Destruction: The Hacker and the Spirit

9: Herobrine shows off and I find a lot of dust

Bajan, Jerome, Sky, Sub and I were walking to the training room when Herobrine stopped us.

"We won't do training now," he said. 

"Why?" I asked.

Herobrine shrugged. "A change in schedule? Do whatever you want and we'll train after lunch."

"Yes!" Bajan hissed. He and Jerome instantly ran off, going who knows where. Herobrine also went off to do his own thing. Sub, Sky and I just looked at each other.

"What should we do?" Sky asked.

"Um... I don't know. Is there a ball around here somewhere? We could play soccer," I suggested.

There was a ball. It was old and not in the best condition but it would do. So the three of us ran to just outside the castle gates and started playing soccer. I divided up the teams according to skill level: I was one team and Sub and Sky were the other. Sub was pretty good at soccer, especially in striker position. Sky was dismal no matter where he went. He kept missing the ball and picking it up.

"Sky, it's not football! Put the ball on the ground!" I called out for the thousandth time, easily taking the ball from him when he put it on the ground and scoring another goal. "What's the score now? 10-0?"

Sub held up 10 fingers then closed them and opened up another two.

"Oh, 12-0?"

Sub nodded and Sky huffed. "It's unfair, didn't you say that you play in a soccer team?"

"Yes, but I'm against you and Sub. That evens out the teams," I said, scoring another goal.

"Obviously it doesn't."

"What are you guys playing?" Herobrine asked, coming down onto the field.

"Soccer," I said quickly.

"How do you play it?" 

I stopped for a second, giving Sky the opportunity to score a goal. 

"YES! I scored!" he yelled, raising his arms in the air triumphantly.

"I'm still beating you," I told him before turning to Herobrine. "It's pretty easy. You're only allowed to touch the ball with your feet and you have to get it in the other team's goal. And you're not allowed to tackle the other players."

Herobrine nodded. "Sounds easy. Can I play?"

I said yes and put him on Sky's team since they were pretty bad. He was bad too at first, but rapidly became good. Too good. I did everything I could, even playing dirty at some points but he kept scoring goals until they were 5 goals ahead of me. And then I noticed something.

"Are you flying?" I asked incredulously, pointing to Herobrine's feet. They were off the ground by at least 5 centimetres.

"I'm hovering. It wasn't against the rules," he protested.

"That's because normal people can't fly!"

"So I'm not allowed to hover?"

"No!"

He sighed and put his feet on the ground. "Seriously, these rules are biased towards hovering."

Even with both feet on the ground, Herobrine continue to score goals. I swear, he was using hacks or something. Remember, we are in Minecraft, so it is a possibility. I gave up on the game when the scores were 15-23 to them.

"Whatever, you guys won. I'll be in the castle somewhere if you want me."

I walked away from the field, leaving Herobrine to beat Sky and Sub at a game he literally first heard about less than an hour ago. I wandered the castle, seeing Bajan and Jerome playing against each other at ping pong. Since they seemed to be having a great time (and since I suck at ping pong), I left them alone and explored the castle some more. I wanted to check out the turrets since I hadn't been up that high before. Picking a staircase that seemed to go in the right direction, I started to climb.

I counted over 100 stairs in that staircase, and it didn't even finish in a turret. It took me another 100 steps to be in a turret. This turret was dark and dusty and I saw my footprints on the floor. At the top was a closed heavy, iron bolted door. My curiosity aroused, I went up to the door and took a look inside. I coughed as my lungs filled with disturbed dust. The walls of the room had pictures stuck up on them and a table in the middle had a closed box on it.

I took a closer look at one of the pictures. It was very dusty, but I managed to make out two figures: one of them was Herobrine and one was Steve. They were looking at each other from opposite ends of a village, Steve holding a diamond sword and Herobrine holding nothing. I looked at the next picture. It also had two figures and one of them was Herobrine. The other was wearing white. He had black hands and a black face with glowing red eyes. I knew that this was Entity. He was sitting on the ground and Herobrine was standing above him, his hand held out to help Entity up.

Had Herobrine and Entity been friends at one point? Herobrine hadn't mentioned it, but based on this picture, they did have some form of contact.

I didn't look at any more of the pictures, instead going to the box. It was wooden but had gold lining the edges and a broken lock on the front. I carefully opened it, not sure what I would find inside. The box was lined with a soft material and there was the imprint of a sword, but the sword itself was missing. The missing sword and the broken lock made me wonder if it had been taken by force.

"You're not supposed to be here."

I spun around guiltily. Herobrine was leaning on the door frame, hovering a few centimetres above the floor. He didn't look angry or annoyed, it was another feeling that I didn't recognise.

"I... just... was exploring," I stuttered softly, closing the lid of the box. I didn't like the look that he was giving me: it made me feel like a criminal, a rule-breaker. 

"Don't come here again," he said after a long pause. I nodded and slipped past him, running down the stairs making as little noise as possible, as if the absence of sound could mask what I had done. Reaching the bottom, I looked up to see if he had followed me but he hadn't. 

Why wasn't I allowed in that room? In that picture, why was Herobrine reaching out to help Entity? And what was up with that box? There must be something that Herobrine hasn't told us. I really wanted to find out what it was, but Herobrine obviously wasn't up for discussing that topic. Pushing the thought to the back of my mind, I ran outside and enjoyed the rest of the morning.