Sorry it took so long, and if you thought the chapters kept getting smaller and smaller: you're right! That was completely by accident, and by no means do I want to give the impression that future chapters will be tiny one hundred word "chapters" (shudders)... Be sure to read the note at the bottom when you're done reading! :)

Herobrine and Notch shuff down the left-hand side of the ravine, a heavy silence between them. As Hemming controls Herobrine, the sinking feeling of dread remains all too ominous and all too unclear. I don't understand, he thinks, frustrated, why it won't go away. GO AWAY already, there is nothing wrong and there is nothing bad! This is just a computer game, it can't affect me in real life.

"H-hey, Markus?"

"What is it?" Markus blinks and adjusts his headset.

Hemming bites his lip hard and looks down at his worn brown shoes. "Nothin'."

As the two players reach the halfway point of the ravine, something catches Markus's eye. "Ah! A glitch!"

Hemming jumps and knocks his forearm into the open glass of water sitting precariously on his desk. Gasping, he jerks his head down to the floor, his white hand clutching the back of his worn chair. The paper cup rolls back and forth in its own soiled mess upon the crusty carpet. "What glitch?" Hemming replies, annoyed, rolling his eyes. He sits back up in his chair and growls as his feet hit and squish into sodden fibers. "There's only a tunnel there. Y' know, from the cave system."

Notch walks into the thin, two blocks tall and one block wide, tunnel, forcing Herobrine to follow out of shear curiosity. Hemming's bad feeling burns darker. Markus automatically starts to place torches on the right side as he leads farther and deeper down the redundant row of invisible air blocks. After several minutes of background thunder and Minecraft silence, Hemming groans loudly. "Come on, Markus! We're not getting anywhere! At this rate, I'l be long dead and gone by the time we reach the end!"

"Patience, Hemming! We have to exploit this, which I'm sure you're well aware of." he replies in a chipped voice. Hemming narrows his eyes and moves his player ahead of Notch. "What are you doing? You lost all your items, you'd be worthless up front!"

Herobrine stops and slowly turns around. As he does so, Minecraft lags worse that it has been before. Hemming's emotions seethe as Notch takes the lead again with a stuffy "Thank you." But as Notch continues his pointless plight of glitch-busting, Herobrine doesn't move. In fact, he stays painfully still.

"I'm not moving." Hemming's ominous whisper buzzes breathily over Markus's headset. He frowns, then rolls his eyes and keeps moving. "Markus, stop." He stays mobile. "Markus. Stop."

"What?" Hemming's brother says icily, finally stopping.

Hemming's face contorts with a certain fury to it. His right hand tightens around the mouse: if it were real, he would have surely killed it. "It's jus' a stupid tunnel, Markus. Probably done by the same stupid hacker that's inside your game RIGHT NOW!" he screams. "And you call me worthless. Guess who saw that player and guess who tried to tell you." His voice lowers to a growl. "But I'm just your worthless, unemployed brother. Naturally you wouldn't believe him. He's just the worthless 'n00b' player who doesn't know a 'Zombie' from a 'Steve.'"

"I-I... There's a hacker?" Markus's voice is very small. "Well then, we have to catch him!" he decides, unabashed. Hemming feels tears come to his eyes as his brother's avatar starts up again. "If he is the one who dug this, then we have to find him before he causes too much damage!" Notch goes at a beta-test sprint. Gasping, Hemming jams his finger on the correct key to catch up with his brother's frantic avatar.

Notch abruptly stops at the lip of a yawning cavern. Herobrine barely halts in time. In the middle of the dead-end cave was a lavafall that flows out to all but a thick ring of smooth-stone blocks outlining the pool. "We've hit a cave." Hemming notices.

"No. A cavern, Hemming. It doesn't branch off."

"Right." He rolls his eyes.

Hidden from the sight of the two beta testers, in the right-hand corner of the cavern, is a simple Steve clutching a diamond pick in his blocky hand. The avatar glitches as it mines a rich vein of diamond set deep in the cave's wall. It abruptly stops as Notch and Herobrine enter the cavern and delves into his inventory bar.

"Hey-hey, who the heck-?! Hem, where did you see this guy?!"

"In that cave I accidentally spawned in! I tried telling you!"

"Jus' shut up and get away, Hemming!" Markus yells harshly. "I'll deal with him!"

"Give me a sword, and let me fight." Hemming says slowly in reply. "Shove down your ego for one minute and give. Me. A. Sword."

Markus purses his lips and sighs, throwing a duplicate iron sword out from his inventory bar. Herobrine steps over it and sucks it up with pleasure. It automatically goes into his hand. "Thank you."

Notch also arms himself with a sword bearing a diamond blade. He faces off the generic Steve with anger, anger that some punk dares to hack into his game and jeopardize the entire beta test of Minecraft! "Get outaaa of here you littllle-!"

Two swords collide in an arc of sparks. The player, whose nametag reads as "DiamondShiner74", swings his sword again, the thick blade slamming into Notch's shoulder. Notch, seething, retaliates with a massive spam of his clicker. DiamondShiner74's avatar slides back as Notch connects with all his hits just as Minecraft's creator should.

"Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh!"

Diamond glitches for a moment, then suddenly zips forward. "WHAT?!" Markus screams, leaning forward in his desk-

"Markus, look OUUUT!"

"HEMMING-!"

-as DiamondShiner74 lands a critical blow on his brother.

Herobrine smashes to the ground, his ten red hearts stained black. Dead.

Notch stays eerily still, his breath exhaling raggedly from his mouth. Hemming's line crackles. "Go fight him, Markus." Hemming says, his lower lip trembling. "You're always gonna be a better fighter than me anyways." He smiles earnestly, little lines folding at the corners of his eyes. "I'll try to re-log in." His colorless eyes drift from the computer screen to his apartment's window. "Listen... If-if you don' beat 'im..."

Markus blinks and grips his mouse tighter as DiamondShiner74 begins to advance again. And yet he's listening, mouth gaping open slightly, as his brother's words will be forever seared into his mind, his heart. "I'll protect the players. Keep them safe from the things they can't see. I'm only there to protect them." His voice breaks. Silence is his brother's reply. "Markus..?"

"Hem. Hem, what's wrong?" Markus's mouth tastes metallic.

Hemming closes his eyes and twitches his mouth into a sad and lonely smile. "Don't say I don't exist."

A strange choking noise sounds over Markus's headset, and his connection with Hemming crackles dead. Markus double-takes, his heart beginning to flutter, and nervously moves Minecraft's window out of the way.

Caller Offline

Markus stares at the screen for a good long while, eyes wide. "H-Hem? Oh, what am I doin'?" He accidentally hung up on me. "In his state, I'm not surprised." he mutters, massaging his forehead. "Though what he said..." Going back to Minecraft, he sees that Hemming still has yet to log in after his character Herobrine's death and ominous, broken reassurance that everything is going to be alright.

Frustrated now, Markus attempts to re-call his brother. The call automatically prompts him to record and send a voice message. He blinks in surprise and grabs his phone, but drops it immediately when DiamondShiner74, recovered from his apparent lagging freeze, finishes his advance toward Notch. Markus screams an angry yell and slaughters the ignorant hacker in a blind fury.

Markus, gasping, leans forward in his chair and grips the edges of his desk hard. His hand shaking, he grabs his cell phone and jams his finger hard on the number designated for speed-dialing Hemming. The phone goes straight to voicemail. That's impossible, Markus darts his enlarged eyes from his cell to his computer. DiamondShiner74's particles finally finish dissipating. Hem uses his landlady's home line. He can't just TURN IT OFF.

The phone slips out of his sweaty hand and clatters to the floor. The weather radar for the lightning storm finally passes Hemming.

Three weeks later, Markus reluctantly completes a very beta Minecraft and his extensive, OCD notes on every possible glitch to ever riddle and befall his precious game. But as his gaze wanders from Jens praising email to the framed photo of the Persson family propped up on his mantel, something breaks in him. A very young and small Markus has his arm around an even smaller Hemming. Hemming wears a neck collar and is badly burned, yet looks very happy to be with his brother.

He picks the frame up and half-smiles. "You couldn't stop yourself, could you? Just... Just had to play during that thunderstorm." Markus's hand rests gently on the warm glass front protecting the picture, his fingers parted around Hemming's grinning face.

"No wonder your head wouldn't stop twitching."

Thank you so much for taking the time to read 5-17-09! The story of Hemming, Markus, and DiamondShiner74 isn't quite over just yet. Expect Chapter 6 coming soon! ;)