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Herobrine awoke with a start.

He blinked, focusing on the wooden beams of the ceiling above him, before lifting his head to try to find what had woken him. His first thought was Stephan, that he had made a noise or touched him, but his brother was across the room in his own bed, fast asleep. Though he was hopelessly tangled in his blankets, an approach to check on him revealed nothing out of the ordinary - no nightmares. Had it been something else?

Herobrine moved around the cabin quietly, as it was very late - or very early, he wasn't sure. Everything seemed to be in its place, and the doors and windows were shut. A glance outside revealed no mobs, as they were under strict orders not to bother him. Maybe a noise in his head, a dream of his own that he had immediately forgotten?

Whatever the case, he didn't feel as if he could sleep for a while yet.

Herobrine took the opportunity to poke around the cabin for a bit. There was a chest beside Stephan's bed, which he knew housed the weakness potions he had a habit of dosing himself with, but carefully easing the lid open revealed that it was empty. The brewing stands on the other side of the house laid empty as well, and the chest beside them held no spider eyes - only golden carrots. Either he was simply getting more skilled in hiding his addiction, or the time spent out of his house had helped significantly.

Leaving his brother be, Herobrine started to work on the chores that Stephan had been neglecting while away. He climbed down into his mineshaft, beginning to collect up the ores Stephan had left down here between trips into the mine. Herobrine spied a couple of mobs in the shadows, but they promptly scuttled away at the sight of him. Did they know how much he had changed?

Loading up the furnaces with coal and ores, Herobrine sat down against the side of one, relaxing against the heated stone. The sensation tugged at a long-buried memory deep in his subconscious, so faint he didn't know if he had experienced it in reality or merely in a dream. Perhaps before he was Herobrine. A lot of things had been enjoyable, back then.

His train of thought soon circled back around to his brother, and his odd insistence to visit another server.

A thought he had previously had was that Stephan had already visited one of the linked servers, and was seeking approval to continue, but he had shrugged it off fairly easily. Stephan wasn't prone to lying, especially about something of as great a matter as this. It was far more in character for Stephan to keep pestering him about it until he agreed, or found a similar solution. Hence, the worlds that Notch had agreed to let him download. Even now, Notch said he would be working on setting up a new server, one for Stephan to explore while he and Herobrine worked. A safe solution that would benefit both of them.

And yet, this nagging feeling, that something wasn't right, wouldn't go away.

The furnaces started to cool, signifying that their task was done. Herobrine methodically moved the finished product into another chest, then filled them with raw ores. He repeated the process for nearly an hour, pondering his progress with Notch and Stephan's recent changes. He didn't realize how drowsy he was becoming until he fell asleep against the side of the furnace, and stayed that way until dawn.

Steve watched the player with such rapt attention that he almost didn't notice when his invisibility potion wore off.

Fortunately, the potion was just one level of his disguise, as the leaves of the tree he perched in were more than enough to keep him hidden. The sight of his hand when he lifted it almost gave him a heart attack, but the player didn't notice a thing as he quickly downed a new potion, this time resolving to take another before the time ran out. He had 5 potions left, each lasting 8 minutes, so… 40 more minutes. Plenty of time before Herobrine would be done working with Notch.

Speaking of his brothers, he was amazed that neither of them had ever mentioned the process he watched right now. The player before him was building something, a mess of blocks he could make neither heads nor tails of, primarily using blocks made out of Redstone. Of course he had come across the material in his many excursions into the mines, but had known little about it other than its use in making redstone lamps. This… machine before him appeared to be a way to automatically grow trees, then chop them down.

He said "chop", but what this machine really did was blow them up with TNT and collect the fallen blocks. Steve was initially shocked at the sheer amount of TNT the player used, seemingly without care for how rare the resource was, until he watched as the player flew towards a strange structure off the coast of his base and collected several stacks of gunpowder from a chest.

Sneaking over to the structure himself had allowed him to hear the many hisses and cries of creepers inside, leading to his discovery of the player's second machine - an automatic creeper-killer. The machine collected the gunpowder and brought it up to a chest, allowing the player easy access to it. No wonder he could use so much TNT without worry, though he did wonder how he got so much sand.

Steve was slightly worried about the tree he sat in now, but it appeared that only the trees that were grown in the machine had any chance of being blown up. He sat at the top of a jungle tree, in a little space between two leaf blocks that was shaded by a vine. This allowed him a good view of the player's creations, while also rendering him almost completely hidden - even if the potion wore off.

As the player, named "Sootmeister", continued to place blocks and bits of redstone dust, Steve found himself growing bored. He couldn't tell if the player was making progress, as he would sometimes stop, dig up some blocks, then place them back down in a slightly different fashion. So, Steve made his way down the vine he had initially climbed, and crept into the player's base instead.

Like the other bases he had seen, it was huge, made up of a few different, large buildings. This base straddled the coastline, with a huge wall separating the water from the roads that ran between the buildings. Unlike the other bases, though, this one was not empty.

He was only passing by the first building when he heard the sounds of villagers inside. A quick glance around him revealed that the player was nowhere nearby, and he ducked through the door to investigate. Indeed, villagers were inside - but it wasn't a village.

His curiosity soon turned to dread as he spied the villagers, lined up along a wall and trapped in holes. They were all librarians, and most had a sign above their head noting which enchanted book they sold. The villagers had the same, mindless looks on their faces that the rest had, and probably didn't know the situation they were in, but it sickened Steve regardless. Giving the villagers a sad look, he snuck back out and moved on to the next building.

More villagers - these ones were farmers. They were trapped in glass cages with crops beneath them, mindlessly tilling and tending the soil even as the player stole the fruits of their labor from them. Another row of villagers along the wall were armor and weaponsmiths, also with signs above their heads. Steve had to stop and talk himself out of trying to free them - they'd know it was him, for sure, it wasn't safe.

"Hello!" A villager's call startled him, and he threw a glance towards the door to make sure the player hadn't arrived before looking towards the speaker. One of the armorsmiths lifted his arms to wave, drawing a smile from the miner. He whispered a hello in response, but hastily ducked away. He couldn't risk being spotted again.

As his invisibility was running low, he ducked into an alley and drank another potion. The player was still hard at work on his tree-farming machine, but Steve didn't want to take any chances. He wished there was an easier way to find out if other players were online, but, at least for him, it didn't seem to be an option.

Leaving behind the captive villagers, Steve made his way to the path he had taken and began to make his way back towards the server hub. A sign on the path had read "Sooty's Base", but it was only one of many of the roads that must span this entire server. He doubted that he would grow bored of this place for a long, long time.

Footsteps alerted him of a player's presence, and he ducked behind a tree on the side of the path as one came into view. The player was armorless, running and jumping as fast as it could go, and its name was "SoullessEyes". Steve watched as it ran past, dashing down the path as fast as it could go.

A firework went off nearby, and Steve blinked, looking up just in time to see another player whizz past on an elytra. The first immediately changed course, fleeing into the trees, but barely made it two blocks before an arrow struck it in the head, killing it instantly.

[SoullessEyes was shot by FaithfulFangirl's Thot Exterminator.]

Steve clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide with shock and horror. What was that? He hadn't seen any signs of the players being violent until now! Did players respawn-?

[SoullessEyes]: Bruh

[FaithfulFangirl]: lOL

The second player, FaithfulFangirl, landed to wait by the first's dropped items until they returned to collect it. This one was fully decked out in the black armor and weapons ("Netherite", he heard from Notch), as well as an elytra and a shimmering bow. SoullessEyes soon returned, head hung as they headed down the path without nearly as much panic as the first time. As he watched, they collected their items, then immediately bolted into the woods. FaithfulFangirl waited a few moments, then activated their elytra, shooting into the sky with the help of a firework rocket.

Peeking out from beneath his shelter (still invisible), Steve gazed up after her as the first player disappeared into the clouds. Was this… a game? Players were from the outside world, they didn't feel injury or death like he or Herobrine would. Was death so little of an inconvenience that they did it for enjoyment?

Was that what they were doing to Herobrine?

He had heard about what the players did after Caden kidnapped him so long ago. Hunted him down and killed him, over and over. Had they thought he was a player like them? Caden seemed to think so. At least, he had no idea what death did to him. They had just been playing a game, enjoying the thrill of the hunt, and the thrill of being hunted. Even those players hadn't been so bad.

His hand started to flicker, and he promptly downed another potion. Nearby, SoullessEyes burst out of the trees, dashing across the path before getting under cover again. Their pursuer landed on the path a moment later, obviously needing to continue the chase on foot, and though they passed just beside him Steve didn't feel the need to run away or hide. Instead, he sat down on a stump and rested his chin on his hand.

Maybe Herobrine was wrong about them, after all.