SHOUT OUTS: TheFanficCritic (me and my friends are pretty morbid people, so it was kind of easy :D), night (I like Alex too), and StormCloud666 (yeah, that's totally normal. I took a javelin to school once. Perfectly normal).

Chapter 37

Mitch's POV

"Jerome!" I yelled. "Come on! Where are you?" I was close to tears. We'd been looking for at least an hour, with no progress.

"Don't worry. We'll find him," Vikk tried to reassure me.

We scrambled across the cliffs, still looking for Jerome. We couldn't hear the King roaring anymore. Maybe the others had already killed it or something. Honestly though, I didn't really care. All I cared about at that moment was finding Jerome.

I sighed. "We're not going to find him."

"Yes we will," Vikk insisted. "You're not giving up that easily, are you?"

I sat down on the Netherrack just as the tears fell. "We've been looking for an hour. If he was alive, we would have found him by now. I know it."

"Mitch, don't think like that." Vikk sat down next to me. "It'll be fine. We'll find him."

"Alive?" I asked skeptically.

"Of course. He's alive."

"You hesitated."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did."

He rolled his eyes. "Listen, he is alive, and we will find him. Okay?"

I swiped at the tears running down my face. "Okay."

"Now," he stood up. "Let's keep looking. Alright?"

I got up with him. "Okay." Then I heard voices coming from the direction we came from. I looked around frantically, hoping it would be Jerome. Unfortunately, it was just Adam and Ty.

I glared at Adam. "What do you want?"

He took off his glasses and looked straight into my eyes. I held up a hand to keep his eyes from blinding my own. "Preston and Rob sent us," he growled. "We didn't volunteer for this."

"Why did they send you?" Vikk asked. "Did something happen?"

"They said to tell you that they found Jerome," Ty answered. "They're at Herobrine's castle."

I immediately pushed past the two of them and ran to the palace. I heard Vikk yelling at me to wait for him, but I ignored him. What if Jerome is in the castle, what if he's in danger, what if he's dead-?

"Shut up, Mitch! Calm down!" I said out loud. "You know where he is now. It'll be fine."

I didn't stop running until I reached the doors of Herobrine's castle. Preston, Lachlan and Rob were trying to open them, to no avail. There was a scorch mark on one of the doors. I assumed Preston had tried to burn through the doors.

"Jerome's inside?" I asked them.

Rob turned around and nodded. "Yeah. A bunch of these red-eyed zombies and skeletons came and took him inside. We've been trying to get to get in, but Herobrine must've made the doors out of, like, reinforced steel or something. It's impossible."

Without a word, I slid my large sword out of its sheath and put the blade in between the doors. Ignoring the other four gaping at me like I was a zoo animal, I pushed the blade to the right, prying open the left door. The door popped off its hinges, and I sheathed my weapon. Still not speaking, I walked into the palace, my hand resting on the hilt of my sword. After a few seconds of silence, I heard hurried footsteps behind me as the others ran to catch up to me.

I opened every door I passed, glancing quickly inside for Jerome, and leaving immediately as soon as I found he wasn't in the room. I lost track of time as we searched, only thinking about Jerome.

Jerome's POV

The skeleton grabbed the fur on top of my head and slammed my head against the wall. "I asked you once, and I'll ask you again," he said, deadly calm. "Where are the rest of your accomplices?"

I glared at the monster. "I answered you once, and I'll answer you again. It's just the nine of us, the pixie, and the other YouTubers. That's it."

The skeleton growled. He let go of my hair and turned around to the zombie operating some kind of machine behind him. He nodded, and the zombie pulled a lever. The metal bracelets they'd put on my wrists sparked, and pain racked through my body. It felt like a combination of getting crushed, drowning, and burning in a fire, if that's even possible. I screamed and doubled over, uselessly yanking at the chains attached to the bracelets at one end and the wall at the other. Then, just as quickly as it came, the pain disappeared. I gasped, wishing they hadn't confiscated my battle axe.

"WHERE ARE YOUR ALLIES?!" the skeleton shouted. "TELL ME! NOW!"

"I DON'T HAVE ANY," I insisted.

The skeleton scowled. He turned away from me and faced the zombie. "Kill him. If he won't cooperate, then he won't breathe either."

I gave one last useless tug at the chains binding my hands behind my back. Then I glared up at the monster's cold, merciless eyes, and hoping that he and all his stupid little friends would stay outside in the day and burn to ashes. Or even better, be put through the same thing they were putting me through, but a million times worse.

I put my chin up and tried to look defiant as the zombie turned a knob on the weird machine. She looked up from her controls to grin at me just before she pulled down the lever. Just when she did though, I heard someone running outside in the hallway. As the pain started to come, I looked up at the door. Mitch, Lachlan, Vikk, Rob, and Preston burst into the room, Mitch in front of the others. He saw me and his eyes widened. Then, he suddenly did the last thing I ever thought he would do.

My Benja ran past the monsters, lunged toward me, and grabbed one of the bracelets on my wrists. His tortured screaming joined mine a few seconds later.

The last thing I saw was his face, contorted with pain. But even though his face wasn't smiling, his eyes were as they looked into mine.

I was sure my eyes looked the same.