Hey, it's me. I wanted to explain that this part wasn't originally a part of the second book, it was a demo of it. Although, none of this is in Book Two, so I think it's only right that I post it as well. Also, I wanted to let you know that last chapter when I said I'd be posting less and less frequently, I didn't mean significantly so, in case people were worried. Some days, I'll upload a chapter and some days I'll work on writing. Alright, just wanted to get that out of the way. This chapter is meant to be a confirmation that a character who was previously thought to be dead is alive after all these years, which was only hinted at last chapter. Enjoy!

Alex's POV

Before I saw the man of my nightmares, I was having a pretty good day. Mining enough iron to make two iron golems? That's typically what I call a success. I didn't find any diamonds sadly, but that didn't get me down. I was mining away at the nearby cluster of redstone ore when I heard a bubbling noise. Lava, I thought with a shudder, I better be more careful then.

When I was done, I looked at the end of the cavern. I thought I saw something flaming in the distance. No way… I thought as I headed towards it. As I neared it, I saw it was in a chamber made of cobblestone. Some of the cobblestone had moss on it. It is! I realized. It was one of those incredibly rare dungeons. Judging by the flaming cagelike block in the middle, I'd say that was the mob spawner of the dungeon. And it had a miniature model of a skeleton spinning at a mesmerizing speed inside of it. That meant it was designed to spawn skeletons. It didn't appear to have spawned any mobs yet. I quickly debated what to do with the spawner block.

I decided I would keep the spawner where it was for now. If I decided to stay, I could use the spawner for a mob grinder in the future. I quickly got out a few torches and put them all around the spawner, effectively making the spawner unable to spawn mobs in. I looked for the chests in the chamber. They sat against the wall beyond the spawner, away from the entrance. Whoever had designed these dungeons were clever, they made it so to get to the treasure, a person would have to go through the chamber where they could be easily ambushed by spawned mobs if they weren't careful like I was. I wonder what could be in these chests, I thought as I opened the first chest.

Inside the chest were six bones, four gunpowder, and three string. There was also a name tag, a saddle, and… a golden apple! I quickly swiped the yellow fruit and put it in my inventory. I left the saddle and name tag though. There was no point in bringing something I wasn't going to use. Besides, I had a whole other chest to look through and my inventory was already full of stuff I really wanted to keep.

I closed the lid and went through the second chest. Inside, there were two bones, five gunpowder, two coal, some melon seeds, and a loaf of bread. There was also a bucket and four gold ingots. Great…

I didn't plan to use the melon seeds because I was constantly on the move and didn't stay in an area very long before traveling more. I had no use for bones, and at best I could use the gunpowder as an ingredient for TNT, but I'd need a lot of sand as well. Additional food was always good, though I already had enough coal from mining. I decided to take the gunpowder, bread, bucket, and gold ingots with me and placed my flint, a nearly depleted wooden axe, and red sand in the chest to make room. I went back to the first chest and grabbed the gunpowder from it and took it with me. Overall, the dungeon loot wasn't too shabby. At least I got a golden apple from it.

Suddenly, I heard an unnerving noise echo through the cavern. It sounded like something huge-like some kind of a massive beast breathing on the other side of the cavern, or wind moving through a long, narrow tunnel. I instinctively turned around but saw nothing bad. Ambience… I thought. I really hated my imagination. It was really frightening at times. Whenever I heard it, I got the feeling I was being watched, or even followed. But there was never anyone there, not once.

Suddenly, I felt an impending sense of danger. I drew my iron sword and turned around quickly. I saw a person standing at the entrance of the dungeon, looking down at the cobblestone floor. The person looked very familiar. He wore a cyan blue shirt with dark blue pants-a color scheme that instantly stood out. Instantly, I became relieved and happy. I wasn't the last human alive! And that was when I realized why he was so familiar.

"Wait… Steven!?" I stammered to the person. He began to look up to me. "Oh… my… Notch, I can't believe it's yo-" The man stared straight at me and we locked eyes. He had pure white eyes. It wasn't Steven, there was no way! Suddenly, I understood the concept of fear. This man radiated hatred and evil. He wasn't human, he definitely couldn't be human.

"I'm sorry…" the man sneered in an ancient gravelly voice, "I believe you have me confused for someone else… My name is Herobrine."

Suddenly, the torches I placed on the spawner popped off from the ground. Instantly, the chamber went dark. But I could still see those pure white eyes dimly glowing in the darkness staring at me.

"Let's see how good you really are at fighting." Herobrine sneered as the spawner let out a burst of flame.

Suddenly, a skeleton spawned on each side of Herobrine. The mysterious person teleported to the other end of the cavern. The skeletons got their bows ready and aimed at me. My instincts told me to avoid their arrows by running around them, but there was nowhere near enough space to run around. So, that left me with one option… to charge them.

I sprinted at one and sliced away at it. The skeleton was knocked back a block, but pulled out another arrow and aimed it at me. I quickly lunged at it, taking the skeleton down to the ground, and I plunged my sword into its head, turning the skeleton into smoke.

I turned towards the second one as it shot its arrow at me. With reflexes swift like an ocelot, I sidestepped the arrow. It missed by an inch and hit the mossy wall. I jumped up and brought my sword down onto the skeleton. It fell to the ground and before it could get back up, I stabbed the iron sword into its spine. The skeleton turned into smoke as well.

I heard the spawner let out another burst and turned to face the newly spawned skeleton or skeletons. It turned out to be just one, and I heard the skeleton fire its ready arrow. I immediately felt a wave of pain shoot up my left arm to the rest of my body. I looked at it and could barely see an arrow protruding from it in the darkness. I cried out in pain and tried not to pass out from the pain. I tried to focus on the skeleton.

I saw the mob at the corner between the two chests ready another arrow. I couldn't avoid an arrow at such a close range, so in desperation, I threw my sword at it. My sword went flying straight at it.

The sword hit the skeleton right in the eye socket, pinning it to the wall. The skeleton went limp and exploded into smoke. I quickly placed several torches around the spawner-not caring where, as long as they were lit, keeping it from being able to spawn anymore skeletons in, then ran forward and retrieved my sword.

I looked back to the end of the cavern. The evil man was giving me a stare with a wicked sneer on his face. I put my sword away and pulled out my trusty bow and raised an arrow to it, aiming the weapon at the being. This was certainly not my brother, even if he looked like Steven…

"You may be able to defeat a few skeletons, but I am way out of your league. Petty girl, know my name and fear it. I am Herobrine, and I am the king of mobs! And you are just a mere human."

I noticed a growing darkness behind him. It was his shadow, and it spread across the cave behind him, turning everything from being lit by torches to dark and black. His sneer grew deeper as he lifted himself into the air, and I watched in shock and horror as shadows began to flow over him, turning him pure black, except for his pure white eyes.

He chuckled in a deeper and eviler voice as his body merged with the shadows, becoming a massive amalgamous dark face with two shining white eyes. I took an unsteady step back, and felt my back hit two sides of the wall, but tried hard not to show my fear. The creature grew a vicious sneer, and then surged at me. I covered my face defensively.

Suddenly, there was no one in front of me. The man was gone, and the cavern was quiet, as if nothing happened. All I heard was the flicker of the torches right in front of me around the spawner. I looked down at them. They were in the positions they were in when I originally placed them down instead of the positions I had put them after that man had extinguished the first ones. Did that mean…

I took a moment to think about what had just happened. First, I had found this skeleton dungeon. Then, I lit it up, making it so skeletons wouldn't be able to spawn and attack me. After that, I went through the chests, and then I encountered that being. Could that mean that the man had been… part of some kind of vision? Clearly, I was still alive, and it looked like the creature hadn't even destroyed my first torches on the spawner. I brought out my clock from my inventory. It was the evening and about to become night. The moon was just starting to appear to the right, meaning that it would be night soon.

"You know what? I'll think about it later." I decided out loud, then left the dungeon and began to retrace my steps. I might be able to make it back to my tent if I hurry, I thought. I hurried off to the end of the cavern, which I knew would lead me back to the series of caves I had spent the past few days exploring.

By the time I finally found the way back to the surface, it was long past dusk. Fortunately, my tent was right by the cave entrance. My mule, tied to the fence post right next to the tent for the night, brayed when he saw me, and I quietly shushed him as I went over to him.

"We've got quite a long day ahead of us tomorrow, Jack." I whispered to him, keeping an eye on my surroundings. Once I was certain there weren't any mobs that could see me, I went through the chest on Jack's back and put away my clock, my pickaxe, the dungeon loot I had picked up, and all the lapis and redstone I had collected underground, then took out my bed, crafting table, and furnace. "Be sure to get some rest." He brayed again, this time more quietly.

I quickly slipped inside my woolen temporary base, shutting the door behind me so no mobs could track me in here. Finally feeling safe and secure, I sighed in relief. I was going to be fine. Today had been close, but I wasn't going to die yet. Of all the ways it could've gone, I was glad it didn't end with me dying to those skeletons.

I looked through my inventory and found less than half a stack of gold ore, almost two stacks of iron ore, and exactly half a stack of coal. I headed over to the tent crawlspace and placed the furnace in it. I then stored several lumps of coal in the furnace along with a stack of my iron ore. It began to slowly smelt the iron.

I decided to make some more furnaces to smelt more ore at once. I went over to my crafting table and brought out the stack of cobblestone I had on me. I put them in place and began to stack them on each other until I had three more potential furnaces. I waited a few seconds and they shot into each other, fusing and creating furnaces one at a time.

Within moments, three new furnaces were made. I grabbed them and headed back to the first furnace. I plopped them down right beside the first and put six lumps of coal in each. Then, I split my iron ore and gold ore evenly and placed the different portions in each furnace. The furnaces ignited and the tent heated up a little bit from all the furnaces combined temperatures.

As I waited for the ore to smelt, I pondered about that weird dream I had experienced underground. I wanted to know if it was real or if I should ignore it or if I should be worried. Who was that Herobrine guy? And why did he look just like Steven? So many questions filled my thoughts, but I knew I couldn't answer them, so I suppressed them and decided to get some sleep. Placing down my bed, I laid down and covered myself in its red comfy blankets. Tomorrow, we were going to try to find a new biome.

I was half-hoping for a jungle biome because jungles are full of food sources like watermelons and lakes, along with cocoa pods that could be used to make cookies. Not to mention that animals like pigs and sheep that lived there often had trouble navigating through the brush-filled terrain, and couldn't get away if I needed them as food. But at the same time, it would take a very long time to travel through with Jack, who would have a lot of difficulty making it through the landscape much like those animals.

I had to keeping searching for him, and I couldn't stop to think about the odds. If I did, I would just go back into the same depressing mindset I had years ago. I had to find him. I wasn't going to give up like I did when I was with him. I had to find my brother, Steven Stonewall, no matter what.

I let out an exhausted yawn, and snuggled up within the covers. Then, I fell asleep.