This epilogue is based off of Markiplier's playthrough of the game, and hence, will use his name as the main character.
Mark stood over the letter from Charlotte, simply staring, she had been real… and she was gone. He'd never met her and she was gone, he lifted his glasses and wiped his eyes, the tears threatening to form stopped in their tracks. "Charlotte…" he spoke quietly. "Sal…. even Buddy…. all gone…. everyone's gone…." he couldn't stop them and tears dripped onto his glasses. He fell to the floor in tears in his eyes, he hadn't known any of them at all, but they were all gone, the only people who'd given him any happiness in that hell were gone.
Mark didn't know how long he'd been there before the tears had dried up and he was simply laying there. Then he felt something tingle on his arm and his eyes peeled open and there, on his arm, was Tiny Bug Tim. The one friend who was still alive with him, through all of this, he was still alive. Mark almost cried again as he reached down and touched the tiny bug, gently petting it and it crawled onto his finger, simply laying there now. "Tiny Bug Tim…." he said.
The blood was still fresh on the wall and he looked to the door to the back room, she was in there…. her body…. her… he didn't even want to think of the word, but all he could think was that she didn't deserve to just die in a back room, where nobody would ever find her. Mark looked down to Tiny Bug Tim and suddenly confidence reappeared in his eyes, a purpose in his life, all these days and nights with no purpose and now he had one. "You're right Tiny Bug Tim, she deserves better!"
With a newfound confidence in his step he walked towards the door and he paused at the handle, was he ready for this? After all this time, with his letters from her, he still didn't know what she looked like… He gulped, feeling his throat well up as he opened the door. "Charlotte?" he questioned, and there she was, Nurse... and now as he knew her to be, Charlotte. So that's what she'd been up to since Mark had been abducted by aliens.
As Mark walked up to her, he saw the blood still dripping from her mouth with blue goop on her lips, death by ingestion…. He fell over her body as he looked at her, tears threatening to prick up in his eyes once more before he looked to the blood on her lips, still dripping… Wait a minute! "If the blood is still dripping… this is recent! There's still time Tiny Bug Tim! We must save her! I'm a surgeon, I can do this! I am the greatest surgeon that ever lived on this Earth!"
There were no surgical tools around him, only cake baking equipment "It will have to do Tiny Bug Tim!" he said, and he went to work, collecting knives, spoons, and a saw that seemed to be for cutting tough pieces of meat original, but had been adapted to cutting cake. He replaced it with a genuine saw and then he stared at his new patient. "Ok Tiny Bug Tim, this will need to be a quick, clean, expertly done surgery, the life of Nurse Charlotte depends on it!"
And with that he wrapped a series of aprons around his mouth, body, and the like, using freshly cleaned rubber sink gloves, and he went to work. He cut her open carefully, with precision, and the elegance of an experience surgeon. Then once he had her open he flipped her like the trunk to his car and he went to work on her organs. "There's internal bleeding Tiny Bug Tim, this must be fixed immediately!" and he looked around, what could stop the bleeding? Then he looked down, where was Tiny Bug Tim? "Tiny Bug Tim, where are you?! I need you in this dire hour of need!"
Then into the room walked Tiny Bug Tim, demonstrating the strength of a hundred bugs the same size as him as he carried the cake into the room, the very same cake Nurse Charlotte had made for him only a short time prior "The cake, of course! The acidity in the icing mixed with the absorbing properties of the cake will be a perfect countermeasure to the internal bleeding! You're a genius Tiny Bug Tim!"
And then he took the cake, smooshing it against her organs, that look in his eyes from his many years of surgery bringing him confidence once more, the five days of long solitude that had driven him to near-insanity all, but forgotten at this point in time. Then the impossible happened, his method worked! He watched as the bleeding began to stop and he went about sewing up her busted stomach, fixing any and all damage to internal organs, leaving the biodegradable cake inside her to ensure any poison left would be absorbed before he pulled down the skin of her stomach and his mask.
"It's done Tiny Bug Tim… now we can only wait…" he said, staring at Charlotte, using the many towels around him to clean up the excess blood around her mouth and stomach regions. Then he heard a cough and he pulled back, Tiny Bug Tim once again crawling up his arm and hiding in his coat as Charlotte began to awake.
"W-What… happened….?" Charlotte asked, sitting up and looking around, was this heaven….? Heaven sure looked a lot like her bake shop, and had sexy, muscular, and manly angels dressed up as doctors…. oh, it truly must be heaven, for the doctor in front of her was the most handsome and wonderful of them all! "Doctor! I should have known heaven would include you~" she said, sparkles in her eyes.
Caution was thrown to the wind as he wrapped his arms around Charlotte, the first living person he'd seen in days, and he'd done something about it, the helplessness was gone. He was free. "Shut up nurse!" he shouted, and renewed tears flooded from his eyes, tears of joy as he hugged the same nurse he had not seen in so very long.
Charlotte's eyes lit up, this was no heavenly apparition, she knew her very own doctor anywhere, no one told her to shut up with such…. ferocity. Such manliness. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, after that time alone, she had not been waiting in vain. She held him close and sighed, enjoying that healing touch he had, nothing in all her life was greater than this.
As Mark pulled away he looked down into the sparkling and adoring eyes of his Nurse Charlotte, here with him once again. "I made it out Nurse, I made it out of the prison to come visit you! And now, I have one thing to ask of you…." he said, giving her that look, that look he had given her many times before.
Charlotte looked up at Mark, a smile now on her face, she would reach up to romantically cup his cheek, but her arms felt so limp, she wasn't sure if she was capable of it. "Yes Doctor?" she asked.
"Can I listen to that song one more time…?" he asked, lifting her up in his strong, manly arms. "It was one bright light in my prison cell, one thing that let me knew you were truly out there, caring about me." Oh yes, he needed to hear that song again, even if it was simply once more, it seemed only just after everything that had happened.
Charlotte nodded, pointing to the stars in the nearby hallway. "Yes, yes of course doctor, anything for you, it's right upstairs, let us listen to music together, sweet sweet music for this sweet sweet moment~" she felt back to normal again, knowing that the man she'd been talking to could finally hear her, that he wasn't simply a figment of her imagination.
Markiplier nodded and made his way upstairs, long, strutting strides on his way up the stairs and he walked into a bedroom, and an open window through which the music had played. Mark carefully laid Charlotte on the bed, she was still weak from her hastily-yet expertly-performed surgery and Mark didn't want to stress her body out too much, no, that could wait for later tonight.
Then he took a seat next to the window, reaching over and starting up that wondrous music once more. He leaned back in the chair, he was no longer alone in the world, he was with the one other solitary person in the world, and it was no other than his very own Nurse. At least if he had to be stuck with someone the rest of his life, it was her.
Charlotte laid on her bed, the presence of another person was comforting, perhaps she had died and gone to heaven, because this was perfect… Some time went on and she sighed softly, her eyes closing themselves as she spoke up "Doctor, I-"
Suddenly she was cut off by a loud knock at the front door and Mark quickly stood, "Shut up nurse! Did you hear that? Someone is here…. Oh, if it's Doctor Money, I'm gonna deck him so hard in his face that he'll be able to smell his own butthole!" and with that he marched down towards the stairs, speaking up once more before he left "You stay here Nurse, let my big man muscles handle this one!"
Charlotte looked at Mark from her pillow "You're so brace Doctor, I believe in you~" she said, not a worry in the world that he wouldn't be ok, if he had escaped that prison, saved countless lives-including her's now-he would certainly be safe no matter what.
As Mark stepped into the kitchen he heard the knock again and he shouted out "I'm coming, I'm coming, my legs only carry me so fast!" he said and when he stepped into the front of his shop his eyes widened and he dashed to the front door "SAL!" he shouted in surprise and he opened the door up immediately "Sal, Doctor Money said you were dead!" He still had no recollection of who this man was, but it was so good to see him!
Sal, the tall, gruff yet suave, and quite muscular-though not as muscular as mark-man reached forward, grabbing his old friend's hand with a smile on his face, which seemed to be red and blotchy, as though from tears and sobbing of some kind. He wore a fedora with teeth assorted on it of course, what hearty adventurer wouldn't? And then a white shirt with a green vest with many pockets on it, and a pair of green cargo pants with rough and sturdy boots. He even had a satchel at his waist, with many treasure and the like inside most likely. Then to top it off, a bowie knife on his chest and a whip at his waist. Never had a greater adventurer-besides Mark of course-ever existed.
"You think you can trust a man named Doctor Money? I never died, he announced over an intercom that you had died when I cut the power, that my exploits had been in vain because you had chosen you'd rather die than leave the confinements you'd become so fond of!" He shook his head and then looked down at Mark's hand where Tiny Bug Tim sat. "My dear, is that the bug I sent you? Dear, I thought you'd smash it, but I'm glad to see he's become a companion of yours!"
Mark was so relieved, hearing this, the three people-who had been there for him the most during his time in a cell were all here for him now, and he was so happy to see them all in the same place. "How'd you know where I was?" he asked, tugging the man inside and quickly closing and locking the front door once more. He didn't want to leave his poor friend out in the cold, dead wastelands like that.
"That music box that I heard earlier! I knew it's sound anywhere, I thought there was life out here, someone else I could talk to, instead I found out my efforts had not been in vain, and here I was, giving up so easily! Ha! So how come you look surprised to see me?" he asked, crossing his arms as he leaned against a wall. "Did you not expect me to come for you as I did? You did get my messages, did you not?"
Mark nodded, "I did, but Doctor Money said you'd been electrocuted when you tried to destroy the generator, and afterwards I didn't get any messages from you so I thought you'd died!" he said, laying a manly hand on his shoulder. "Come on, Charlotte's alive too! She's upstairs!" And with that, he was off towards the stairs, excitement flooding through him, the limbs he hadn't gotten to stretch in days now all there for use.
Sal laughed at the notion, a deep laugh from far down in his belly. "Me? Electrocuted? My friend, you forget I've wrestled with electric eels before, no amount of electricity will harm me!" Then he nodded in turn, following Mark toward the stairs and looking at the blood all about the kitchen, and while that wasn't a surprise, the assorted utensils all over the floor were. "Dear God Mark! What did you do in here? Gut a beast like we did in the African Savannah?" he asked, passing the kitchen and walking up the stairs.
Mark waved it off "Doesn't matter, but look! Nurse! Sal's here!" he said excitedly as he walked over to the music box, he thought to shut it off, but what if more heard the noise? He decided that turning it down would be the best option. They would still hear it if they were close, and they could tell the direction it had come from. Or, hopefully at least.
Charlotte looked at the strapping young man, not as strapping as her dear doctor, but he looked like he'd seen adventure. She held up a hand, a smile on her face. "Good to meet you Sal…. I'm sure Doctor Mark has told you all about me~" she said, staring up at said man in aw and wonder.
Sal raised a brow, shaking the woman's hand "No, I don't believe he had…. ever actually… I didn't even know he was a doctor, you're a doctor?" he asked, turning to Mark once he was done shaking her hand.
"A surgeon to be specific!" he said, a smile on his face as he wrapped his arm around Sal's shoulder "Look at us! The three of us, we're survivors! We're all gonna be ok!" he said, taking a breath, he was so happy to see this… to see the men and one woman around him. The ones who'd supported him through so much, the ones who had honestly cared about him and nothing else.
"I just want to tell you guys…" he said, looking around. "Those five days in that cramped cell, are something I never could have gotten through without your messages, and your gifts, you were all a wonderful help, and I want you to know your efforts were not in vain, for we all live this day! And we shall continue to live henceforth!" he said, and he pulled the whole group into a great big hug, and he could fear more tears coming down his face.
His friends, all here with him, he never thought he'd see any of them alive, but they were here, and nothing was gonna change the fact he got to see them, even if the virus killed them all right now, they were here now, and that's all that mattered.
"Doctor…" Charlotte interrupted, probably a good five minutes later. "Did you enjoy the cakes I made for you? I know how much you love them…" she smiled and looked up at him happily.
Mark blinked, oh yes, the first cake had been delicious sure, but the second cake… he'd never gotten to eat it. "Uh… shut up nurse!" he said, quite huffy, but then he paused and smiled. "But yes, the cake you sent me was delicious… and the second…" he tried to think of a word to describe it. "A life-saver." And with that, he pulled her into one more hug, it felt good to have his arms around someone again….
