I've publicly told people there's never been any such thing as Herobrine, and that I don't have any dead brothers, and that letting too many animals die in lava is a fool proof way to summon him, but that you don't need to be afraid of him. He only means well, he's looking out for you, trying to warn you of the dangers you can't see. There certainly are NO physical manifestations of Herobrine that will sneak out of your computer if you leave Minecraft running at night, looming over you as you sleep with his pale eyes inches away from your face, as he tries to shout at you to wake up. Sometimes you wake up with a jolt, and he's gone, and all that lingers is the memory and faint echo of his wordless screaming. Of course it was just a dream. There's no way a morally dubious ghost with a god complex could at any point decide to haunt the children who play my game "for their own good", as there is NO SUCH THING. etc etc-Notch

"Wooohoooo!" I yelled as I jumped down a cliff to the river below. I landed at the bottom and resurfaced, laughing. "That was awesome!"

My brother laughed. "Let's do it again!"

We magically appeared at the top again.

Okay, you might be a bit confused at this point. Well, you see, I was in a dream. It was a good dream, full of fun and such. That changed soon enough.

The scene started to fade. "What no! I don't want to go! Hey, that rhymed. Maybe I can write poems."

Stupid ADHD.

Then, I was somewhere different.

I was somewhere...dark. I couldn't see anything, and I couldn't move. It was terrifying. Then a voice came out of the darkness.

Creepy, huh? Just wait.

"Waaaaaaaakeeeee uuuuuuupppppp." I could finally move.

"W-who's there?"

"Waaaaaaakkkeeeee uuuppppppp."

"S-stop it."

"You have to wake up."

I heard footsteps and looked all around me, but couldn't see anything. A pair of glowing eyes appeared. "G-get a-away from me." I had meant to sound brave, but creepy glowing eyes tend to make you...not so brave.

Slowly, the eyes came closer. Now that they were closer, I could see who they were attached to. It was a man. He was wearing a teal shirt and dark blue jeans. I backed away until I hit a wall.

He leaned closer to me and whispered, "Wake up."

wake up...

I woke with a jolt. "It was a dream, it was just a dream." I told myself. "Hey, what's that smell?" I got up and put on a jacket. The smell was coming from outside my room. I opened my door and was blasted by a wave of heat. "What the hell!?" A fire was raging downstairs, creeping closer. "Shit." I started to cough, and dropped to the floor, crawling. I crawled to my brother's room and opened the door.

"Jake! Wake up!" He mumbled in his sleep and rolled over. "Jake! Wake up!"

I grabbed his arm and pulled him to the floor. "Ow! Liz, what the hell-" He stared at the smoke in his room with wide eyes.

"Come on! We have to get mom and dad!"

He blinked and followed me as we made our way to the master bedroom.

"Mom! Dad! Wake up!" Dad sat up. "Huh? Whatsthematter?"

"There's a fire!"

He suddenly seemed more awake and shook Mom, who woke up too. He went over to the door and closed it quickly, before opening the window. I could hear sirens in the distance. "Everyone out, one at a time." I jumped out the window, wincing as I made contact with the ground. My brother came, then my Mom, and lastly, my Dad.

The firetrucks came only about 3 minutes after we got out, but by then, the fire had completely engulfed our house.

They came over and made us wear oxygen masks, even though we were (mostly) fine. "Thank goodness you woke up when you did, Liz." My brother said. "You saved us from being toasted."

"Uh, yeah." I decided not to mention my dream.

A cold wind blew, and I shivered.

"I'll be watching. Always watching."

Wake up