Herobrine

Muses

It has been some time.

Herobrine looked at his glass of wine, now a third-quarter empty. He had been staring at it for some hours now, slumped against his throne instead of sitting straight like he used to. He groaned a bit and nonchalantly threw the glass to his side to join a pile of shattered glassware. More zombies came to lick on it, not even minding the glass shard, while their Master descended from his throne, swaying dangerously as he made his way out of the room.

No, he is not semi-drunk. No, he's not sitting down too long everyday to earn an aching back. No, he's not bored out of his wits. Just no.

He's fine, yeah.

Like what Notch said, he stayed in, especially when there's a Herobrine hunt out there. He just stayed because Notch told him to, for the sake of Mojang's name, and he agreed. If they knew what he has done, they might close Minecraft down for releasing a newfound virus in the game, and then doing research of him and use him for whatever those humans outside the game does; don't know. To be honest he does not know why he obeyed. But maybe he knows? Screw that, he doesn't know anymore.

The only place he can go to now to ease his bloodthirsty quench is just Stephanus' server. That's it. Despite his hatred for him, somehow the fire of vengeance and fury died down a bit after he beat his 'twin brother' with his own hands. To be honest, it is almost extinguished. As if by every vicious attacks at the miner slowly made him forget why he was angry at the first place; why he loathed him in the first place and why did he even do such a thing. By now, he only felt nothing but guilt and horror and shame. That's right: shame. He has no idea where it came from, but this time, he does give two damns about it. He knew why he felt that way, but he will never, ever admit why.

So like usual, he locked those thoughts deep inside his head, and the ghost knew.

Somehow, it does not appear nor speak all these times. All these full two Minecraftian years, he was silent.

Perhaps because Steve was not around?

Oh to hell with that. Steve does not matter anymore.

Herobrine silently groaned, wiping his face with a hand and flung the door to his bedroom open with a kick, and decided to crash to his bed and sleep until he was sober enough to do more pointless things in the morning.

Meanwhile, two years did pass on the surface of the Overworld.

By then, Joe has grown a decent amount of brown tufts on his head, that he trim every month to keep it short and cool. By then as well, Steve has less beard now, since he shave a lot, leaving a nice-looking stubble on his face. He has less dark rings under his eyes, and much to his pleasure, his nightmares and fear had subsided into a decent level, although Joe still deem him as a very timid and cautious man. He is healthy enough to go exploring more and mine, but he never really do those anymore. He's pretty much a home person, so the only time he went around is just to do some light outdoor works, like milking the cows and and reaping the wheat and vegetables they planted about two weeks ago. He smiled more after the incident, and is still trying to recuperate from the shock, although the subject is still tender for him.

Joe would go to some villages alone for trading, just so they will not freak out by Steve's appearance, but Steve is no longer fear being alone. Whenever Joe left, Steve will take his time to sit alone and think.

It is strange that he kept thinking about 'Herobrine'. The shock that he received had made him forgotten some parts of anything concerning him, since he was very frightened and he wanted to forget all. He swore he had forgotten something very important regarding the man, but what is it? He could not remember what he should do.

Sometimes he would shake the thoughts away and thought about himself. He regretted a lot of things, including befriending that fake 'Brian'. He regretted everything. If he did not just believe that so-called wanderer, maybe he would still be happy and minding his own business with all his dogs. Joe got him a puppy he called 'Apples', and he was pretty grateful for it, although he still missed the wolves that used to accompany him wherever he goes.

The brighter side is he got Joe as his buddy now. So at least for some good time, he will stay with Joe and share a roof together until the villager decided to get himself a wife or going back to his village. He was still grateful for it. At least everything is peaceful for some time, minus the mob attacks that now seldom happen, everything is almost perfect.

"Mister Steve!"

Steve jerked as he stopped milking a cow and looked at Joe, who is now standing in the front of the barn. He took a piece of cloth on the fence and stood up, wiping some fat and milk from his hands.

"Joe, quit calling me that." He chuckled. "I feel very old suddenly."

Joe grinned. "You want me to call you 'Uncle Steve?'"

"Quit it, lad, or I'll dump this bucket of milk on your face." He heard Joe laugh. "Besides, you're like, 24-ish now, aren't you? A simple 'Steve' is just fine."

"Habits are hard to go. If you said so, I'll try."

"Great. Don't keep making me feel like I'm 60 years old already."

"Your face is 60 years old."

He chuckled softly. Kid's never really change.

It is 1 a.m. and the king of Nether woke up, quite sober, and having a merciless headache.

He sat down at the edge of the bed, face in his hands and let out an annoyed growl. He swore if he stayed one more day in this godforsaken place doing nothing, he will reduce to a pathetic alcoholic or something. He only had wine and it's the only thing he liked, but of course, it can affect him on high doses, which he consume everyday. Really, he has to do something before he decided to blow everything up to pieces.

Maybe he should see Stephanus.

With that goal secured on his half-sleeping mind, he got up and decided to take a stroll down to where the perfect program lives.

Now what shall he do to the miner? His face is purely blank as he halted in front of the front gates. What shall he do? For the first time, he does not know. The ideas of all those 'punishing' and 'best outcome' and 'suffering' seems very meaningless right now. Every of his mischievous plans and every of his ideas and strategies had come to an abrupt halt. What else is the reason he went drinking? He just find no more fun in his life. He just lost the meaning of being a bloodthirsty scumbag, as the players put it.

He just seemed to quit.

Pushing the door open with ease, he stepped out and tried to remember how to get there to the server.