Chapter 8: Trauma

Steve

The house was on fire.

Flames licked at the wood, turning it black. A hot ember landed on my arm, and I quickly brushed it off. Herobrine stood on the other side of the flaming room. He wore a deranged smile, and had his sword in hand. He seemed unfazed by the fire.

"Come on, Steven. Is that the best you can do?" He mocked me. He raced at me, and I deflected his hit with my own sword. As our blades clashed, the house became less and less structurally sound. The oak boards above my head creaked, threatening to come crashing down. Herobrine managed to send my sword flying out of my grasp, and it got lodged in a flaming pile of debris. Herobrine kicked me in the chest, and I fell to the ground with a thud. "Shame. I thought you had more in you, Steven." He plunged his sword into my chest, and I screamed in pain. He snickered and vanished, and I watched as my blood soaked my shirt. Ash and blood mixed together to make a muddy brown mixture on the floor. The ceiling moaned one last time before crashing down on me.

…

I shot up in bed, panting heavily. My eyes flew around the room, and I remembered where I was. I was not on fire. Herobrine wasn't here. It was all a dream. I put a hand on my sweat-soaked shirt to steady my breathing. I was still in the Dragonslayer's base. The room was lit by a torch, just bright enough to keep mobs from spawning but not bright enough to wake us up. I lied back down in bed closed my eyes. It was all a dream, but it was based off of what really happened to me. Herobrine did stick a sword through my chest, and the ceiling did come down on me. If Notch hadn't undid whatever Herobrine did to me that prevented me from respawning… I wouldn't be here right now. The thought unsettled me, and I rolled over to see Alex.

Her bed was empty.

Panic swelled up in me, and I crushed the thought that Herobrine somehow killed her. If he did, I would also be dead. I grabbed my sword, just in case. I ventured down the wood hallways, calling her name. I checked every room I could find, but she wasn't here. I paused at the portal, wondering if she (for some reason) went into the Nether, but I decided against it. Neither of us were equipped to go into that hellish realm. She probably was on the surface, killing mobs or something.

The night was beautiful. The moon was full, and it cast a silvery light on the dragon statue. I climbed out of the hole and looked around. I killed a single zombie that came at me, but other than that, there were no mobs out. There wasn't even a single spider. Odd. Where were all the mobs?

I was too busy thinking I didn't notice the creeper behind me. But instead of blowing me back to my bed, it walked right past me like I was invisible. I stared at it in confusion, and it walked right past me without giving me a second thought.

That was… not normal.

The creeper stopped next to a woman sitting cross-legged in the grass. Her back was to me, but I could see Alex's orange hair in the moonlight. The creeper nuzzled her hand, and she pet it. I was confused to no end. What the nether was happening? Why didn't that creeper try to kill me? And why in Notch's green world was Alex petting it?

"Alex?"

I had never seen Alex stand up and whirl around so fast before. She had a sword in hand, and I think for a second, she thought I was Herobrine. When she realized my eyes were blue, she stared at me in fear and guilt. "Steve! What are you doing awake?"

"I could ask you the same question." My gaze shifted to the creeper, who hissed at me angrily but didn't explode. "And what's with the creeper?"

Alex's eyes darted to it. "Get out of here," she whispered. It hissed in protest, but it walked away. I stared at her. She just spoke to a creeper. And it understood her.

"Alex, what's going on? Why are you acting weird?"

"What are you talking about?" Alex smiled nervously.

"You just ordered a creeper. That is not normal, Alex." I crossed my arms.

Alex hesitated, then sighed. "I'm sorry. I cant tell you. Notch said."

"What does Notch have to do with any of this?"

The dreaded hiss of a creeper came from behind me. I barely had time to react when the same creeper that Alex was petting blew up behind me. I was launched high into the air, and came back down hard. I stood up and brushed the dust off my legs, only to find Alex was gone. I grumbled curses and went back inside.

Herobrine

The sun was just coming up when I teleported back in our cave. I was greeted by Nightmare, who glared at me.

"What?"

"Where were you!? I couldn't find you anywhere!"

"Relax, 'mom'. Am I not allowed to spend the night tormenting players?"

"I was worried something happened to you. You didn't tell me where you were."

I rolled my eyes. Well, no one could tell, but you get the picture. "Nightmare, I can take care of myself. I don't need you to watch out for me."

"History says otherwise," Nightmare responded darkly.

"That was a long time ago. When that happened, all I knew was my own name. I'm better now. Stronger. The players cant touch me now."

…

I fell on my back, but before I could stand back up again an arrow pierced my hand. I screamed in pain and tried to pull it out. The player loomed over me, a smug smirk on his face. He looked identical to me, from hair color to shirt. There were only two differences between us: I had glowing white eyes while he had blue, and he sat at a computer an entire dimension away. The player sneered. "Freak."

Freak. Glitch. Mistake. Monster. Ive heard them all. What did I ever do to deserve this much hatred from the player?

The player dragged his sword across my chest, leaving a deep, long gash. I screamed, but the player didn't care. Over and over again, until his sword was dyed red with my blood. I was barely clinging onto consciousness. I wanted to run. I wanted to do anything, anything at all to escape my blue-eyed doppelgänger. The player poised his sword above me, ready to plunge it into my heart and end me. How painful was dying? It couldn't be any worse than this.

Something snapped in me. Maybe it was my sanity, or maybe it was my will to live kicking in, I don't know. But I was not about to be killed by a player while they sat comfortably behind a screen. This was not how Herobrine would go. In a flash, I was on my feet. Blood dripped down my pants and on my shoes, but at the moment I didn't care. My eyes shone as bright as the sun.

"What th—" the player started, but I didn't let him finish. I grabbed his sword and shoved it into his stomach. I stared into his eyes, and his character began to pixelated and glitch. That character. That filthy blue-eyed bastard whom I'm supposed to be the "white-eyed lookalike" of. Steven.

I corrupted the player's computer, deleted his account, and made sure he never forgot my name. "Stupid human. Don't you know who I am!? I AM HEROBRINE!" I shouted. With a final burst of power, the player ceased to exist in the internet. I was left with no evidence he even existed except his builds and the bloodstained sword in my hands

That's when the blood loss kicked in.

…

"H-Herobrine. I cant breathe." Nightmare wheezed. I realized my hand was clasped around his throat, and I somehow lifted him off his feet despite he was six inches taller than me. My eyes dimmed and I let go of him.

"I-I'm sorry, Nightmare. You know how I get those flashbacks, and i…" I stuttered. I hung my head in shame.

"It's ok, Herobrine. It's my fault. I shouldn't have brought it up."

I nodded and bit my lip to suppress tears. I quickly waked out of the cave and decided to go fins something else to do.

Steve

The next morning, I wasn't sure what had been a dream and what actually happened. Alex was acting like nothing strange happened between us, so I settled on it being a dream.

Either Rashain or Panther had logged on early and had left us a handful of signs for today.

FOR IF STEVE AND ALEX LOG ON TODAY:

Hey! After school today Rashain has a basketball game, so neither of us will be online. Catlover may be on, so if you could keep her out of our base, that would be great. You can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't involve grieving, stealing, or trapping our spawn points. :)

—Rashain + Panther

"Sweet, a day off," Alex remarked upon seeing the sign.

"A day off from what?" I asked.

Alex shrugged. "I don't know. Pretending to be players, I guess."

I nodded. "What do you want to do first?"

"Eat breakfast," she said with a conformational nod. I laughed, and we headed toward the storage room. We looted the food chests, finding a wide variety of things to eat. Alex settled with a few pieces of bread, a slice of cake, and milk to finish it all off.

I couldn't help but find myself staring. Alex is beautiful. The way she moves, the way she talks, the way she gets that glint in her eyes when she smiles…

Alex glanced over at me, and I pretended to be looking at something else. She went back to her food, oblivious.

I should ask her out. According to everything I've heard from Rashain and Panther, when you like a girl, you ask her out on a date. What a date entails, and how to ask Alex, I had no idea. I needed answers for these questions, though.

A loud explosion ripped me from my thoughts. We both looked at each other, both with the same question: what was that!? We scrambled to the surface, as that was where it came from. Catlover was standing by the statue, examining her nails casually. A large hole had been blown in one of the dragon's wings, probably the damage done by the explosion. "Hello," Catlover said casually.

"What are you doing here?" Alex asked. She drew a sword.

"Just thought I'd, like, say hi to my brothers' pet noobs."

I glanced at Alex. "What's a noob?"

Catlover's eyebrows shot up. "You know, someone who's, like, new to the game. You are literally, like, running around in starter skins. The only thing more more noob than that would be, like, using a bed you set your respawn point in the nether."

"We're not that dumb," I said.

"We'll see," Catlover responded. "So, I'm here, like, because Panther stole my favorite diamond pickaxe, and I, like, want it back. Give it to me, and I'll, like, not blow up your base."

"What pickaxe?" Alex asked.

"A diamond pickaxe enchanted with, like, efficiency, unbreaking, and mending. It is literally, like, named 'Catlover321's pickaxe'. Panther, like, broke into my base a few days ago, stole it, and now, like, wont give it back. Where is it?!"

"I swear, we don't know what you're talking about," I said.

"Oh, so you, like, want to play it that way?" Catlover beckoned two players forward. They were both in full enchanted diamond armor. "You two are, like, coming with us. Drop all your items or I'm gonna kill you!" We obeyed. We didn't really have much worth keeping, except Alex's sword. Catlover sifted through it, then when she decided none of it was worth keeping, she burned it. "Now come with us. Try anything stupid and you'll, like, be banned."

I mean, technically we couldn't be banned, but we complied anyway. One of the armored player's trailed behind us, and the other walked with Catlover ahead of us.

"What are we gonna do?" I whispered.

"What do you mean, 'what are we gonna do'?"

"What's our plan to get out of this?"

Alex shrugged and glanced at the guard behind us. "I don't know. There really isn't anything we can do right now. We'll just have to wait until we get to our destination."

I nodded. Little did we know, red and black eyes watched us from a distance.