"Coooommmee Baaacckkk..."

"Nope. That's a nope zone, right there. I'm gettin' the fook out of here." Every word was breathy like he'd been running a marathon, despite having been sitting in his computer chair for the last several hours.

There was a flurry of movements as the man navigated quickly through what looked like a maze of hanged corpses, a long string of curses under his breath as he did - eyes seemingly glued open as the fear of a single blink could make him miss a step.

All he had to do was avoid the -

"FOUND YOU!" A shrill scream exploded in his headphones as a ghostly image of a mangled young woman sprang forth on the computer screen, making a mess of brown hair and limbs flail helplessly.

"HOLY SHIT!" The man screeched, covering his face like he could hide from the image - as if that single act would protect him from anything. Which, it wouldn't... but that was beside the point. It was the illusion of safety that was important. The same safety a young child might feel when hiding under their covers from the monsters lurking in their closets.

After a moment, the hands slowly retracted from his face. Blue eyes shifting between the flashing announcement of his death in-game and the bright light of his camera in disbelief. He was uncharacteristically at a loss for words in light of the lost progress on a game he'd been otherwise nailing.

Not that he was all that upset. Just completely taken off guard. It had been one hell of a build-up. A crescendo of fear that had left his heart pounding and his lungs gasping for a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He'd been so immersed in the action and thrill of the game that he had to take a moment to remind himself of where he was.

Which was in his recording room.

On camera.

Right.

He smiled with a chuckle at himself as he addressed the camera straight on, "Well, I'm going to leave this episode here. This game is fucking awesome. It's definitely one of the scariest I've played in a long time and I'm super excited to keep playing!"

Seán McLoughlin, otherwise known by his fans online as Jacksepticeye - or "Jack" for short, sat in excited attention in his computer chair now that he was back in his element. Despite the chilling thrill of the horror game he'd just subjected himself to, he was in high spirits. There was nothing quite like a well-made horror game to get the blood pumping. It was no wonder the game had received such high praise online.

"Seriously, guys, don't take my word for it. Go download the game. Play it for yourselves. This game thoroughly creeped me out."

Thunder rumbled loudly outside his otherwise soundproofed room, making the Irish man chuckle nervously, "I'm definitely more creeped out with the weather being so angry! Makes me feel like I'm actually in the game. I don't know if you guys can hear it, but it's really loud."

As if on cue, a loud crack and tumbling rumble made Seán jump, looking from his camera to the nearby window with wide anxious eyes.

It had been storming like crazy the last couple of days, but this seemed to be the worst of it - they were even calling for some flooding. It was supposed to last most of the night, from what he'd heard. That said, the weather channel had promised clear skies this weekend. But they'd need to get through this monster of a storm first.

"A-anyways," He continued, as if unsure but quickly regaining himself, "thank you guys, so much for watching this episode. If you liked it, PUNCH THE LIKE BUTTON IN THE FACE!" He threw his fist towards the camera, all smiles returned.

"LIKE A-" His hands thrust into the air as he continued his outro, putting all of his energy into ending his video like usual. Just as they came down and he was going to finish his sentence - everything went dark.

"Boss?" His words trailed off as he was left in the complete and utter darkness of his room. The only light coming through the window from a flash of lightning that hit way too close to home, shaking the building and making the man jump and curse loudly as he nearly fell out of his chair.

Seriously?! A power outage?! Monster of a storm was right! He wasn't even close to where it was supposed to be the worst, and he still lost power!

"Damnit! Are ya fucking kidding me?" Seán slipped under his desk, pressing the power button on his computer, only to curse louder as it remained silent. "Noooo... no. no. no. You can't be fucking serious right now." a growl rumbled in his chest as any other attempts at turning his system on proved fruitless.

A moment later, the flights began to flicker back to life, much brighter than normal and a surge of power came through, zapping Seán and making him pull his hands away from the desktop case, waving them frantically to get the tingling in his fingers to stop.

Fuck... power surges were never a good sign.

"I swear to god... if I just fried my power source, I'm going to lose it."

Timid fingers tapped the case experimentally, finding it safe to touch again before he pulled the box out completely to inspect. The wall socket seemed fine - no obvious signs of scorching or frying.

It was a positive start, at least.

Next was the chords and power source. Again, nothing seemed like it was out of place or damaged. Granted, he knew the true test was going to be trying to turn it back on again.

With a heavy sigh, he steadied himself, hoping against hope for the best but expecting reality to take a major shit on his evening, "Here goes nothin'." he mumbled.

With bated breath, Seán pressed the power button.

And an immediate wave of relief washed over him as his computer whirred to life, "YES!" There was more than a little of him silently thanking whatever higher being that was looking out for him tonight.

He climbed back up into his chair, quickly logging back in and waiting for his system to load. "Come on... come on..." he mumbled, anxiety making it's home in his voice, waiting for the system code to pop up on his screen - the one that said his computer hadn't shut down correctly and give him the option of saving recovered files.

Unfortunately, no matter how long he sat there staring at his screen - nothing ever popped up.

Okay... so maybe he didn't have a higher being looking out for him after all. Because this was just too cruel.

His head dropped, hanging so low his chin nearly hit his chest in his defeat.

It was all gone.

An entire two hours worth of content... he'd lost it all. Because of the game's autosave feature, his game had saved all the progress he'd made when he'd died, but his recording was gone. The complete shut-down of his computer also meant that the temporary files were probably wiped clean too.

Did he even dare check?

Sure, why not. He was a glutton for pain, after all. He just loved getting his hopes up.

And, as expected, opening the temporary files folder proved useless.

Empty.

Sean let out a long agonized groan as his head lolled back to hit the back of his chair, staring at the ceiling and asking said higher beings why they were such dicks - and immediately imagining them grinning smugly down on him with the big-ol-middle-finger-fuck-you at the ready.

This was every YouTuber's worst nightmare. Well - maybe not the worst, but it was certainly up there.

"Damnit... now what?"

It was too late to go back and redo the progress he'd made in the game. A quick glance down at his computer's clock told him it was too late to get into much of anything, actually. It was going on one in the morning, and he had a very important errand to run later that next day.

But he also couldn't just... not post anything. It was hard enough keeping his content relevant in YouTube's pain-in-the-ass algorithm. And, of course, his lazy ass had decided to procrastinate and leave everything for the last minute. This game-play was supposed to make up two days worth of posting so he had time to relax a bit this weekend.

So much for that.

There was a phrase for this, wasn't there? Murphy's Law?

It certainly felt like everything was going wrong. Though, most of this was on him. The power outage was just punishment for not being proactive.

But dwelling on his poor life choices and even worse luck this evening wasn't going to fix it.

Fine. He'd have to improvise something.

Even something small, something that wouldn't require a whole lot of editing would be enough.

With a quick few clicks and all of his equipment turned back on, he was back online and ready to record.

A deep breath was all he needed before he put on his signature Jacksepticeye smile back on his face and hit the record button, "Top o' the mornin' to ya laddies!"