Dark Dream Chronicle is an Alternate Reality Game inspired by The Slender Man Mythos, with inspirations from House of Leaves and Fight Club. It ran from February 2011 to June 2012 and was written by Eris Hunter. The genre of the story is part psychological horror, part dark comedy.
The story follows a man in his early 20s named Mark Axton as his life goes from completely normal to completely insane, filled with magic and monsters (mostly of the human variety). While the main character is Mark, it also follows many other characters.
It originally ran on several websites, but is currently being rewritten as a scrap-book style novel very much in the same vein as House of Leaves so that it can reach a wider audience without the fuss of having to sort through everything, like YouTube, Twitter, chatlogs and such. Sit tight, it’s on its way!
Two fans got so involved that their RP characters became canon. Noted here as Doc and Nein.
Before you start reading, make sure not to read spoilers until you have experienced the work fully. Do Not Spoil This Ending.
This ARG provides examples of:
- Anyone Can Die: The now official tagline is “…and then they died.”
- Bittersweet Ending: Half the main cast either dies or chooses to get mind-wiped, but everyone is content for it all to end that way.
- The Chase: Seline Smith chasing Isaac Butler.
- Deader than Dead: CrimsonBranch. His face and upper torso were literally melted. Using water.
- Deal with the Devil: The Chosen get their physical and mental capabilities enhanced by The Master so that they can do his bidding.
- Death Is Cheap: Played straight at first, but in the final few months it was shown that resurrection has a heavy cost.
- Entry Point: When it was being launched, the starting clue could be found on Eris Hunter's official social media — mainly Youtube and Twitter, but also some chatlogs. However, it's now averted because the content was compiled into a scrapbook.
- Everyone Can See It: David Morris and Doc. Subverted by the ‘’audience’’ by them failing to notice the Official Couple of Mark Axton and Alexis Morris.
- Masquerade: The world is full of magic called Theurgy, we just never see it.
- Monster Clown: David Morris’s Smiling Clown mask has been described as “Absolutely horrifying.”
- Sadistic Choice: Isaac Butler does this to Doc.
- The creator also pulled this on the fans, asking them to vote on whether David Morris “Lives, Dies, or Other” with one ending being Good, one being Bad and one being the worst possible ending, but she wouldn’t tell which was which. They chose for him to Live, which is technically a Bad ending.
- Sanity Ball: Played with. Mark Axton is pretty much the Only Sane Man until near the end.
- Twist Ending: Half the plot was devised by Celestial Paragons and Archangels, and everyone was along for the ride while they dealt with Slendy.
- Unwanted Revival: Michelle Mason. She believed she was in Heaven with her dead husband.
- A Wizard Did It: Averted. Everything had a reason, even if it wasn’t explicitly explained.
