was just going to get worse, his jumper had already turned from its normal light grey to a shiny black. Good thing his phone was waterproof.

Memories of his childhood came back to him like when you smell something that reminds you of being a kid, the image of him and Thomas playing pirates on the playgrounds wooden pirate ship made a small smile creep onto his face. He was always Captain Jack Sparrow, Thomas said it was the way that his head involuntarily moved away from his neck without him knowing it, but Mark knew it was because his brother wanted to make him feel important. In the end, that's what big brothers do.

A harsh crack of lightning brought him out of his nostalgic trance, he was about to continue his walk but the hairs on his neck stood to attention. He felt uncomfortable, unsafe. He quickly checked his surroundings but he couldn't see anything.

'It must have been my imagination, I've been playing too many horror games' he thought to himself. He took his hood down and let his already wet hair take a harsher beating from the rain, he was going to have to shower when he got in anyway, this way he could hear the rain hitting the pavement and that was better than any music someone could shove in his ears.

He never really was one for music, he just enjoyed the sound of silence or nature, nature's music he would call it. That's something you admired about him, his goofiness always had meaning to it.

Following the pathway that presented the way to the street he felt it again, the tingle of hairs on the back of his neck. He found himself unconsciously straightening his back and tensing his body as he walked, this was to present himself as being bigger and stronger than he was, not that he knew that.

He gave another glance around his dim surroundings, but again, he couldn't see anything. Although, he felt his body begin to alter, he could feel his blood running and his heart pounding. But why? There was nothing to be afraid of.

'It's just because I'm out late at night' he told himself. Surely this was the reason behind his weird actions, it had to be the reasonable explanation.

He began to feel better when he was no longer surrounded by trees but instead by tall buildings. There were a few lights on from people's bedroom windows, night owls like himself, but other than that the street lights were his only source of sight. 

That was until they all switched off at once, at first Mark was startled, but then he remembered the time. It was gone 1am, this was around the time where they turn the street lamps off. That must be it.

He continued on his way to his house, he must be only a couple of minutes away by now. The rain started to pound harder on the pavement, Mark swore he could hear footsteps but it couldn't have been, no one would be out at this time.

It wasn't until someone collided into his side did he suspect anything. Before he could take his hands out of his pockets and prevent himself from hitting the side of the local shop, he was on the floor. He looked around him but nothing was there, he would have put money on it that someone pushed him. Or did he trip? He must have tripped because no one was there.

No one he could see anyway. He took his hands out of his pockets and pushed himself up off of the floor, as soon as he was on his feet he was slammed down on the floor again. This time he could see who it was.

A lanky man with piercing blue eyes stood above him "Come on man, at least put up a fight" he laughed as though this was all a game. Mark was completely dumbfounded, where did this guy even come from?

He just stayed on the soaking wet floor with his mouth open, the blue eyed man reached down and grabbed the collar of his hoodie and, almost effortlessly, pulled him up so he was beyond eye level with him.

When he was standing Mark thought he was going to stop, but the unknown stranger lifted him higher and higher until his feet was off of the ground. This was ridiculous, this man didn't have a single muscle on his body but was somehow lifting Mark off of the ground with only one arm.

Mark struggled as an attempt to wiggle out of this man's grip, but it was no use. "You made it almost too easy" the man laughed again, he was mocking Mark and he had no idea why.

"If you want money, I can give you money. Just don't do anything stupid" Mark said desperately, this man looked as though he has escaped from some nut house, his clothes were tatted and covered in mud. He smiled at Mark and for a second he thought he saw two elongated teeth, he was panicking too much to properly concentrate.

"I don't want money, my dear friend" the man commented, which only made Mark more confused than he was before. "Then what do you want?" Mark asked, beginning to get out of breath from the hold this man had on his jumper.

The stranger didn't answer but put Mark down on his feet, still holding him by his jumper, he leaned in as though he was going to whisper something in his ear. Mark instinctively flinched away from the man and swung a fist at him, the man only slightly moved as Mark's knuckles collided with his face. He seemed to feel no pain, this guy must have been on every drug going.

Mark wiggled to get out of his grip but he didn't back down, "You're a strong one" the man smirked as though this was some sort of test. "You'll serve the Alpha greatly" he continued, Mark was going to hit this lunatic again but he moved his head too quickly, he ducked under his fist and buried his head in the crook of Mark's neck. For a moment he thought he was trying to make a move on him, but then he felt the excruciating pain which followed.

It felt sharp as though someone had stabbed him in the jugular and was letting all the blood drain out of him. He was paralyzed to the spot, he couldn't do anything but let this man attach his lips to his neck over and over. It must have been minutes before he allowed him to slump onto the ground.

As soon as his body hit the hard floor he regained his feeling, his hand shot up to his neck and then moved in front of him so he could see it. It was as he suspected, his hand was dripping with blood. He replaced his hand over the wound to try and stop himself from bleeding out.

"I wouldn't worry about that" the man said to him, Mark looked up at his attacker with shock, there was blood dribbling from his lips, down his chin and onto his partly white t-shirt. "I'd concentrate on the hunger that's going to hit ya in the next day" he smirked down at him as though he had said the best joke in the world. 

Before Mark could blink, he was gone.

He tried to stand but was too weak, he took his hand away from his neck and levered himself into his feet by using the windowsill of the shop he had previously crashed into. He had to get help, he reached into his pocket to take out his phone. He looked down at it in dismay when he saw that it was completely smashed, it must have broken when he hit the floor numerous times.

Shakily, he put one foot in front of the other and made his way back home. He could see his house from where he was standing, it must have only been a minute away, not even that. He stumbled along the damp road, hoping no cars would come this way, the rain still pounding down on him relentlessly. At least it was washing away the blood.

He just about managed to get the key into the lock before he began to feel dizzy, he shut the door behind him and slumped down against it, the rain was muffled now that he was inside. It was the walls of his house that was somewhat soundproofing it, or his hearing was fading away from him.

He could hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears, it got faster and faster and faster until, finally, his vision turned black and his lifeless body hit the floor.

☾

The sound of your alarm woke you up with a fright, you just had the weirdest nightmare. It was about a zombie apocalypse, you, Mark and Ethan were all fighting a horde of them when you came across an abandoned cottage and attempted to board it up to keep the undead minions from tearing you apart.

It weird how dreams can feel so real sometimes; you often believed that when you're dreaming, you're actually entering a parallel universe and what happens within the dream is actually happening to you but because it's in a parallel universe, when you woke up, you wouldn't be able to remember it as much.

You placed your hand down on your alarm clock and pressed the off button firmly, if it wasn't for that nightmare then you would probably have hit snooze.

Today was the day, the day that you finally meet your internet friend Mark. You'd been talking to each other for about 6 months now but never officially met, despite living in the same state. You'd come to know who he was through your community, you were a YouTuber with a fair few million subs, they thought that you're happy-go-lucky personality and toilet humor was similar to Markiplier's. Not that you knew who that was at first, but a quick google search had solved all the questions you could have thought of asking.

You began watching his videos and quickly subscribed, your community was right, he was a lot like you. You tried to keep a low profile in terms of Mark but after a couple of his referenced had slipped out of your mouth while playing a game your community started hungering for a collaboration between the two of you.

You'd been watching Mark for around 3 months and you had started to develop one of those silly fangirl type crushes on him, he was attractive, funny and popular, what wasn't there to love about him. You'd never once thought you would ever have to actually talk to him so what was the harm. 

One day you were scrolling through his comment section and marveling at how kind his community was when you started to recognize some of the usernames, these were people who were commenting on your videos. A couple more scrolls and you could see a pattern, every 4th or 5th comment was someone urging him to collaborate with you, or asking him if he knew who you were.

The day arrived when you were watching one of his few 'Reading Your Comments' videos and your heart did a leap when you heard him read "Hey Markimoo, just wondering, do you watch (Your YouTube Name)? Love from England", you couldn't believe he had said your username out loud! At this point you only had a couple thousand subscribers.

Your heart continued to thump when he said "I've noticed this girls name popping up all through my comment section recently, but no I don't watch her videos", a part of you became sad at his almost immediate dismissal of your channel but your face lit up again when he said "You know what? I'm going to check her out right now" before turning to his computer screen.

A quick edit of his normal vlogging camera spinning into its normal place at the top left hand corner of the screen and there was one of your videos on his screen. You squealed on the inside as you watched him giggle and splutter with laughter at your stupid jokes, there was a jump cut to your outro, he didn't watch all of it did he? That video was about 15 minutes long!

"Oh wow!" he exclaimed as he tried to calm himself down "I didn't mean to watch all of that, but my God, that girl is funny. Maybe I will get in contact with her sometime", you outright squealed when you heard that. "Does she have Twitter?" he asked himself as he scrolled down to your description box "Yes, she does. Look forward to Markipoo sliding into your DM's real soon Y/N" he joked before mentally scorning himself for being such a goof.

He had kept to his word and messaged you later that same night, because of course you were part of his notification squad. You'd collaborated a couple of times but never actually met in person, today you were going over to his house to shoot a challenge video with him.

You just hoped that nothing went wrong, your friendship was too precious to you.