It was 1AM on a Friday morning and it had only just turned the 30th of September. It was pitch black, silent and a chilly English breeze filled the air… and Dan Howell was wide-awake.
Dan, being Dan, could feel that something wasn't as it should be, even at this early hour. It wasn't an asymmetrical picture or a misplaced souvenir lying about on his desk, it was the silence. Usually, on any other night, Dan would be able to hear Phil either talking to himself or softly snoring, but tonight there was an eerie silence, and he couldn't even hear a shuffle or a creak from the other room.
Instead of brushing it off like he usually would, Dan decided to see if his friend was all right, so he crept into the hallway and knocked, softly, on Phil's bedroom door,
"Phil?" He whisper-shouted, "Are you alright?"
But no cheery reply assured him that all was well.
"Phiilllllll?" Dan repeated, hoping for at least some sort of affirmation of well-being, but still not a sound, so Dan pushed open his friend's bedroom door and peeked his head around the dark, dark room.
As it was 1AM, Dan couldn't see a thing, so he stumbled over to the bed in hopes of finding Phil there, perfectly fine and sleeping soundly, but when he stuck his arms out over the bed and felt around, there was nothing there.
On any usual night, Dan would just assume that Phil was in the kitchen, eating all the cereal, but tonight – when he could feel something was wrong anyway – he wasn't too sure that would be it. Besides, if Phil would have tiptoed into the hall that night, Dan would have heard him, but a rather concerned Dan decided to wander into the kitchen anyway.
Flicking on the lights and drearily looking around, he saw that the kitchen was completely empty.
"PHIL?" He called, desperately, when he saw nobody about.
Biting his lip, Dan edged out of the kitchen and bounded down to the front door. He pushed down the door handle and found that it was locked… Phil couldn't have used Dan's keys: they were safe and sound, laying about on his bedside table, and Phil always kept his own keys on his desk, so clearly he was either inside, hiding somewhere, or had somehow fallen through a wormhole.
This was when Dan decided that it would be best to see if Phil's keys were, indeed, lying idly on his desk as he supposed them to be, as they hardly ever left their place (unless Tesco had missed out an item from their online order and he'd had to begrudgingly traipse down to the store to get it).
Strangely, the keys weren't, in fact, lying about, and after a thorough search of Phil's desk and drawers, he still didn't find them, so the conclusion was that he wasn't in the house (which would explain a lot, but made absolutely no sense whatsoever).
Quickly getting dressed and putting on a black bomber jacket and some trainers, Dan hurried outside to search for his friend.