Simon Lewis (Are You Afraid of the Dark?)

"Rule #2: Forget rule number one."

- Simon after aborting the renegade virus

Simon Lewis is a hero from the 1990s Canadian & American horror fantasy television series Are You Afraid of the Dark?. He appears in the 1994 episode The Tale of the Renegade Virus. Simon fights to stop an evil sentient computer virus before it can take full control of his brain and escape from virtual reality into the real world.

He is portrayed by Christopher Redman.

Simon is a teenage male Caucasian high school student. He has blond hair and hazel eyes. Simon lives with his family: father, mother, brother, and sister. His clothing includes a black T-shirt, black jeans, a brown belt, black boots, white socks, a red unbuttoned dress shirt with torn-off sleeves, and light blue boxer shorts. At the beginning of the episode, he wears a purple shirt when he wakes up in his bed before getting ready for school. He and his brother Evan play pranks on each other which include putting eggs in sneakers and changing locker padlocks.

Heroic deeds
The tale starts with a mysterious figure hidden by shadows placing a virus onto a computer. The next scene cuts to Simon's bedroom in the early morning. An alarm clock wakes up Simon and he shoots a sock through a basketball hoop. The Lewis household gets ready for their day. Simon borrows Evan's bicycle to go to school.

At school, both Simon and Evan are already playing pranks on each other. While walking through the hallway, Simon is alerted by Evan that an experimental video game created has been completed by one of the school's teachers Mr. Poe. The two brothers make a beeline to Mr. Poe's computer lab. Mr. Poe greets the two boys and escorts them to the video game hardware - a standard computer monitor and keyboard hooked up to a virtual reality chair. Simon sits in the chair and asks Mr. Poe for the location of the game controls. Mr. Poe says that the game is controlled by the human mind via a virtual reality helmet. As the three guys are talking, a phone call from the President of the United States of America comes in for Mr. Poe. Evan is trusted by Mr. Poe to run computer game while he goes into another room to answer the phone call.

Simon puts on the virtual reality helmet and Evan starts up the video game. Simon starts seeing everything spin around him in a giant blue and suddenly wakes up in his bed in his bedroom. He dismisses everything that happened as just a dream. When Simon tries to shoot his sock into the basketball and is shocked to see that he breaks his window. The beginning of Simon's day continues with a series of weird events such his missing family, static from the radio cassette player, disembodied voices coming from nowhere, computerized versions of his family around the dining table, and a bicycle with no rider going through the upstairs hallway. After all the odd events, Simon hears his father calling him to his parent's room. Simon goes into the room and finds the reason for all the bizarre events of the day.

Simon discovers he is still in the game and it was infected with a renegade virus. The virus tells Simon it will control Simon's brain because the human brain works exactly like a computer. Once it has complete control of Simon's brain the virus can wreak havoc in the real world. Simon is frightened and sees a female DE-15 output connector protruding from his left palm. The virus tells Simon that he only has ten more minutes before the virus will have full control of Simon's brain. Suddenly, everything surrounding Simon spins into a blur again.

After the spinning stops, Simon finds himself in Mr. Poe's lab. Mr. Poe and Evan and standing there asking Simon what the game was like. Simon tells them there is something wrong with the game and there is a virus in it. Mr. Poe is insulted and yells at Simon to leave his lab. Simon leaves the lab and discovers he is still in the game. Simon tries to find a way to defeat the virus while dealing with a multitude of obstacles that include time moving backwards, losing his clothes and only wearing his boxers in the middle of class, and Evan's bicycle being locked by a giant number padlock.

Eventually, Simon makes his way back home and speaks to the real-life Evan via a computer terminal. Simon finds out the virus was a prank placed into the game by Evan. Evan says the virus is harmless until Simon shows the connector on his left palm. Evan tries to abort the virus but the virus has frozen Evan out of the game. Evan tells Simon that he has to enter the abort code himself. However, Evan's communication was terminated before he could give Simon the abort code. Simon was only able to hear Evan say "The code is my comb-" before Evan disappeared.

As Simon is trying out different codes, the virus has found him and is making its way towards Simon. The virus breaks down the door and is in the same room when Simon enters the correct abort code. The virus straps down Simon to the chair and removes a glove to expose a DE-15 male connector. As the virus is about to connect with Simon, Simon presses a key one the keyboard and aborts the virus. When the virus is gone Simon exits the game triumphant.