"…And I'll see you in the next video. Bye bye!"

Mark reached over to stop his recording. Once he knew that he was done for the day, his hands fell into his lap and he stared blankly at the cooling monitor.

This had been the routine ever since the incident a few weeks ago.

When he first returned home, he had thought that everything could go back to normal and he could just ignore the near traumatic events that had transpired. He tried to speed up the healing when he deleted the recording and any evidence that he was involved with the game. He even called Matt and told him to delete the recording that he had sent. It was starting to look like he could finally start healing.

That is, until he noticed what day it was that he had returned. He was shocked to find that his adventure in the game took him far longer than he had thought and it looked like he had missed out on posting his video for that day. And he did not have time to post anything. What's worse, he had been invited to a gamer get together in New York, so he would not have time to post anything.

It didn't help that he knew that he would be unable to truthfully explain where he had been for so long. He called up Jack and the two of them came up with the story that they had both been traveling. They were both going to travel to New York anyways, and New York's internet was notoriously bad. They figured that they could just say that Mark left earlier than he did and the internet connection prevented him from posting anything.

They even convinced Felix to help encourage their cover story, and they made a video where Pewdiepie and Jacksepticeye slapped Markiplier. Jack did not have to worry because he had prerecorded enough videos to get away with the absence.

Once they were done recording in New York, Mark came back home and was finally able to process what happened.

The trip to New York provided a nice break, but with no Felix and no Jack, he was all out of distractions, and Mark only had what happened to think of.

Despite the amount of time that separated him from his experience in cyberspace, Mark couldn't help but vibrantly remember everything that happened. He still had the scrap of paper from Anne, hastily thrown onto his desk before he left.

As he stared at his monitor, he began his inner dilemma that came up after every video he's recorded since then.

His eyes bounced between the phone and the scrap of paper several times before he looked down in shame. He knew what he had to do, but he was still hesitant. Usually, he would just do what he had to do diligently, but he found it harder to bring himself to do this since it could actually affect someone's life.

He shook his head and picked up the scrap gently. Clutching it in his hands, he eyed the phone hesitantly. After what seemed to be an eternity, he growled at his own childishness and grabbed the phone. Before he could stop himself, he dialed the number and listened for the dial tone on the other side.

After a moment, a boy answered, "Davis residence, this is Cory speaking. The poor kid sounded exhausted. Not physically tired, but emotionally drained.

Mark was unable to find the words he needed, so he remained silent.

Unfortunately, Cory seemed to take this the wrong way and he continued speaking harshly, "Listen, I don't know who you are, but this prank has lost its novelty. I was serious when I said that my parents went missing. I don't appreciate you tying up the only contact that I gave to the police. I don't know what kind of sick fuck would continuously taunt a boy who lost his family, but I want you to know that if you do not stop calling me, I will have you arrested for harassment!"

Mark began to panic as Cory started to hang up, "No wait! Don't hang up!" he yelled in hopes of catching Cory before he cut him off.

There was a long, heavy silence from the phone and Mark was afraid that Cory had actually hung up.

Finally, Cory spoke hesitantly on the other end, "Who is this? Now that I'm actually paying attention, I can see that this is the number that keeps calling and hanging up."

Mark let out a heavy sigh, "Cory, I know what happened to your parents.

The other end went silent again, but this time it seemed more impactful than before.

"What," Cory said hesitantly. The eighteen-year-old boy suddenly sounded like a young child. "Where are they? Are they alright?"

Mark sighed morosely, "I don't come with good news. First off, I want to start by saying that your parents were the bravest people that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting."

"Had?" Cory seemed to latch on the past tense.

Mark could hear Cory's breath hitch as he repeated the word. However, Cory continued his thought, "I've seen enough and read enough to know that starting any explanation like that is never a good sign."

Mark could see that Cory was trying to mask his worry with humor.

He politely ignored when Cory's voice cracked halfway through his sentence.

Mark released another heavy sigh and decided that he should stop dancing around the topic and decided to lay it out straight, "They died protecting me. They had just met me, but they still did everything they could to help me." Mark paused, but couldn't help but add depreciatingly, "I was unable to protect them in return."

"No," Cory spoke softly, "No, no, no! Please, no!" Cory's words began to raise in volume and desperation until they became watery nonsensical exclamations as the teenager began to break down over the phone. Mark couldn't help but feel his own eyes prickle at the sound of Cory's grief. Still, he gave the boy a moment to compose himself.

Finally, Cory seemed coherent enough to respond, "What happened," he said resolutely.

This was the part that Mark was nervous about. He spoke slowly, "Now before I begin, I need you to keep an open mind. The incident was a little outlandish."

"What?" Cory said flatly, "Tell me what happened and then I'll decide if you're batty or not."

Mark chuckled nervously, "Well, you see, I started playing this new game called Doomed…"

Mark then began his tale of his escapades. He explained his first impressions of the game, his abduction, and his interactions with Technus. He then told of how the couple arrived and about their fight with Ember. He then moved on to his talk with Glen, his spar with Anne, and how he had antagonized Glen before the final battle and caused him to run into the boss battle before they were prepared.

Finally, he ended with the fight with Skulker and how the three were soundly defeated until Anne sacrificed herself to defeat Skulker and save Mark.

Cory stayed silent throughout Mark's monologue, and when it was finally over, he took a second to respond.

After a completive pause, Cory spoke softly, "My parents are so awesome."

There was no disbelief in Cory's tone, and Mark gaped at the phone, "That's it? You aren't upset? You don't blame me for their deaths? You even believe me? Monsters and ghosts?"

Cory sounded relieved over the other side, "I am extremely sad about their passing, but it's nice to actually know what happened to them. I am very proud that they were able to do what they set out to do. I will miss them dearly, but as for blaming you? No I don't blame you. The way you told it sounded like you were doing enough of that for the both of us."

Mark winced.

Cory sighed on the other end, "The only way that I can make them truly proud of me would be to live a good life. It might be hard at the beginning, but I can make it through."

Mark shook his head in surprise. Apparently, Anne and Glen weren't the only strong ones in the family.

Cory continued through Mark's musing, "Another reason that I believe you is because of the way that you described them. You got their character spot on. My mom has a tendency to be bombastic to strangers, attempting to make it her first impression. My dad is also really reserved and lets her do the talking. The things you said that they did sounded exactly like something that they would do."

Mark smiled at the fondness that he heard in Cory's voice. After a second he shook his head and his smile slipped off of his face, "Wait, and how is it exactly that you believe me about monsters attacking me? A game? Aragon? Boxy? Patricia? Technus?"

Cory chuckled, "Well, it's not as outlandish as you might think. Let me tell you a little about my home town. It's a friendly little place called Amity Park…"

End

Annnnnd Done! I finally finished this after far too long. It took me so long, because some of my information is outdated. For instance, Mark has Ethan now instead of Matt, and Mark no longer has red hair. What's more is that I made a reference to a video that Mark actually made when he went to New York. No one will see it because I planned on putting it in after I saw it, but that was such a long time ago. While I'm not entirely unsatisfied with this story, I think I'm going to stick to fictional characters from now on. I hope you enjoyed this. I realize that Markiplier X Danny Phantom crossover is quite the odd topic to use, but I really liked his videos and I couldn't actually think of a good game to write about, so I wrote this. It was supposed to help me to better evolve my writing.

Have a nice day!

Burnzs out!