Author's Note: I wrote this back in 2017 when Who Killed Markiplier first dropped. So it doesn't take into account the newer videos. I basically forgot I wrote it but with Damien coming out I was reminded and figured I'd post it before deleting the file from my computer. So you know. Enjoy some angst that no longer fits canon.
You had been there so long.
Possibly.
It is hard to know.
Time was a relatively fickle thing behind the glass plane. Sometimes it seemed an eternity had pulled on by. But beyond the reflection time had yet to take a single step forward.
You waited.
Quiet and patient. You waited, because there was nothing else to do.
No thought, no feeling. Not even a memory from before this place. From before the house.
If you were to think back, to look back as far as your mind could take you, there was the front door and a man.
There was a man standing out front of this place as the sun dipped low before the night's festivities Riley began. And he had been bathed in the warm lights from within the house against the dimming light of the evening sky. It had seemed so welcoming, he had seemed so welcoming, and when the stranger turned, he met you with a smile. Greeted you cordially, it had been nice. At least, that's what you think you remember.
My friends. He had claimed, offering you his name. A name you cannot conjure up in your memory anymore. Perhaps it had not been a name at all. A title? It hardly mattered, the man told you the name his friends knew him by. You were welcome to use it too, so he'd said.
You don't know why, but you never gave your own in return.
It was hard to recall if that interaction truly made you happy or not. Similarly, you are unsure if you can call the feeling pulling tight in your chest now, at the flicker of a sentiment, happiness.
Friends.
The word seemed strange to you. Twisted and pulled into angles it shouldn't have been distorted to fit. But still it rung inside of your mind on occasion, pulling with it images of people long gone. Sometimes, very rarely once one of those weightless eternities had passed, it would bring an emotion with it too.
And it ached. Deep inside of your core, it ached until finally the glass plane stole it back away. It was difficult to mourn a feeling so painful, but the loss of it and the numbness in its place was infinitely worse. The emptiness would not slip away as easily as the aching had.
Was that pain anger?
Anger may have been appropriate. After all, you had been placed here by that warped version of friendship.
They'd left you here. Inside this reflection. Deliberately pushed you from the shell you'd imparted to them. Trusted onto them.
They left you.
Should you have felt that same guttural emotion that you'd seen consuming the entity that had replaced you in that shell? It was the last visceral memory you had. The rage boiling away in the entity's gaze before it had turned away from you, and left you to this void.
Should you too have felt that?
Perhaps.
But emotions were fleeting things in this place. Fleeting and often impossible to cling to. Emotions were taken with quickly and thoughts went with them just as easily. Each everlasting moment pulled something else from you.
The memories went first, despite your efforts to immortalize them in yourself.
Second, the thoughts you'd tried etching into the walls of your mind went.
Finally it was the feeling that faded.
All those things that felt so important once upon a time lost their weight in this place. It all went, until there was nothing left except time. Time and that single core purpose you still held onto.
Existence. That was your purpose.
To exist in obedient silence as you'd so often done before. Observe, exist and wait. Be patient until there was nothing left to be patient for.
And when something would pull inside of the shell on those rare occasions. Some reverberation of emotion after so long of nothing – they'd return.
The first time they had returned, you didn't fully understand. You'd had hallucinations before, perhaps this was just another? But no, the entity had walked back through those doors, and shared the same roof as you once more.
Stepping back into the mirror's gaze as though not a second had passed since they left it. Deft fingers adjusting the tie around their throat as they approached. Pausing in the instinctual and ultimately pointless gesture, the entity's eyes flicking up into the glass.
Did they see you?
They must have, as their impassive expression twitched up into something like a smile. Small, like it was a secret they wouldn't part with – but gentle. It was a smile you thought you remembered in a different life.
When those fingers dropped away from the neat set of the fabric, they lifted to instead graze the surface of the mirror, you knew they were looking at you. You were reaching back for them before you recognized the gesture as one of desperation. That smile turning downward within the mirror.
Guilt perhaps?
Guilt or more likely…consideration. A puppet master contemplating its strings.
"It's been too long." They said, voice a deeper rumble than the one you thought you might have remembered. Soft in the way his had been, knowing in the way hers had been – not as warm as either had once been.
"How have you been, old friend?" They ask, as though there is anything to tell. There has been nothing in this place for so long.
They went on to ask. "Are you well? Comfortable?"
You want to speak. Want to find the words to tell them something. Anything.
Out of duty or a genuine need to give voice to your pains, it's unclear. But you have no voice. Where once you'd been loathe to use it, now it no longer existed. Thinking back through the muddled mess of hazy memories, you can't help but wonder if you ever had a voice in the first place.
You cannot speak and even if you could, there are no words inside your head to offer up.
But when had they ever truly needed your words?
Expression shifting again they watched you with a distance you wouldn't have expected. How long had it really been since they abandoned you here? No. Not abandoned, trapped. Kept, guarded. They'd put you in this place and returned to see you were exactly where they'd needed you to be.
They leave you with a simple task.
Exist. Observe. Be patient.
You are obedient and they leave again, satisfied that you are where you should be, as you should be.
Those small eternities continue to trickle by and for the longest time you give into them. For what use are thoughts or feelings to you? You're the shell; so long as you serve your purpose then all is well. You've done what you were intended to do.
When they visit for a second time there's a spark.
You don't know if it is happiness or grief knowing that now they've appeared before you in new colours that you'll have to watch them go once again.
"How are you?" They ask just as before. Voice softened for you. Knowing that silence it all they can expect in return.
"Are you well? Comfortable?" The words repeat and just as the first time they say, "It's been too long, old friend."
They stay longer the second time. Speaking more of those gentle words that slip across your mind and fade away the moment their echo had faded.
When they part from you this time the detachment hurts more and the ache returns. You wish them back soon but know it'll be many eternities before they step into the mirror's gaze for a third time.
The dust is gathering, the shift of time beyond the glass is distant and hard to follow. Day and night serve little purpose and often seem to blend together, becoming thatcher afternoon haze of that final day you barely recall.
You lived inside of that twilight hour, but the glow of the house never lights up as it had in that earliest memory. That man never appears on the doorstep, nor turns to greet you. That afternoon had passed a long time ago, only the echo of it remains in memory. It's dark in this house now and you wait inside the stillness, waiting for anything at all.
Existing and observing as patiently as a ghost can.
So many eternities had passed. The visits far and few in-between, but soon even those you've lost count of. If you'd been trying to keep track in the first place you can no longer say. When they do appear before the mirror the script is the same, only small variations to it to occasionally catch your earnest attention but even those changes to the honeyed words mean little after they fade.
The only thing you remember in earnest is a familiar phrase. Seemingly a phrase they'd spoken without thought during one of those rare visits.
"There's no one I would rather have alongside me."
For the first time in countless eternities a name comes back to you.
'Damien'. Chipped lips move with the syllables of the long lost name, but there's no sound.
You try again with another. 'Celine'.
There's still no tongue with which to speak the name. But in the silence there's longing.
They dislike it.
For the first time their voice raises into a shout, and within the mirror you recoil. But for as vast as the abyss is, there's nowhere to hide from their anger. Each word sharp and snarled, burying itself into your memory, unable to be pulled away when softer thoughts were gradually blotted out.
"Never again!" They growl, and you do not know what can threaten a ghost like yourself, but if it exists then they know it. You believe they can hurt you.
You vow not to speak those lost names ever again. Make as many silent promises as you can until gradually the anger recedes and the softness returns. Even then you continued to mouth their name, a mute pray for forgiveness.
'Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark…' until finally they hush you tenderly and return to the script they'd briefly deviated from.
This time when they leave you do not wish them back.
And when the darkness pulls thought and feeling from you this time, you let the go without a fight. The emptiness a forlorn ease you fall into without protest.
How much easier it is to simply fulfill your purpose. Your reward for the usefulness that occasional soft word that seems almost like the lost person whose names you'll never speak again.
You cannot leave this place. There's nothing out there left for you. Not even death. So you stayed and did as you should.
Exist. Observe. Be patient.
But then something shifted. The eternity halted, time ceased its unnatural flow and for the first time since you can recall that first visit – your eyes opened to see someone else appearing before your glass plane.
And they smiled.
"Hello everybody!" They began and you wondered who 'everybody' is. "And welcome back to the Amnesia custom story. Abduction!"
Amnesia. Abduction. Somehow these words ring mockingly in a way the speaker simply could not know.
Then he gasped, looking up as though only now taking notice of his audience despite the exuberant greeting seconds before. "Wait who's that handsome guy up in the corner?" And you're not sure but you think the word for that tone is mischievous.
"It's me!" They announced with a genuine flash of energy and fear.
It was pure in a way, that jittery excitement coloured by anxiety. There's a true edge of nervousness to that smile and distantly you wondered how that was overcome by the person on the other side of the glass. At what point did fear no longer become more important than the excitement? When was dread no longer enough to stifle hope?
While pondering this you realise that it's very unlikely this young, mess of a man is thinking of this himself. He's probably not considering thoughts running that deeply even if he's aware of the duality of it. Another look at that goofy, lopsided smile and you know that there's no doubt he's absolutely not thinking that deeply about any sort of philosophy. He's just eager.
It makes you shake; it would have been laughter had you the voice.
"Yeah! Finally got my webcam." he continued, explaining the reason behind the image of his face before continuing onto the subject of their attention. A game.
Curious you watched on, and found your shoulders repeating that shaking motion more than once throughout their visit. If it could be called that. Was it truly a visit when they didn't seem truly aware of who was watching them?
The collective of 'you guys' or 'everyone' made it clear they knew someone could be watching. But this stranger no more knew you than you knew him. But he was offering up parts of himself. Little bits and pieces that gradually made the title of stranger feel too detached but friend too close.
He was neither, but you found that he was everything you'd needed without knowing it. Not stranger, nor friend. He was company.
Soon it ended with little more than a simple goodbye and not once had you thought to ask yourself or the visitor why they'd come. How they'd come.
If they'd come back.
Fear settled in after the silence returned. Would Dark know someone else had appeared before the glass eye? What would they think of it?
…did you really care?
No.
So long as that happy voice returned. You couldn't find it in yourself to truly care. Company's voice was not soft. In fact, it was grating at times. Clipping with distortion when raised too high. Screams and shouts had broken the sound, as though a microphone had cracked, were they recording?
But still you'd smiled through the mirror and silently chortled along with those shouts of alarm. The first having startled you but quickly you realised there was no true danger to the man on the other side of the glass plane and so fear became amusement and terror, delight.
They did return. With another greeting to an audience you could not see and by their words they could not see either. Perhaps you were the only audience or perhaps there were hundreds of others. It did not matter because the silence had been chased away and for those times the stranger was there you were not alone. Company was enough.
You forgot when the last eternity had slipped by. You forget when you'd last been visited by Dark. Instead you did what you always had.
Exist. Observe. Be patient.
Now rewarded when he'd return with a shouted greeting or vaguely apprehensive introduction he gradually became more confident with each time. Finding his footing more and more with every visit until most of the clumsiness had truly fled from his voice.
Over time the house slipped from your mind. The memory of life you barely had in the first place lost its importance and a new existence took its place.
You wanted to know if you could meet this person. Markiplier, you learned. Never questioning why the name pulled some long forgotten cord in your mind. A sentiment attached to the name that had gathered dust. You did not go looking for its source, instead choosing to know this Mark as he was now.
Awkward you decided was the word. Awkward, but well meaning. Optimistic, but thick in many ways. A well-meaning idiot with a genuine smile put you at ease.
Above all else he appeared hopeful. You thought this best.
It was there in those few videos that deviated from the normal pattern. Little passion projects that were endeavours he saw out despite of the risk of failure. You had done nothing but observe for so long and in him you saw excitement brewing. Thoughts of what the future could be, thoughts of all the things he wanted to do and was slowly being allowed to try.
He grew and you remained the same. You watched and waited for the day something might change. He was changing, becoming more the person he seemed to want to be and you stayed the same. Not really a person at all.
And when he thanked 'you guys' you wondered why. What had they done besides observe? What had they given back after being made less alone.
Those silent moments of laughter, and ghosting smiles flashing through your mind and so you pressed a hand against the glass plane between you and the real world. Mouthing back the words he offered in earnest.
'Thank you,' for what you wondered and in the same thought answered yourself, 'for the company.'
Then they returned.
You'd forgotten.
The day started like so many others before. Able to derive some sense of time from when Mark would return to the screen. There he sat where he always was. But something didn't fit. So still, too quiet. Not greeting them as he always did. Worried you reached for the glass but then recognized that feeling of disquiet crawling up your spine. You knew who it was on the other side of the glass. They'd not come to visit you in so long you'd forgotten the feeling that came along with them.
But they did not speak to you. Did not acknowledge you. Still, you knew they could see you beyond the glass and so you did as you always had. Remained obedient and silent. Waiting for the moment they would leave again.
For once truly wishing them gone.
Things had changed again. The entity that had visited you was no longer what they'd first been. Not as whole or as strong as they'd once been. No longer able to present themselves before you in a single shell.
You did not know what had happened to weaken him so but now you knew that eventually they would return to stand before you as they had in the past.
And when that day came you'd no longer be greeted by Mark's beaming dopey smile. Because Dark would have surely destroyed him.
But why should you care?
After all you were the reflection Dark had placed in the mirror with the sole purpose of obedience. Feeling, memory, sentiment, none of it had any use to you. Better to let it all slip away. This illusion of contentment, this delusional sense of self – better to let it fall away and return to the shell you were.
But the traitorous thoughts continued to grow inside of you.
With every passing greeting and smile, they grew. The thoughts festered and took root inside of you until you were no longer content with the existence you'd led. Suddenly you had questions that hadn't been inside of you before.
Hey, who are you?
The abyss offers no answer to that question. Gives no indication that you were anyone beyond this place, even if you had been, that person had long since died.
Is it really alright for you to keep existing in this way?
For the first time since being placed into the mirror you wondered if you could force your way back out. Dark was no longer the force they'd been. It felt like part of them was missing. Where 'she' had gone you couldn't know, but it felt like only 'he' remained. And he was not as powerful as they once word. He'd been, weakened and pushed aside – there was no way for him to stop you.
Rebelliousness sparked inside of your mind after so long of muted acceptance.
For what reason did you have to be obedient. After all were you not one of three? Were you not just as rightfully powerful as either of those forbidden names?
Your obedience cost you so much time.
Standing in the abyss was difficult; there was nothing solid to ground yourself with. But gradually something like control returned to you. You'd existed in this place for so many eternities, why should it not bend itself to your will? Why should you not make use of it however you liked?
You did not acknowledge it in that moment, but you'd found that point. This was the point where hope surpassed dread. And for as scared as you were, this time when you pressed fingers against your icy smooth prisoner, you pushed.
It gave.
With a crack and shatter, the glass broke apart into a thousand pieces and the abyss came leaking out with every last piece. It was time to change.
Patience had run its course. Observing not the same as living. Existing not worth enduring if it was not life.
You wanted it all back. Thoughts, feelings, sentiments, names that had been taken from you.
Again you wondered who you were as the darkness you'd grown used to began to fade away into white. What was your name, what would you have seen if you looked in a mirror if it was not Dark staring back at you?
Who were you before?
You supposed it didn't matter. As consciousness slipped away with equal parts trepidation and excitement, you concluded it didn't matter who you had been but who you would be.
You are Shell.
And you chose to lock Dark out.