Dear Markiplier,

I've been watching your videos for two years now.
Wow, actually writing those words and seeing them written on this piece of paper when I reread them hit me pretty hard. Three years has come and gone so fast.
It feels like just yesterday I saw a video of yours in my recommended list. Normally, I would give those videos a very brief glance.
But your video was different.
I don't really know what compelled me to click on that video of yours that was recommended to me. Perhaps it was the thumbnail. Or perhaps it was your username.
Markiplier.
It sounds so creative and unique. I love it. You more than likely put a lot of thought into that username and I love it when a lot of thought is put into something.

The first video that I ever watched of yours, the very same video that was in my recommended list, was your 'Amnesia Reaction Compilation.' I remember clicking on that video and not really expecting much. I wasn't too big of a fan of horror games because they triggered my extremely bad anxiety at the time. Now, you may be wondering, "If you didn't like horror games, why did you click on a video that was a compliation of me reacting to a horror game?"
Like I said before, I really don't know what compelled me to click on your video.
But I'm so glad that I did.
When I watched that video, I laughed for the first time in a very, very long time. At the time of watching that video, it had been almost a year since a smile that wasn't fake formed on my face.
For the first time in a very long time, I temporarily forgot about everything that made me upset and everything that was bringing down further and further into the hellhole that was also called "severe depression."
I will never forget what it was like to smile and laugh for the first time in almost a year and to just forget about all my "demons," as I called them, even if it was just for a little bit.
It felt amazing just to genuinely smile and laugh again.

Little did I know when I first clicked on that video I found in my recommended list, I was going to watch your videos like crazy and was going to keep up with you so I knew what was going on in your life.
I'm sorry, that probably sounds really creepy, but there was something about you that I loved.
When I first started watching your videos, I didn't know why I loved you and your videos. But as I started watching more of your videos and as the months and years went by in a blink of an eye, I realized that there wasn't just one thing that I loved about you and your videos.
There were several things that I loved about you and your videos.
I could tell just from the second video that making videos was what you truly loved doing. Making videos was something that made you happy and you eventually managed to make so much money from doing what you loved. You got where you are today through hard work and years of pouring your heart and soul into every single video that you ever made (Perhaps a little bit of luck contributed to you getting to where you are today as well, but that's not the point).
What I loved about your videos is that they added a little something to the games that you were playing. If you didn't have commentary in your videos, you would just be another one of those channels that play video games but never show their face nor have commentary in their videos.
But you weren't another one of those channels.
You were Mark Fischbach, an at the time twenty-four year old who just wanted to make videos to make himself and others happy.
Two years later, you are still Mark Fischbach, but you have changed quite a bit in the three years that I've been watching you. You've opened up more to your fans and you've realized that fifteen million subscribers isn't just a number. You've realized that fifteen million subscribers means that there were fifteen million individual people that decided that you and your videos were worth their time. You've also realized that you've been able to make people happy by doing something that makes you happy.
Before I die, I want to meet you so that I can thank you for everything that you've done for me on the other side of the screen.

Something that I don't think you've realized is just how many lives you've changed for the better and just how many lives that you've saved.
I'm sure you've seen those comments from people telling you that just you uploading a video made their day better and that watching that video you had uploaded made them smile and laugh. I see them on almost every single video of yours that I watch and it makes me happy just to see how people you make happy on a daily basis.
Please keep on doing what you're doing. You've done so many things for this world and you have the potential to do so many more amazing things.

These past two years have been both an amazing and terrible journey at the same time. It's been amazing because I've been able to log onto YouTube almost every single day to see that you had uploaded a new video. When I would finish watching said video, I would always realize that I had a smile on my face the entire time. It was a wonderful feeling realizing that because you're the only person who's ever been able to make me genuinely smile and laugh and I've never once meet or even seen you in person.
This sound really creepy and I apologize in advance if it weirds you out when I say this, but this is just a thing that I have to say.
Over these past two years of watching videos where you've smiled, laughed, and even cried, I've done all of those things with you.
Whenever you smiled, I smiled.
Whenever you laughed, I laughed.
Whenever you cried, I cried (I probably cried harder than you did because crying was something that I've always been good with for my entire life).
You're my hero.
You're my inspiration.
Mark Fischbach, I'm so glad that I decided to click on that video in my recommended list two years ago.

I remember when you had to suddenly take a trip to the hospital and just how scared everyone was when you announced that you had to stay overnight. I'll be completely honest when I say that I thought that you were going to die. When I saw the video that you uploaded to let everyone know that you were okay, I cried my eyes out. I found it so amazing that even though you were laying in a hospital bed hooked up to so many machines, you still had a smile on your face and your main concern was that you weren't able to upload videos when you normally uploaded them. Also, you told us that you would get some rest but then you just couldn't resist rubbing peanut butter on your face and running around outside proclaiming that you were "The King Of The Squirrels." while you felt pain throughout your entire body.
That was one video in particular where it made a shitty day that I was having before turn into a good one because I was glad to see that you were actually getting better.

I'll never forget when the news that Daniel Kyre had died of an apparent suicide attempt was posted on Facebook. I remember having to read it three times because I just couldn't believe what had happened. Daniel didn't seem like he was depressed at all. But, then again, he could've been dealing with some personal demons when the cameras weren't rolling.
I remember how devastated you were when Daniel passed away. I also remember just wishing that I knew you personally so that I could hug you tightly and tell you that everything was going to be okay and that Daniel was in a better place now. I don't think that you've truly gotten over losing him and I don't think that you ever will. Hear me out when I say this. I think that a part of you died along with Daniel because he was a close friend of yours. His death changed you. But I think that he changed you for the better. I think he made you even more passionate than you already were about making videos and making other people happy. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Daniel should've died because I actually miss him dearly. What I'm saying is that I find it very inspiring that you didn't let his death drag you down into a deep and dark depression. You allowed yourself to feel all of the emotions that you felt and then you did your best to move on.
Sometimes I wonder how just one person can be as amazing as you are.

I guess that I should tell you a little bit about myself in case you want to know just who's behind all these words on the letter that you're (More than likely not, to be honest because why would you even read it in the first place?) reading right now.
Well, I'm not going to reveal my name, simply because I do not feel comfortable doing so. I will, however, tell you that I am a twenty year old female. Now, I'm going to tell you something that I've never shared with anyone that I've ever come into contact with.
I'm going to tell you about my past.
You might want to make sure you're comfortable because it's really quite a long story due to the fact that I'm going to make sure that I don't leave any details out.

Funny enough, we share the same birthday. When I found out that your birthday was on June twenty-eighth, I'll admit that I screamed a little bit on the inside. I feel honored sharing the same birthday as someone who I love and admire so much. Anyway, I was born in a small town in North Carolina and grew up there until I got accepted to a college all the way in Pennsylvania. I was happy when this happened because it meant that I finally got an escape from what had tormented me for nearly all of my life (More on that in a little bit). I'm currently in college at the moment and I'm studying computer science. Computers have always been something that have fascinated me. My mom always struggled with money so she never actually bought me one. The only time that I would ever have access to computers was whenever I was at school. After I would get all of my schoolwork and homework done, I would play on the computer instead of talking to other people like everyone else would do once they were finished with all of their work. But instead of playing games, I would research how to make and program a computer because it was something that I started wondering as soon as my eyes first laid on a computer. When I got a little older, I started to attempt to build my own computer when I managed to get all the parts that I needed from a teacher I was very close with at the time. I never had any friends so I had plenty of time on my hands to figure out just how to build a computer. It would take me two years before I would manage to build my first ever computer that actually worked. To this day, it is my most prized possession.

Growing up, I didn't exactly have the greatest of lives. I grew up never knowing who my father was (I still have no idea who he is and I don't really want to know anyways) and whenever I would question my mother as to who exactly he was, she would always brush it off by saying that I was too young to know the truth. When I got older and started asking the same question, the new excuse that she used was that I didn't want to know who my father was because ignorance is bliss in this situation. Eventually, I gave up on asking her and the last time I even brought it up was a couple of years ago. Though I've heard rumors that my father was a man who was much older than my mother and had raped her when he encountered her while they happened to both be walking to the same place.

Like I said earlier, my mother didn't exactly have a lot of money to just throw around. Since she was a single parent, she was forced to work two jobs in order to have enough money to support both her and me. Because of this, I rarely ever saw her and had to always be at my older sister's house so that she could babysit me while my mother was working.
Being at my older sister's house was the very definition of hell.
It turns out that she was my half-sister, due to the fact that we had the same mother but different fathers. I guess this was something that she was angry with because she abused me at every chance that she got. She mostly punched and hit me but sometimes she would say things like, "You have no purpose in this world." and "You should've never even been born."
The worst part of it all is that I eventually started to believe her.
Things weren't exactly better at school either. Because money was something that I didn't have plenty of, I dressed in cheap and dowdy-looking clothes because they were the only things that my mother could afford since my older sister refused to help my mother raise me and provide me with the things that I needed, even though she had plenty of money to support herself and it wouldn't have killed her to at least let Mom borrow some money. Anyway, because of the clothes that I wore and because I was extremely shy and had really anxiety due to all of the abuse I suffered from my older sister, kids at school would tease me quite a lot. They would call me things like "Shorty" because I was much shorter than everyone else in my grade for pretty much all of my time in school before going to college. They would also call me "Rags" because of the clothes that I wore. There were many days where I would be pushed, shoved, and laughed at by kids in my grade. There was even a time in sixth grade where the most popular girls in the grade shoved me into a locker and left me there for the entire day until school ended. Again, since my mom didn't have a lot of money, I was forced to go to a very ghetto and low budget school that never really cared about any of their students. The only thing that they cared about was money because that was something that they lacked.
All of these things continued on until I graduated high school and went off to college in Pennsylvania. The only reason I was able to actually afford to go to college was because I won a lot of money from scholarships from being valedictorian of my entire class.

My first year of college was actually the first year where school and my home life wasn't a living hell for me.
My college roommates were actually really nice people and we got along great. We always did really fun stuff together like play video games and have our own little parties because we decided that we were just going to be a small group of friends that kept to ourselves.
But, of course, all good things must come to an end.
I ended up getting different roommates my second year of college and it was honestly like being in school all over again.
They did the same things my older sister did to me while I was growing up.
This is what almost pushed me over the line.
One night where the abuse from my roommates had gotten really bad and they had left to go do something (I don't care enough to actually remember what it was that they were doing), I grabbed my bottle of pills that I took in order to help my anxiety and went into the closet. Once I closed the doors behind me, I opened those bottle of pills and dumped every single one of them into my hand. Right before I was about to take every single one of them at the same time, I suddenly felt really scared. After I started feeling scared, I started feeling like what I was about to do was so wrong. At that moment, I dropped all of the pills onto the carpet and realized that I didn't actually have the courage to end my own life.
I ended up picking up the pills that I had dropped and putting them back into the bottle.

A year after I tried ending my life, I discovered your videos.
And I felt like I had been saved.
Thank you for doing what you do Mark Fischbach.
You have done so much for this world and I know that you will only continue to do amazing things.
Thank you for reading this entire thing. You are the first person who's ever actually listened to me in all the twenty years that I've been alive.
You are and will always be my hero.

Sincerely,
Just another fangirl
PS: I hope more than anything that you achieve your dream of going to space one day. I know just how much you think space is cool, beautiful, and fascinating.
PPS: I support you and Amy. She makes you happy and therefore I have to support you two. I hope you two stay happy and together for a very long time.

~~~~~

A loud banging on my door awoke from the peaceful sleep that I had been having. I slowly sat up and yawned as I rubbed sleep out of my eyes. I stretched for a few moments before getting out of bed and managing to get halfway down the staircase before realizing that I wasn't wearing any pants. I sighed in frustration as I trudged back upstairs in order to put on the first pair of pants that I laid eyes on.

"I'm coming!" I yelled as I heard another loud banging at the door. A moment later, I reached the front door and unlocked it before opening it up to find that there was a police officer standing just outside the door.
"Are you Mark Fischbach?" He asked me before I had the chance to say anything.
"Yes, that's me." I nodded, confused as to why there was a police officer at my house.
"This is for you." He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to me. Once I had it in my hands, I turned it over and saw that "To Markiplier AKA Mark Fischbach, my hero" was written on the back of it in the most beautiful handwriting I've ever seen in my entire life. She had wrote in cursive and she did so perfectly and flawlessly, something that I couldn't do even if I tried.
But what made this envelope odd was that there was no return address on it and only my name was written on it.
"What exactly is this?"
"It's a letter that was written for you by a girl named Rylee Greene. It was found in her apartment after her house was searched."
I didn't really know what to say.
"Well, good day to you." He gave me a nod before walking off.

I closed the door after the police officer had walked away and just stared at the envelope that I was holding in my hand as I sat down on the couch. I began carefully tearing open the envelope and took out all the pieces of paper that were folded carefully inside and unfolded them just as carefully. The letter had that same beautiful cursive handwriting that the envelope had. I smiled as I put the letter in order and began reading it.

*****

I was in tears by the time I finished reading the letter.
This poor girl lived such a horrible life and I was the only thing that kept her going.
I had to find a way to meet her.
She said that before she died, she wanted to meet me.
After reading her letter, I've come to realize that I want to meet her too. I want to tell her that everything's alright and that she has a purpose of living. I also want to thank her for watching my videos for as long as she has.
After going upstairs and grabbing my laptop, I sat back down on the couch and turned it on. While it was turning on, I tried to remember the name of the girl that had written the letter. She had said in the letter that she didn't feel comfortable revealing what her name was and only said that she was a twenty year old female who was born in North Carolina before telling me her life story.
It's a letter that was written to you by a girl named Rylee Greene.
Rylee Greene.
Her name echoed in my mind as I remembered what it was.
Rylee Greene.
It was such a pretty name for what I'm sure was a beautiful girl.
Well, I say beautiful not because I have a crush on her or something. I say beautiful because based on what I read, she seemed to have inner beauty and seems like an amazing person.

*****

It took quite a while, but I managed to find the girl who had written that letter to me. The only reason I managed to find her was because there was a newspaper article written about her.
When I read the heading of the article, I felt chills running down my spine.
Twenty Year Old College Dropout Found Dead In Apartment
Next to the article, there was a picture of a girl with short jet black hair with bright red highlights on the tips of her hair. She had piercing blue eyes and there was a huge smile on her face. From what I could see, she looked like she was a very kind and caring girl.
My morbid curiosity urged me to read the article. And that is exactly what I did.

Just the other day, officers were called to an apartment belonging to a college dropout by the name of Rylee Greene by her neighbors due to the fact that she hadn't be seen in quite a long time. Rylee, known for being reclusive, was known for "not really coming outside unless she had to in order to buy stuff that she needed" and "being shy and having both severe anxiety and depression," according to her neighbors. It was learned via her mother, who Rylee had cut ties with upon leaving her home state North Carolina for unknown reasons, that Rylee had been taking pills to help with her anxiety ever since she was a young girl. Her mother also revealed that the twenty year old had major problems with bullying while growing up due to the fact that she had gone to a very low budget school that only cared about getting as much money as possible rather than the students themselves. It was also discovered that Rylee, while the bullying wasn't as bad as it was while she was growing up, was bullied in college and could one of the many things that contributed to her death. Suicide was determined as the cause of her death after an autopsy was performed and an empty bottle of pills was seen lying next to her when officers first discovered her body. Another thing found lying next to the twenty year old girl was a letter that was addressed to Mark Fischbach, also known as his online alias of Markiplier. On top of the letter, Rylee's suicide note was found. It read, "Even though I did not achieve of my dream of meeting him in person, the only thing I request is that this letter makes its way to Mark Fischbach. I don't care if he reads it or not. All I want is for this letter to find its way to him, one way or another. I never had the courage to send it because I feared that he would never read it or never even care.
Goodbye, cruel world. See you never."
Rylee's funeral will be held next month on December eighth and her mother says that anyone is welcome to attend to keep the memory of Rylee alive for as long as possible.

I took off my fogged up glasses and sat them down on my laptop as I wiped away the tears that had fallen while I was reading the article. She was gone. My heart started to ache as I started thinking that if I had met her before she decided to take her own life, perhaps I could've saved her and perhaps I could've prevented her from dropping out of college.
I found my eyes instinctively darting down to the letter that Rylee had written me. Chills ran through my entire body as I saw the date on the letter.
It was November fifthteenth of last year.
She wrote this letter exactly one year before her death.
"Rylee, I may have never talked with you or even seen you in real life, but I will never forget you. You will be alive as long as I am still alive to remember you."

*****

I ended up going to Rylee's funeral.
Amy couldn't make it because she said she had a lot of work that needed to be done and that she seemed to have so little time to get it all done. So I flew by myself down to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where her funeral was being held. I showed up wearing the best suit that I owed and I had the letter she had written me in my pocket. I also made sure to grab to buy a bouquet of red daisies before arriving because her mother told me that those were her favorite kind of flowers.
"Mark, you really didn't have to come." Rylee's mother, who was quite a short woman at four foot eleven, hugged me as best as she could.
"I felt obligated. I was someone who made her happy."
"Well, I'm so glad that you could make it. It's such a shame that Amy couldn't though."
"Yeah, she feels really bad. She told me to get these before I came here." I held out the bouquet of red daisies towards her so that she could see what I was talking about.
"Those were her favorite." I could tell that Rylee's mother was forcing herself to smile. "That was very thoughtful of you."
"It's the least I could do since I couldn't meet her personally."

*****

"You know, I'm really sorry that things had to be like this." I whispered as I came back later that day to where Rylee was buried. "You didn't have to end your life. You had people that cared about you. I cared about you, even though we never once spoke or saw or knew each other in real life. Thank you for all those nice things that you said about me in the letter and thank you for watching my videos for the two years that you did. I'm really glad that my videos were able to make you happy."
I carefully set the bouquet of red daisies right next to her headstone. I had planned on doing so when they first buried her, but I decided at the last minute that I would rather do it when I was by myself. I don't really know why I decided this, but I really didn't feel like trying to figure out the reason.

*****

Rylee was at the back of my mind for many, many years before I really started thinking about her again.
The only reason I started thinking about her again was because I finally got the opportunity to go into space.
Finally, it had been possible to take commercial flights into space. I was very excited when I discovered this news. In fact, I was so excited that I made sure that Amy and I were able to go on the very first flight that was available to the public. Even though I had retired from YouTube long ago and I was in my late sixties (Sixty-seven to be exact), my excitement, love, and fascination for space still existed within me.

As Amy and I were getting ready to board the plane, she tapped me on the shoulder and I looked back at her. She held up an envelope and a picture of a girl with short jet black hair with red highlights on the tips of hair. She also had piercing blue eyes.
Rylee Greene.
The name that had been at the back of my mind for the last thirty years suddenly echoed inside of my head.
When I heard her name inside of my mind and looked at the picture that Amy was showing me again, I realized that it was the picture that had been in the newspaper article that had announced that she had committed suicide in her apartment by taking her entire bottle of pills that she used for her anxiety.
"Today marks thirty years since she died." Amy whispered. "I can't believe it's been that long."
"It sure doesn't feel like it's been that long." I whispered more to myself than I did to her as we boarded the plane and found our seats.
"I thought that since she hoped that you would go into space one day, it would be nice if we brought the letter and a picture of her with us." Amy said as we got ready for takeoff. "Do you want to hold them?"
"Yes." I replied as I took said items from her and placed them on my lap.

*****

When we actually got into space, I realized that it was everything I had hoped and dreamed it would be.
It was so beautiful that it was impossible for me to put into words just how beautiful it was.
"This doesn't even seem real." I whispered as I glanced out the window and admired everything I could see. I watched as the moon orbited around the Earth and felt a huge smile form on my face.
"Believe me, it's real." Amy placed her hand on my knee as she looked out the window as well.
I found myself looking down at the picture of Rylee and feeling like I was about to cry.
"I made it to space like you hoped." I whispered as I held the picture in my hand. "I hope that wherever you are, you're the happiest you can be."