"Phil!"

Dan was eager to show Phil a new .exe file he had found online, updated only a few hours ago. Usually, Phil took care of downloading the obscure video-games; however, this time, Dan decided to give it a shot.

"It's finally done downloading!"

Phil lazily stood up from his comfy seat on the couch to the sound of Dan excitedly yelling from the gaming room. I wonder what he's downloaded, Phil internally questioned as he began to walk down the hallway of the apartment he shared with his best friend.

Dan was sat in the spinning chair in front of their wide-screen desktop. The screen read "DOWNLOAD COMPLETED" in strangely large bold letters. As soon as Phil had read it, Dan switched to the page Phil assumed he got the game from. The website had commenters that had rated the game to be "quite difficult" and "really hard", but there was this one comment at the very bottom of the screen that really caught his attention: "Do not play this game. My brother got tra-" the page disappeared before Phil could read the rest, as Dan had exited out of it.

Phil sighed as he realized it was probably going to be another game he was bound to lose at. As he approached him, Dan turned his head to face his black-haired friend.

Almost as if reading Phil's thoughts, Dan turned towards him, saying, "I found this file from a Reddit user online.  It's supposedly a really new game, and I've been told it's...one of a kind? I mean, at least it'll keep our audience entertained."

"Sounds interesting," Phil replied, leaning forward.

"Let's get filming!"

The brunette started up the software, immediately noticing the file name.

hongy.exe

It doesn't seem to be that suspicious, Dan thought. The game was suggested by user HONGYSWANG69, so it seemed to add up. Their information would be safe.

There was nothing to worry about.

"Is that Link? I didn't know you downloaded a Legend of Zelda game, Dan. You had me worried it was some creepy game like the sonic one we played that knew your name and stuff."

Dan himself had no idea what the game was, as he hadn't done much background research since they were in a time crunch to film more gaming videos.

Surely a new, underrated game would be the perfect fit.

The title screen eventually loaded up. Music from the Legend of Zelda blasted in the British boys' headphones, yet the title screen displayed a different picture. Three different links were shown on the screen, but something was...off about them.

Dan nor Phil had time to decipher what was odd about the image, because it dissolved into the "Enter your Name" screen.

They both decided on "Dil" as they've learned from the sonic.exe game that using your own name is far creepier.  For all they know, this could be a horror game; it was better to stay on the safe side of emotions.

As they started up the game, they were met with a second title pop-up. Displaying in huge white letters "Triforce Heroes" across the screen, eliciting questions from the Brits.

"That's weird," Phil began, pointing a milky-white, long finger at the screen, "considering there's only one character."

Dan nodded in response, "I agree, but maybe they'll appear later in the game? Or maybe it's just an irrelevant title that doesn't pertain to the actual game at all."

He firmly pressed his noisy keyboard arrows, moving Dil around the screen that currently displayed a dark forest with two pathways as options. 

"Left or right?"

"Left!"

"It's always left with you," Dan chuckled, shaking his head with disbelief.

"Most people go right and miss the rare items to the left.  Remember how we found Temmie village in Undertale?"

"Ugh, fine, you're so stubborn," Dan murmured under his breath, reluctantly obliging.

And as soon as Phil's finger hit the left arrow on their keyboard, that was the exact moment when everything changed.

-

It was dark.

Even in their well-lit gaming room, visibility was extremely poor. Neither of them knew what was happening, and they were certainly too frightened to talk.

Despite the fact that they hadn't risen from their comfortable seats, they both knew that they weren't in the gaming room anymore, as they'd been lifted somehow into this black universe.

The blackness engulfed them, and for what seemed like 10 minutes they helplessly spun deeper into the dark abyss, paralyzed with fear, with the inability to utter a single word.

Soon enough, they couldn't feel their seats under them - they had seemingly vanished like the rest of the room had.

Dan thought of Phil immediately. "PHIL! PHIL, WHERE ARE WE?!" he tried to yell, even scream, but his voice just echoed endlessly into what seemed like the entire universe.

Phil wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Then, all of a sudden, a loud noise blasted into his ears, disrupting the eternal darkness.

It was the Legend of Zelda theme.

Looking around, Dan finally became aware of his surroundings, as the darkness grasping the small, exclusive area around his being had evaporated. 

Needless to say, he was shocked with what he saw.

As the music was reaching its climax on the scale of volume, his fear, too, elevated, and he felt what seemed like an earthquake above his head. Almost instinctively, he looked up.

Large pieces of text, almost the size of a truck, were floating about 1 foot above his brown mop of hair. He couldn't quite make out what it read.

The text illuminated a small area surrounding him, to which he looked down to see nothing but blackness underneath him.

Although, there was one thing he noticed, and that was the fact that his clothes had changed.

He was wearing a red button down shirt and white leggings.  Feeling something on his head, his hands discovered a perfectly fitted floppy hat, of which he'd attempted to remove - to no avail.  The hat simply wouldn't budge.

Attempting to call for his best friend again, he shouted out into the void of blackness, voice echoing past the minimal light that shone above and around him, desperately hoping to hear some response.

Any response.

In a sea of questions he didn't have the answer to, there was one thing he did know: Phil was gone.