Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You spawn into the world, your reality shifting around you before you land softly on a patch of grass. You open your eyes as you feel the sun’s warmth hit your face, signaling to you that “Hey, you’re here. Big mistake.”
The birds sing their symphony, the leaves rustle in the wind, and nearby animals just seem to be living their life… until you eat them later. But you don’t feel in the greatest of moods. You feel like you’re under observation from all around you. Something is here with you.
You start cutting down some trees, you know, the basics of survival in worlds like these. You get wood, craft shit, and keep moving.
Typical Tuesday in a world where you have nothing.
You journey through the woods, hoping to leave the maze of green and brown. For five minutes, you stumble across nothing but a mix of oak and birch trees. Eventually, you come across an opening in the forest. But you have not exited the forest.
No.
Something or someone has been here before you. Tree stumps are scattered around where you are. Something cut these down. Someone has either been here before you or is here with you. You take a deep breath, but the smell hits you.
Smoke.
In the distance, a wildfire ravages the forest. You quickly dismiss it. It might just be a lava pool in the middle of the forest that’s inconveniently there. It’ll rain eventually, and it’ll be extinguished soon.

It’s evening, and you have been wandering the forest all day. You are behind schedule; you have no base, you have no bed, and you haven’t even found a cave.
But you have come across a mountain, and as you continue to push towards it, there is a red glow growing in the distance.
“What the hell?”
Redstone torches light up a small part of the forest. You follow it into an area where the land meets the sea. It can barely be considered a beach; there’s no sand. The mountain is right up against the waterfront as well. As you scan the area, something catches your eye.
Glass.
Just randomly existing against the dirt walls. There’s also a two-by-one hole in the wall. A doorway, perhaps. You raise an eyebrow and head towards it.
You have discovered a small dug-out cave. You go inside, and it’s a lot bigger than you thought it would be. It’s also really strange. It’s not like a plain square hole in stone. There’s a pocket in a corner big enough for a bed, there’s a doorway that leads to a stairwell, and there’s a different room next to the stairwell with a long tunnel leading into the dark. The tunnel has no torches on the wall, so you can’t see any further than 6 feet. In one corner of the cave, there’s a chest with some copper. Just copper. Fucking useless as shit. In the other corner, near the doorway to the room with the tunnel, is a sign. Pink and flowery, very feminine. It once had something written on it, but something with talons of an eagle came in here and scratched it up to hell.
Someone stayed here, and they stayed for a while. This cave was made to be a temporary residence, but considering how big it is, someone called it their humble abode for quite some time.
You put a door down at the entrance of the cave. You should stay here, too. You have no home either, you bum. You still have no bed, so you can’t skip the night. So you decided to go mining, which is what you assume the stairwell is. A mine. Unlike the tunnel in the other room, this one is lit up and has cobblestone stairs. You head down and keep an eye out for any cave entrances.

The stairwell ends abruptly, and cobblestone was placed blocking whatever lies ahead. There was a struggle. As you broke the cobblestone, you revealed claw marks that were scratched into the walls and ceiling. You continued mining away and found a door that led to the rest of the cave. The door was in horrid condition, like an entire psych ward broke out and had some sort of vendetta against it. You furrow your brow and curl your lips in confusion and horror. You opened it and went through the threshold.
The cave was massive.
But it was also dark. Whoever was here first did their best to light it up, to no avail. Further down, the dark turns into the deep dark.
No man’s land. Home to an infamous psychotic beast. Nothing ever spawned down there, but things will follow you down there if you let them, and with what’s down there, you really couldn’t afford having company.
Screaming and yowling broke your line of thought. Whatever had done so much damage to the stairwell was still down here, waiting for its next victim.
“There’s probably no iron, I should just get cobblestone and coal and get the hell out.”
You silently crept through the cave, gathering materials. That thing in the distance was still losing its mind. You kept your back to the wall. It would be a very stupid move not to keep an eye on all openings of the cave.
But something caught your eye. When you turned to look at it, it had already disappeared. Someone had been standing there just a moment ago. Your blood ran cold, and a shiver went up through your body, making the hairs on your neck stand up.
Your eyes darted around, looking for any sign of where the person possibly could have gone. Becoming more anxious and intense, you took a step back towards the wall of the cave, but you knocked something over. You whipped around to see what it was.
It was one of those signs, the pink ones with the flowers on them. With your hands shaking, you set it back up.
“Hello.”
Your mouth dropped agape. You stood there. Frozen.
“Hello?”
Someone from behind you giggled. You whipped your head around, and to your surprise, there was someone there. A woman with orange hair, a green blouse, and brown trousers stood behind you. In her hand, she held a poppy. You lock eyes with her and raise your eyebrow. That’s when you realize that she is not a human like you. She is some sort of spirit. Her eyes glow white, no iris and no pupils.
“That’s not for me, is it?”
She continues to stand there, silently. Apart from her eyes, she has this strange glow to her. She is glowing in the dark. It gives you some sort of comfort, but you’re still uneasy. Suddenly, she opens her mouth, and her lips move as if she is speaking, but no words come out. You furrow your brow in confusion. The silence was deafening.
…
What happened to the thing that was screaming?
Your eyes leave her gaze for a second as you scan your surroundings once more, making sure you aren’t about to get jumped by something else. Making sure that she wasn’t some distraction. You turn your gaze back to her, but this time, she is accompanied by a man. Brown hair, tan skin, blue shirt, and jeans. Just like her eyes, his are glowing too, but his glows like it's harnessing the full power of the fucking sun.
You squint because that shit is bright.
“Hey, could you maybe turn that shit down?”
Neither of them responds nor moves. They sit there, like statues. Like predators waiting to catch their prey when it finally moves. Looking further away from the blinding light, you notice a sign. A normal oak sign.
“His soul is trapped here, and yours will be too if you don’t leave.”
You look at the sign, and you look back at him. The woman is gone. You’re not sure if that’s good or not, maybe so. I mean, you are in a cave with two weird ass strangers who aren’t people. Maybe they once were, but they aren’t anymore.
“Alright, so… I’m gonna go now..?”
You creep around him, climbing up towards the stairs. He keeps looking at you, and he watches you as you continue to move away. Once you finally reach the stairs, you booked it. But as soon as you started running, the screaming came back, and it was following you. You whipped your head around as you continued running up the stairs. This tall, brown, lanky creature, with the head of a decomposing animal, was chasing you. It was fast as hell, too. You understood why there were blocks of cobblestone blocking the cave now. There were things down there that needed to be contained.
You blocked the entrance, but you never turned your back on the cobblestone you placed. Not until you got back up to the man-made cave, and shut the door to the stairwell.
That mystery was closed. Permanently.
But one remained.
The weird tunnel with no lighting.
You went into the room with the tunnel. It was lit up with redstone torches. It’s almost like they want you to go in there… and you do. Despite all the psychotic energy that was in the caves below, you push on through the bloody red ambience set by the torches.
You get to the end of the tunnel. The tunnel led nowhere. It just ended abruptly in what was probably the middle of the mountain.
“What was the point of this?”
You turn around and start heading back, and as you get closer to where you came from, you notice another sign. You ran towards it; maybe it would explain what was supposed to be here. It was another one of the pink flower signs.
“Climb over the mountain and head in the direction the tunnel is pointing.”
Who was putting these here? Maybe the two spirits you met in the caves a little while ago?

Eventually, you head outside. Sure enough, the sun was rising in the distance. You survived the night, and you can now go make the journey over the mountain.
You started climbing the face of the mountain. All the edges were taller than you were, so you had to keep placing things under you as you made your way up. You got some distance between you and the man-made cave before it just fucking exploded.
You slowly turn your head around in complete utter disbelief as the place you were just in was nothing but a massive crater in the ground. Bewildered, you walk towards the edge of the newly formed pit on the side of the mountain.
Sitting there in silence, you look around to find any indicators that could’ve caused it. When you were about to move on, the sound of footsteps running behind you was heard. Whipping your head around, you saw nothing except a butterfly. The sound of the footsteps travelled with the butterfly. You sighed with relief.
Then, someone whispered the weirdest shit ever: “Why do butterflies have footsteps? They don’t even have feet.”
Your jaw drops in horror and confusion. One, who the hell was whispering? Two, WHAT?
“Fuck you mean butterflies don’t have feet? They’re insects! They have six legs!”
You waited for a response, but… that never happened. At this point, you think it never would. You talked to the red-haired woman, and she said nothing. She moved her lips like she said something, but there were no words. You asked Copernicus to turn the sun down, and he didn’t. You were starting to think they were mute and could only communicate through signs.
You would have to test that theory later when you had an ample supply of wood. But for now, you continued your journey across the mountain in the direction of the tunnel.

Chapter Text

You made it to the other side of the mountain by sundown. You had grabbed some more wood and some more food on the way. What you saw was magnificent and unexpected. In the distance, skyscrapers loomed over everything around them. A massive stone statue of a man holding a sword could be seen amongst the spruce trees. A watch tower stood in the village in front of the mountain, still guarding whatever was left of the poor little town.
The village appears to have been stricken by plague, famine, and raids. There was little population remaining. Whoever remained was trying to grow whatever they could to scrape by. A graveyard cradled its dead next to the village. In front of the town stood a lighthouse, which was weird because there was no water nearby. The nearest water source was on the other side of the mountain.
You walked down the mountain to investigate the lighthouse. There was no door to it. It was a massive monolith, overgrown with moss and vines, with a light at its top. You take out your pickaxe and start digging through the wall, hoping that there will be something inside. There was nothing inside, but the floor was made out of dirt. Grass had not grown inside whatsoever, which seemed weird to you. Even in the darkest places, grass never failed to spread wherever it could.
You dug into the dirt, and light came through where you had dug. There was something under the lighthouse, in the mountain. You kept digging, and you eventually revealed a spiral staircase supported by chains attached to the ceiling.
You go down, and you are in yet another man-made cave, except this time it’s fully furnished. Stone brick walls lined with spruce wood, leaves decorated the ceiling, which had magma behind them. There were also holes in the wall that revealed magma. To your right was a storage area, chests stacked on chests, and to your left was a nether portal; the area around it was decorated with stuff from the nether. In front of you was empty compared to the other two rooms you had just looked at. The only thing interesting about that spot of the cave was a massive aquarium that had cod swimming in it, and a doorway across from the aquarium.
Investigating the room across from the aquarium, you were not sure what it once was for a moment. Trap doors lined two edges of the room, and four chairs and a table were pushed against the wall; a lonely lantern still hung above the set. Walking closer to the side of the room lined with trap doors was a pile of bones and a full-on skeleton sitting there. The poor dude who died here probably had to cannibalize whoever was here with him. Only to not be able to escape from his small wooden and stone prison.
“Someone had a spot for their villagers before they disappeared.”
Exiting the villager room, you spotted a room in the back that you had missed. A bedroom. A chest sat in the corner, holding valuables that you immediately stuffed into your inventory. You checked the many furnaces that were on the other side of the room, hoping for more food or iron. Inside a smelting furnace were twenty-six iron, and inside a smoker were forty-two baked potatoes. You also stuffed that into your inventory. Next to the many furnaces was a door. Opening it, you revealed another stairwell, except it was bigger and decorated; unlike the other stairwell that was in the cave that blew up.
You closed the door and lay on the bed, debating whether you should stay here or build your own base. Just in case the person who lives here comes back and doesn’t kill you for sleeping in their bed, eating their food, using their resources, etc.
But you doubt they would come back. This place has been empty for quite a long time, so it seemed. The spiderwebs that were littered here and there, and the pile of bones, were an indication that nobody was here anymore.
Your thoughts slowed, and you faded away into the realm of sleep.

You were awoken in the middle of the night by loud whistling. Very loud. You sat up and scanned the base. There was nobody in there with you, so it must’ve come from outside. You had a flashback to that fucking thing that was in the caves with you, and a feeling of dread washed over you.
What fucked up thing could be out there now?
That’s when you heard the loud stomping.

CRASH

Some massive, pitch black, lanky monster leered at you from near the staircase. Its teeth are stained with blood. It spotted you as you equipped your newly made iron sword and lunged at you. You blocked it with your sword and shield. It kept biting.
You realize you are cornered. Your shield quickly broke; this crazy motherfucker was a wood chipper itself.
This is how you die? You just got here!
The monster was about to make its final blow, until something was thrown at it. Something supernatural. The monster turned its attention to whoever made the mistake of messing with it. A man with a dark complexion, black poofy hair, a black hoodie, and some jeans looked at it from the empty part of the cave. Half of his body was overtaken by something questionable. A dark grey overgrowth that seemed stuck to his skin. His eye hidden in the overgrowth was white, like the two people from the cave. His other eye was a normal black eye.
He was questionable, but it looked like he was trying to save you… maybe. His gaze went from you and the monster that kept stomping closer. As if it had run out of time, the monster disappeared as it lunged at the man in front of it. The man stared at the spot it had just been in for several quiet moments. Eventually, he turned his gaze to you.
He slowly walked to you. You pressed yourself up against the wall harder, as if trying to phase through it. He stopped once he was a few feet away from you.
He spoke, the only one who has so far: “...okay?”
You raise your eyebrow. “Are you asking me if I’m okay?”
He nods.
“...I guess?”
He blinks and remains silent.
“What’s uh… what’s wrong with you?”
He continues to stare at you. “Dead,” he spoke after a while. “Corrupted.”
His gaze goes from you to your bag, which holds your inventory. It looks like speaking is a challenge for him; maybe it's because of all the stuff that's on his body. The corruption you decided to call it.
“Ya need something?”
He nods. “Apple.”
You dig through your inventory. The only apple you have is the golden apple you got from the chest of valuables. Does he know it's in there?
He holds out his hand shakily, and you reluctantly give it to him. You were really hoping to save that for later.
Oh well…
He bites into it. You watch, and you notice it takes him a while to swallow it. He was chewing the same bite for like two minutes. He takes another bite of the apple, and it takes him longer to chew it.
After ten minutes, he finally finished the apple. He clears his throat and looks at you again. “Thank you, I can fuckin’ speak now.”
“...You’re welcome,” you say slowly, surprised that it worked at all. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Calvin, I uh… used to live here before someone led me to my death.”
He glances around him, looking at what time has done to his humble abode.
“Did it have something to do with the two people with the white glowing eyes?”
“Which ones? There’s so fuckin’ many of them.”
You look at him in awe and horror. “There’s more?!”
“Yuh.”
You sigh. “Okay, okay. I’m talking about the woman with the orange hair in the green blouse, and the man with the blue shirt and jeans. Know who I’m talking about?”
“Yuh,” he answered. “That’s Herobri and Herobrine. Herobri goes by Alex, and is fuckin’ confusing. One minute she’s friendly and the next she hires a monster to come and kick ya ass. Herobrine is a bitch if I’m gonna be honest. Always in your face and up your ass about something.”
He looked around as if expecting them to be there listening. “I think if you build some sort of relationship with Alex, she’s less threatening. That’s what happened to me when I was alive. I think the times she’s threatening are because Herobrine is controlling her somehow.”
“But they’re both spirits, how can that be?”
“Ohoho, they aren’t spirits. Nothing in this world is except me. Those two are entities, and some entities are more powerful than others. Herobrine is more powerful than Alex, and I’m pretty sure of that because one time he trapped her in the Twilight Forest.”
You look at him with curiosity. “What’s the Twilight Forest?”
“DO NOT GO IN THERE. BUDDY, YOU WILL GET YO ASS BEAT!”
“...Okay?”
“There were once beasts in there, bosses if you will. I killed them, so there’s no point in going there anymore unless you’re really stupid and want to get beaten down by a clicker zombie. Or, you want fireflies for decoration, which is understandable if you do go in there for that.”
“Is that how you died? A clicker zombie?”
“Uh.. no?” Calvin put his hands on his hips, slightly offended. “I died because Herobrine nerfed my ass.”
“How?”
Calvin scratched the back of his head. “I don’t remember how exactly, but I remember looking up during my final moments, and he was there. Watching. Absolutely no help at all.”
“Is there a way to help you?”
He shrugs. “I dunno. Like, I want to be alive, but at the same time I’m kinda tired of all the beasts that roam with murderous intent.”
You hum in response.
He coughs; the corruption is taking back over. You both stand there for a while, watching him cough for what feels like five awkward minutes.
“I… gotta go.”
Just like that, he disappears.

You walk outside, taking a breath of fresh air. The sun is rising on the horizon. The morning dew makes the legs of your pants a little wet. The breeze whips your hair around. You walk into the village, looking at all of its physical problems. Death, disease, destruction, you name it. Maybe you could help in some way?
You walk past a villager who was coughing up a storm. They were accompanied by another villager who was giving the sick a herbal remedy. The sick one is declining the herbs, a sign that it most likely doesn’t work. A sign that they themself have given up their battle and have already accepted fate.
There’s gotta be some kind of potion or process for this, you thought. There’s a process to reverse the infection in a zombie villager. The image of the man and woman with the white eyes came into your mind as you thought of ways to help. Herobrine and Alex.
They could probably fix this. If they truly were so powerful, they shouldn’t let this continue to happen to innocent civilians.
“...I remember looking up during my final moments, and he was there. Watching.”
Calvin’s words repeat in your mind. Would Herobrine actually be of help? Or, was he responsible for the village’s distress?
Alex might be your best bet, based on what Calvin told you about her. She wasn’t really described as cruel, except her setting a beast after you. That sounded pretty mean. But compared to Herobrine? She sounded like a saint.

Outside the village, there was a graveyard. Weirdly enough, the headstones didn’t have any names engraved in them. There was also a city, and random structures scattered around the outskirts of both the village and the city. One of these structures reminded you of Greek temples and architecture. Ionic order style columns, round-shaped, and had a fountain in the center. You wanted to make something out of it, but you were not sure what. It was too magnificent to just let it sit there and continue to be overgrown.
It would make a nice place for a garden.

So far, your entire adventure throughout the world has been quiet today. You had gone off in search of an unexplored cave. Sure, there was the mine back at Calvin’s base, but it was probably all out of ore. You hoped to find gold so you could craft golden apples so that you could share some with him. Seems like being a corrupted zombie is a pain in the ass, and it would be nice to communicate verbally.
No monsters, no Herobrine or Alex, and you haven’t seen Calvin since he disappeared. You’ve collected a stack of raw iron, half a stack of gold, two stacks of coal, and 12 diamonds. This has been a pretty successful trip to the mines.
You continue to mine ahead of you. For the past ten minutes, you have been listening to what sounds like a mob spawner. Somewhere, there is a ridiculous amount of spiders, and somewhere there are goodies in a chest.
You break the block above you.
There it is. Mossy cobblestone.
You break the cobblestone block, and a spider falls on you. Instinctively, you slash it three times with your sword, and it dies. You take a peek into the spawner, and the entire room is lit up with red eyes, angrily staring back at you.
Oh shit.
Quickly, you make it so that the spiders cannot reach you, but you can reach them to kill them. After a minute, you go back up to finish off the rest and quickly surround the spawner with torches. Looking around, you spot two chests in the corner of the room. Opening one, you see gold horse armor, some wheat, beetroot seeds, and string. Pretty decent chest. You open the other one, and to your luck, you have another golden apple. You also have some gunpowder and one of the creepy ass music discs, but you don’t care about either of those.
You leave the mines, feeling pretty fulfilled. You’ve got what you wanted and needed, and now it’s time to get to work. You enter the base and head for the chest that you put all your apples in. You snatch those and head to the crafting table.
Eight gold, and an apple in the middle.
Poof!
….
Poof.
What the fuck.
Why isn’t it working?
It’s eight gold and an apple… right?
“Am I stupid as fuck?”
You look around for an answer to your question. You know nobody is going to verbally answer, but you do suspect someone to be watching you fail miserably.
Your suspicions would be correct, by the way. Because Herobrine is standing near the staircase, behind the little wall that separates the bedroom from the stairwell. In front of him is a sign that reads: “Don’t give him any golden apples.”
You raise your eyebrow at the man. “Why? What problem do you have with him?”
As soon as you finish that question, he disappears. Your hands fall limp at your sides in defeat and confusion.
“Okay… So we can’t craft golden apples like normally.”
You look back at the crafting table in annoyance. This is totally the doing of Herobrine, making it impossible to craft an item to help another person. He definitely wants Calvin to be silent.
“Damn, what an asshole.”
You pick up your gold and apple and turn back. At least you have the one currently on you from the spawner. But their healing effect doesn’t last very long, and the supply just got very limited.
You head to the chests to put everything away. As you open one of the bottom two chests, a giggle can be heard from behind you. Closing the chest and whirling around, you spot Alex. A poppy in hand, and a slight grin on her face.
Why is she grinning?
“...Hi,” you say hesitantly.
She doesn’t say anything, but she does pull out a golden apple. You blink three times to see if you’re seeing things correctly. Slowly, you walk a few steps towards her.
“What do I need to do to get the apple from you?”
She slowly pulls out the ingredients to make a golden apple in her other hand. Is she asking for a trade?
With the ingredients still in your inventory, you pull them out and put them towards her, unsurely. She takes them swiftly. You are left with another golden apple in your hands.
You look back up at her, “Thanks, ma’am.”
She lets out one last giggle and disappears.
…
Interesting.
Anyways, time to wait for Calvin to appear. You would try to find him, but you have no idea where to start or where to go. You decided to start a farm near the fountain in the overgrown ruins while you waited for him to appear.

The sun has set, and it’s eerily quiet out. You’ve planted wheat, potatoes, beetroots, and pumpkins into the tilled dirt. You also tried to make the area look as nice as possible so that it’s not just a boring field; you made some stone brick fences, created some pathing with your shovel, and a few streetlamps using some lanterns you found in the empty houses in the village.
You’ve done all of this, and Calvin has still not shown up. You wonder if you should just leave the two golden apples you have for him in a chest. If he wants to talk, he can just spawn in behind you or something.
Everyone in this world seems to do that when they want something from you, anyway.
You head back, hoping to catch some sleep. You keep turning your head to look behind you as you continue to walk. Is that black thing that tried to jump you in your sleep coming back? If so, when? You doubt that that meeting was a one-time thing; this isn’t the type of world where you only see horrors like that once.
You enter the base, and a dark oak sign is there to greet you.
“If you see something… RUN.”
Thanks, Calvin.
You craft a chest, break the dark oak sign, write his name on the sign, and put one of the golden apples in the chest. You only put in one because you were unsure if Herobrine was gonna bust up in here and take the fucking thing himself. So you kept the other one in your inventory for protection, just in case.
…
Herobrine can’t take shit out of your inventory, can he?
You stare at both the chest and the golden apple still in your inventory. Some bullshit is about to go down over these fucking apples. A shiver runs down your spine, and you look around the underground base. Herobrine is in the corner watching you. He is not happy. He REALLY does not want you handing out those apples to Calvin.
“My brother in Christ, this is necessary for my survival,” you explain. “If you have a problem with it… Well, tell it to someone who cares.”
A plethora of ungodly cave noises ring throughout the world.
He was not happy about that. You can bet your ass he will be telling it to somebody who cares.
He vanishes, and you are left there to stand in silence. You probably could’ve worded that shit better, dumbass.
After putting all your building and farming materials in a chest, you head to the bed. But you don’t fall asleep like you expected, you just lie there. You toss and turn, but to no avail.

An hour later, you finally gave up. You might be too paranoid to fall asleep at the moment, so you went to find something else to do. There is not much you can do right now. The night is still young, and you don’t feel like dealing with the black lanky monster, or the decrepit, decomposing animal you saw in the mines your first night.
There is the nether. You might not have the best tools equipped for that adventure, but it is still an option.
Shrugging your shoulders, you prepare however you can to go into the nether. You riffle through your chests, looking for things that may be useful on your journey. You’ve just about grabbed all that you needed… and then you heard the worst scream that has ever “graced” your god given ears.
That scream was NOT made by a human. What the fuck was that?
The sign from earlier comes to your mind: “If you see something… RUN”
Oh god damn it. This is the part where you have to run for your life, huh?
You go outside to investigate. Immediately, as you look to your left, over the wall that surrounds the village is the most horrid-looking ass dog you’ve ever seen. Is that even a fucking dog? It has horns. A goat, maybe?
It locks eyes with you, and you look back at it. Both of you are completely stationary. You look away for a second, trying to see if there’s anything behind you. There isn’t. When you look back, the goat-thing has moved. It has climbed up the hill. But as soon as you looked back at it, it stopped moving. It is now once again locked onto you.
Oh. We’re playing this fucked up game.
Your gaze strays away from the goat and more towards the walls around you. Unless it can climb, there is no possible way for it to get in.
You take a deep breath.
And you sprint back inside.
As soon as you leave the spot you were just standing in, the goat makes a run for it too. It makes a run for you. A sound that can only be described as the most fucked up railroad crossing noise can be heard throughout the village. The door shuts behind you once you’ve run into the base, and the noise of the beast outside is muffled.
You wait. The goat-dog hybrid beast disappears.
…
Now you really don’t want to go outside at night. That’s like the third fucked up creature you had to see. It hasn’t even been a week yet.
Did Herobrine send that shit after you?
You should probably watch your mouth around that guy.

Whistling

…
Shit.
The fucking thing from last night is back.
You ran to where it dropped in from the previous time.
The lighthouse.
You left a hole in the wall.
“So that’s how it got in last time…”
Quickly, you try to find the red terracotta blocks that are supposed to be there.
…
You don’t have them.
You threw them away, and they despawned.
You run up the spiral staircase and patch the hole with dirt. It’ll do for now.
More sounds can be heard from outside. A crash of thunder, rumbling, and a lot of thudding. You stand completely still. You are unsure if it is safe to move.
Something is hitting the wall.
It’s trying to break in.
Slowly, you move down the steps of the staircase. You prepare to make a quick exit through the door just in case that fucking demon breaks his way in.
Another crash of thunder.
…
Then silence.
It must be gone, surely.
God, you wish you could fucking sleep. It’s only past midnight, and you would like to skip the rest of the night. It has been too eventful.

Knock knock knock

Oh, what the fuck now?
You look around to find out where it came from. You’re not really sure; you weren’t paying too much attention. You were too busy being exhausted.

Knock knock knock knock.

It came from the door to the mines.
You make your way over, and you press your ear up against the door. You try to listen for breathing or any type of movement. But you hear nothing.
Hesitantly, you crack open the door. There’s nobody there.
“What the hell?”
You close the door.

Knock knock knock knock knock.

You open the door again.
Once again, nobody.
After fifteen seconds of silence, you slowly start to walk away from the door. You see Alex sitting on the stairs, watching you. You wave, but she only smiles back at you and giggles.

Knock knock

…
Those were very slow and deliberate. Threatening even.
You turn your gaze back to the door. Alex lets out another giggle. You look back at her, and she shakes her head. It’s like she’s warning you not to open that door.
You raise your eyebrow.
She shakes her head again. She IS warning you not to open that door.
Why?
You walk back towards that door to open it.
A feminine voice can be heard as you touch the doorknob: “Hey!”
It’s too late.
You open the door and you’re immediately tackled to the ground. Looking up is… Steve?
…
That’s not Steve. That's a fucked up version of him.
His jaw is loose and hanging far away from his face. He looks like he’s ready to swallow up a motherfucker whole. A horrible yelling is coming from his agape mouth.
He has you pinned to the floor. A hand around your throat, choking you. Your ears are ringing from all the screaming.
Your vision starts to fade to black.
Calvin is not here to help you this time. Alex is just standing there, watching as this… thing chokes you to death.
This is how it ends.
It’s barely even day four.
Besides the ringing in your ears, you don’t hear anything else anymore. Both your vision and hearing have almost completely faded. You have gone limp.

You’re dead.

Chapter Text

You awaken.
Awaken?
Is that the right word?
Whatever it is, you find yourself floating in some weird ass abyss.
The void.
Why the fuck are you here?
Looking around, you can see the change from night to day occurring. The sun and the moon can see each other right before one of them hits the horizon. Something that should be completely impossible. But, of course, it’s the void. There are no rules here.
As you turn around to look behind you, you meet the gaze of a massive eye. Your first thought is, “Ah shit, it’s judgement day.”
…
Are you truly dead though?
You look down, breaking away from the staring contest between you and the massive eye in front of you. As you look down, the body that you were so familiar with is nonexistent. Literally, it is not there. It’s only you—your soul.
You look back up at the eye. “What the hell is this? Where am I? What is happening?”
For a few moments it does not speak. But when it does, it does not answer any of your questions.
“Nine,” it says.
“What?”
“Nine,” it says once more.
If you had a mouth, it would be agape right now in udder confusion. You are absolutely mind boggled right now. What does nine mean? What is this weird ass eyeball referring to?
“Go back,” the eye demands.
“Huh?”
A white rectangle appears in the void. You reckon it’s some type of doorway or portal. You must go through it.
“Go,” the eye demands once more as you instinctively glide to the white rectangle. You enter, and the light becomes so blinding you close your eyes.
Eyes?
You can feel them now.
As you push through the blinding whiteness, your body slowly materializes back to you. All your senses come back to you… but so does the ability to feel pain. You’re in pain. That fucking thing left you a wreck.
You open your eyes. You’re back at the base, and you’re lying on the floor like an absolute mess. You push yourself up, leaning your upper body weight onto the palms of your hands as you sit up. Your neck is sore, and you’re covered in cuts and scratches.
What the hell was that thing? Because that was not Steve. No way in hell, you would not believe that shit for a second.
That’s Evil Steve.
Evets, that’s his name now you decided.
You take a deep breath, and suddenly your body is filled with relief and warmth instead of pain and agony. You’re healing. You’re not sure how, you didn’t eat a golden apple or take a health potion. You take a look at your arm. You have a tattoo that signifies that you have a healing effect on you (any potion effects are tattoos, by the way). Underneath the healing symbol is the number nine.
…
“Bro, what does the nine mean though?”
You stare at it, thinking. Will it turn to eight or ten? What happens if it does? Are you the ninth person to be put through this bullshit nightmare? What the hell?
Standing up, you see a sign in front of the door to the mines. A dark oak sign.
Calvin.
“You should put a camera in the stairwell. Jus’ saying…”
A… WHAT.
That’s a thing in this world?
You check your book of crafting recipes. Where the hell would a camera even be in this thing? Redstone? Iron tools? Tools in general?
After a while of flipping through pages, you stumble across the actual recipe as well as crafting recipes for the ingredients.
“Bruh, what the hell is reinforced glass..? What’s a block reinforcer? WHAT ARE THESE THINGS?”
You look at all the chests in the storage area. They have to be in there. If he knows about the cameras, then he had them at some point too. You open and close like 14 chests, a lot of them empty as hell. Why does this man have so many chests and nothing in them? He only needed the nine in the front, the only ones filled with anything.
Speaking of the nine in the front, you open the top chest in the third column.
Behold, eight cameras and a tablet. Immediately you go to the stairwell. You almost open the door without thinking…
You slowly open the door, waiting for Evets to come out and kill you again. But lucky you, he isn’t there. You walk all the way down the stairs and place a camera at the end. As you’re waiting for the camera to bind to your tablet, a horrible screeching comes from the caves below.
…
“Really? Right now?”
A ding from your tablet lets you know that the camera has been binded. Immediately, you run up the stairs and slam the door behind you.

BANG BANG BANG

Yea… no. You’re not opening that door. You walk to the farthest side of the room from that door, and you sit there. Tablet in your hands, you check the camera that you had just set up.
…Holy shit.
Evets is standing outside the door, waiting for you to open it. His back is facing the camera, he stands there completely still.
He’s not alone either.
The walking, decrepit, animal corpse is back. You’re not sure how it followed you from the old mining spot to your new location, but it did. You look back and forth between the tablet and the door they both stand behind.
If it’s not already nighttime, you should walk outside. Go find something else to do while you wait for them to leave.
You slowly make your way to the redstone door.
You exited the base, and the sun is a few hours away from setting low in the sky. You have some time to do whatever it is you want to do out here.
You decide to go check on your crops. As you walk towards your newly made farm, something catches your eye… and you’ve caught it’s eye too.
A sheep with the scariest face, and a jaw like Evets, starts screaming. You back up immediately, but it doesn’t come after you. It runs away screaming.
“…Oh.”
You know what, good. As long as it stayed the hell away from you, you didn’t care.
To your right stood Herobrine, watching the whole situation play out. “Yo, you sent that guy after me?” You laugh. If that was indeed the truth, that sheep sucks at following directions.
Herobrine makes no response, as usual. You both kind of stand there looking at each other. Actually, now that you had thought about it, you proceed to ask: “...Did you send Evil Steve after me?”
No answer.
“You totally did, didn’t you?”
He disappears.
“He did. Guilty M.F.”

Your farm barely grew shit. You got fifteen wheat. Fifteen out of the multiple stacks of seeds you planted. The rest of the crops are only halfway grown, so five loaves of bread will have to do for now.
Or… you could capture some animals.
Looking towards the sun, disappointment spreads across your face. It’s sunset. It’s time to go back inside to hide from literally everything.
The animal farm will have to wait, besides you have to get more materials for it.

Herobrine is the first fucking thing you see when you enter the base. “Bro,” you begin. “Why are you up my ass today?”
He looks at you for a moment before slowly turning his attention to the massive piece of shit that killed you the previous night. You clench your fists.
“...What the fuck is wrong with the both of you?”
They both just continue to stare at you, and you slowly walk backwards out of the base.
What the hell is wrong with everyone? You had to leave the base earlier out of fear that Evets and that thing from the caves would kick down your door. Now both evil Steves are in cahoots with each other and are standing in front of the entrance.

Thunk

Huh?
Oh, you knocked over a sign… a flowery sign.
“Help…”
Oh shit. What happened to her?
…
Why are you worried about her? She literally watched you die.
…
…
Ok, to be fair, that was your own fault. She warned you and you let curiosity get the better of you.
You march back in the base, demanding answers. Evets was gone, but Herobrine remained in the base.
“Hey,” you started. “What happened to Alex? Why is she asking me for my help?”
He immediately disappeared. He wasted no time after those words were said.
“Bro…” you grumbled. You took a seat at the bottom of the spiral stairs. Should you make a sign to respond to the ‘call’ for help?
Actually… you might make a sign to ask Calvin what’s wrong. Shuffling through the chests, and scrambling to the crafting table; you make a sign.

“Calvin, what’s going on?”

Who knows, he might respond.
…
Did he ever collect the golden apple in the chest?
You look in the direction to where you had put the chest. It was no longer there. It was completely gone. Someone had gotten rid of it.
…
He didn’t get the apple did he? Herobrine got it instead.
If Calvin had gotten the apple, wouldn’t he have appeared, almost completely verbal?

You went to bed, and you were able to sleep through the entire night.
It was an oddly quiet night… too quiet.