Hero's Bane

Chapter 10: His Motives Unclear

"GAAAHHHHHAAAA!" Steve's eyes widened to the black that surrounded him, his heart pounded heavily in his chest and his body felt frail, sore, and broken. He pushed himself to lean up and winced from the soreness that had enveloped his body and he fell back to rest his head on the cold dark stone underneath. He was in too much pain to physically shift his arm to wipe away the dampness that covered his face, his entire body had ached greatly. Especially his right shoulder and back.

He stared straight up to see practically nothing, not even the sky that was supposed to be hanging over him, even those eyes were gone. Steve froze as he thought of those cursed eyes, but that worry shortly left him once confusion had taken over his fear. "Conner?" Steve called out, but the space around him remained absolutely silent, too quiet and too empty. Steve blinked over and over to make out his surroundings and it wasn't long before his eyes adjusted to the dark and there wasn't no sky above, it was nothing but untouched deepslate mocking him with the reminder of being trapped so far down in a dark cave.

He tilted his head to the left and then to the right and the place looked oddly familiar. He strained his eyes as he looked around again and he could see the wall that had prevented him from escaping Herobrine and his assault. "No!" He forced himself to lean again and scream once remembering that deadly encounter, his neck throbbed painfully. Steve moved a hand to touch his throat and the tenderness was definitely there, he hissed from the pain and retreated his fingers. But how was he still alive? Didn't Herobrine choke him to death? Where was Conner? ..."Conner? ... Why did he run to Herobrine? ... Wait was that a dream?" He thought aloud with a hoarse tone.

Apparently, getting the beating of his life wasn't a dream and the pain and soreness he felt had proved that. But if waking up to the young child was- then that meant that the miner was still trapped deep down, hopelessly doomed to fall victim to the powerful creatures of the cavern or Herobrine again. This realization made Steve's stomach churn, if Herobrine could simply toss him around like a ragdoll then maybe the other fierce mobs could and that wouldn't even begin to list what they could really do in numbers, and in his condition? It would be unquestionably lethal.

Even if he did manage to escape; the ex-hero would just find him and finished what he started right? Steve did tick him off. Which led the miner to jump off track in his mind and onto the subject of Conner clinging to that monster and calling him Oreh. Steve could not make sense of finding a lonely child in a dark and dangerous place and that is when he should of realized that it was all a dream to begin with, right when he supposedly "woke up" with a 'kid' in his face confusing him for someone else.

"Why didn't it hit me before in my dream... no nightmare? I should of picked up on it way sooner." He wanted to smack himself. It was something he should of figured out especially since the boy had confused Steve with who he thought was Oreh; and because Steve was himself and Herobrine looked like him then he should of know right then and there that Herobrine was Oreh. Also, it was mentioned that he had powers, and Steve knew that he definitely had no powers nor could he see in the dark. And what was it about slaying all of the monsters before hand and taking the child down into the caves in the first place? He'd never do that. Plus, no real child could survive in these treacherous monster-loaded tunnels, that was unless they were accompanied by a super human or Herobrine.

But even then- with the myth of Herobrine taking or torturing lives of all who he encounters still did little to prove any kind of 'friendly' connection with any human, let a lone a little boy. 'Wasn't Herobrine the murderer of one child?' Warren did say that he killed a young boy, the Sovereign's heir to the fortress of Antecedent Element. Though- that circular insignia on Conner's mantle, could that have been the one of the noble family? But then why did Herobrine remove the arrow from Conner's back and why did he call that demon a friend? Something just didn't connect right. Coming back to the beating from the monster Steve had definitely noticed how the topic of said child being murdered out of amusement had been too touchy for the demon to bear. Herobrine had snapped and nearly snapped Steve's own head off his shoulders when he faced the white-eyed fiend with his verbal warfare, so why was he 'momentarily' spared and given this strange dream? ... 'What was his motive for this?'