Darkshines

Chapter Twenty-Four

Dan's POV

Dan sniffled while he laid down in the couch again after taking some painkillers and water, once more. His head was dizzy and he coughed constantly, his body felt like it was outside in a snowstorm, and burning inside a hot oven at the same time.

He had tried to sleep all week, resting so he would get past this cold, but fevered nightmares wouldn't let him sleep peacefully, so he was constantly tired. And still sick. Not to mention sore from last Thursday, when he'd come home without any painkillers and tasted his mum's rage. Yeah. That added to his misery for the whole week, as if his bloody cold wasn't killing him enough.

Dan switched on the old television they had, it took at least a minute before the picture appeared on the screen. He tried to focus on the current tv show playing right now, but his eyes kept rinning and blur his vision, as well as his head felt dizzy.

God, how he hated to be ill.

He drifted off and his dream felt pleasant in the beginning.

He and Phil was famous - of all things, and they were flatmates. Both of them were working with film making and they were going to make a q&a video, something he'd seen on like youtube before, although this definitely was one of a kind.

And with the weirdest name too: Phil is not on fire. What the hell?

It was really odd, because apparently there was this tradition for them to grab a sharpie and draw cat whiskers on their faces, and answer to really strange, yet funny questions that their viewers sent in.

The questions could be all from "May I stroke your glabella?" to "Sing a duet about lizards" to "Seductively advertise this toilet roll".

Some questions really were disturbing.

And is microwave really an onomatopoeia??

Despite everything, he had a really fun time and it was amazing how this was what they were doing for a living?

But the best part was definitely having a best friend, no other than Phil. Well, the chances to make that into reality were as slim as a snowball's chance in hell.

As good as his dream was, it didn't take long until the weird parts took over, thanks to his fever. Phil had become a magician, the Amazing Phil,  with a talking lion plushie on his shoulder, and pulled Dan's hair, which apparently was a wig and he was bald underneath it - which freaked him out.

The lion started speaking in ancient languages and Phil got furious and started to throw his new white sneakers at him, then another angry Phil showed up, and shoved him hard. Then another Phil, and another, and they all kept pushing Dan roughly around while yelling at him, and didn't stop even after Dan started crying and yelling for them to stop.

"You are disturbing Dan."

"You are not worth my time, nor anyone else's."

"No one wants you around"

"Why do you keep trying when you know it's pointless?"

"Kindly do us a favour and kill yourself"

Finally he was pushed so he fell over and instead of hitting the floor, he just kept falling in complete darkness.

He fell and fell until finally he could make out the bottom beneath him - fire. Every part of the surface beneath him was covered in flaming hot fire and he was falling right into it.

Just when he was about to land in the flames, his whole body flinched in the sofa and he sat up, screaming himself hoarse.

He sat and just kept breathing heavily, while tears kept overflowing his eyes and wetting his cheeks.