Bring Secrets to Light

Chapter 2

Steve, Blade, Alex and Notch were all sitting in the lounge room. Steve was sharpening his arrows, Notch was reading a book and Alex and Blade were playing with Alex's dolls. Well, Alex was playing. Blade was just hanging out with her. Blade liked the little girl's enthusiasm and joy.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and it was opened.

"Steve? Notch, Alex, I'm home."

Alex jumped up. "Hero!" She ran to the door and hugged the boy who just stepped through. Blade also stood up, wondering why a guy would have the name 'Hero'. He looked the exact same as Steve, right down to the messy brown hair. In fact, they could have been twins. But then he raised his head and he saw Blade. His eyes were pure white and almost seemed to glow.

Blade stumbled back in fear and tripped over a small table that was on the floor. Hero looked just as surprised as she was. He looked to Steve and Notch as if to say 'Guys, a little help here?'. Steve quickly stepped in.

"Blade, it's okay. Hero may look threatening but he's not going to hurt you. Hero, this is Blade. I found her in the forest and she was lost, so I brought her here."

Hero gave her a look, almost as if he was sizing her up, wondering how dangerous she was. Alex was still hugging his waist. "Hey Blade," he said after a few seconds. "Sorry for the scare."

Blade nodded, still wary of this glowing eyed figure. Hero returned his attention to his brothers and gestured behind him.

"Ender and W (Pronounced 'Double U') are on their way," he said before gently disentangling himself from Alex's hug and heading upstairs. Blade looked at Steve.

"Please don't tell me that they have glowing eyes too," she said in a small voice.

Notch and Steve laughed. "They don't have glowing eyes," Notch said. "They have skin that is coloured... differently, but, like Hero, they're not dangerous."

"Thanks for the warning," Blade said.

A few minutes later, two girls walked through the door. One of them, Ender, had almost black skin with dark purple hair and eyes. Her sister, W, had grey skin like charcoal, and had short black hair and grey eyes. In the first 5 minutes, Ender said about 200 words while W said nothing. According to Steve, they were his cousins, but Blade couldn't see the family resemblance.

Dinner was a lively event, with everyone sitting around a large table that rose out of the floor when Notch pushed a button. Hero had come down and they all sat at the table. Conversation flew around. Ender and Steve were chatting about some sort of legend that they had read about, Alex was talking to Notch about who knows what and W was sitting in silence, but Blade had guessed by now that she either didn't want to talk, or she couldn't. Hero was sitting beside Blade.

"So, um," Blade started. "Is Hero your full name?"

"No. My full name is Herobrine, but everyone just calls me Hero. And by everyone I mean these guys." He motioned to his family with his knife. "We don't really meet anyone else. What about you? Is Blade a middle name or something?"

"My full name is Switchblade. But, like yours, it's pretty long so people just call me Blade."

"Why not Switch?"

"Because Blade sounds cooler."

Hero chuckled at this. "Can't deny that logic."

"I have another question," Blade said, hesitating slightly.

"Go ahead."

"Why do you have glowing white eyes?"

Hero gave a little sigh, as if this was a sore topic for him. "Why do you have red hair? Why do you have blue eyes? Because you were born that way. Same for me. I was just born with white eyes."

Blade nodded. It made sense. Then a thought came to her. "Is it really hard to play hide-and-seek?"

Hero looked at her in confusion. "What?"

"With your eyes. Is it hard to play hide-and-seek?"

"Well, I mean... we only play it in the day, so my eyes don't make a difference."

"Hm."

"Why did that though occur to you all of a sudden?"

"I have no idea. My mind has the weirdest thoughts ever."

Hero laughed and so did Blade. But then a memory hit her and her laughter stopped instantly.

Hero noticed. "Hey, what's up?" he asked.

"Just... nothing," Blade muttered.

"You've got to learn to lie better, cause that was dismal. Come on, you can tell me."

Blade gave a small shrug. "It's just... last night. Heh, it was only last night. It seems ages ago now."

Hero waited.

"My... my parents and I were sitting down at dinner. We were laughing and then we heard zombies breaking down the door. My mum and I ran while dad fought them off. Then mum..." Tears began to prick at Blade's eyes.

Hero awkwardly patted her shoulder. Blade smiled slightly. They were silent for a few seconds.

"I'm sorry, I'm really bad at the giving comfort stuff," Hero said quickly.

Blade giggled. "I can tell."

Dinner finished and Blade helped Steve wash up the dishes while the rest of the family did various chores that needed doing. When the dishes were done, Notch showed Blade to a room upstairs. It already had a bed and a wardrobe in it. There was a single window in the room, looking out into the branches of the large tree at the side of the house. Ender gave Blade some plain clothes to change into, which Blade gladly accepted. She had a shower before jumping into the bed.

Due to the position of the bed, Blade could just see the stars through the branches of the tree. She thought about the day. It was hard to believe that she had only met these people a few hours ago. She already felt like they were family. They had accepted her into their lives with almost no questions asked. She felt safe as she fell asleep.

She woke up several hours later to two eyes staring at her from the window.