Legacy of Herobrine ✓

Chapter 18

She had to be quick. Sunset was almost approaching and she knew that her boss could not wait that long. Her boss was loyal. Her boss was impatient.

The ocelot wriggled out of the red sheets she was hiding under, from when the girl brought her into the small house. She landed on the plush blue carpet and scanned her surroundings. The girl was obviously gone. The furnace leaked smoke from a recent use, although no one was home. The ocelot planted her front paws on the rim and snatched the salmon from inside. She let it fall to the carpet, making a small, wet stain, and ate it up, contentedly.

It was delicious, although at normal circumstances, she wouldn't have stolen food. But she was hungry. Lying around all day, contemplating information, took a lot of energy.

After finishing the juicy fish, the ocelot hopped up onto the slab-chair adjacent to a window. The sun was beginning to gently brush the treeline, but it was enough to make the low sky turn a hazy gold. She jumped down and managed to find a ladder. Slowly but surely, she started to hook one foothold after another.

"Don't fail me this time, Scratch," her boss had said.

"I will not," she had meowed back.

Her boss had smiled. "Good. Very good. You are my best scout. Do not disappoint me."

"Have I ever?" she had answered.

Finally, the ocelot reached the top of the ladder. The village was not as busy as it was earlier, at noon; good. She jumped gracefully from roof to roof, blood pounding deafeningly in her ears. The sunlight began to fade oh-so slowly and the torchlight spilling from the windows and lamps seemed brighter.

Once Scratch cleared the outer wall, she looked around for the forest she came from. She sprinted off as fast as her small legs could take her across the grassy plains and into the dense forest.

After about five minutes of running, she passed the huge, towering mountain she remembered seeing on the day that Faolan and the other villager had stopped at before Sapphire met them by the river on the other side. She didn't give it a second glance as the trees closed up her view once again.

Scratch continued on until she reached a desert biome. When she crossed over onto the sand, the beat blasted her like wind. But she was used to heat--wet, humid heat like that of the jungle. This heat was dry and barren. She shook out her pelt and kept running across the sand.

Finally, she reached the middle of the desert, where a huge dune rose up. Scratch dove into a one-block opening in the sand, barely visible to those who didn't know of it, and continued through a path lit only with redstone torches. She came to a huge cavern with coal torches and an obsidian portal. The portal's flickering aura was magenta-tinted, unlike the normal violet.

Just as Scratch was about to step into the portal to report back, a voice echoed down the passage.

"Going somewhere, kitty?"

Scratch froze and her heart dropped down to her paws, leaving her with an icy cold feeling. She sniffed the air and swiveled her ears back, but the scuffling noises were everywhere.

"Haha, I think that a servant of Herobrine is near. Very interesting, isn't it, Scratch?" The voice said again.

"How do you know me?" She growled softly.

"Some people are rather easy to read, don't you think?" The voice was smooth and silky, like the shadows it was hiding in.

Her tail bushed. "Stay away from me," she hissed and dashed into the portal. Inches away, though, a blur of movement knocked her back into the far wall, where her fragile body collided with hard stone and she lay, dazed. The blur disappeared back into the shadows, where usually, torches were present to light the room up. At least half were missing.

"Irrelevant. So, I'm guessing you've found the information you need?" There was a pause. "Oh yes, you have. About the stranger, oh, what's her name, Bridget?"

A feral growl rose up from Scratch as she got to her paws, but the voice kept at it. "And you are going to report it to that skeleton, Serefire, who will report it to her master, Herobrine. But do you know what happens when someone doesn't get their information on time? Bad things, Scratch. Bad things indeed."

And just before the arrow flew from the shadows, aimed true at Scatch's dizzy head, she heard, "My ancestor once said that wisdom is not always a right. It can be a burden."