1: The news was helpful for once (Riley)

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So.

It's been about one and a half years since our little adventure. Well, big adventure actually. And, man, a lot has happened in that time.

When we got back from Minecraft, my parents were panicking. Thankfully, only a day had passed in our world, although it does my mind in when I think of how long we spent in Minecraft. I was grounded for 3 months (absolute torture) and then was finally let free.

Meanwhile, Minecraft was completely destroyed. All of its files had been erased from every computer in the world, something Mojang still couldn't figure out. No shred of code had remained.

Like last time, my friends and I went back to living our normal lives. Sometimes, I think that it was all a dream. That our time in Minecraft was just a fantasy that I had imagined. But then one of my friends mentions it, or I go to sleep and remember the time we spent there.

Most of all, I remember him. Herobrine. The guy who started it all and the guy who ended it. The guy who had changed who I was and who I saw myself to be.

Sometimes I wonder, did I love him? But then I discard the notion. I've never loved anyone romantically, but the love I felt for him was familiar. It took me a while to work it out, but I realised that it was family love. I loved him like I loved my brother or my... Okay, loving my parents was hard at times. Like now, for instance.

-----------------------

I was lying on my bed, fiddling on my phone. Two years ago, I would have been on the computer now, except that my parents no longer provided me with that privilege. Now, the computer was downstairs in the study with Dad and Mum's computers. But it didn't have Minecraft on it anyway, so there was basically no point in playing it. And Dad had removed all the fun games from it.

"Riley! Come down and do your homework!"

I groaned and rolled off my bed. "Yes mum!" I yelled back.

The joys of being in year 11. Tons of homework. (I can agree with this)

I jogged down the stairs, grabbed my homework on the way and went into the study. It was just me in the room now; Dad was watching TV while Mum made dinner. I sat down at my desk, opening my maths books first. I groaned as I read the title of the exercise: Linear Equations. The maths topic I hated the most.

I half heartedly attempted some of the questions, but since I got most of them wrong, I gave up and started Chemistry instead. That was hard but I had Google to help me (we weren't supposed to use Google but I never listened). Next was Software Design and Development. We had a project where we were supposed to code a simple guessing game. SDD was my favourite subject and I was pretty good at it too. I opened up the coding program on my computer but realised that I had left the sheet of prompts in my bag. I went out to my bag, got it out and was heading back to the study when I stopped. I had passed the lounge room where Dad was watching the news, and one word had drawn my attention.

"-Minecraft had announced that the game is now back up and working. Minecraft closed for unknown reasons over a year ago, much to the devastation of millions of players all around the world. Markus Persson, also known as Notch, announced the remake of the game at 2pm Central European Time. On his twitter post, he announced that the game has been restored to its former glory, with a few surprises added in. In other news, the American President-"

I quickly headed back to the study, my mind spinning with the news. Minecraft has been remade? But how? How was that possible? Notch must have recreated it from scratch, or maybe he had an alpha version on his computer somewhere. He couldn't have used the code of the existing Minecraft since it had all been destroyed. My heart started to race with excitement as a thought occurred to me. If Minecraft had been recreated, then maybe Herobrine had been recreated too.

I shook my head, sitting down at my desk again. That was impossible. Herobrine said that it would erase his code and Entity's, as well as all of Minecraft's. Notch might have been able to use an older version to remake Minecraft, but Herobrine was gone. For good. I tried to focus on my coding, but it only served to remind me of Minecraft and Herobrine. So I gave up.

That night, I got my friends in a Skype call and told them about what I had heard on the news.

"Yeah, I heard it too. Twitter has been going nuts!" Jerome said.

"My entire fan base has gone nuts!" Adam said.

"Same here," Mitch echoed. "I've had more notifications in the past hour than I have ever had before!"

A ding sound of a phone came though the call. "Matt's also heard the news. It's gone viral, and no wonder," Adam read.

Every time I talked to these guys, I felt a thrill of excitement run through me. Not only have I been through so much with them, they were also very famous YouTubers: ASFJerome, Sky Does Minecraft, BajanCanadian and SubZeroExtabyte. And I was kinda fans of most of them.

"I can't believe Notch was able to recreate Minecraft," Jerome was saying.

"What if-" I stopped myself from saying more.

"What if what Riley?" Adam asked.

I hesitated, not wanting to voice my hope in case I was wrong. "What if... What if Herobrine was recreated with Minecraft?"

Silence followed my statement.

"Maybe," Adam said slowly. "It's possible."

"But Herobrine said that he would be erased," Mitch pointed out.

"He also said that Minecraft would be erased, and yet that has been recreated," Jerome pointed out.

"I don't know what to think," I admitted. "I'm hoping that he's alive but... I don't think it's possible."

More silence followed.

"But hey, Minecraft has been recreated guys!" Mitch said, trying to make the atmosphere lighter. "We can start playing again. And Notch said that he's added in a few extra surprises too."

Jerome gasped. "What if we all played together? I could set up a server and we could just play around."

"Sounds awesome!" I agreed. "I'll have to wait until my parents are out so I don't get into trouble, but that should be fine."

"All my weekends are free, so I'm in," Adam said.

"Same here," Mitch echoed.

Ding. Adam read the text from Matt and then gasped. "Matt, that's brilliant!"

"What? What is it?" Mitch asked.

"Why should we just play the game, when we can be in the game?"

"Yes!" I cheered.

"Let's do it!" Mitch said.

"Matt, when can you send us in?" Jerome asked.

Ding. "He says that he can do it this weekend if we want."

"I can do that," Mitch said.

Jerome and I echoed him. I couldn't see Adam's face, but I could imagine the slightly ridiculous overjoyed smile on his face as he spoke. "Then it's set."

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