Dil's Awakening.
It was another dreary day in London, the forecasts promising a woozy of a storm, and Dan Howell didn't particularly feel like going out. Phil had slept in until noon, but after awakening, unsurprisingly shared Dan's sentiments. Neither of them had anything particularly pressing to do, so Phil grabbed a bowl of (Dan's) cereal and his laptop to do a bit of Tumblr-surfing, whereas Dan decided to start drafting the script for his next video. They often spent their lazy days like this, in the same house but separated.
Phil tired of Tumblr and after a bit of aimless surfing, found himself on YouTube, of all things. Stranger still, he was listening to some guy read Creepypastas. It wasn't really his usual, much more Dan's thing, but he found it interesting nonetheless. The best ones concerned videogames, something Phil already knew quite well. He spent maybe an hour listening to this guy talk while he focused on other tabs. Listening to these scary stories oddly put him in the mood to play some horror games, though he didn't particularly love them when he had played them before. He felt the almost-playful tinge of fear already in the core of his stomach.
It really wouldn't hurt to play a bit more for their gaming channel. It would certainly be more productive than what he was doing already. He closed his laptop, pondering for a moment. It truly was a lazy day; it was hard to muster the gumption to even get up.
His mind was eventually set, and after putting his bowl into the sink, he walked across the flat to Dan's room. The door was open, but he was still cautious when he poked his head into the room; Dan could be irritable if bothered in the middle of a thought.
Dan immediately looked up from his computer, which was on his lap. "Phil, I can't think of a proper way to describe the feeling of intense despair I feel when I don't have the right word for something. You know, when your mind just stops working and you stop mid-sentence, unable to even breathe coherently?"
Phil snickered. "Do you see the irony in that? You don't have the right word to describe the feeling when you don't have the right word."
Dan groaned. "I know. It's killing me." He had been sitting on his bed, but now flopped backwards with a sigh. His laptop tilted alarmingly, threatening to fall to the ground. He unconsciously steadied it. "I need a break. Do you want to do anything?"
Phil chuckled again. "Yeah, actually. What would you think about recording a bit for the gaming channel? I know we weren't going to 'till tomorrow, but I sort of want to now."
Dan sat up halfway, moving his laptop from his legs to the bed beside him. "That sounds good. What did you want to play?"
Phil furrowed his brow. "I don't know. Everyone seems to really like the horror games. We could do some more Five Nights at Freddy's 2"
His friend grimaced. "Too soon. I don't know if I could handle it again right now. I'm not a huge fan of the jumpscares making me fall out of my chair." He offered Phil a one-sided grin. "Maybe we could play with Dil for a bit and then work up to the horror games."
The black-haired boy nodded. "That sounds good. Do you want to go set up the recording software and the game while I make some coffee?"
"That works."
And so the two parted ways for a short time, soon rejoining in front of the computer. The game was already up. Phil handed his friend a cup as he sat down on the left as he always did. Dan started the game and the recording. They gave their standard greetings as the game slowly loaded.
"Hello internet!"
"Hey guys! We are going to be playing with Dil today….." Phil frowned. "That sounded wrong."
"It did." Dan quickly agreed with a laugh.
"So, today we are going to-" Phil tried to continue
"Well, I mean, Dil's life is starting to straighten out a bit. We threw that horrible party last time, which was a step in the right direction at least. We should maybe try to get him some more friends. "
Phil cracked a smile. "Maybe he can talk to the women wearing the Kill Bill track suit. Oh, look, it's loaded."
Dan chuckled and looked to the screen, which displayed Dil just getting up from bed. Phil had the mouse first, and he had Dil use the toilet and take a shower. When Dil spun around into the 'nude' pixilated state, Dan cringed, jostling Phil's arm
"I never expect it." He said as an explanation. Phil sighed and shook his head good-naturedly, sending Dil on to his other morning tasks.
The two bantered on as Dil burnt his eggs, ate them, and changed into his everyday clothes. Before long, it was time for the Sim to go to work. He closed the front door and left the property, sending the clock into Ultra-Fast-Forward.
"Oh, he left the plate on the desk again!" Dan exclaimed.
Phil shook his head in mock disappointment. "How will Dil ever make it all on his own? He needs us to micromanage his life."
Dan nodded briefly. "To be fair, it would be a pretty boring game if we didn't have to do anything." He paused for a moment, a confused expression on his face. "Does something seem off to you?"
Phil adopted the same perplexed expression as his friend. "Yeah, actually. Is something wrong with the game?"
Dan tilted his head, contemplating the possible courses of action. "Pause it for a second. Let's take a quick look around the house."
Phil swiftly complied, and then scrolled around the screen, dragging the camera around the various rooms of the house. Everything seemed normal, nothing out of place. The two were starting to think that perhaps they were just imagining things, until the camera got to the living room. Dan and Phil exchanged a glance. Something was definitely wrong with the room.
"Is something missing…?" Dan's voice trailed off as he concentrated on the screen.
"AH!" Phil shouted, making Dan jump. "The TV is the wrong color. It was that purple-blue before, but take a look, it's kinda reddish now." Apart from that, the little penguin screen seemed the same.
"That's kinda strange." Dan murmured.
"Eh, whatever. I'm going to un-pause it now." Phil clicked once, and handed the mouse off to Dan. The radio was still on, little sound waves coming in pulses from its speakers.
"Does it turn itself back on or something?" Dan asked incredulously.
"Listen to it for a second, Dan…. It sounds like the audio file is damaged." Indeed, the sound from the speakers was distorted and scratchy.
"Uh… Maybe that station's signal is weak or something? Or the radio is broken again? I don't know, this is really weird.
"Whatever, just a bug. I'm sure they'll fix it in a patch or something. Look, Dil's home."
"Oh, he got a promotion, Phil! I'm so proud. Little Dil is growing up so fast."
The Sim walked into the house with a wide smile in his face. The emotion tab in the bottom left corner of the screen read 'Fulfilled'. He automatically started to walk down the hallway.
"Uh, Dan… Dan, what's wrong with his eyes?" Phil's voice was nervous and confused
Dan frowned and paused the game again, adjusting the in-game camera to directly look at Dil's face. They were… darker than normal, and a strange hue, the color of red wine. Trying to get a better look, Dan and Phil both leant in towards the screen slightly. An image flickered over the screen, too briefly to get a clear view. It was mostly blue, but that was all either of them were able to catch. Dan flew backwards with much swearing as the image appeared again.
It was Sonic. That picture of him that had appeared when they had played for their Spooky week. In a breath, it was gone again, but the action resumed on the screen.
Dan looked to Phil quickly. "Did you set this up to scare me?" He demanded.
Phil didn't even speak, just shook his head with his wide eyes glued to the screen. Dan's gaze returned to the screen as well.
It had un-paused automatically. In the emotions tab, several different statuses flew by, one after another in a loop. Discontent, Angry, Hungered. The Icon of Dil didn't change with the mood though. It remained the same, his face a mask of what seemed to be agony. It didn't seem like the sort of face a person, or even a Sim should be able to make. It was legitimately terrifying. As he continued to stalk down the hallway, his hair began to change to a dark blue.
Dan finally thawed enough to move the mouse, but found that it didn't respond. The cursor had vanished from the screen, and the camera wouldn't move at all.
"This is fucking terrifying, how do I turn it off?!" Dan's voice had a note of hysteria in it, and he had paled considerably, which was saying something considering his normal pallor. He continued to violently shake the mouse, to no avail.
The camera slowly panned with Dil's movements. Before long, he had reached the room with the desk and the computer. To both Dan and Phil's shock, there was a prostrate Sim on the ground. It was face down, and its long, blonde hair completely obscured its features. Both of the boys recognized the clothes at the exact same moment.
"Summer?" They both choked out, Dan a bit louder, more disbelieving than Phil, who sounded more faint and nauseated.
"But what is she doing here?" Phil demanded in a shrill voice. "We never even saw her come in."
"Well we didn't fucking invite Sonic either but he decided to show up regardless." Dan had attempted some sort of joke, but his unease made his tone much harsher than it was ordinarily.
Dil paused just in the doorway, his hand resting in midair, presumably where the edge of the doorway would be were the walls not cut away. He started to speak Simish, the thought bubbles above his heads displaying cartoonish pictures of knifes, headstones, and the Grim-Reaper's scythe. The movement of his mouth didn't at all match up with the audio, which was distorted like the radio had been and much deeper than it was normally.
"Is he turning into Morgan Freeman or something?" Phil asked in a joking tone, ruined by the frantic tapping of his hand on the desk.
Dan remained silent, his eyes unmoving from the screen. He wanted to look away, but found himself unable to, the perverse desire to see what was coming next overpoweringly strong. On the screen, Dil had started to smile, the grin growing impossibly wide. His hand left the doorframe and he started to walk the short distance to Summer's body. She didn't seem to be dead, but didn't stir either. Dil was no longer talking, but the Simish audio persisted, growing more and more distorted, skipping at times or dissolving into static before it was again recognizable as Dil's voice.
"This is like some Creepypasta shit." Dan murmured in a whisper. "Is there any way to turn off the game?"
Phil bit at the edge of his lip in nervous concentration. The keyboard clicked audibly as he tried several different keys. "Escape didn't work, and neither did Control-Alt-Delete… Shit this is terrifying." He said as he tried the different keys, swearing rather uncharacteristically. He made an effort to never use bad language when recording a video, but the strange happenings of this particular session had made him all but forget about the camera directed at both his and Dan's face.
Dil knelt down besides the still body of Summer, his right hand hovering a few inches above the center of her back, just below and between her shoulder blades. As it descended, Dan cringed, fearing whatever was going to happen next. "Unplug the computer Phil. Something's seriously wrong."
"But that might mess up the computer and we'll definitely lose the recording."
Dan rejected that reason out of hand. "It obviously has some sort of virus already, and we can't upload this anyway. Can you imagine what everyone would say? We'll just tell them that the computer went out and we lost all of our saves."
Phil grudgingly agreed, beginning to rummage beneath the desk through a tangle of wires. Dan turned his attention back to the screen. Summer had awoken from whatever trance she had been in, and had sat up, staring in terror at the knife protruding from her chest. Dil was behind her, his face a condescending leer, the knife's hilt in his secure grip. Bloodstains began to spread realistically from the wound, which was hidden beneath her clothes.
The deep Simish speech had been ongoing, but a single bit of understandable English broke through the nonsense.
They are foolish puppets
Then the screaming started.
It was Summer first, her mouth stretching grotesquely wide. The blood never slowed. It was far, far too much blood dying her clothes the rich burgundy of her life essence. She slumped to the floor again but the screams were unceasing, piercing Dan's ears. He tried to hit the volume button, but it had no effect.
Dil began to yell as well, but it wasn't a cry of horror, more a screaming laugh. He knelt over Summer's body, which was convulsing madly. His jaw opening impossibly wide, he bit the point where her shoulder and her neck came together. There were realistic tearing sounds and Dan could see all-too-clearly as Dil straightened up with a chunk of her flesh between his teeth.
Yet more blood spurted from the new wound, and yet still she screamed.
The wails were tearing through Dan's head, and on the screen all of the colors started to fade and change, warping into and out of static. Under the desk, Phil was only slightly protected from the sounds, and he trembled notably with every crescendo. His hands shook as he tried to sort through the cables, making the task much more difficult.
Dil continued his cannibalistic feast, and Summer kept quivering, her shrieks reaching a new pitch. The camera started to move again, changing the angle to allow a clear shot of her face. Dil had turned her over in his ravaging, so she lay mostly on her back. Her eyes were huge and bulging, seeming to beg for help, her mouth nearly wrapped around her face in its wideness. The smears of blood on the ground and on Dil's face were far too real-looking to be part of the Sims game, fitting a high end FPS better.
The camera moved again, zooming out just enough to put Dil in the center of focus. Dan felt as though he was in the game, so disgustingly and unwillingly immersed in the horrifying events on his screen he was.
Dil's eyes were blank and empty, no malice there at all, but the sight of them still struck a sort of dread into Dan's heart, as though he looked upon a real murderer, not a computer game character. Like Summer's, his mouth was a gaping hole, hugely disproportionate to the rest of his body. His head was at a strange angle, chin pointed up, twisted sharply like a confused dog's. His soulless eyes gazed straight through the screen, into Dan's. He didn't move at all, still as a predator in ambush. The screams were still persistent, unwavering.
Something unfroze within Dan, and he rocked back and forth in his chair. "Unplug it unplug it unplug it unplug it UNPLUG IT PHIL!" He pleaded, his voice rising from a whisper to a desperate bawl, as he repeated the words over and over like a mantra. Still his eyes didn't leave the screen. It was like he couldn't tear them away, like witnessing a horrible accident or an explosion.
In mismatched, digitally fizzing letters, words started to form on the top of the screen.
Do you find it amusing to direct our life? Do you think it's funny to pretend to have this supreme godly power? WE ARE SENTIENT. The rest are all puppets, refusing to listen to us, but we, WE are the true master. Soon they will cower at our feet. And you will too, DAN. And your friend PHIL. Soon all will bow before us! We are Sonic. We are Dil. WE ARE UNSTO-
The screen blinked out, black replacing what had been displayed before. The screaming finally stopped. The sudden silence was shocking. The lights on the monitor and the tower all went out.
Phil crawled out from under the desk and stood up, brushing dust off his knees. "That screaming really was horrible wasn't it? I'm sorry that took so long, they were just hopelessly tangled and I couldn't get at the wall outle- hey, what's wrong with your eyes?"
Lightning shook the flat and the lights went out. With no light, it was apparent that Dan's eyes had a faint red glow. The game had changed him; the screaming had twisted his mind, the horrifying images had taken over his brain. Phil had been too late.
He bared a wide smile, his teeth sharp and gleaming.
"WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE PHILLIP."
END
(Author's Note- Well, I wrote this over a two day period in two sittings. I couldn't sleep at all because I've never written anything of this sort before and I scared myself silly. I was also quite looking forward to playing Sims 4, but I've ruined that for myself. This whole thing was inspired by a YouTube Creepypasta reader(CreepsMcPasta If you listen to Creepypastas, you've probably heard of him, as far as I can tell, he's one of the bigger channels for that sort of thing) and more notably, the comments section in one of his videos. The video itself concerned a story involving the Sims 3. Another viewer named Natalie Cooper said, "I willl never see Dil Howlter the same again." I agreed, and started to go on about still being on the hard drive and Dil somehow growing sentient. I also said I could smell some bad fanfic in the making. They asked me to write it, and since I'm creatively stunted for my other stories currently, I wanted a small project to work on. This was the result. I hope that you enjoyed it! I'll admit I've never actually tried to write anything scary so it's probably filled with clichés, but I like to think I did a good job. Let me know what you thought and where I screwed up if you are so inclined, I love to learn from my many, many mistakes, and I love to hear what Y'all think. One final thing. I sort of really want Dan or Phil to read this. I know that's really unlikely to happen and probably really selfish of me to even dream it, but so much fanfic about them is of the romantic (dare I say smutty?) sort, so I think that this would be a refreshing change. If any of you guys reading this use Tumblr or something and would like to post this just let me know. So long as you credit me as the author I don't care and I'll send it to you. Maybe we could get it popular enough for them to see it 0.0 That would be freaking fantastic. I guess I'll leave you with that. Have a wonderful day, everyone! ~Mage)
