AN: Well here we are again. This one is long and weird, but after reading The Stranger and Crime and Punishment I can candidly tell you that what I write is definitely not outside the realm of "normal." Speaking of which, I have AP tests this week and next, so no updates for at least two weeks. You guys should be pretty used to that by now though.


Chapter 44: Old Scars

From the Autopsy report of Dylan Rogers, subject 4980.

Cause of death: Anaphylactic Shock in response to Penicillin injected into the IV bag as treatment for a minor bacterial infection. An emergency injection of Epinephrine was on hand, but was not utilized by the staff.

It is the advice of this doctor to suspend use of all medications unless the subject has been pre-approved by a family member to receive that medicine and they have been tested for an allergy prior to administration of the treatment.


Player misjudged how tired he was and awoke when it was still dark outside. He groaned and sat up, rubbing his left arm where it had gone numb. He peaked out the crack in the door to confirm what he already knew, and was greeted by two rotting brown eyes.

The zombie crooned in excitement and threw itself at the blocks, shaking the wood a little. Player backed off and hid himself out of sight. He sank back down onto the sleeping bag with a sigh. His back and neck were stiff and his legs were sore from walking. The peaches had been more filling than he had expected, and he didn't feel the need to eat yet.

He sat down and let his head drop onto his chest. His body was no longer tired, but he was suffering an acute mental fatigue he had never experienced before. He had put up a good front so far, but the next developement would break him, he was sure of it. What kind of break it would be he did not know, but he was sure he would crack.

"Forgive me," he muttered, "there's only so much I can take."

The zombie stopped pounding on the barricade. It groaned but was cut off abruptly. Player looked up, bracing for whatever was about to happen, but nothing happened and nothing continued to happen for three minutes or so.

He crawled forward onto his knees and peered at the opening. Nothing was there. There was no flash of white eyes, no voice talking to him. There was only silence.

Player stood up, rolled up his sleeping bag, retrieved his pack, and approached the exit. He squinted through the crack he had left open. There were mobs in the distance: skeletons in the treeline, but nothing closer than that. He removed the barricade and stuck his head, checked for traps on either side of the doorway. When nothing launched at him, he stepped out of the cave. His ears were straining for any sign of danger, but the only sounds were the distant rattles of the skeletons. The undefined and oppressive fear of the valley was heavy on him, and it made him pause for longer than was prudent, but finally he stepped away from the cave and walked toward the tree line. There was a gap in the skeletons, and if he was careful he could slip right through it.

"Do all humans sleep for so long?"

Player jumped and cried out. He spun around, raising his hands in a defensive gesture he knew was all but useless.

Herobrine was just stepping down off the hill onto level ground. He gave Player a long look, sizing him up. "I have a…" his eyes narrowed, like it pained him to say it, "proposal for you, human."

Player shook his head. He felt himself straining, trying to hold it together.

The demon mistook the meaning behind the gesture. His half-smirk turned to a scowl. "You will listen to this. Do not try to run."

Running was the last thing on Player's mind. If he spoke what he thought aloud, that might help. "I told you," he said, "you've destroyed everything. The town, my friendships, the little trust we all shared-"

"Give me the book back," Herobrine said.

Player blinked. "What?"

"You still have the book. If I'm so awful, give me the book and I'll find someone else to give it to besides you. The effect will be the same."

The words popped out before Player could suppress them, "you wrote that it was for me alone."

A shrug, "I can always modify it. If you won't give it up willingly, I can take it from you by force." There was no doubt in Player's mind he could.

The human opened his inventory and retrieved the book. He looked down at it. The solution to the game, the Ending, right there in his hands. He did not want to give it up, but he would for the sake of getting rid of the demon. Wouldn't he?

Player opened the book to the first page and reread it. "Not a monster at all," he thought, and he broke. He was being unfair, and he knew it. Whatever Herobrine was, whoever he was, he had not known that it was Player's life he was destroying when he attacked the village. That was overly dramatic anyway. Player's life was not destroyed. He was still breathing. In fact, Herobrine had saved him twice now. He should be thanking the demon for that.

He closed the book and looked back up. Herobrine's shoulders relaxed. There was a light in Player's eyes he had been missing in their last encounter.

"I'm angry that you levelled that town," the man said.

The demon's mouth twitched up, but he made no reply.

Player let the moment linger for a little longer than was necessary, and then he relented. "What proposal?"

"Why do you think they'll never trust you again?"

He laughed and looked down at himself, then back up at the demon. "They won't let me get close enough to see my eyes," he pointed out, "and if someone catches me talking to you? Forget it."

"Everyone will do that?"

"Clarence, maybe, will hesitate, but like you said: they aren't really killing me, are they?"

Herobrine nodded. "Why can't you complete the game without them?"

Player waved the book in the air, "I'll need a gladiator for this."

The demon cocked his head, questioning.

"Ender pearls! I can't take on a farmer, let alone an enderman. They're worse than most of the people here."

"You could if you tried."

Player gaped at him for a moment, then shook his head. "Whatever."

"You don't have to do it without help anyway." Herobrine sounded nervous. His body language was tense again.

The human all but threw his hands up. "Who would help me after all this? Who?!"

Herobrine didn't say anything. Player looked at him for a few seconds. The questions had not been rhetorical. The demon gave an offended huff and turned away. He walked back into the trees.

Only then did the slow human brain, taxed by recent events, kick out an explanation. Player jolted with it. He ran forward a couple steps. "Herobrine, wait! Hold on a minute!"

The figure stopped and looked back at him over one shoulder, white eye glaring with renewed disgust.

"I didn't realize you were-" he took a moment to collect himself, "I'd be grateful to have your assistance if you're willing to give it."

"Yes, human, I thought that was obvious." Herobrine turned back to him, but now he did not look half as irritated as he had before.

Player shuffled his feet, looking down. He didn't know whether to be flattered or frightened. "Well," he said, "I don't see how you can really help with the first part. It's kind of a one-person job."

"The whole thing is a one-person job."

"Maybe for you, but-"

"For you too, if you cared to try."

The human brushed the words aside, "What I'm trying to say is I'll get the obsidian on my own. That I can do."

Herobrine smirked at him, "and how do you propose to do that?"

"All I have to do is find lava and water. You don't have to hang around."

"How will you make it to the cave?"

"I'll walk," Player was backing up now, eager to put some distance between himself and the unnatural man.

The grin broadened, "In the dark?"

Player looked around. There was a ring of mobs around them, packed together densely. There were open-mouthed creepers, skeletons posed with bows by their sides for once, zombies just holding their bodies together, spiders dancing between the legs of the other monsters. They were all silent, and they seemed to be watching. He swallowed, "M-maybe you should stay nearby."

Herobrine chuckled, "There are certain benefits to my company, human." He walked towards Player, but the human backed off. "You're not totally comfortable in my presence I see."

"You did level a town, and kill a man."

"Yes I did."

Player heard an eager screech behind him. He had strayed too close to the edge of the circle. He wheeled around just in time to get hit in the chest with the coarse hairy body of an oncoming spider. He went down with a cry of panic, grappling with the many-legged monster. He put his arms over his face, protecting it from the jaws, receiving a painful nip on his forearm.

He got a leg up beneath the spider and pushed with his knee, forcing it farther away from him, but it's grip was strong. With a grunt of effort, he succeeded in removing its hold on him, and the spider flailed in the air for a moment. The human twisted and pinned it against the ground with the same knee that had pried it loose.

Player snatched the pickaxe from his back, inverted it, and used the curved edge as a hammer. He cracked the exoskeleton on the first try, and the spider stopped struggling. Green goo oozed out of the cracks in the black skin.

Player looked up, still breathing hard. The tip of the shimmering diamond blade was only a few inches away from his face. Herobrine's grip on the hilt of the sword was steady, and if he wanted to he could take the human's head with one swing, but he wasn't looking down at Player. He was glaring at the mobs in the circle that had rushed forward when the spider attacked, his face twisted into a look of such rage and hatred that they were actually backing away.

Player didn't notice that. He was too busy watching the sword, making sure it didn't come anywhere near him. The bite on his arm was swelling already and still bleeding. Herobrine seized him by it and hauled him onto his feet, and Player winced as the pressure increased. The sword was pointed at his neck now. The gleam of it was almost blinding.

"Mine," Herobrine growled at the mobs around them, and even the zombies stepped back. "Understand? This one is mine."

Player shivered. The demon was still gripping his arm, and even though the grip was painful it was nice to be touched by another person. "He's a murderer," he told himself, "a murderer and a griefer. And he's someone who obviously wants to help me." That last part hadn't been in the script, and it caught him off guard. Herobrine squeezed his arm, and warmth shot up Player's spine. It was an involuntary response.

The ring of mobs dispersed. They all turned away and vanished into the forest as one, and after a few seconds Herobrine and Player were the only two in sight. The demon held his sword up for a moment or two more, and then he lowered it. His body was partially behind Player now, and the warmth from it was distracting. It was making him forget every conviction he had gone into the encounter with.

Herobrine spoke a moment later, not moving at all, "You should go back into your cave until it's light."

Player shook his head a little.

"You can't be expecting me to protect you until dawn," that was spoken almost directly into his ear.

The human trembled for a moment, "No," he said finally, forcing some sort of composure into his voice, "I can hold my own."

"Disappointing," Herobrine purred. His voice sounded a little shaky.

Player swallowed, "You can… I'd welcome the help-"

"Maybe I will," Somehow he knew that he had said what the demon had wanted him to. Perhaps it was the way the body had moved a little closer to his.

And then Herobrine dropped his arm and stepped back, and Player was left light-headed with his stomach doing flips inside him and acutely aware of the night breeze on his skin. He turned and looked at the demon. His cheeks looked a little flushed, but perhaps that was a trick of the light.

Herobrine cleared his throat a little awkwardly, like he realized he had pushed a little too far, "Where are you planning to go?"

Player didn't reply. He stayed quiet. His misgivings were coming back, and it irritated him both because they were so easily suspended and because it indicated that his attraction to Herobrine was physical. The demon was almost a perfect duplicate of himself, and Player didn't like the idea he was attracted to his own appearance.

Herobrine insisted in a more serious tone, "Where are you going, human?"

"Home," Player said, and then "West across the valley. It's just inside the mountains."

The demon raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'll be able to find it when I get close," he insisted.

"Very well, West it is." He turned on his heel and started walking towards the setting moon.

Player stood still, watching the familiar figure moving away from him. His torso had emptied of insects and now his chest ached for want of...something. His body was throwing him from emotion to emotion faster than he could process. He had entertained a certain amount of attraction towards Clarence, it was true, but that was an uncomplicated thing in comparison to this, and he had never really admitted it to himself before that moment. Herobrine made everything difficult.

"Are you coming, human?" Herobrine called to him, and Player hurried after him.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, the human a little ways behind the demon, watching him move. Herobrine walked like an animal, all shoulders and chest. Every step was like he was declaring his dominion over the world. Several times mobs approached out of the trees, but each time they drew back. The only time Herobrine reacted was when an enderman burbled nearby, and he moved a bit closer to Player, but even that may have not been anything at all.

Finally, the human could not keep silent. "What did you mean 'this one is mine'?"

Herobrine glanced at him, disinterested. "Mobs don't understand much beside ownership."

"Oh."

"They should leave you alone from now on."

That wasn't a bad thing, but Player wasn't sure he liked being sheltered. "I can deal with mobs," he said.

Herobrine said nothing, and soon he was regretting he had spoken at all.

They walked for a while more in silence, long enough for Player to forget about the embarrassment and start thinking about other things he wanted to ask. Then Herobrine glanced up and swung off the path. He chose a tall tree and climbed up into the branches with ease, twice kicking his legs up above his head to reach a tricky hold and then folding himself up backwards. He vanished into the leaves.

Player stopped walking, unsure of what was happening. Had the demon simply lost interest in him? Was he already free of Herobrine's company? He hoped not.

His head appeared over the edge of the tree. "Are you coming?"

Player started, and then walked to the tree. It looked a lot taller from directly below the branches. He hesitated, waiting for Herobrine to check on him, and then realized that he would get no such thing from the demon. He took a breath and reached up. He had to jump to reach the first branch, and it creaked under his weight. His ascent was undignified and ungraceful, but he got there in the end. When his head finally broke through the top leaves, Herobrine offered him a hand to pull him up. Player took it without thinking, and the demon hauled him up onto the upper canopy.

He shook leaves out of his hair and brushed down his clothes. The bark had left brown dust on him in several places as he climbed.

Herobrine sat down on the edge of the tree, looking East towards the mountains. They still loomed above the valley from this angle, while those in the West were barely more than a squiggle on the horizon. The huge peaks were outlined in the faintest hint of orange.

Player sat down on the leaves a little behind Herobrine and crossed his legs. He looked at the still form, so similar in design to himself. The only movement from Herobrine was the movement of his hair as the wind passed through it. The same wind rustled in the leaves, making them rub against the denim of his jeans. Finally, he could not be silent any longer.

"Why are we up here?" He asked quietly, afraid to disturb the silence of the wind and Herobrine's stillness.

"For this," Herobrine replied, beckoning him forward.

Player slid forward until he was side-by-side with the demon, his legs dangling into the empty space beneath the tree. He glanced at Herobrine, but the man wasn't looking at him. He was watching the mountains. The clouds of pale white around the peaks signalling snow glimmered gold in the orange halo.

The human looked at it too, and he slowly began to understand, and just as he felt he was starting to get it, the sun broke over the tip of the tallest peak, and the warm yellow light instantly turned the valley from a bleached moon-shade of itself into the radiant shining place he remembered from that first glimpse a few days ago. The forest was bathed in gold. It dripped through the leaves onto the grass below. It danced on the water of the lakes and rivers. It spun through the air and warmed the skin of the two figures sitting side-by-side on the tree.

Player let out an involuntary gasp, but other than that he was silent. He could sense Herobrine did not want to de disturbed. Still he remembered Clarence's words when he first saw the valley, "See? Something here is wrong." How could anything so beautiful be wrong?

He glanced at Herobrine, and for the first time caught a glimpse of the being contented. He wasn't angry or nervous or expecting an attack. He was just watching the sunrise, the first time he had been able to in over seven months, and he wasn't spoiling it by paying attention to the human by his side. Player felt the sudden urge to put an arm around the demon's shoulders, but he couldn't work up the courage to do so.

Finally, after the whole round sun had come over the mountains, Herobrine stirred. He stretched his arms over his head, like he had been taking a nap and was waking up.

"Do you still have the strawberries?" Player asked. He was feeling a little hungry.

"I ate them."

"You ate them?"

"It didn't seem likely you were going to."

That made sense. Of course it did, but Player gave an annoyed grunt anyway.

There was silence for a moment, and then Herobrine turned to him. He wasn't smirking or frowning or sneering. He looked very calm. "Go ahead," he said, "ask."

He didn't ask himself how the demon knew. "Why did you destroy the town?"

Herobrine looked down and frowned.

"And why did you kill everyone there? And Gaimon. Why did you kill Gaimon?"

"I thought you didn't care about any of that."

"I do care. I'm trying to make sense of it."

"Of what?"

"Of this you," he gestured at the valley, at the rising sun and the forest, "and that you, that did those things."

"It's the same me, human."

"I know that!" Player took a breath, "Hero… Herobrine, please explain why you did those things."

Herobrine looked down again. He shifted, and his hands bunched the leaves of the tree together absently. He gathered his thoughts. "I destroyed the village," he started, "because they had stagnated. They were tearing the earth apart, and they had nothing to show for it but piles of food rotting in warehouses."

Player leaned back a little in surprise.

"I attacked and despawned the players there because if I had not they would have gone on stagnating there forever," he paused a moment. "I don't know why I killed the boy. I wanted to stop him talking."

"You… you killed someone and that's all you have?! 'I wanted to stop him talking'?"

A flash of white light from the narrowed eyes, anger for the first time in nearly half an hour. "What else do you want? Regret? Penance? Guilt?"

Player raised his hands and scooted back from the edge, afraid Herobrine would throw him off the tree if he got too mad. "Easy," he said, "I didn't mean-"

"Screaming bible verses at me sure communicates that well,"

"I'm sorry I did that," was it really a bible verse? Technically yes: it was one of the ten commandments. It wasn't a particularly odd thing to think of in that situation; it was common knowledge, but he could not remember ever having read it or heard it from anyone.

"People have been killed for less," Herobrine said, "and are, at alarming rates." A second's pause, "That doesn't make it good or right, but I don't know what to do about it now."

Player didn't know what to say to that. He looked up at the mountains again, and that calmed him. The demon was taking this very well, he thought. He had anticipated a lot more resistance.

"I don't even know if I killed him," Herobrine went on, more softly. "I know I did something, but it was more like I set off a chain reaction than did the deed myself."

Player shuddered a little. He spoke quickly, acting on the instinct before it could flee. "Can I tell you something?"

Herobrine looked at him, "Not if you're going to guilt trip me."

"No, it's not about that. It's about 4980."

"4980?"

Player shifted his weight to get comfortable, "Ya. There were originally four-thousand nine-hundred and eighty players in the game, and we all slept in that huge complex. We had one room each, and we were in numerical order. I'm the four-thousand nine-hundred and seventy-ninth player, so 4980 was right next to me."

"You were neighbors?"

"I guess so. We didn't talk much, but we got stuck together for a lot of stuff. He never turned his back on me and I never turned my back on him." Player dug his nails into his palms to maintain control, "I never even learned his name, can you believe that? We spent months living beside one another and we never once exchanged names!"

Herobrine didn't reply for a moment. He wasn't sure where the human was going with this. When it was clear that Player wasn't going to go on without prompting, he said, "What happened?"

The human shook his head. "We were both coming out of our rooms one morning. He passed me in the hall because I was walking slow. I didn't feel good. I was nauseous. I said hello, and he gave me this curt little nod, the kind he always did, and he kept going for fifteen or twenty steps, and then he grabbed his chest and fell over."

Player briefly reflected that this was what Clarence must have felt telling his story about the monster nearly killing him. It was painful, but it felt like a weight was lifting off him.

"I ran over," he continued, his voice growing fainter so that Herobrine had to lean in to hear him, "by then he was all the way on the ground. I got him onto his side, and I realized that he wasn't having a heart attack or a seizure or anything like that. He was suffocating. He couldn't breathe. His mouth was moving and saliva was bubbling on his lips and he couldn't get air into his lungs. I didn't know until that day that it takes about five minutes to suffocate after your air is cut off. That's how long it took for him to die, maybe a little longer.

"And before you ask, we tried everything we could think of. He cut him a new airway, we stuck our fingers down his throat looking for a blockage. A couple gladiators hauled him upside down and shook him. All that happened was he threw up, and that came up just fine. There was nothing wrong with his throat that we could find." Player was choking now, eyes not closed against the tears but refusing to blink for fear of letting them roll down his face, "He died there in the hallway, covered in vomit and blood, struggling breathe, holding my hand." Finally a sob broke loose, and he folded forward.

Herobrine started to reach towards him, but he remembered that Player did not like to be touched when he was in distress and drew back. He would wait, even though every ounce of common sense was screaming for him to comfort the human.

"It was stupid and senseless. He didn't do anything to deserve it. It just happened, and there was nothing any of us could do." Player sniffled, fought back the tears, "He didn't say anything deserving of death. He couldn't say anything in those last minutes. If someone like him can die without cause, I can believe that Gaimon deserved it. Maybe."

He looked into Herobrine's eyes. The face looking back was slack with quiet amazement. There was a tenderness in the demon's face, not pity but empathy. He had lost someone too, Player could tell. Perhaps he had not been present for the event, forced to watch a friend take their last breaths right before him, but Herobrine new what it was like for something that was constant to suddenly not be at all. Maybe the he wasn't ready to share his experience yet, but Player had no problem waiting.

He held out a hand, offering a handshake. "Thanks for listening."

Herobrine took it, his warm palm pressed against Player's, and then he seemed to decide something and pulled the human in close to him. He wrapped his free arm around the man's shoulders and squeezed. Player stiffened at the unexpected contact, but he relaxed by degrees over the next few seconds. The demon was only mirroring what he had done for Clarence, after all. He had no real right to protest, and it felt good to be embraced. He dropped the demon's hand and hugged back. Had he processed the fact that he was balling his fists in Herobrine's shirt, he would have been embarrassed, but he was too caught up in the memory and the touch of warm skin to worry about little things like that.

Tears ran down his face, as silent as he could bear to make them. Herobrine didn't stir except to put his other arm around Player's shoulders too. The human could not see, but Herobrine was crying too, not for the nameless 4980, but for those who had left him alone. There were three. He missed them all deeply, but he had not noticed how much until Player's story had reopened the old wounds and made him feel the loss again.

"Someone out there must be mourning like this for the boy I killed," Herobrine realized. He understood then why Player was so furious at him. It was not fair to force this pain on someone else, not for any reason.

Player drew back from Herobrine, and the demon released him. The human turned away, wiped his eyes and took several deep breaths. He put a smile on and turned back to the demon. "Do you really want to come with me?"

Herobrine shrugged, "I can't think of anything else I should be doing."

Somehow Player understood that translated into a very positive, "yes."

"Then we should get moving," he said, standing up on top of the tree.

Herobrine, typically, dropped off the edge onto the ground, but Player wasn't feeling very gymnastic just then, so he settled for scrambling down the branches and trunk again. The demon was watching him with intense interest when he reached the ground, and Player couldn't help thinking that he was sizing up his abilities. The later chapters of the book he had been given indicated need for combat, and he guessed that this was Herobrine's primary concern.

"West it is," the demon said, as soon as Player had reached him. He put his back towards the rising sun and started walking. The human kept pace beside him, his mind empty of all but the catharsis of confession and the physical gratification of the embrace. The silence between them as they walked was a comfortable one.