A big yawn escaped your lips as you looked at yourself in the mirror, if you were going to be on camera you needed to be presentable.

Also, it was going to be on Mark's channel and even though his community enjoyed the previous collaborations you'd done together, this one was different. This time you were going to be sat next to him, in person, at his house. That opened up a whole new world of possible hate and speculation from his fans.

You started a mental bet with yourself about how many people would say you're dating. You chuckled to yourself, 'Yeah right' you thought. You had to admit, there were still elements of that fangirl crush within you. Just as long as Mark didn't find out you would be fine.

You shook your head and smiled, you turned the handle of your shower until you heard the satisfying click that warned you of the immediate flow of water that would hit you if you didn't move fast enough. You wanted to look your best on your first time of meeting Mark in person.

☾

Mark felt his eyelids peel themselves off of his eyeballs and the oxygen in the air smother themselves over the dry areas. Eventually his sight came back to him, it was still a bit blurred but he was sure that would fix itself.

Then he realized that he was still on the floor in front of the door, last nights events started to come back to him. 'That can't be right, I must have imagined it ' he thought to himself. He pushed himself up off of the floor and staggered to his feet.

When he started to remember the strange man who had taken to almost ripping his jugular out, he knew that he must have been dreaming. He exhaled deeply through his nose at the creativity of his own imagination, he rubbed the back of his neck as he headed for the bathroom, sleeping against the door had given him a crick in his neck.

As his hand moved to the left hand side of his neck he felt little specks fall from his skin, he immediately took his hand away and saw that he had a peeling black substance on his hand. He brushed it slightly with his other hand, he must have fallen over and landed in dirt. Then a memory started to creep it's way through his mind until he remembered, he did fall over last night. He remembered that much, he also recalled a weird man.

He turned the knob of the bathroom and let himself in, his eyesight was still blurry and he really hoped he hadn't done himself too much damage last night. He looked at his reflection but it was just a blob of black, brown and grey. Wait, there was another colour mixing in with the brown but Mark couldn't focus his vision enough to pin point the shade.

Feeling frustrated at his carelessness, he took off his glasses and rested them on the side of the sink, he splashed his face with cold water to see if that would help wake his body up. He placed his hands either side of the basin and let the water trickle down his face, he remembered that the rain had done the same thing only a couple of hours prior.

Once his attempt of regaining his memory had faltered, he gazed back up at his twin behind the glass. Confusion flushed over him when he discovered that he could see himself perfectly in his bathroom mirror, he rubbed his eyes slightly in disbelief and looked again. His vision was perfect, he could make out every detail around him, even better than when he wore his glasses.

He picked them up from the side of the sink with caution, making sure he held the frame as not to put any smudges on the lenses. He placed them delicately back onto his face, his vision returned to the blurry mess it had previously been. He slowly moved the glasses so they were no longer in his field of vision, he could see perfectly again. He repeated this motion for a solid five minutes until he came to the conclusion that his eyesight had somehow repaired itself.

He folded up his glasses and opened up the medicine cabinet that was hidden behind the mirror and placed his glasses on the bottom shelf. Dumbfounded, he closed the door to the medicine cabinet and at the same moment that it clicked to signal that it had shut, Mark noticed the crusty dried up liquid that was coating his neck. Grabbing a washcloth from his shelving, he held a small flannel under the running water to let it soak. He started to rub the flannel against his neck, allowing the brown flakes to fall off into the sink. Soon the crusty, dried substance was gone and all that was left was a strange red stain.

As concern grew across his face, he ran the flannel back under the water to clean whatever was on his neck off. The water filtered itself through the fabric and a darkened crimson tainted the purity of the water. Mark rang out the flannel and started to lightly dab his neck with it, he didn't want to do any more damage to himself than he already had the night before.

Once the stain had removed itself from Mark's neck, he stared into the mirror with confusion, on his neck were two slight bumps that were highlighted by a red irritation. He traced them with his index finger and flinched when he got too close. Almost like a shock-wave, his memory came back to him.

He recalled the lunatic that had purposely pushed him into the shop wall, he remembered that he had stabbed him in the throat. Or at least he thought he had stabbed him, by the look of the indents in his flesh, it turns out he had actually bitten him. What type of psychopath bites someone? Diving back into his medicine cabinet, Mark removed a small plaster from a box he had kept in case he had an accident while cooking, which he normally did, and placed it over the two bumps. If it decided to weep then at least it wouldn't effect his clothes.

As soon as that thought went through his mind he remembered that he was still wearing the hoodie from last night, it stank of rain and metal. He pulled it up over his head, being careful not to hit his new wound, and placed it into his washing basket. Realizing that the rain had soaked him through last night, he removed his trousers, socks and pants, and gave them the same treatment as his hoodie. He sighed to himself as he turned on the shower, he quickly ripped off the plaster and mentally reminded himself to replace it once he was clean.

☾

You wiped your newly wet hand in a horizontal arch across the fogged up mirror, a blurry outline of yourself stared back at you. You'd wrapped your hair up in a make-shift turban and started to rub your skin dry with the towel that was previously clinging to your torso. You watched at the petite droplets of water began to have a race down your shin as you ruffled the soft fabric against your thigh; it reminded you of long car journeys where you'd pretend that the raindrops on the windows were actually tiny watery horses that were racing to the bottom of the glass, only you would declare the winner. 

You sharply exhaled from your nose as a smile crept onto your face, you loved the fact that you were still a child at heart, even if your parents thought it meant you couldn't look after yourself properly. You were so proud of the person you had become since you left your parent's house, at first you thought you wouldn't be able to cope with all the responsibility of being an adult, and there were many breakdowns to prove it. Although, you had come pretty far since then.

Glancing at the clock above your bathroom door, you calculated that you had an hour and 24 minutes before you needed to leave to get to Mark's house, it would have been an hour and 26 minutes but it took you longer than you were willing to admit to calculate the time. It shouldn't take you that long to get ready... famous last words. You knew that you were notorious for being late among your friends, your time keeping was atrocious. Nether the less, you wrapped your body up in the slightly damp towel to save yourself from giving your neighbours a shock, and walked to your bedroom. Rummaging through your cupboard, you pulled out your hair dyer and plugged it in. You unravelled your hair from its towel confinements and let it fall, with a wet smack, against your shoulders.

Today was going to be a good day.