It is important to have time to one self… time for self discovery, and to allow time for our special other to develop in ways they can only develop in your absence.

ZEN (Chapter 14)

I couldn't sleep easily that night... I know I liked her, but the thought that Herobrine might use her against me got me thinking I shouldn't reciprocate my feelings towards her. I stared into the camp fire while laying on my side.

She lay on the other side of the fire and her face looked beautiful under the fire light. She slept so peacefully.

The fire particles rose into the blue night sky. Dancing from left to right and swirling about before fading into nothing and allowing the blue stars to shine through.

I was now starting at the stars. I could see the "big creeper" constellation… The north star was brighter than usual on this night.

I looked at the quarter moon and watched it slowly ever so slowly glide across the sky. I had my arms wrapped behind my head and started to drift off into sleep.

I woke earlier than Lisa, and the camp fire was just burning out. I got up and stretched. I figured Lisa still needed some rest so I decided to sneak off so I wouldn't disturb her, so I wrote her a note saying I'll be back before noon. I needed some time to be alone and just think through all the things that were happening.

I headed south to where I saw the settlement.

I figured it might have been the raider camp or a village.

When I started to get to the base of the mountain I noticed it was unusually warm in this area, but the snow didn't melt off there. Maybe it was one of those glitch areas which had weird forces going on through them.

It was said that areas like this had strong mystic ores deep underground which interfered with nature… mostly gravity and temperature, causing some land masses to float up into the sky. And usually they had infinite ponds which spawned slimes.

I looked up to look for signs of them but none. My mind wasn't really present in the moment as I was lost in thought, so I never noticed the huge casm right in front of me as I was walking. I stopped right at the edge, sort of a natural instinct to just stop.

When I realized what almost happened I wondered if the ore I wore had more powers than I thought. It was always revealing strange, new but useful things it could do l never notice d before. Like how it could morph me into any creature, and how it altered my body to suit the environment. It even worked as a torch light when in the dark. And recently it showed me it read my emotions and changed color to suit that emotion. Maybe it wasn't an ore. I took a deep breath, and naturally I closed my eyes. All these were just minor powers, I thought.

But I had to get to the great library to find out what any of this was. Maybe Herobrine had an ore like mine… maybe that's why he could control lightning like he did. Could he be after mine so he could have its power? But there was some other force beside the ores power that I could feeI inside me. I had to find out.

At this point I had even forgotten about heading to that settlement. I was in this sort of relaxed peaceful state where everything just seemed to wash away.

It was almost like my ears, eyes and senses where opened up. I could feel the blood flowing in my body, the air I was breathing And my heart beating. It all felt surreal… The awareness of my surroundings.

I then felt light, not lightheaded, but literally light. I didn't bother to open my eyes, because I thought I would be brought back to reality and lose this peacefulness I was experiencing. All I could say to describe it was 'contentment.'

I then heard a whisper. It was very faint but definitely there. I couldn't make it out so I turned my head slightly to the left in that direction. I heard it again.

"relax…" I could hear.

I opened my eyes slightly as I thought someone was following me, maybe it was Lisa… but the moment I opened them, my eyes where shot with light. It was white all over.

Could it be. Was I…. in the 'white realm.'

I looked all around me, I was floating… more like flying. My clothes were now brighter than before.

"HEROBRINE!" I shouted out loud. I thought he was there. That he brought me here.

All I could hear was silence.

Maybe this was my own personal white realm. I thought. my chest felt strange. I looked at the ore, It was being pulled to my chest like a magnet. This was new. The shirt I had on was the only thing keeping it from coming in contact with my skin. I took the shirt off and tossed it to the side to see what would happen.

I guess being in zero gravity it wouldn't fall so it just floated away and stopped a few feet away from me.

The ore pushed against my chest and somehow started to fuse with my skin. I didn't know how to feel about this. But I guess it was alright, I was still feeling surreal and my head was in this zen mode so the ore fusing with me was nothing to me. It felt like my skin was dissolving away at the touch of the ore and re-fusing with it at the edges.

Just as it was about to disappear fully inside me it stopped. And a thin layer of transparent skin covered the outer part. I could feel the coldness of the ore fade and it matched my body's temperature.

I could feel my ribs starting to surround the ore from the inside of me. Like my bones suddenly became as flexible as a fresh sprout. Once the stretching and bending stopped, the sternum hardened, and my chest was flat again, but the ore could still be seen.

I felt my chest with my right hand and a sort of red mist started being emitted from my finger tips, then my whole palm. At this point I thought I was bleeding and started to get worried. My heart started to beat faster, and I lost my calm. And in a blink of an eye, everything disappeared and I was back in the woods again.

My hands where still emitting the red stuff, and it sort of just floated to the ground like the mist ice would produce. I made a fist and it ignited itself. I got scared and shook my hand while stepping back.

I fell backwards and tried to put it out by patting it on the leaves on the forest floor. That didn't work so I looked for the shirt I had taken off in a frenzy. It was at the edge of the cliff so I rushed there and wrapped it around my hand.

The fire finally went out and I relaxed a bit, taking in a deep sigh. My shirt was smoking. And I realized I wasn't really burnt and didn't feel any pain while the fire was on.

I could hear something burning behind me. When I got up, and turned around … the leaves I had been trying to turn my hand off with were now in flames. The first thing that came to mind was water. I looked around to see for any signs of a stream. Or anything to use to turnoff the fire.

The last thing I wanted to do was start a forest fire.

But now another strange thing happened. My previously burning hand was now cold and my shirt was wet. It was now dripping. The ore was obviously the reason for all this.

I took the shirt off my hand and water was flowing out my hand at high pressure, and the water shot forward. I looked at my hand in awe. It felt like what putting my hand in a river flowing fast would feel like, except my hand was the water source.

I aimed the water at the fire and quickly drowned it out. And after a few minutes my hand stopped oozing water. I looked at my palm while breathing heavily from the physical exertion. I was now smiling.

I couldn't wait to show Lisa the new abilities the ore gave me.

i felt like a kid eager to tell his siblings of the new cool toy he had, this made me hesitate and try to think of a way to bring it up in a "cool" way.