It was night already; Lyra was sleepy, while the others seemed more aware now. For most mobs, night was time to wake up, while for some, to sleep.

With the warnings the Deceiving Child had gave then, a far more peaceful atmosphere was over them. It wasn't a race against time anymore, just a wait and a puzzle. Nothing granted that this was going to be any better than rushing around Minecraftia, thought, especially so far away from home.

Lyra walked in circles around the small fire they had started with some wood, too scared to go to sleep.

"Brother…"

"I know you are tired. It isn't time to sleep, thought."

"It is too dark…"

"The fire is our light."

"I am s-scared, I want to h-hear a tale…"

Iny sighed. It wasn't the time to sleep yet and he didn't want to destroy the last bit of his routine yet. He depended on it.

"Don't be sssso k cruel to your ssssisssster k" Aisi said in tone of mockery, making Iny hiss at him. Those two would never get along…

"Please…"

Iny had been foolish, to say at least, to choose the career of war, back in the Far Lands. The instability of peace just made him overly attached to his routine over time, to the point where each thing he did that wasn't planned made him feel bad and brought such tension that it was difficult for him to control his temperament.

For him, things were simple, unless a war had started, everything should stay normal. Routine meant peace, routine meant stability, routine meant happiness. Because the collapse of it meant death.

It was too early to put Lyra to sleep. And that was it. But…the words of Aisi just made him too annoyed, too annoyed to even care.

He decided to put her to sleep once for all.

"Okay…Let me just choose a tale…"

It hurt, it hurt more than it should, it felt almost humiliating and surely like he was missing a part of him. There was nothing left, was there? Away from home, from work, from the things he usually did. His routine was his life, even more so than his sister and homeland.

"Thank you…" The hybrid said, lying down to sleep.

Iny opened his mouth to speak, having already chosen one of his tales, but no sound ever came out. A great weakness took him all of sudden, a terrible sensation, a sensation of nothingness and the lack of meaning. He started to glitch terribly, as if this moment wasn't meant to exist. His files clashed together, merging into a mess without meaning for Minecraftia and everything about him was invalid now. You can't just force a mob out of itself and expect it to stay stable; everything can just become an invalid file without function. Including alive creatures.

Lyra screamed as she saw her brother falling to ground, almost in slow motion. Before she could do anything else, he hit the ground and disappeared with a little smoke and static.

As already stated, his routine was his life.

The silence of surprise fell over the two other other mobs for a single second before they understood what had happened, even if they didn't know why. For what seemed to last an eternity, everything was taken by a loud mix of a scream and a hiss and Lyra's desperate attempts to dig the earth to find him, in vain.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Drowned didn't know how to make the hybrid stop crying. Having Aisi giggling by his side didn't help, either.

Somehow, it was shocking. Sudden, weird, unexpected. And the worst, it didn't even had an apparent reason! Iny had lost a life, but with luck, he would be able to come back in a day or two.

Lyra didn't seem to understand that, thought. It was easy to see that without the figure of her brother, someone to protect her without conditions, she was nothing. Quite the kid Catherine found amazing. Small, frightened and completely lost.

Drowned almost felt bad for her. Almost, because at the same time, he found it stupid to cry so much when he would return so soon. In her current state, thought, the fact that Iny was not around would get things more difficult.

The enderman sat on the ground. By now Aisi had calmed enough to see the bad side of the annoying creeper gone for a while and tried to stop Lyra's cries, with little success. His All's Mob nature was never so convenient before, for he could, more than anyone, influence in the mood of others.

Deep, deep, in the entrails of earth, something started to move, producing an almost unnoticeable rumble and slightly louder cracks. But none of the mobs noticed, so deep in thought each one was.

o-o-o-o-o-o-oo-o-o-o-o

"Hey..."

The voice was light, almost a whisper, but loud enough to warn Catherine.

"Hey…listen here…"

"Where are you?"

"Nowhere, just look here"

She tried to see, but nothing appeared. She knew that the voice was either some glitch Ghost or…

"Are you a spirit?"

"Indeed. Stairway Maker, currently away from Mother"

"What do you make here? The place of a spirit is not amongst the Faceless ones. What if you spawn here? Oh! So young and already with a Faceless!"

"Worry not, I am no human. I believe I shall be a Ghast, like Mother"

"Ghast? Well, we don't lose much if you spawn here, then"

"I will free you"

Catherine frowned. It was abnormal. Spirits didn't often make promises they couldn't make true. But they couldn't just open a door; let someone out, that easily. They were ethereal, made out of wind, stars, ideas, Void Particles, dust…

Maybe he wasn't going to open the door at all.

"Look at me"

And so Catherine found out she couldn't disobey the order, which echoed through her like a thunder, making she sure that this spirit was wrong. He was going to be a human, after all.

The spirit was made out of only wind and Void Particles. Undefined, weird, almost not real, as all spirits looked like. At some point, thought, this one started to change.

Catherine couldn't speak. What looked like its face had appeared in mid air and…It started to get twisted, deformed, its eyes melted, it drooled…Horrifyingly painful. Liquid, first white and then red and finally black soon was all over his face, boiling at temperatures so high that lava would look like a breeze. The heat was intense, so intense that Catherine felt like she could just melt as well.

The thick liquid was all over its face. And it was going down. She widened her eyes when she realized that it would touch the ground. The iron would just get hotter and hotter, and would soon be burning!

In the moment the first drop would hit the ground, everything disappeared, leaving only a satisfied expression on the spirit.

"There…You can go now."

And he was gone.

Catherine looked at the door and opened it. Of course…everything was much simpler than it looked and it only took a child to convince a mother to do the right thing.

The Faceless stared at the Creeper as she walked right trough them without a single doubt of what to do.

"Why do you leave us alone?"

"I promise all humans and shadows that it is for the best"

"Your apprentices won't find you here"

"They will know. And I will guide them back home to do what we must"

And she was free.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Fire. Fire. Firefirefirefirefire...

And this is all what Greys could think about. It was loud and unpleasant. Lesser thing, but upsetting, was the fact that Vincent was there.

Firefirefirefirefirefirefire firefire

It was too hot. And the mix of ashes and Void Particles bothered him. He wanted Vincent to return soon so they could leave already.

"Ah…"

He was there, in the horizon, carrying something. But he was going the wrong direction.

"HERE!"

And Vincent turned around to see Greys floating, anxious, almost three chunks away from him. He was crying, he was terribly distressed, but Greys didn't notice. He just looked away, glad.

"Carry, he sees."

Vincent trembled. And let the little creeper in the ground, still unconscious.

"Glitch, hurt."

"I know…"

And he continued to cry, he cried for all of the lives lost, for all of these unlucky creatures, and for all the deaths that would soon follow.

"Happen?"

"Ah, Greys…It…it…is…The world…It…is dissolving away…With everyone…"

"Get away, follows here."

It was a good idea. The hole would soon reach them too, if they didn't go away fast. Vincent was ready to pick the little creeper up and go to the wooden basket when he heard a sound.

"Ssssss…..ss…..sssss…"

It was the mother creeper, accompanied by a tall, weird hybrid of some sort. She now glitched just as much as the kid, but she was alive, at least.

"13 saved me. He good friend, not talking, but kind enough to get me away from my spawn"

Vincent would have asked how he had done that, but at that moment he did the only thing he could think of doing, so happy he was.

He ran and hugged the unknown hybrid, thanking him a million times for saving the creeper that he barely knew, but that he cared about.

There is always some happiness left. And Vincent didn't want to let this happiness go away, so he decided that having more company was worth anything in this world.

It did not take long before Vincent convinced the unfriendly Greys to let all get away together.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

It hurts so much... It hurts so much to see your own creation being broken and not being able to fix it...

Herobrine was pained, and to make it worse, Notch wasn't there with his wise words to make him sure that everything would be alright.

Notch had left long ago.

The Void wept, and Herobrine heard it, he knew that the world was on its last days of existence. The once powerful God of Minecraftia knew that he would fall, and this time, he wouldn't be able to go anywhere to live. There was nowhere left to go.

Even the Children of the Void were desperate; they fought against their own fate. They fought bravely, but in vain. Each was in a rush, trying to get troops to find a way to save the world and finding a way to reach the kids Catherine had told to seek for the Child who had never appeared.

It didn't change a thing of what was happening. There was no new information, just foolish attempts and vain hope. Nothing else.

It was a slow, painful death. And after it…all of the hard work…all of the stories, all of games, would be gone forever, buried under a hundred new things that got all Players away.

Herobrine wasn't so much of a "Hero" now, not when he was dead.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Hehe, finally done with this chapter! I have been having lots of troubles with this lately…I just can't mix my normal style (Disconnected phrases, weird sentences, things that make no sense whatsoever) with a goo narrative one :/ It ends up…weird ;-;

BUT. It is it. It has started. Minecraftia starts the slow and painful process of agonizing towards death…Do you think it can be saved?