Chapter Text
"Dude, I swear he's hacking!" The younger insisted, his blue character darting to circle the accused rule breaker.
Was the skin meant to be diamonds? Or was it meant to be a blue sky with that white cloud-like dot on his head? Whatever– it didn't matter. Not when Bad had to remain professional.
Only it was hard to maintain his composure when the person he was meant to be interviewing was pushing his buttons. There were times when Bad had to excuse himself to let off steam.
This Skeppy guy was getting annoying. Extremely annoying.
What kind of name was Skeppy anyway? Was it just a keyboard smash? Some sort of pun? Puns are meant to be funny! Nothing about him made sense! Nor was he making his appearance any better by being a jer—
Calm down, Badboyhalo.
That was until he heard the interviewee's nails-on-a-chalkboard voice again. It cracked whenever he would speak or yell something idiotic about "ping spoofing" on the server. How old was this guy? He still sounds like he's going through puberty.
After a minute or five of Skeppy attempting to convince Bad poor old Silverstone935 was going to use fly hacks, his patience had worn thin, "Alright, uhm, this interview's over I've given you your chance. I'm rejecting your application."
"Nonono, wait– something bad will happen if you reject me!"
Bad resisted the eye-roll, "Like what?"
"I– I don't know! I just have a feeling!"
Oh, brother, this was too much, "It's not the end of the world. Goodbye, Skeppy."
With that, he left TeamSpeak.
Ah, much better.
He did not need to waste any more hours on some man still going through puberty – or at least Bad thought so – and messing with him and his schedule.
What made it worse was that he kept sneaking into calls, bribing people just to talk to him and cause more havoc. Blocking was never enough.
—
Bad's channel was failing. He thought about quitting after– what– six years? He was losing the motivation to do anything. He was barely a YouTuber, and he could barely gather an audience outside of his server. Even only a couple of dozen players joined. YouTube kept lowering the subcount by deleting old subscribers from the beginning of his channel.
And so he made the heartbreaking decision to give up. Bad had tried for half a decade, but nothing was taking off. As much as he loved his fans, he was fading into obscurity, as if he was even relevant in the first place...
Where else would he have been six years down the line?
It's 2018. Stop chasing dreams, Badboyhalo.
A week after Bad swore his channel to be dead, something... odd began happening.
It started small, where he would find things he swore he never bought appearing in his house– usually packed food with abnormal use-by dates.
"What the muffin..?" He muttered to himself as he picked up the unfamiliar loaf of bread, "What kind of bread goes off in– it's probably just a misprint."
That didn't explain the voices.
Bad swore he could hear a disembodied voice, talking to him and mentioning his name constantly. It sounded so familiar...
Skeppy.
He was having a psychological break in his head, and that voice still didn't leave him alone. It weirdly sounded higher than what he heard the last time they spoke...
The channel was dead; he can barely take joy in anything; what would HE possibly want from HIM?
Did the jerk curse him or something?
More things started appearing in his home, subtle enough that Bad questioned if he was already going insane.
The voices of the prankster kept echoing in his mind, speaking to him as if he were engaged in a conversation Bad wasn't aware of. No matter how many times he responded, no matter how many times he yelled at him to get out of his head, the Skeppy in Bad's brain continued his snippets of one-sided conversations. It was like skimming through something someone would say after every sentence.
One late afternoon, as Bad went to refuel his caffeine addiction, there were no coffee grounds in their usual spot on the kitchen counter. He knew for a fact he bought some, bulk-bought them. But there was... nothing. He needed his coffee, or else the withdrawals would kick in not long after.
Like a madman, he had begun ransacking his kitchen. Coffee and his dog were the only good things going for him.
There was only one spot he hadn't checked in the whole area: his stash in the cabinet.
"A-ha!"
But to his dismay, it was everything but that.
Rather than his sweet sanity-savers, all he saw was a blue plushie sat directly where they would've been. Picking it up, he recognised that stupid... stupid derpy face.
Bad tightened his grip on the plush. So he had merch?! He's just a small YouTuber! They had to be joking—
"WHY CAN'T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?!" Bad practically screamed at the plush now being flung across the room.
Rat rushed to him, probably concerned about why her dad was almost popping a vein over a plush.
"Oh, I didn't mean to scare you..." Bad spoke kindly, slowly calming down as he knelt to pet the small Rat.
She was only a small Maltese, and the last thing he would want was to frighten her.
The day went by until night fell upon him. Bad decided to pick up the plush on the floor, but there was now only a hole in the ground where it landed. Peering down into it, it showed a nice apartment, more than Bad could afford.
There was no possible way this was under his house: Bad lived on the first floor.
What was even more bizarre were the windows in this modern apartment that showed that it was daytime, while Bad saw only night in his place. That did not beat the fact that Bad was looking down into an apartment... and staring at its ceiling.
It was as if an upside-down apartment was right in front of him.
"You're losing it, Bad. No caffeine: no sanity," Bad repeated like a mantra.
To rid himself of the plushie, he gripped it firmly, almost painfully, in his hands, and he dropped it in the hole, only for it to bounce back. The apartment had its own gravity.
He half-debated himself on whether to pretend the gaping hole in his living room was never there. Out of sight, out of mind.
The hole was wide enough to barely squish himself through. Not that he would want to—
"Alright, Bad! I'll call you!"
It was the source of his voice. Bad finally... finally found it.