AN: This will probably be the last chapter for at least a few days. I'm going back to school Monday and homework is going to become a factor again.

You didn't think I was that cruel, did you?

Chapter 36: Out with a Bang

"Bring in the cart in case we need it!"

"No, don't use the defibrillator."

"But ma'am, we have to keep him alive."

"Hitting him with that will not help. Just… just trust me."

"If our- if 4979 dies, I'm holding you responsible,"

"As you are entitled to if this turns out poorly. Keep Adam away from him. We cannot risk the recording of this."

Player did his best to protect his head as he was dragged down into the cave system. He covered his face with his upper arms and crossed his hands over the back of his neck. This last part protected him mostly from the diamond pickaxe that was still on his back. It jammed against his arms more than once on the way down. Within minutes his arms were rubbed raw by the stone, and his stomach and chest, exposed after his shift had hiked up, were scraped and battered and leaving a bloody trail behind him.

All this was nothing compared to the agony shooting up through his leg. Pain should be hot, he thought, but this pain was cold. It was so cold that he could not feel his foot, but still it was painful. It felt like needles were jammed deep into his lower leg and were being moved around. He could not focus on anything else.

He did not know how deep they went, only that the journey to get there lasted a lifetime. The monster had its sword again, and the thing dragged on the ground beside him, making the stone shriek. He watched it for a while, and then his eyes slid shut and the world became nothing out pain and darkness and that sound.

Then the pain stopped.

Player's leg flopped back onto the ground as the monster dropped him. He heaved in a breath that felt like it would split him in half and then sighed in relief. In comparison to the pain that had just been alleviated, all his other injuries were just mild stinging. His leg was still throbbing, and he couldn't feel his foot at all, but he would take this reprieve.

The monster was moving around the cave. It seemed to be roughly circular in shape and fairly large. Perhaps it was the entrance to an abandoned mineshaft.

The creature approached him. The sword was still shrieking across the ground, allowing him to track it. Fear tightened around his chest, and Player stopped breathing. He held his breath and tried his best to play dead. If that thing touched him again, he knew he wouldn't survive it. Something dark was in the back of his mind, a place that swirled and waited in blackness. It was that little piece of him that knew he was mortal, which had been still for nearly three years now, screaming at him for the first time. If he died here, he was going to die for real.

It shuffled over and snuffled at him. It mewled again, hungry. Player hoped that it prefered dead meat over the living sort.

It went away again a moment later, and he breathed again as quietly as he could. He had to do something quickly. One more attack and he was done for.

Player raised his head again and looked around. It was nearly pitch black, but as his eyes adjusted to the dimness in the cave he began to notice that there was a little light. It was barely bright enough to show the edges of the stone blocks in the cavern, but it seemed to be golden in hue. It was coming from the floor in the center of the cave.

Player heaved himself up onto hands and knees. Sharp pinches of pain slid up his bloody arms from his fingers. His shirt was damp with blood and his stomach and chest had almost no skin left on them. Those were only discomforts. A snack and a rest would take care of that, though he would be sore for a week. He could deal with that later. He needed to get away from the monster.

It had shuffled out of the room for the moment, but he could still hear it nearby. It was mewling again, the sound sending shivers down his back.

Player tried to stand up, but his left leg shot hot searing pain up into his body, and he fell again. He bit down hard on his own lip so he wouldn't scream and tasted blood. When he opened his mouth, red saliva dripped out. He remembered Clarence, laid low by the monster touching him. His own shoulder wasn't dislocated, but what was the difference? If anything, Player was going to be worse off.

He hoped that Clarence made it out of the valley safely. He hoped that Ivy and Bit made sure he was okay. They hated him, but if they took care of Clarence he might soften his opinion of them.

"I can do this," he said to himself, "I have to do this."

The monster growled a little louder in the next room over. Player covered his mouth with a hand and made himself swallow the blood in it.

He started crawling in the direction of the light on hands and knees. The diamond pickaxe was askew on his back and restricted the movement of his right arm and leg but he did not pause to fix it. The source of the dim glow was about fifteen blocks away and Player's progress was good considering his condition.

The sounds of the monster began to grow in volume again. The hungry mewling seemed more intense. Player felt panic start to grip him. He shuffled forward as fast as he could. The light was his only hope. He would take death by lava over whatever that thing would do to him.

He reached the source of the dim golden glow. It was a hole in the ground about five blocks across. It was smooth all the way around with a nearly vertical slope. If anything fell down there, there would be no coming back up. Player looked into it. The light was definitely coming from somewhere below.

The monster screamed behind him. Player glanced back. It was back in the cave. It was staring at him. He rolled onto his back and stretched his injured leg out in front of him. The pain in his arms and chest was growing worse, and in response to the monster's presence, his leg throbbed again. Feeling was starting to return to his foot and it too was throbbing and tingling.

The monster took a step forward and Player scooted back. His hand found nothing but empty space.

The thing screamed again and charged forward, intent on catching him.

Player scooted back again, remembered too late what exactly was behind him, wobbled on the edge of the hole, overbalanced, and fell. He did not cry out, only gasped. The monster's open hand closed less than a foot away from his injured foot as he disappeared over the edge.

He tumbled and rolled down the nearly vertical slope of stone, curling himself into a ball as best he could. He left several smears of blood on the rocks as he rolled down.

The chute dropped and kept dropping. At least fifty blocks down, deeper than it should have been able to go. It weaved back and forth slightly, throwing Player from side to side and providing him with several more bruises. When the chute ended, it did not slowly level out. It simply shot Player out of the end and rolled him out into the open space beyond.

It took him several seconds to get air back, and his first breath was a sob of pain. High above him, the monster screamed again. A few pebbles fell down the chute behind him as it knocked them over the edge. He did not have long before it followed him down. It would be able to climb back up the passageway and carry his corpse with it if it didn't eat him right where he was.

Player sat up and looked around.

The cavern he was in was huge. It was down at the level of the bedrock, and he could see some of the dark stone in the walls. The floor was completely made out of the stuff, but part of it was sunken down anyway. It was like the world was trying to spit this place out but hadn't quite managed it yet.

Player blinked. Hadn't he seen all this before? He looked up. Diamonds sparkled down at him from the walls and ceiling. Far far above, he could see little points of gold that shimmered like stars. These were what were casting the light, and the entire cavern was well illuminated. He could clearly make out the bodies of mobs that had either stumbled down here or spawned in this place and then died by each other's hands. They should have turned to black snow and gone, of course, but Player knew that they had died here and so there was no respawning for them. They were gone forever. That little voice of mortality in the back of his head was still talking to him, telling him to find a way to survive.

He remembered where he had seen this place before. It was the dream. He had seen this place in his dream. He knew what was in here.

Player got to his hands and knees again. All kinds of new aches made themselves known as he did so. His leg was still the worst one, but it was much better than it had been. He stood, and this time the limb held his weight.

Obsidian. He needed obsidian. He could build himself a little bunker and rest a while. There was obsidian in the center of the cavern, he remembered that. He didn't have long before the monster followed him down. He needed-Player closed his eyes and visualized the smallest shelter he could-ten pieces of obsidian. He removed the diamond pickaxe from his back and held it at the ready.

He limped as fast as he could towards the center of the cavern, and almost immediately tripped over the disemboweled corpse of a zombie. He gasped as he fell and his pick clattered against the ground.

Some way away from him, through a layer of obsidian and bedrock, Herobrine turned his head at the noise. He crossed the room and put his ear to the wall. Faintly he could hear the sound of ragged breathing coming in gasps. The maker of the sound was in a great pain, that was obvious. The sounds were human. It was a player out there.

His white eyes widened and mad hope started pounding through him. There was a player down here. Then the scream of the creature reached his ears and Herobrine understood the situation. That player was going to die if they didn't act fast.

"I hope you're a smart one," Herobrine murmured, "you've only got one chance."

Player struggled to his feet again and continued onwards. He grabbed his pick off the ground and clasped it tight. If any of these mobs were alive he would need it, but none of them were. He stumbled to the center of the room, and there suddenly, as it had in the dream, the wall of obsidian rose up in front of him. It loomed, and Player took a couple steps back out of surprise. The purple-black color of it camouflaged the structure against the surrounding gloom.

This place was as good as any. Player raised the pickaxe and began chopping away at the block of obsidian directly in front of him. As he did so, a little sound began tickling at his ears. Player assumed it was the mewling of the monster again and only worked faster. The block popped out of the wall and down into storable size. Player jumped back, anticipating lava, but behind the obsidian was a block of bedrock.

Behind the wall, Herobrine was shouting, "No! Not there!" Of course this was fine. He could escape now, but it would take him at least a month to remove that piece of bedrock, maybe longer. He did not want to wait that long. He pounded on the wall with balled fists.

Player paused, listening. That little noise continued, only now he could tell that it wasn't the monster's mewling. No, it was a voice saying words, and it wasn't coming from behind and above him. The voice was coming from the other side of the bedrock. And there was pounding with it, like someone was hitting the wall.

"Not there!" came the faint sound again.

"Hello?" Player tried, and heard how rough and quiet his voice was.

The pounding on the other side of the block stopped. There was a moment of silence.

Herobrine was trying to keep his voice under control. This player had a diamond pickaxe. This player was smart enough to go for the obsidian. Now if only he could convince them to mine the specific block.

"Hello?" the player said again, confused.

He took a breath and spoke as loudly as he could so they could hear him through the rock. "Don't mine there," he said, "go around to the other side."

Player's brow creased. He was exhausted and in pain and his leg was threatening to give out beneath him every second, but still he thought he recognized the voice. It was deep and smooth even though the barrier between them robbed it of some of its power. It made him want to curl up and take a nap. It made him feel safe.

The monster screamed above him, and he remembered the situation he was in. Player looked back up at the hole. A lot of debri was falling now. It must be coming down.

"I'm sorry," he said to the bedrock, "but I need to make myself somewhere safe."

Frustration tinged the words that came back at him, "I'm trying to help you. Go around to the other side. It will give you time."

Player hesitated a long moment, and then he obeyed. He kept one hand on the wall to steady himself. Halfway around the structure something occurred to him and he almost turned back. He only needed two blocks of obsidian. He could build himself a barrier with the bedrock at his back.

"What's taking so long?!" The voice yelled through the barrier, and he started. Of course it would not hurt him to make the shelter on one side of the obsidian cube or the other, so he continued on.

Herobrine tracked the movement around the room. His heart was beating so fast he thought it might crack his ribs. This was going to work. He couldn't believe it. He was practically jumping for joy.

The player on the other side of the wall fell and cried out as he did. Herobrine suddenly recognized the voice. He rolled his eyes, though no one could tell even if they could see him. "Maybe you have more backbone than I thought," he laughed.

"What?" Player said.

"Hurry," Herobrine could hear the monster. It was sliding down the tunnel down here. There was not much time. If the monster got down here before he was free, Player would die.

Player hopped around the last corner. As he went he saw movement by the entrance. Something huge and dark was sliding down the tunnel. The monster was using its claws and sword to slow its descent. He ducked around the corner of the obsidian before it appeared.

Herobrine heard the monster land in the cavern. He heard Player's breathing change again. The man was freezing up.

He grabbed the strip of fabric that was still behind the bedrock block and pulled it out. He heaved it up and threw it down on the floor, not bothering to choose a particular spot. He leaned into the hole and knocked on the obsidian.

"Can you hear me?" he asked through the wall.

Player, on the other side, whispered, "it's in the room."

"I know."

"If it touches me again I'll die,"

Herobrine narrowed his eyes. That thing had already hurt Player? "It's this block," he said, knocking on it again, "all you have to do is break this block. Do you understand?"

Player knocked on the block, but didn't reply other than that.

The monster was just around the corner now. He could hear it mewling and shambling around. The sword was scraping against the stone. Fear gripped him again, and unlike before this fear did not make him more alert. This was numbing fear. The edges of his vision were starting to go black.

The voice from behind the obsidian came again, "I can beat it. All you have to do is break this block."

Player shook his head a little. If he moved, it would hear him. He should have stayed where he had been in the first place and gotten another block. He should have barricaded himself in.

"It's okay," the voice told him, "it will only take a few seconds, and then I'll be able to help you."

Player's grip on the pickaxe tightened.

The person on the other side of the wall lost their patience, "Break the obsidian now, Player!"

That snapped him out of it.

Player spun and brought the pickaxe down onto the obsidian. It made the usual sound, and the mewling of the monster stopped at once. He could feel its focus shifting to him.

He worked furiously for several long seconds. He heard it start to move, heard it bounding towards him. He tried not to think about the pain he was about to be in.

The block of obsidian broke and warm torchlight flooded out of it.

Player spun to face the oncoming monster. He stumbled backwards as it came around the corner, and kept going as it lunged with the sword.

He might have escaped if it had been a normal sword on a normal arm. Almost certainly he would have gotten away with nothing more than a slight scratch. But this arm was abnormally long and the sword was twice the regular size.

Cold pain bloomed in his stomach as the stone sword bit into his skin and stuck there. It sliced a neat line into him, penetrated the muscle, slid its way in among his guts. Player's eyes widened and he screamed, shredding his throat with the volume. The monster seemed to be grinning at him.

A blue blur hit the thing in the side and the sword left Player's stomach with a slurping sound that nearly made him throw up. The monster went tumbling with the force of the blow, screaming as it went.

Player watched in astonishment, his hands attempting to hold his own blood inside of him, as the figure of a man straightened up. He had come out of the gap left by the block of obsidian so fast it looked like he had launched himself from a cannon, but Player had seen his foot braced against the edge of the block below for a second as he squirmed out. That had provided the momentum for the stunning blow.

He looked just how Player remembered except that his hair was a little ragged and his skin had lost the healthy glow. The time since the reset had not been kind to him.

Hero didn't so much as glance at him. His gaze was fixed on the monster with Player's blood on its weapon. He seemed to be frowning.

"What are you?" the man asked the monster.

It screamed at him, but it was backing away.

"Some kind of wither?" Hero walked forward. Player saw that the sword in his hand was dull and broken, but as he watched it began to glimmer and sharpen until it fairly glowed with enchantments. "You look like a wither skeleton."

It screamed again and overcame its instinctive fear. It rushed forward, raising its sword.

Player looked away. He didn't want to see Hero struck down, not like this.

There was a clang, and he looked back up. Hero had his sword up over his head. The creature's stone sword had chipped and cracked with the force of its blow, but the diamond weapon was holding strong. The man's arm was not even shaking.

"Yes," Hero said, "a mutated wither skeleton."

The creature whimpered.

And Hero moved. Player had dreamed once or twice about the splendid blur of motion of Hero fighting, but he realized now that what he had seen was nothing compared to what the man was actually capable of.

Hero moved from beneath the sword and in close to it. He brought up his own sword but did not go for the killing blow. Instead, he let the diamond blade bite into its side creature screamed, but this time it was a sound of pain and fear.

Hero started laughing. He sounded happy.

He blurred to the side, as the animal tried to hit him back. He ducked, then jumped, and kicked it in the head. It stumbled but did not fall. The man only laughed again, at the thrill of motion, at being able to really move his body for the first time in months, at being free.

Player stopped watching. He would have rather watched the fight play out, but his vision was starting to blur at the edges. The feeling was leaving his left foot again, but this time it was going from all his other extremities as well. The pain was fading to nothing. He felt cold all over. Not even the blood flowing from his stomach, so dark it was almost black, was warm.

This is what it's like to die, he realized. You didn't go out with a bang. You leaked out your life onto the uncaring stone and then you went to sleep. Simple as that. His eyes were starting to feel very heavy. Surely it would not hurt to close them just for a moment. Besides, Hero was here now. Everything would be okay now that Herobrine… was… free…

What had he done?

Something heavy landed, and there was the sound of mewling. The battle was over. Something had been killed.

The monster paced over to Player and stood in front of him. He could just barely make out the legs. The rough blue denim, the brown shoes that seemed to be somewhere between sneakers and moccasins. Even that was growing hazy.

The monster crouched down in front of him and Player closed his eyes against the white glow. He whimpered. What was he going to do to him?

"It's okay," Hero said, and his voice was almost gentle. He reached down and pulled Player's hands away from his stomach. He pulled up his shirt and glanced at the cut before Player's hands were back over it, keeping pressure on the wound.

The man sighed. He had seen the other injuries on the man's torso and arms.

Player curled in on himself. He was starting to lose consciousness. This was it; he was going to die.

Something tinkled. The sound of glass on glass made him focus his blurry sight on the man in front of him. Hero had two bottles in his hand, each one full of pinkish liquid. One seemed to be a brighter color than the other, but it was hard to tell.

Player tried to scoot away as Hero reached out to him, but he did not have enough strength left to escape.

The man stood and moved around him. He crouched again at Player's side and put a hand on his back. He put his other hand on his knees and forced him to uncurl. It wasn't very hard.

"Please," Player reached out to him, "I don't want to die."

"It's okay," Hero muttered, "it's okay. I'm trying to help you."

Player started to double over as pain shook him, but Hero stopped him with a firm hand. When the fit had passed, he reached over and took one of the bottles.

"This will sting," he told Player, and upended it over his stomach.

Player screamed again. It felt like someone was digging into the wound with their fingernails.

Hero looked away and closed his eyes. He took a breath. When he looked back he had his teeth clenched. "Your life for my freedom, human. That's a fair trade isn't it?"

The scream died down to a whimper. The digging pain turned to slight stinging, and Player felt feeling return to his hands and feet. His vision sharpened, though it did not completely clear, and he blinked up at the man's face above him. This time the familiarity of it made him smile a little. He reached out a bloody hand again and Hero flinched away from him. His eyes brightened and he sneered. Then he softened and took the reaching hand in his own. His palm was warm and rough and Player squeezed it to make sure what he was seeing was real.

The man before Herobrine now did not resemble the Player that he remembered. This creature was much tougher, and even in this state he had fire in his eyes. The old Player would not have ever come to this place alone or with a group. He was not brave enough. Surely he had not misjudged the man that badly, had he?

"I found you," Player said, and he smiled with blood-stained teeth, "thank Notch I found you."

Hero dropped his hand fast. A reaction had started up in the pit of his stomach, and he did not want to feel it right now. He reached for the second bottle and brought it up. Player didn't seem to see it.

"I have to ask you-" he stopped talking as the mouth of the bottle was placed to his lips. The liquid within smelled of brimstone, and he tried to turn his head away, but the hand on his back slid up and held his head still.

"Drink," Hero ordered him.

Player took a mouthful of the liquid. It tasted how it smelled and he tried to spit it out. Hero reacted fast. He had his jaw immobilized in a moment and Player swallowed hard instead. He coughed.

"I know it tastes bad, but you have to drink it. It will help you."

Player looked up into the familiar face and saw concern there. He obediently drank the rest of the bottle, shuddering with each swallow. When it was all gone, Hero tossed the bottle over his shoulder and it smashed on the stone.

"You're lucky," He informed Player, "I made up my mind to show my gratitude to whoever released me. If I had not, you would be dead."

Warmth began seeping back into Player's hands and feet. The black edges around his vision started retreating. The pain returned too, but it was distant and dull. He felt suddenly very tired.

He reached out towards Hero again, open-handed. It didn't register that his fingers were bloody until he touched the man's cheek, and then pulled back fast as the contact left red smears. "Hero," he said, his voice shaky and slow.

"My name is Herobrine," the monster corrected him.

"Yes. I know that," he said. He frowned. There was something important that he was meant to be doing, but he couldn't remember what it was. The whole world had gone warm and fuzzy around him.

"Just rest now," Herobrine's voice told him. Then his eyes flared brighter, and he said in a voice that harmonized with itself, "Sleep."

Player's eyes rolled back in his head and he stopped shaking. His chest stopped moving rapidly and fell into the slow rhythm of deep dreamless slumber.

It was for the better. It would spare him the pain of healing, and it was not for long anyway. That kind of trick would only last a few minutes, a half hour at most.

Herobrine looked down at the sleeping man. Player's brow was furrowed, and his mouth was a grimace, but this was how the man always looked when he slept. He reached up and touched his own cheek, the smear of blood Player had left there when he touched it. He looked down at the hand that had left the mark and his own brow creased.

What had happened to Player?

Herobrine shook himself. He did not care what had happened. It was none of his concern.

He set the sleeping form aside, just out of the pool of blood, and got to his feet. He took several steps away and retrieved his sword from the corpse of the wither thing. He put it on his back and went back to the entrance of the cave. He could teleport out of course. That was easy. He could go anywhere he liked as long as he had seen the place before, and he could see the top of the chute.

But then Player would be stuck down here, and that was not a fate he would wish on anyone, much less the man who had released him from the prison.

Herobrine glanced back over his shoulder at the man lying on the ground. He cursed to himself briefly, then walked back and kneeled again. He cradled Player's head with one arm while he checked on the wound. It was already almost closed. The potion of regeneration was doing its work well. He would be healed very soon. He dropped the man again, then thought of something. He squirmed back into the prison he had just vacated and retrieved the book from his desk. He went back out and placed the book on Player's chest, wrapped one of the man's hands around it. There, his job was done. He would accompany and guide Player through the book.

He stood again and went back to the shoot leading down into the cavern. He held out a hand and placed it against the first stone block. He narrowed his eyes, focused, and pulled back a little. The block slid out of the wall smoothly, and he did the same with the next block up and then the next, making a staircase.

Herobrine smiled a little. It felt good to have his powers again: the nearly unlimited inventory, the teleportation, the commands, the ability to manipulate the blocks in the game. He glanced back at the man on the floor, his fingers wrapped around the thin volume, and smiled. Then he climbed up and out of the cavern that had been his prison for so long.

If he felt a twinge of guilt at leaving Player laying there, he squashed it. He was looking forward to seeing the sun too much to dwell on negative emotions.

And he was going to enjoy dismantling whatever the players had managed to build while he had been locked away.