He stood there, a figment of what he used to be, a shadow of his former glory.

I used to be something. I used to be someone! he thought to himself as he stared at the blackening night of Brighton, where Seán William McLoughlin currently resided. He was older now, with a wife and kids. They were happy.

The demon that was himself, however, was not. The alter ego that used to mean something to people.

He couldn't stand it. These people, who once adored him, worshipped him even, has now abandoned him! Forgotten, thrown away like refuse! It was pathetic! They were all traitors! The lot of them!

Antisepticeye took a step back and screamed into the night, letting all his anger and resentment out into the world in which he had no place in. His voice was lost in the noise and blur of the world that went on without him. He fell to his knees and watched in bitterness the night sky spinning above him, the stars twinkling as the world he once knew faded into the past, where everything was lost and nothing could be retrieved.

Slowly, the demon stood up and took a gruff sigh, standing with his back straight against the cold wind that had taken hold of the city. He glared forward as if standing in a triumphant pose, his hands curled so tightly into fists that his knuckles were white, but he then jumped in the air. Large green wings, made of the finest mist, appeared from nowhere, sending him flying into the Milky Way above.

Now, he was staring at the city from up high as he soared above the skyscrapers, watching in loathing as the long night came to a full and utter silence. Somewhere, Antisepticeye heard a clock chime, and he knew that it was midnight.

The entity dove down in a flash, and spread his wings at the last moment, stopping him from a painful demise and a mouthful of gravel. He landed his two sturdy feet on the ground below him but stumbled forward as a wave of weakness rushed through his flickering body. He was fading, and he knew with a foreboding dread that his time was almost up in this plane of existence. He must act fast, or not at all. He just didn't know what he could do as of yet. But that was going to change. Very, very soon, or he and all his other brothers will perish forever. He didn't necessarily care for his brothers, but when it was them or nothing, he would rather save his family from the utter nothingness that was threatening to take everything he knew away from him. There weren't going to be another set of egos. They were the last of their kind, whether they liked it or not.

With a long sigh and a face set in stone, he walked into the house of shambles, where his family was waiting, looking morose and dreary.

"You," Anti ordered as he pointed to the one with the blue mask and the wrinkled and ripped red leotard. They no longer responded to names. They had given up long ago on their survival. When the fans lost interest in the alter-egos, they did as well. Only Anti was persistent.

Jackieboy Man's once bright, happy eyes were dull, cloudy with grief and a far-away expression that could match the blank stare of death. He looked into the demon's eyes.

"Yes?" His voice was a dry, hoarse whisper.

"Before you say anything, demon, it von't vork," the foreign doctor stated glumly. The rest of the house was silent. No one else was here.

"I'm still looking, my... my friend," Anti gritted his teeth at the hopeless-looking man. "We will get through this. I promise you, we will not be forgotten! I will not give up like they did!"

"Zey might be happy," the former "doctor" Henrik Schneeplesteen stated quietly, his head hanging as he slouched in the loveseat he had propped himself on. "Dark... Darkiplier... he might be in Hell, vaiting for you, living like a king."

"A king that's given up!" Anti boomed, getting angry and passionate. "He's accepted his fate, and I'll see him when I accept mine! But until then, I'm fighting to stay on this planet!" He grabbed Jackieboy's hair, picked up the mask that was laying by his feet, and shoved it into his limp arms. "Remember! You used to be something! Someone! We used to be powerful! Don't you want that again? To feel that energy that was taken from us?"

There was silence, and Anti slouched, knowing deep in his heart that his brothers could not be moved by any word he uttered. They were utterly gone from this world. They were waiting for that sweet embrace of disappearing. Maybe not death, since Anti didn't know for sure, but he had a feeling deep in his gut that once you were gone, you were past the point of no return.

When Anti first saw it, it was fifteen years after Seán had deleted his channel. It happened first to Robbie, the least human, and therefore, the easiest to die. He had fallen down the stairs in a moment of weakness, and the egos could only watch in horror and dread as the zombie crumbled into dust before their very eyes, leaving Dr. Schneeplesteen in disbelief and utter despair. That was, back when he still had emotions.

Slowly, one by one, they followed in the undead's footsteps. Next to go was Marvin, who had gone in a puff of smoke. Anti wasn't even there during Chase's downfall, but it was the only body they got to bury. He had shot himself. Instead of waiting for his natural destruction, he made his own. Anti had to respect him for that, but he knew it was no way to go. Not at all.

The third, and so far last, was Dapper Jack. He had been pacing back at forth, rubbing his chin and playing with his moustache, when he froze. Like in an old film reel, lines drew horizontally on him like a film was being stopped, and then cut short. He was there, and then he was gone. Right in the middle of a step.

Anti knew that time was running out for all of them. He didn't know which of them would be next. Could it be him next? In what ironic way would he go out? How would all of them go out?

"I have to find a way. For me. For all of us," the weakening demon tried again. Jackieboy Man sighed, no longer having the optimistic and happy point of view he once carried everywhere. Before, Antisepticeye hated it, how happy he was. Now, he was surprised to admit to himself that he missed it. He missed all of their personalities, and how they used to be so blindingly, desperately unique.

The superhero muttered, "You don't think we've tried? Once Rob disappeared, I've tried everything. Mark's egos are gone, Dark the last of them. We've had our go on this planet, brother. Everything good must come to an end. Stay here. With us, and we can go together. Maybe there's a world on the other side. Maybe there's a new chance, a new life. Don't you want that?"

"I want our old life, on this planet!" Anti seethed. "You're just too weak to try harder, to find what we've been missing!"

The red leotarded man just shrugged and stared with glassy eyes at the ground below him.

"At least it seemed like zeir death vas painless," Henrik murmured.

"Fine! Go rot in whatever universe is waiting for you! I'll be here, living like I used to!" Anti snarled, and in his hate-fueled anger, he stormed upstairs to continue researching ways to find his power.

His eyes shot open as sunlight streamed through his blinds. He blinked in pain, wiping the sleep from his purely black eyes, rimmed purple and dark with the lack of sleep.

He saw that he had fallen asleep atop of one of his many books while he was reading through it for the fifth time, trying to find something that he couldn't the first. With a groan and a huff of impatience, he threw the book across the room.

"I'm better than you, Dark! You hear me?! I'M BETTER THAN YOU!" the man roared in a fury that overtook him, and he saw red. With another shriek, he grabbed the knife that was laying on his desk and threw it. It landed cleanly into his doorway, embedded into the wood up until the hilt.

With the anger drained out of him for the most part, he ran his gnarled fingers through his oily hair and stormed downstairs. His brothers hadn't moved from their spot, but they looked even more dead than yesterday.

Not bothering to even talk to them, he walked out the door and slammed it behind him. He had silently hoped that the loud and sudden noise had snapped the two out of their stupor, but he knew that the hope was in vain. They were gone to him unless he somehow managed to find a way to save them all.

The evil entity muttered to himself, "If only Dark had given me some answers before he left." Then he thought to himself. Did that mistake of a demon give him a hint? Some answers? He, too, had been looking for a cure before he had gone, being the last of the iplier egos. There were more of them than there were septiceye egos; he had faced more agony, seen more deaths than even Anti had. And then he was gone, just like the rest of them. Was he close to anything that would remotely resemble an answer to their problem?

He had to know. There was no other way. No matter what Anti admitted, he was running purely on desperation. He needed to survive. He would accept death when he was at its door, but he was still resisting its urge. He would fight until the very last breath. He would see Dark again... but it wouldn't be soon. Not if he could help it.

With a shake of his head to clear the thoughts, he started running to Dark's last known location.

Mark had quit YouTube just a few months before Jack had; therefore, Mark's egos started disappearing before Jack's had. First to go was, unfortunately, someone many used to know: the Host. Dark didn't tell Anti about it, of course; he had just assumed he was missing. It was only until Anti had told his fellow demon about what happened with Robbie that Dark had explained that the same thing was happening with his own family. The next to go were the twins; Fireplier and Ice. Next were the angels. Their wings shrivelled and they went in a burst of light. And on it went, so on and so forth until it was only the half-Korean demon left. Then, in a gust of wind, he left in a gust of black dust, sand-like in texture, yet burning hot and freezing cold to the touch.

Anti gripped a small vial hanging from his neck, that he had almost forgotten about in his sudden anger. It was small, no larger than the length of his smallest finger, but inside held all the dust that his colleague had once been. Sure, they hadn't been the closest of human pals, but in demon terms? They were the closest friends that there had ever been.

It was then he found himself at Darkiplier's house. He hadn't realized that he had gotten there, how he had gotten there, but there he was, standing in the doorway. The door groaned open from the lack of use, and now Antisepticeye stood in the hallway.

It had a thick layer of dust covering the floor and furniture; he could hear mice in the walls. Slowly, he walked through the deserted home and saw a crumpled box laying on its side with a heap of wires and dried oil beside it. It was what Google had melted into when he left, and the box he had first come in. He picked it up and blew off the dust and cobwebs inside it, and peered inside. In the bottom, crumpled and wrinkled was some sort of instruction manual. After shaking the spiders from it, he read what it said.

Do not get water in any crevices or faults in the body. If water enters, contact the phone number immediately. In case of a malfunction, shut off immediately and return to-

This was stupid. There was nothing there. In disgust, Anti crumpled the few sheets of paper into a ball and threw it across the room. Maybe there was something in Dark's room.

It was dark in there, to say the least. The curtains were drawn against the harsh sunlight, leaving the room in shadows. The bed was neat and made as if it had never been slept in, yet the desk was messy, with papers, pencils, and books strewn about the tabletop haphazardly.

"Let's see what you got here, Darkiplier," Anti muttered, rummaging through the books to see if there was anything that the American demon had that the Irish one didn't. There was nothing except for some notes on the egos' backstories and the videos they first appeared in... or when the fanbase made them. He was trying to connect the dates and places together, but it didn't look like he was getting anywhere in that. That part was, at least, apparent when Anti turned the page and saw everything scribbled out and a giant question mark blotting out the words in the book.

Angrily, like the way he seemed to feel often nowadays, he picked up the book and impatiently tossed it behind his back, still scouring every corner of the desk and the drawers around.

"Nothing!" Anti exclaimed, tossing the chair to hit the wall on the other side of the room. It fell to the ground, making a dent in both the wall and the hardwood floor. Slowly, he sat down on the bed, ruining the perfection of it. He stared at the floor, feeling helpless, but on the inside, the gears in his head were turning as he thought a way out of this. Darkiplier was a master manipulator. He could have talked his way out of death if he needed to, but what if he didn't talk his way out of it quick enough?

"Where would he hide something like this?" Antisepticeye muttered as he stood up, looking around the room as if it would instantly appear out of thin air. He didn't know what to do. There was nothing to do but look harder, then. Antisepticeye may not be the most patient, but he was certainly determined.

With a gruff sigh, he looked around the rest of the house, yet to no avail. There wasn't a sign of an answer to the problem that had been placed in his hands.

Then, the realization hit him like a truck.