Hero's Bane

Chapter 50: To Withstand This Agony

It had felt like he had been walking for hours, Steve continued to take deep breaths as he paced down lengthy corridors of Nertherbrick while growing more anxious with Herobrine silently leading the way. The seemingly endless hallways and multiple turns made him feel like they was walking in loops, the worst part about it was some of the paths and turns he recognized from when the hero showed him the portal back to the Overworld in his first test for trust. He memorized every single imperfection of the chipped Nertherbrick flooring and walls, every last one and he just couldn't help but look and check for each defined mark as he moved along.

He was starting to think that his mind was just working in overload now, each new hallway they turned on looked exactly the same as the last; the differences were there but they were just hardly noticeable and he strained his eyes to find all of them. Steve was forced to remember the direct location of the portal and so he retained every single flaw, turn, and staircase he saw and counted; which was a lot, but he was now mentally recounting them and walking down them more slowly then zooming through them as if was flying down them in his mind like he was earlier. How Herobrine imprinted such details and unforgettable pathways was quite the mystery, Steve found the power to be very impressive and almost kind of handy; though the pain to receive the memory was a little much to bear.

The miner sighed and wiped a bit of moisture off his forehead with the back of his hand, they still had more walking than he wanted to do; probably going the long route to see if he was strong enough to even make it to the destination as it's own little test.

The slow trek was making him feel apprehensive and very sick, he didn't know what to expect for his next test but Herobrine did say that it was going to be one of his worst fears and just knowing that made him ill. Though feeling sick was the least of his problems, he still had two others that tormented his mind. The old hero became silent after their last conversation and it was kind of unnerving not to hear the being speak into his mind for a while, the silence was starting to remind him of the time before Herobrine spoke and he could never anticipate what was going on with the powerful being. He could be planning something quite menacing right now and he wouldn't even know it, asking if the man was doing that was completely out of question. Steve was starting to wonder if their last conversation had the immortal being quiet, he would have been quiet himself if he had been rescued from a pit of lava by his enemy.

Then at last and most greatest of his concerns; the heat. He definitely didn't remember it through the forced vision, well he was experiencing it now. It was worse than his prison cell, far worse and more intense than he ever wanted it to be. Every set of stairs they descended only lead them into more hotter corridors, it was like he was slowly walking into lava but not catching aflame. The deeper they walked the more hotter it got, the heat was almost completely debilitating now. Steve had to fight the scorching temperatures just to keep up with the white-eyed man, he sweated profusely and swallowed hot air against his will in his walk. His legs were growing weaker and his body was feeling heavier but he wasn't going to stop now, he had to endure Herobrine's next hardship first and hopefully earn some more food and water that he was so deprived of.

'The heat. It's too hot, I can't stand it. Why does it have to be so hot?' Steve felt himself starting to sway and somewhat stagger in each of his steps, the temperature was making him feel like he was being cooked from the inside out. This was just agonizing compared to his prison cell, at least the cage wasn't this searing. The red hallways made him mentally groan in torment, the heat waves was one thing but seeing red just made him feel as though he was burning alive even more in an imaginary furnace. Opening his mouth in his tiring gasps had nearly dried out the moisture completely and it made him feel uncomfortable to have his throat now dry and itchy again, that was surprisingly harder to ignore than the stifling heat. The boiling temperature was very hard to tolerate, yet he kept quietly fighting it and his discomfort and tried to press his mind towards more important matters.