Hero's Bane

Chapter 30: Only To Ultimately Fail

Everything was blurry and dark and sort of topsy-turvy, now spinning to his displeasure. Steve's lungs ached with the grainy sediments from the dust cloud filling his exhausted air chambers, tiny shards like bits scraped the inside of the walls painfully with each inhale. Each small gulp of air of was disgusting and soiled, remnants of the creeper's sulfuric particles made his chest burn to add to his discomfort along with his fading vision. He coughed a few times to empty out his lungs of stone and sulfuric particles, but that only brought up something distasteful to add to his misery. A coopery taste built up in his mouth, then he felt warm fluid run down from the edge of his hairline down his face, he softly sputtered to try and get the bitterness off of his tongue.

It wasn't the distasteful air or blood, the aching appendages, or the now bruised and battered body that hurt the miner so much. It was his head. Even attempting to do something as simple as blink hurt so badly, he wanted to close his eyes and sleep the pain away but a solitary shadowed figure standing in the settling dust kept him doing just that. He couldn't remove his partially conscious fearful gaze away from him.

It was then that he wished the large stone brick that had struck him on the side of the head had killed him, at least he wouldn't be left to suffer at the hands of Herobrine. But just how fortunate was he to find his lower torso and legs trapped beneath debris, somehow intact; possibly fractured, but pinned down no less. The large chunk of stone mostly missed him, it hit his head in the explosion but landed on the lower half of his body; leaving him to live and suffer in that spot longer until something or someone got him.

Steve watched as the hero only stood there with white beams shining down at him, waiting for the immortal being to just pick up a stone block and crush his head with it already or use the bluish gleaming blade in his left hand and just jab away. He knew it was definitely over now, he couldn't outrun the being or move at all for that matter. He certainly didn't expect one of the guy's pets to pop up and nearly obliterate him either.

The longer he stared at Herobrine the harder it was to keep his eye open, the wound on his head really didn't help as blood crept into the crease of one of his eyes; now blinding him partially. His chest ached greatly and breathing was getting more difficult. The sword wasn't in his hand anymore, it was now lost amongst the rubble of the collapsed column. He wondered why the ancient hero just stood there instead of killing his prey, this was another perfect opportunity. If the immortal didn't make a move soon then he was going to likely miss his chance to kill the man, that's if the sword's adverse effect didn't do it first.

His viewing eye began to close and the miner quickly snapped it back open to the unmoving humanoid, he still awaited for the being to move but he never did, he didn't even raise the blade. Stare was all Herobrine did.

...

The mortal's eye threatened to close again and he fought it back by blinking but Hero could hear the man's breaths grow more ragged and shallow. The human let his eyelid fall once more and this time it didn't open back up.

The mortal was finally unconscious, at least now Herobrine didn't have to use force to stop Steve, a force that could possibly injure the man more. Herobrine felt the power of his first sword nearby, the low glow of red aura hovered around a chunk of broken stone and he kicked the block away to see the sword lying under it, completely unscathed and without a scratch or indentation. He carefully reached down and plucked it from the debris, letting the other sword in his hand fall and break; crumbling into tiny fragments that floated away in the still air and disperse like grains of sand.

He looked back at the trapped mortal lying near another pillar, he moved forward to grip onto the large hunk of stone before pushing it aside with some effort along with a smaller block to free the human's body from the heavy crushing weight. If the man hadn't been close enough to the base of the stone pillar then he would of surly lost both of his legs. The largest piece was angled over Steve and supported by a standing column; the stone barely mashed the mortal's flesh, but if it did then things wouldn't be pretty.