Chapter 10

First Encounter

"Are you okay, Evan?" Steve asked me when I walked out. He looked slightly surprised and afraid. I glanced down and saw my fists were clenched tightly together, so that the knuckles were white. I hastily relaxed them, throwing on a most likely unconvincing smile. I still felt sick to my stomach.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Steve," I said heartily, practically throwing myself in the seat farthest away from Herobrine, who was still looking anywhere but at me. Steve shot me an appraising look.

"Ohh… Kay then, if you say so," he said at last, turning back to his food. I guess it was just Herobrine's typical inner jerk inside of him, because Steve's food was definitely not slop. It was eggs. But the atmosphere was tense, and nobody spoke. I pretended not to see, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed little things, like how Steve was sitting much stiffer than usual and not eating his food, or how curls of grey smoke were rising from Herobrine's clenched fists.

"Okay!" I shouted suddenly, slamming my hands flat on the table so that the plates rattled and the two men jumped. I'd had enough. "Enough of this stupid contention! What in Notch's name is wrong with the both of you?"

"Oh, nothing much, just the fact that Herobrine is plotting to kill you!" said Steve, suddenly glaring daggers at Herobrine, whose own eyes began to glow.

"I wouldn't kill her, dear brother. I'm not that awful," growled the Nether King.

"Prove it then you monster!"

"It's not my fault you're jealous that I have mastered my powers!"

"More like your powers have mastered you!"

"Why, you-!" That seemed to be a soft topic with Herobrine. He jumped out of his seat, his hands engulfed in flames. Steve jumped up too, ready to fight. I grabbed my glass of water and threw the contents into Herobrine's face. He spluttered and gasped, his flames extinguished. Unfortunately for the both of them, my fury wasn't quite as snuffed out as Herobrine's fire.

"You two are worse than two dogs!" I shouted through Herobrine's coughs. Steve looked at me with wide eyes. "If you gotta pulverize each other, go ahead, but not inside the house! Get out!"

I grasped the knife that was at my thigh and threw it so it hit the wall above Steve's shoulder, missing his face by inches. He jumped with a shout. I didn't care. I get kind of violent when I'm angry, and I can't really control it. I would probably regret losing my temper later, but I wasn't in the thinking kind of state of mind. Herobrine looked at me with a furious expression of his own, and I threw my other knife at him, leaving a shallow cut on the side of his cheek before embedding itself in the door a few meters away.

"Out! Get out! Out of this house! Don't come back in until you stop your Notch dang fighting!" I screamed, grabbing a hunting knife from under the table where I hid it and waving it at the two men, who scrambled away, practically pushing to get to the door. I threw the knife off to the side with a groan after a moment and walked to the sitting area, sitting down and covering my face with my hands, regretting what I did already. I sat there for maybe a couple minutes, lamenting and upset, before I heard raised voices outside and walked to the front window. Steve and Herobrine were standing face to face in front of my house. In fact, they were almost touching faces, and screaming at each other at the tops of their lungs, but I couldn't understand them. I watched for only a few seconds before Herobrine threw a punch at Steve, who stumbled away. He swiped Herobrine's legs out from under him after falling, and both men were suddenly brawling on the ground.

I made up my mind. I jumped over the side of my chair, snatched my diamond sword off of the wall where it was hanging, and slammed into the door, fumbling with the lock to open it. I wasn't about to let either of them die. One of them was too precious to me, and I had grown to kind of like the other one.

I didn't like the sight that met me. Herobrine was on his feet again, and Steve was trying to roll away from him. He kicked Steve in the gut, causing him to curl up into a little ball, wheezing. Herobrine's hands were full of orange flames, his face scratched and bleeding. Steve held a knife tightly in his hand, probably the one that I had thrown at him a few minutes ago, and had soot on his face and arms. There was a shiny red burn along his left arm.

"Get off of him, Brine!" I shouted, waving my sword at Herobrine. He turned and looked slowly at me, and I froze. Oh crap, not this again. He didn't even seem to recognize me, and his eyes were glowing so harshly that they appeared entirely white. He slowly looked me up and down with a weird expression on his face, and turned back to Steve with a sneer.

"Maybe I'll kill her before I'll kill you, brother, eh?" he said, lifting his hand. Steve rose into the air, clutching his throat. It was like he was being lifted by his neck. "But you're already here, aren't you?"

"Herobrine!" I lunged forward and grabbed Herobrine's hand and Steve's arm.

I felt something drain out of me, rushing out of my soul. I felt suddenly dizzy. The ground opened up under us, infinite blackness below. We fell into it. I was so confused, so, so confused… And so tired… Maybe if I just let go of the other two and closed my eyes. The crushing weight of the darkness suddenly came at me. I couldn't breathe. I tried to look up. I couldn't. Someone's hand clenched mine, so tight that it was painful. I felt something pop. But my other hand was so weak…

Why not just let him go? Let him go and close your eyes… Yes… Let him go… Just let go…

I let go and closed my eyes. The weight of the darkness seemed to let go of me, too. Now it was just something gently holding me, wrapped around me. What was it?

I opened my eyes. Sunlight filled my vision. Funny. I had been still expecting darkness… But there was my house, only a few meters away, bright and simple and surrounded by bushes and grass. Had that pit of oblivion been a dream? A hallucination?

"Hallucinations don't save you from the Void, Dove," came a frail, quiet voice from above me. The remaining pressure from round me disappeared as Herobrine let go of me. I looked up at his face in shock. All the color was gone from his cheeks, and he stared with wide and unblinking eyes at the spot where the hole had opened up. He looked terrified, that terrified me. I moved backward away from him and looked around frantically. Something was missing. Someone was missing.

"H-herobrine?" He didn't turn away from the place he was looking. I was afraid of what he was going to say. "H-herobrine? Where's St-steve?"

No answer.

"He… He didn't… He isn't… Where did he go? Is he still…?" His expression told me exactly what I didn't want to hear.

"The Void… The Void took him," he whispered.

A/N Whalez, I hope I didn't just ruin the entire story. I was listening to Starset's "It Has Begun" while writing this, and I have no idea how that song and this chapter even have anything to do with each other. Heh heh... Actually, I do. It's sort of one of the inspiration songs for this story, as well as Beth Crowley's "Warrior (Remix)", among others that I may mention later. Check them out!

But poor Stevo. He got sucked into the Void for realsies, not like Herobrine's dream. And poor Eva, too. She's gonna be feeling really guilty after this, isn't she? She let him go, on accident of course... Oh no no no. Heh heh eheheheheheheh. I'm so evile to my characters, aren't I?

Hey, I've been seeing a lot about my grammar and typos and such, or more like lack thereof. Thanks for noticing, guys! Before I started writing, it really bothered me when I tried to read a story and I couldn't because of punctuation, grammar, typos, or just plain rambling and laziness. So I try my best to give you guys quality work! Tell me if you see anything wrong or confusing, okay? But do please comment on other things besides my writing style, please talk about the story itself too? Please? That would be so great!

Stay kewl! Love yourself! Byeee!