Hacked

eNTrY tWelVE

"Phil!" I called out.
When we reached my apartment, Phil left my body and I instantly plugged myself into his world.
I was still a bit drunk, but I could manage to walk and speak normally.
"Phil, please!" I started to run, bobbing up and down with each step, across the dusty ground. "Phil, I'm really sorry."
I yelped as I felt his claws wrap around my wrist, digging into my skin, and turn me around to face him.
He was the angriest I'd ever seen him. Sparks came from his fingertips, singing my arms, and his eyes flashed from blue to red to yellow at an incredibly rapid tempo.
"You don't understand, Dan!" He growled. "You could have ruined everything!"
I blinked, confused. "What do you mean, ruined everything?" I tugged my arm away from his grasp, flinching as blood leaked from the scratches he had left. "Are you...are you using me?"
Phil's eyes settled on red, and for a split second he looked almost alarmed.
"I just..." He flashed into his other form, which looked full of regret and terribly sad. "I can't lose you."
I swallowed, staring at him in silence.
"That's all?" I pushed.
The blue eyed Phil's shoulders began to shake as tears rolled down his face. He kept shaking his head, but no words would come from his mouth.
I couldn't take it anymore. I stepped foreword and took his pale face in my hands, pressing my lips against his.
Instantly he changed back into his other form, his red eyes wide. I pulled away briefly and his grin was manic. He placed his hands on my waist as I leaned foreword and kissed him again, shutting my eyes.
I had let myself become entirely vulnerable. Before that moment, before his real hands were gripping my waist and his invisible hands tousling my hair, I could have realized...I could have realized how dangerous he was. I could have gotten out from under his spell.
But at that moment, Dan Howell was gone.
All that remained was a slave.

***

"Uh, Cat? It's me Dan."
I stood outside the alleyway door beneath the broken OPEN sign, my hands in the pockets of my work coat.
There was a rattling behind the door, multiple locks clicking unlocked, before Cat opened it.
She blinked, her dialated eyes widening as they adjusted to the moonlight.
"What is it? Is Phil okay?"
"Yes, he's fine." I held up my hand; which was wrapped tight around his invisible one. "He's with me, actually."
Cat stared at my hand and grinned, reaching up and tucking her silver hair behind her ear.
"Come on in."
I stepped into the room and Cat shut the door behind me.
I let go of Phil's hand and watched as a screen lit up in the corner of the room. An old computer, a few cracks spiderwebbing across it. How had I not noticed it before?
Phil's face glowed from the glass and he looked over at me.
"dAn, wOuLD yOU mInD gIVinG uS sOMe tIMe alONe tO tALK¿"
I shook my head. "Not at all." I looked to Cat and smiled lightly. "Where should I go?"
She pointed to the door on the end of the room. "Just go in there and shut the door. Don't touch anything."
I nodded and did as she asked.
From the way the floor was raised in the center of the room, I assumed that this had once been the karaoke area of a restaurant. This made sense of the OPEN sign above the entrance.
There was a mattress on the raised floor, covered in blankets and lumpy pillows. There were faded posters on, more like falling off of, the walls, and one strand of colored fairy lights.
In the corner was a shut cardboard box.
Biting my lip, I approached the box and got down on my knees beside it. Taking one last look at the door before I did so, I opened up the box. There were about twenty different off-white folders.
I slid one out from the box and opened it.
There was a picture of a young girl with brown hair and a solemn face. There was a tube in her nose and an IV in her arm.
CATHERINE VALDEZ, it read, AGE THIRTEEN.
Below that were her symptoms and diagnosis. A disease I had never heard of, the acute form of it.
The rest of the folder were other photos and observations.
I took another folder out to examine.
ELLIOT WHITE, the next form read, AGE NINE.
I gasped softly as I looked at the picture. It was the same exact one I had found inside Phil's world.
He had the same disease as the young Cat, but SEVERE had been highlighted in bright yellow next to it.
I flipped through the pictures. In some, he was simply smiling at the camera from a hospital bed or wheelchair. In others, he was sat alongside Cat on a white carpeted floor, playing with blocks or dolls.
I turned to the last photo, and my eyes grew wide.
Elliot sat in a wheelchair, his tiny, frail hand pressed against a wide screen.
The screen was lit blue, and the image of a figure was there. It's hand was reaching down, palm to palm with Elliot from the other side of the glass.
Phil. The form with the kind eyes and hospital uniform.
"Specialized in the health and care of children..." I whispered, recalling what he had told Pj.
What happened to this Elliot?
Did Phil really kill him along with Henry Liguori?
I swallowed the bad taste in my mouth and hastily placed both folders back in their places and closed the box.
Just after I did so, Cat opened the door.
"You can come out now."
I smiled at her, pushing my mass of thoughts to the back of my mind, and left the room.
"DAn," Phil said, "iF yOU do nOT mINd, i woUld liKE TO wAlK hOMe."
"Home," I said under my breath, "of course. It was nice to see you, Cat."
The young lady smiled at me, but there was something else behind her eyes. Sadness, possibly.
Phil's face dissapeared from the screen of the old computer, and I felt his hands on my head just before I faded back into the subconscience.

A/N: today's cover art was drawn by me 😋 Hope you guys are liking this! I've finished planning out the remainder of this tale...I cried.