Jack's Nightmare
2019, October, 04
Sean McLoughlin is crying, sitting on the edge of his bed. He feels it breathing down his neck, afraid to sleep. At this thought he chuckles amid his body shaking cries, “Sleep is for the weak.” He says in a quiet, emotion choked voice. Still, a thing on his channel, even though he has cut down to one video a day.
Still crying he lays down on his back, “Leave me alone!” This is something he has yelled for five years. As a talisman, but like everything, it’s effect wears off or it becomes commonplace that the user loses its belief in it. Even, if they still belief in it, when in truth it is just comfort no longer believed it.
Sean drifts off the sleep... into a nightmare.
Sean wakes in front of a computer, it is in a loose red fog from; within it is a bright screen.
Hello, Sean. The voice is spine chilling.
“Who are you!” Sean yells looking around the dark void, he goes to stand up but discovers he can’t move. Panic courses through him, “Let me go!”
The screen in front of him flicker, the words start to appear.
It is when life is at it’s best. The worst will happen.
All good memories. All the good times. What if they meant nothing!
“No, please, stop this! What do you want from me!?” Sean cries.
When so many people know who you are. You feel relief knowing that if something bad happens, you won’t be alone.
Sean shudders in fear, hoping for this dream to end.
What if they can’t help.
On top of that, people who rely on you are now suffering.
This is Sean’s worst fear, he struggles against binds he can’t see. “WAKE UP, DAMN-IT!” tears are running at a steady stream.
They look out for one another as much as they can. As you are losing the fight, the struggle to get back is killing you!
Sean stills his movements, his baby blue eyes widen and his very breath catches in his chest. His body is cold with the cold sweat of fear that has broken over his body.
The truth and this is what scares you the most, you are not as strong as you believe you are!
“Show yourself and fucking fight me!”
Your best friend will indeed suffer the most. His stability will not be there when he needs it.
He has been putting on a good show. But his life has been falling a part for a long time.
Happy on the outside, yet, inside the struggle will be tired some.
“C-chase,” Sean says quietly through sobs.
At times the waking world is lost within the Demon’s Call.
A few moments afterward the words appeared on the screen. The screen became the same fog-like appearance as the red shape of the computer. They dissipate leaving Sean in total darkness. Before fear or the attempt to calm himself could overtake. He is shielding his eyes; as he finds himself standing at the end of a brightly lit hallway. Not long constricted to a chair, this minor freedom is enough for him to collect himself. Still very fearful by the words and how real this place feels, palming away tears from his eyes he takes in the corridor.
It is whitewashed to the point it hurt his eyes. The corridor is ten feet across with a single door at the end of its twenty-foot length. Behind him is a wall will a note tacked to it.
Let the game begin!
Jacksepticeye is the first of many!
Start simple, by trapping him in a NIGHTMARE!
Sean reads this and his Let’s Play brain kicks in to gear instantly. Jack, breaks this note down. It is very pretentious, in an attempt to throw Jack off balance from the start or it is because Jack is not meant to escape this. Sean didn’t like the prospects of being trapped here, the fact that he has so much control here worries him.
“You want to play a game. Let’s play a game.” Jack says.
It is a known fact that every YouTuber has at least two different persona’s, whether they are completely separate from each other or the on-camera persona leaks into the off-camera persona and vise-visa.
It is Jack who is stepping down the corridor, two steps down and the light goes dark. Jack stutters steps and lets out a gasp. He lets out a shy chuckle and shakes his finger around. Jack, gratefully, is not left in total darkness. The door is lit up by light across the top. Jack collects himself before moving forward, pushing forward with confidence. He is two feet from the door when swing opens toward him.
“Ahh!” Jack utters before cupping his face with both hands. Doubling over as if the air is knocked from his lungs, “Okay, I wish to wake up know please!” He calls out nervously.
Because the world is now pixelated, he looks down at himself. He is not pixeled...just more defined? His mind could only translate it, is he is more defined, more real against the pixeled environment. Starting down the hallway, the bear white hallway; with only a dim white light allowing him to see barely ten feet in front of him. When he looks to see what is producing the light he sees a pixelated C on the front of his shirt.
Jack raises his hand to feel it, he feels no heat and when it seems like he is about to make contact with it. His hand passes through it unharmed till his hand is flat against his shirt. As his hand passes through the C the light didn’t lose any shine.
“What is this?!” He questions.
“Jack, its a game.” This is Sean in the back of their collective mind.
“No, fucking shit,” Jack yells down the hall, the echo of the yell brings out the shakiness in his voice. He knows what game he is in, First Winter. Jack enjoyed playing this game when he was safe in his recording room with a screen separating the game from reality.
Jack starts running, turn after turn into long identical halls. His mind reeled in fear because this feels so real. Worse of all neither he nor Sean could shake it off to a very vivid dream.
“Please, stop this and let me wake up!” He shouts as he runs.
He reaches a dead end, turns back to continue straight down instead of turning right down this corridor. It took him a bit longer to reach the other end and when he does. Jack discoverers that it is another dead end. He stands, heavy shouldered, he knows that he needs to head back to get the hall to change. But as he places his hand on the wall, it feels bumpy and cold beneath his defined hand. Near tears, he feels tired and doesn’t want to double back.
Jack knew how to game and be entertaining, not when it comes to surviving real-life horror.
The voice is loud and sudden, causing him to cry out and shields his ears.
“IT’S A DREAM!!” He screams at the top of his vocal range.
Even with his hands press tightly against his ears he hears these words loud and clear, In his hope that this is a game causes it to become less than. Fighting against what wasn’t there would wear him down faster. These words sounded like a snake’s hissing and sly.
Jack’s chest became tight with anxiety, as he pushed away from the wall and ran. The words hit him on a deep level. He ran the ever expanding corridor five times before a door finally appeasers.
Tears fall again at the sight of salvation, as much Sean wanted this nightmare to be over. Jack knew better, he knew that this door would just open up to another hallway or another room... unlike Sean, he remembered how this game ends. Still, he hopes for salvation too; if he is experiencing the tightening of anxiety, Sean is being crushed by it.
With a shaky hand and uneven breaths, Jack opens the door. A soft breeze cools his sweaty skin and he has to shield his eyes against the bright natural light. His heart flutters and takes a couple of steps out into the light.
AHAHAHAHAH! The laughing is ear-splitting loud, as the bright blinding light starts to flicker.
Jack screams, falls against the door. Closing it.
The light goes out and breeze stops. Jack sits in the dark knees curled up to his chest.
I thought you like scary games? The voice taunts.
Jack feels defeated and retreats to the recesses of their share mind. Sean, trembling, looks around as the lighted C appears again. He could barely make out the wall in front of him as the sides are shrouded in darkness.
“Please, let me wake up!” He pleads in a low voice as he stands up using the door.
With heavy shoulders and equally heavy feet he only has take one more to see the wall to his left and two steps to his right. He is in a small room with no windows and the only door is the one he came in.
He collapses knees and falls onto his side; this is too much. “Jack, please, I need you!” Sean calls his counterpart.
“I have let us down! How could you need me?” Jack says from the dark.
“Jack/Sean thank you for being on YouTube. You have helped me through a lot.” That small voice echos in the darkness.
Jack’s heart swells and Sean smiles, even in this terrible place. Sean reaches toward the recesses, “Come on, Jack. The epic gamer boy; let’s win this.”
Jack reaches out of the darkness and takes the hand, light emits from the hands.
“How is it that one tiny voice can make all the difference?” Jack asks.
The light moves up both arms.
“Because it might be one voice but we have seen the masses and have read countless messages,” Sean says as he and Jack merge into one.
Jack stands up, steadier this time as he opens the door. It opens into a 2x2 space before Jack could even contemplate anything. He is violently pushed in; smacking his face and head off the wall. He stumbles back against the closed door, in excruciating pain from his nose and forehead. Blood is running from his nose.
Try and fight against me! The loud cold voice fills the tiny space.
“STOP!!” Jack screams covering his ears and collapsing to his knees.
Jack gets a shock to his system before his knees contact the ground they splash into freezing water. Jack shoots back to his feet, causing more pain from his head. Sean reminds him to breathe even though that causes pain too.
Jack looks down and sees that he is standing in about a foot of pixelated water, from his pants dark brown pixels are dripping. To his left he feels a cold draft, looking that way he sees that it no longer blocked. He moves forward the sloshing of the pixelated water is just off enough to make him very uncomfortable.
Sloshing ten feet he comes to a dead-end, “Fuck!” He expresses in frustration at the same time, wincing in pain. Turning around on feet that are numb from the cold and carefully heads back. The hallway didn’t expand but he feels like there is something off, however, with the pain he can’t be sure. He believes that the door is now on the side of the wall were mashed his face on. He stands there for a moment dazed, looking down at the water his blood is very defined. Not only by the crimson against the brown and grey pixels but from the fact the blood is real. It is reacting like it was in water... Jack looks away, it is making him nauseous.
He quickly moves to open the door. He is blasted with a rush of cold salty air, “Mmmm, huh. Nope!” He says as he opens the door into a submarine hallway. More freezing water filters out along with hideous yellow light coming from pixelated light to his right on the wall. Adding another foot of visible space before thick darkness. To the left, there is a thick pipe that runs along the top of the wall and ceiling. There is a heavy-looking (as much as ‘heavy-looking’ can be in pixels) door with a wheel in the center on the other side of the light.
Jack doesn’t bother with that door, with most games that have ever-changing environments. The first door is almost always locked. Since he is painfully and uncomfortably IN the game, he needs to reach the end as soon as possible. Two more light placed at regular intervals; across from the second light on Jack’s left side is another door. This one he tries as he can see the end of the hall clearly a few feet in front of him.
Grabbing hold of the wheel, it is cold but at the same time not... Jack just chalked it up to everything being in pixels. His head hurts too much to think of anything else.
Pushing the door open, needing some strength to open the heavy-but-not door. More water filters into the hall, know he is in water to just below the knees. From his shins down are numb.
“Please, let me wake up!” This time is Sean crying out in desperation.
Jack steps into a small bunk room, with only one bunk in.
Suddenly he is pulled beneath the freezing water, the moment his head is submerged he loses consciousness.
An undetermined amount of time passes. Jack wakes to air rushing passing his face, his eyes shoot open. He is falling into what seems to be an endless white abyss. The agony in his head from the sheer panic coursing through his body causes darkness to seep in from the corner of his eyes.
This is not a game. This is a nightmare. YOUR NIGHTMARE! The dark glassy voice speaks.
The floor is rushing toward him. Jack braces himself for impact; eyes shut and waits for the inevitable. A moment later, the rushing of air stops and he feels a light impact then feels himself fly back up. Jack opens his eyes as he starts to fall again from about seven feet up. He is going to hit the stairs, “OH FUCK!” He yells.
He impacts the stairs on his right side, “Ahhg, shit!” then helpless rolls down the flight of stairs.
Coming to rest on his back. Sean struggles to try to stand, finding it hard to breathe. He is almost one hundred percent certain that one of his ribs is broken. He remains on the ground and looks about him. The room is small and there is a boarded-up window directly in front of him and nothing else is in the room.
“I have to get up.” Sean grunts sitting up. He is breathing heavily and is sweating; the pain in his head and side is almost unbearable.
Be lucky they are just stairs. The voice speaks in a giddy tone.
“What... do you mean-?” Sean grunts.
Happy Wheels ring any bells.
“Please, let me wake up; you mother fucker!” Sean gasps in pain.
Bring back Jacksepticeye, the epic gamer. Sean McLoughlin is weak in this place. The voice hisses all around him.
“We’re...the same-fucking person.” Sean attempts to yell.
We’ll see.
Sean sits in wait, for the voice to speak again. When the silence lasts longer than a minute.
“Jack, I need you to give me your energy to help us survive.” Sean feels wired doing this, even after he said they are the same person. It is just him summoning energy from a different tank, needing to always tap into when recording. So to have it associated with ‘Jack’ is just easier. Is he crazy because he is taking to ‘Jack’ as if he is another person?
“I can’t Sean.” Jack says with a shaky voice. Sean can only guess that the pain is too much for him.
“Jack, please, I’m not strong enough to work our beaten body.” The pain of sitting up is agonizing and his head is trumping. “If this is a game—.” Sean coughs and has to lay back, “think of the pain a temporary until the game finishes...” Sean has to stop talking.
“How are you so sure? We are both feeling the pain if we use that ‘recording energy’ it will cause more damage.”
“So what are we supposed to do. Lay here in agony, weakening and eventually dying.” Sean feels half dead as it is.
“Don’t,” Jack whimpers. the taste copper is on his tongue; he doesn’t like that. Sean is right, he needs to push on, “close your eyes, breath slowly, get ready to push on.”
On the outside, Sean seems to be sleeping, but in his mind is being to kicked into overdrive with the high-energy, loudmouth that is Jacksepticeye. The overflow of energy with dull the pain for twenty-minutes after that the pain starts to resurface ten times as bad every ten minutes for the remainder of the hour.
Sean gingerly stands, wobbles a bit; he feels like he has taken a too long of a Sunday nap. His first steps are slowly getting faster and steadier with each step.
Reaching the window, there is nothing but whiteness beyond the boards.
Just a waste of my fucking time. Sean thinks.
Turning around, a red glowing ball appears wheres the C was. It is pulsing slowly.
THIS ENDLESS LOOP
This phrase appears in front of his eyes. The pulsing speeds up a notch, Sean’s heart kicks up as while. The text reminds when he looked away for the stairs.
“The final push, Sean.”
He looks bad toward the stairs but spies something lying on the ground in the corner to the left of the doorway.
“That was not there before.” He says aloud and walks toward the object.
It is cassette tape, he remembers vaguely that these played a part in this game. But did it play a factor in this instance? The gamer side, Jack, if something can be picked up you should pick it up.
Sean bents and picks up the wired feeling pixel tape. He turns around and is face-to-face with human figure covered in a white sheet.
“Ahhh!” He screams and slams his back into the corner, breathing heavily and squeezing the tape painfully. The words disappear and glowing speeds up, he is frozen for a few moments staring at the thing in front him.
“Move, move!”
Sean slides one step to the left. The thing follows him with its gaze and more words appear.
OF TERROR
The glow speed ups; he pants as he glides backward up the stairs. He spins to his left; not wanting to turn away from the thing. With the words and rapidly pulsing red ball in front of his chest did nothing to calm his terror gripped mind. He blunders down a short narrow hall to a bigger area. To his right is a closed-door, breathing heavily and carelessly runs to the door and opens it. The door opens into another hallway, turning around to shut the door.
The thing is right behind him again.
“Ahhh, no, no!” He panicky slams the door and starts down the hall.
The words disappear; he rounds a corner and glance behind him, nothing. When he faces forward the red pulsing is so fast now that Sean can’t see.
“What the fuck? Stop!” He screams in frustration shielding his eyes.
He suddenly feels light and his heart skips a beat. When he unshielded his eyes he finds himself in a different room, it is dark except for a bed in the center of the room with a light lighting a person sit there under the sheet.
He jumps, he can feel the pain seeping back. He spies a door to his right; wanting very much to go for it, however, he steps closer to the bed. In an instance, the bed disappears leaving the sheeted person standing in front of him. More words appear:
WILL BE YOUR REALITY
There is a thunderclap and the sheeted person is replaced by a normal-looking pixelated bedroom. Though the words stay.
Sean turns to his right shouting, “No, no, please stop!” he looks at the computer that now occupies the desk behind him.
He feels his hairs stand on end, “Let me out!” He runs for the door and opens it to the living room, “let me out.” Only a few steps in, when he hears glass breaking, sees extreme white staring from his right side, then nothing.
Jack...Jack. The voice is high-pitched and glitchy.
Sean stirs, unable to wake up. But this vice is familiar... he’s just not sure from where.
Ahahah! Jack, you should have never tried to leave me behind.
“Leave me alone!” Jack yells at the top of his vocal range.
Soon...you’ll have to face me.
Sean wakes up breathing deeply, he looks are around trying to get his bearing. He is on the floor in what seems to another game.
“Am-am I in the hospital?”
A single word appears.
UNTIL
“Whats happening?” Sean asks loud looking around. This place is not pixelated; Sean stands but is knocked back to the ground in intense pain.
Sean blacks out.
This time Sean wakes up, his head hurt like hell. When he eases his eyes open, even though his vision is blurred. He knows instantly where he is. He is on his back on the floor of his apartment in Ireland on his right is he is seeing in own legs in a pair of black ripped jeans from under a heavy-looking table.
“Oh, no!” He whimpers.
That’s right Jack. One of the most bone-chilling giggles he has ever heard sounds around him.
Sean, despite the pain and his unwillingness to see what was going on above the table, he is moving to see.
Jack, you can’t escape me... You may not what me, but THEY do! The voice, his voice just pitched differently. Yells in his ear.
Sean closes his eyes, tight. However, Jack sees the horror that plays out once above the table. Through blurred eyes, he is staring at himself, nearly, three years younger. Dark green-haired Jack looks up from the pumpkin he is caving and stares straight at current Jack; eyes wide and with a shaky right hand slowly moving it toward his throat with a knife.
Green haired Jack speaks, “It was all in fun.”
Current Jack hears this from his forced voice and eyes staring, he didn’t like this. It is so out of character, yeah sure, he was supposed to look that way for the camera. But he speaks to himself, “We thought it would help... but we’re afraid... we’re weak.” Green haired Jack says the next thing before he draws the knife across his throat, “I should have never tried to fight it alone.”
Sean wakes up with a start in his bed and before he can claim down; in a blink of an eye. He is standing once again in the pixelated hallway watching a heavy door swing open. A man is standing on the other side of it. Sean jumps a bit then tries to speak but the man turns on his heel and shoots.
“NO!” Sean screams as his world falls dark.
BEEP! BEEP!
Sean wakes up to the beeping of his alarm clock, sunlight pouring in from the window.
Taking a few deep breaths and looking around, “Oh, it was all just a dream.” He lets out a sigh of relief, “I’m fine.”
The moment that left his lips darkness rapidly descends, “No, please!” Sean begs.
Pain hits him, taking his breath away. Once again finding himself in front the loose red fog form of a computer with a bright screen.
“Hello, Sean.” The voice is spine chilling.
“HELP ME! HELLLPPPP! SOMEBODY PLEASE!” He screams, nearly blowing out his neck. Tears stream down his cheeks.
Laughter echos all around him...
Then another voice fills the void. The voice of his best friend Chase Brody.
“Jack, Jack, it’s Chase... You need to wake up, Jack.”
Will Jack ever wake up?
