City of Angels (and Demons)

Chapter Five

Sam woke up the next morning with an ache in his back. He had fallen asleep leaning up against the headboard of the bed. The work he had been doing was strewn across the bed, undisturbed. The only difference being, he had fallen asleep with his laptop on his lap.

"Hey," Dean said when he noticed that Sam was awake. He was sitting at the table, Sam's laptop in front of him.

"Were you up all night?" Sam asked, getting to his feet and stretching his aching muscles.

"I wasn't planning on it," Dean said. "I was reading up on Fischbach."

Sam walked over to the small coffee maker, seeing that Dean had already made a pot. And had either made another one, or had prepared it for Sam because it was still a full pot. "Find anything?" he asked, grabbing a paper cup and pouring himself some coffee.

"The guy plays video games for a living," Dean said. "Posts them on YouTube under the alias 'Markiplier.' "

Sam, coffee prepared, walked over and sat down at the table with Dean. "So instead of going the engineer route, he went for entertainment," he said then took a drink of coffee.

"That's not the interesting part," Dean said. "He sometimes posts sketches, which involve characters referred to as his alter egos."

Sam set his cup down, prepared to tell Dean that all actors were the same. "I think you should get some sleep, Dean," he said then paused as Dean turned the laptop around to face him.

On the screen was a website filled with what Sam assumed was fan art. The pictures were clearly of Mark Fischbach, aka Markiplier, but darker versions of him. He was especially drawn toward an image of Fischbach with solid black eyes.

"His name is Darkiplier," Dean said. "And the 'lore' behind him can get pretty messed up."

Coffee forgotten, Sam continued scrolling through the website, some of the images sending a chill down his spine, remembering all the demons he had come across. Some worse than others. And with the way this case was going, Darkiplier might be on of those worse ones.

"But it explains a lot," Dean said. "There's a lot of different sites with all sorts of stories. Fischbach kinda ignored the alter ego for a while until recently.

"Some of the stories say Darkiplier is a separate entity, while a lot support the idea that Dark and Mark are the same person," Dean went on then pointed at the other medical files. "Darkiplier tried being a separate being, but none of them were strong enough, so they died. If Fischbach hadn't been in that accident, we could've had a lot more bodies on our hands."

"At some point most of them were alive at the same time," Sam said. "How did one demon handle that?"

"As far as I know, Fischbach hasn't gone all dark on us yet," Dean said. "I think Darkiplier spread his energy to keep the others going. Once Patrick's gone..."

Sam didn't like the thought that there was nothing they could do for that last patient. "We've got to get Fischbach under surveillance," he said.

"Better yet, locked up."

They grabbed what they needed and left.

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Mark had been awake for most of the night. Whenever he finally managed to get to sleep, he dreamed about the accident he still couldn't remember while wide awake. He either woke up hyperventilating or shaking, and sometimes both. His body was soaked with sweat by the time he decided to get out of bed around five in the morning.

He took a long shower, the dreams still on his mind. The accident itself had faded. What stuck was the words and laugh he heard each time before waking up: