Safeguarded Heart

Sacrifice

"G-go." Herobrine says through tightly clenched teeth, his arms throbbing and quaking in ache from the strain of trying to hold so much weight. He was indeed super strong, but even he had his own limit. "Qui-ckly. I don't think I can hol- hold it for long." He stressed with narrowed eyes and groans of great discomfort, his eyes then close and the wall pushes him down nearly an inch. "Hurry!" He shouts in rage as he fights his limitation for the woman's sake, he was determined to not let her get crushed; especially not on his behalf.

To his relief the woman turns and crawls away with haste in spite of her injured arm, she soon makes it to the end of the collapsed wall and turns to face him with a look of worry and dread.

"Herobrine!" She shouts as he wailed out.

Herobrine felt something split within one of his arms, undoubtedly his own bones were now failing him; even being able to heal quickly was not enough with the heavy stone going nowhere but downward and restricting proper healing as the wall came down another inch. He groaned painfully as his right shoulder began to give in, this caused him to lose more space between himself and the floor and put more weight on the right side of his body, making it even more difficult to keep the pressing force from outright crushing him completely.

The man winced and looked back towards the open gap after he began to hear the woman huffing and grunting in distress, his eyes widen as he realizes that she was trying to push a large cluster of stone bricks under the lip of the gap. At first, the white-eyed man did not understand her reason, but as she slowly began to make progress regardless of her incapacitated arm; he saw what she was trying to do. The bricks could bear some of the weight!

Realizing this, he knew he had to hold out just long enough and keep the massive slab up high enough until Steph moved the bricks into place. Of course, in assuming the wall didn't break under its own weight once resting on the chunk, he just might be able to crawl out and not live as a mashed heap for weeks while recovering.

Though in immense pain and snorting in his endeavor, his mind is torn away from the pain as he watched the caretaker shove the mass of bricks with all of her strength; her expression twisting from the struggle. He trained his focus solely on her and her efforts to endure the pain of cracks and creases forming in his bones, it was a rather nice distraction than focusing on the ever-growing soreness and exhaustion quickly taking over.

"Hold... on!" Steph shouted as she pulled herself back some before slamming herself into the solid cut stone, she did this repeatedly; each time she scooted the chunk ever so closer to the gap. But with each and every impact she cried out in pain, there was no other way to move it and no other mortals around after his rampant outburst since he scared any and all away but her. If only Steve and Alex were there, why even the old ever curious explorer would be adequate help.

It didn't take long for the ancient being to realize just how much she was hurting herself in the process, using her own body like a battering ram. There was no telling how many bruises or fractures she was going to have at this rate, he wished she'd stop; yet at the same time he didn't. Stephanie was so determined to move something over half her size and quadruple; if not quintuple her own weight. She wasn't physically all that strong to begin with even with training, or at least not enough; but she wouldn't stop.

A grin formed on his stressed features, multiple droplets of sweat rolled down his face and pattered to the floor, tenderness and numbness grew in his arms and knees; yet he held up just to keep watching her. Such resolve no matter what the cost, is a sacrifice for him of all people. Though hurting herself, she'll still live but she was so devoted to her cause in helping him. In a way, it was ... beautiful.