Chapter 3 – Be Afraid
When Herobrine awoke several hours later, he felt more restless than usual. It been two months since he was brought back, and with nothing to do, he was becoming incredibly bored. Leaving his ornate room and heading to the kitchen, he passed his zombie pigman guards who stood at tension as he passed. He had no concepts of meal times, when you live in a world with no night or day, there wasn't a need for it. He just ate whenever he was hungry. But as he ate his favourite beef stew, he paused before eating a piece of bread he had dipped in the stew, slowly putting it down.
Boredom was something he could never associate with himself. Not doing anything outside of reading his restocked library in the Nether was getting to him. He needed out, but that was where the problem was. He learned everything about the new world, how it changed and how the mortals reacted. He used this thing called 'the internet' and found countless references of himself, videos of apparently real sightings and professors who claimed they knew everything about him. But reading the reports of these so called professors, hardly any of the information was correct. Images depicting his figure were wrong and they could never get his nose right.
The only thing they all knew, was his glowing white eyes that could burn your soul.
He wanted to be out there again, haunting the mortals for fun and punishing the ones who were cruel. But would anyone believe that a legend was alive and breathing? No, because he was a legend… He wasn't real.
Herobrine pushed his food away, uninterested.
If the mortals didn't believe he ever existed, he would make them believe. If they claimed to have seen him, he would let them see him. If they said they aren't afraid, he would make them afraid. Notch had told him he couldn't kill, it didn't mean he couldn't hurt.
"Dave, get that camera rolling!"
"Alright, alright it's going, calm your farm Axel."
Focusing the camera on Axel, Dave shifted his stance to hold the bulky camera without shaking.
"Alright folks where back with a new episode of ghost or hoax! Today where at Semco, five hours south of Central city to investigate reports of strange sightings in old Isle castle just south-east of the town. I'm here with Fitzy White who has heard some strange stories at the desolate castle. So tell me Fitzy, what kind of spooky things have you been hearing?"
Axel presented the microphone to a middle aged man with greying black hair. "Well, I own a small fishing business close to the castle, the castles just on the water's edge. I didn't think much of it at first, but travellers sometimes stayed in the castle to avoid mobs during the night. Some would come down to buy fish from my business and asked me if anything lived in the castle, but it's been abandoned for hundreds of years"
"Interesting, so what did these travellers see?" Axel pressed on.
"They heard someone knocking on the walls, If they got close to it, it would stop."
"And you don't believe they're making it up?"
"All the travellers I've spoken to say the same thing, I'm not sure they can make it up if they all say the same thing."
"This is very interesting Fitzy, but I have to ask, what do you think, ghost or hoax?"
"I couldn't tell ya, if there all see'in the hearing the same thing, either someone's living in there, or something else is going on."
"Well that's why we're here Fitzy! Tonight we'll be staying in the Isle castle to see if someone's knocking on the stone walls at night."
"And, cut!" Dave said lowering the camera. "Let's start heading to that castle."
"Why the hell would someone want to live in that place?"
Axel, Dave and their crew of five others stood outside their van, contemplating if the dilapidated castle was even safe to enter. The occasional sound of a falling rock hitting the cobblestone floor reverberated throughout the castle.
"Where're getting paid to make the superstitious more superstitious, so we have to go in."
There was no door at the entrance, the only thing remaining was the hinges that looked like the door had been ripped of them. The mossy stone walls were lined with rusting metal racks holding the stumps of long burnt out torches. A small drip of water echoed of the walls. The passage led to a massive ballroom, mouldy red drapes with old symbols fell from the ceiling. Directly in front of them was another dark passage way with a set of stairs leading to higher levels on each side of it.
"We'll make camp here, it'll be the safest place. The sun'll set in an hour."
The crew layed out their equipment and beds, setting up a gas cooker in the middle for dinner later that night.
Thud, thud, thud.
"What was that?"
"Sounded like someone hitting a door." Axel turned on his flash light, pointing it around the room until it landed at the beginning of the dark passage.
Thud, thud, thud.
"It sounded like it was coming from down there. Dave get the camera going, we gotta take a look."
With slight reluctance, the others grabbed their equipment and started down the dark hall, flashlight illuminating the way while Axel narrated their journey. When he shined his light ahead, it lit up a large wooden door covered in various intricate locks.
Axel ran his hands over the old locks. "Do you think someone was trying to keep people out?"
"More like trying to keep something in. You're going to try open it aren't you." Dave replied.
"Of course. Is the camera still going?"
"Yeah, why would I turn it off?"
I locks were so old and rusted, with a tug they were pulled off the old oak doors. A couple of the other crew members shoved it open. From what they could tell from the light of the dirty stained glass windows, it was a throne room. It was shrouded in spider webs with the same moth-eaten red drapes hanging stiffly in the stale air. Dave walked forward until his boot hit something. He looked down to see a skeleton hand, following its arm to the rest of the burnt bones. The room was filled with them, laying haphazardly around what they could see of the room.
"All these bodies are burnt, fried to a crisp." Dave called out while moving the camera to show the bones in the recording.
Axel ran his hand down the cold stone walls. "There's no burn marks anywhere from a fire, so how did they get fried?"
Another cautious crew member had ventured further in, shining his flashlight forward until it hit the base of an old iron and gold throne…
"Uh… Guys?!" His voice was shaking as bad as his body.
"What is it?" Dave and Axel had spoken in unison, pointing their lights to the same point at the throne, as the others did as well.
They would have expected to see a skeleton slumped over in the throne with its bony feet sticking out into their lights, but the feet had shoes, black boots.
Slowly with a terrified tiny 'hello' from Axel, their lights travelled up the figure collapsed into the throne. Black boots met long black cargo pants, the pants met a black long sleeve shirt with very real hands at the ends. The shirt met a slouched head with dark brown messy hair.
They gulped.
"I-is h-he a-alive?" One of the crew squeak out past their nerves.
"I don't, don't know." Axel managed to squeeze out. "H-hey man, a-are you, alright?"
"No. I'm not."
They froze at the sound, but the voice wasn't threatening. It just seemed calm and… Sad.
"What's w-wrong then?" Dave spoke softly while trying to keep his nerve.
"Nobody believes in me anymore."
The crew looked at each other confused, not sure how to approach or console the possibly wounded man. With what bravery they had, they slow crept forward until Axel came right up to the man crouching in front of him. Even with his head slouched, he could see his eyes were closed and he had a dark brown beard.
"What do you mean nobody believes in you anymore?"
"Nobody believed in me, that I exist anymore, that I ever did." His voice was calm but was underlined with sadness and anger.
"Hey, if it makes you feel better, I'll believe in you." Axel spoke to try cheer the tall man up.
"Would you believe in me…? If you knew who I was?"
"Yeah I guess I would, can you tell me who you are?"
The figures head raised slowly, close to Axel's face. His mouth cracked into a large toothy grin as his eyes opened and burned white. Axel's face became as white as the eyes, his moth dropped to the floor and eyes went as wide as humanly possible. He tried to scream but nothing came out as the man's voice turned cold and demonic…
"Take a wild guess."
The screams of the humans overpowered the cracking sound of the windows exploding around them. Parts of the ceiling fell as the whole castle shook and moaned from the will of the immortal who walked behind the fleeing television crew. No matter how fast they ran, he was right behind them. No matter where they looked, he was there. They never stopped to pick up their belongings as they bolted for the entrance and the safety of the van parked out the front. When they barged into the van and Dave finally managed to scramble the keys in the ignition, they tore down the dirt road through the heavy fog.
"WAS THAT-!"
"LOOK OUT!"
The man was standing in the middle of the road with blaze rods fashioned into swords in each hand, lightning dancing around them. Dave was forced to swerve to miss him, sliding of the road. Just as fast as they had stopped they were off again, never once looking back. Axel was about to speak when he heard his phone ringing, struggling to get it out of his pocket with violently shaking hands. It was a message.
Thanks for believing in me.
The whole incident had been recorded on the camera.
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