I asked myself a question; if we beat the game, then why haven't we woken up yet? Well, there's one answer to that question: Notch. Also known as, Herobrine.
"Why aren't we back in the real world yet?" Natalie asked.
"Yeah! What's with this shit?!" Eli agreed.
"I don't know, guys," I told them. "Wait, has anyone else noticed lag at all?"
They both nodded, and I turned around. It was a cloaked figure. He had dark skin. Underneath the black cloak, he had a light blue shirt and jeans. But you could barely make out the rest of his body because of his glowing eyes. But the eyes were all you needed to make out who he was. It was Herobrine, here, in the End with us.
"May I just say, you three are the best players I've ever challenged! Most players just clear the bosses by killing me, but you all refused to fight me! You're . . . different from all the other players. You're . . . smart."
"There used to be four of us!" Eli yelled.
"I know, I'm a murderer. But every once in a while, being a once-human now codes, I get a little urge. An urge to troll players and kill them."
"CUT THE CRAP, HEROBRINE! Why haven't we woken up yet?!" I exclaimed.
"That's a question with a simple answer: I lied."
"You mean, you can't send us back to the real world?" I said, in response.
"Oh no, I can. Actually, I can do that very easily. I can create a portal to the real world, even. I'm just not sending you all there."
"Why?" I asked. "Why put us all through that?"
"Well," he began, "to get to the real world, of course! You see, in order to travel to the real world from the game world, every bit of the game world has to be rendered. Now, it is, because you beat all the bosses."
"But, you're codes!" I told him. "You can't go to the real world!"
"Oh, but I can! You see, you all can be converted into codes and be trapped inside the game. Why not the reverse of that? And when I get to the real world, I will convert it all into codes; ones and zeros; virtual data, and your world will be mine!"
"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" we all shouted at him.
"Whoa, no need for name calling!" Herobrine joked, not really. "Since you all are my favorite players, I'll give you a chance to get back to the real world. If you can kill me." He pointed at me while saying that. "And, might I remind you, that I will be able to die . . ."
"Don't do it!" Eli whispered to me.
"Yeah, Eli's right. You against Herobrine?! That's not a fair match."
While Herobrine tried to convince me, and Natalie and Eli tried to stop me, I thought about something. Herobrine said he uploaded his subconscious to this game. But when you're converted into codes, trapped within a game, it detects you as a normal player on the same account. How can something detected as a player do all this stuff?
"You know what crossed my mind, Herobrine?"
"What's that?"
"You uploaded your subconscious to this game to become this game . . . and be converted into codes. But when someone converts into codes, becomes apart of a game, the game detects you as a normal player on your normal account. So, who are you behind those glowing eyes? The game master? Jens Bergensten? Notch?" Herobrine looked down for a bit, knowing he couldn't deny it. He glitched. A secondary image of his face flickered, Notch's face, until Notch's face and the glowy eyes stayed.
"You caught me," he said, in his new voice. He sounded like Notch, only a grumbling noise matching the pitch of his voice. "I am Herobrine."
"But why? Why would you become apart of the game, put players through this, then go back to the real world? What's the point?"
"Why?! This world's a world I can control! Becoming apart of the game gave me the capability to be the game master of both worlds. Once I go to the real world, I'll be able to mold it, and make it my vision! This world, however, has been taken over by those in the real world . . ."
"Well, either way, I'm gonna kill you!" I told him.
"Oh, you sure about that?" He slowly glitched toward me. Then, when he was closest to me, he glitched away. Then, I felt a stinging pain in my back, spreading to my gut. I couldn't breathe. The pain grew to its highest spread, and I felt force push me forward. I fell to the ground. I felt loads of pain. I saw Notch walk to the side of me, then glitch to the front of me, facing me. He bent over, saying, "Looks like you're not the best player, after all." He lifted up his hand, made it glitchy, and he began to throw his fist at me. But before Notch could get to me, Eli charged toward him, jabbing his sword into his side. Notch turned toward Eli, keeping a straight face like the sword in the side was no biggy. Notch made his hand glitchy again, and phased his hand through Eli's chest. "NO!" I said. "No, Eli, no!" I cried. Yes, sob and everything.
"Mitchell," he said.
"What?"
"I'm sorry." I closed my eyes, blinking away at my tears. I opened them, seeing Eli fade away into starlight particles. His items dropped. Everything. And seeing the craziest stuff he had only made my sobbing worse. No! I wasn't going to lay here and let his death be for nothing!
"Neither was he," Notch added.
I saw his sword lie on the ground, and that was a really good sword. But it was behind Notch. No, it was worth the risk! I quickly forced myself up, and I ran for the sword. I could feel Notch trying to catch up with me. I lunged, grabbing the sword, doing a summersault, and turning around. I saw Notch actually jumping to try and get me. While he was in midair, I hit him with my sword, then Eli's sword. Notch got knocked back. I went up to him, letting my sword fall into him to finish him off. But he got out of the way, using his glitch hand on me, right in the side. It knocked me back, but I immediately got back up, realizing the fact that my side was sort of corroding. Notch glitched to the point where he was right in my face, and he tried to use his glitch hand on my chest. I swung my diamond sword at his arm, blocking him. I swung Eli's sword at his face, actually messing Notch's face up. I took my sword away from Notch's arm, and I got out of the way of his glitchy hand. I jabbed Eli's sword into his chest, then took it out. I jabbed my sword into his chest, then took it out. I was about to jab both swords in at the same time, but then he grabbed both the blades with his hands like it was nothing. He pulled the blades downward, making the swords fall to the ground. He was about to jab his glitchy hand into me, but then I saw Natalie going up behind him. I mouthed Please don't, but she didn't listen. She got an arrow out and started to try and jab it into Notch's back. But then, Notch turned around, grabbing the arrow, and jabbed it into her.
"NO! NATALIE!" I cried. I started to sob. "No, please no! No! No! NO!"
"Mitchell. I'm not gonna make it-"
"Don't say that! DON'T YOU SAY THAT! You're gonna survive, and you're gonna go back to the real world!"
"No, Mitchell. No, I'm not." I was shocked. She wasn't scared or anything. "But I'm glad this is how I'm gonna go. I love you Mitchell. I never wanted anything to happen to you. I wanted you to live, and now you are."
"Natalie, no! What about me?! I love you too, and that's why I can't live without you!"
"Look, Mitchell, this was my choice. I did this because I can't stand the thought of you being oblivion. And that's why, don't blame yourself for my death. Don't kill yourself, or worse, regret not saving me. No matter what happens in the real world, promise me you'll keep living."
"I promise," I told her, letting out a sob.
"Good," she said, letting out her final breath. She faded into starlight particles, dying. I stopped my sobbing. I looked down, letting my hair cover my eyes, brooding. As soon as Notch turned around, I let out a weak swing with Eli's sword. But I didn't even touch Notch. He glitched back. I ran toward him, letting my momentum swing the sword at him. But he grabbed the blade, made his other hand glitchy, and he phased it through my chest. I saw my HP slowly decrease. It went down to one tick, and that tick was taken. A message went up on the screen, saying, YOU DIED. So, this was it, huh? This was how I was gonna go? No, I can't . . . I can't! I can't let this second be my last! I have to make sure Natalie . . . Eli . . . Ethan . . . I have to make sure none of their deaths were for nothing! I saw the death message fade away, seeing my body reconfigure. But it wasn't fully, though. I was barely staying alive. Notch's hand, even, was still in my chest.
"What?! No, that's not possible . . . That's not possible! How is that possible?!"
"That's a question with a simple answer: Human will."
"What?"
"As much pain as I'm in right now, as much as I want to die, I'm willing myself alive. My human will is fighting the system, the code! You were wrong, Notch. Human will isn't the weakness, the other way around."
"No! I refuse to let a kid beat me!"
"Oh, but you already have," I corrected, picking up one of Natalie's enchanted arrows. He didn't notice that I picked it up, though. "Notch, or Herobrine, you can't beat me if my human will is keeping me alive!" Notch caught on to what I was saying, and I quickly jabbed the arrow into his forehead. A bunch of starlight particles rose from him. He started faded away. And when he was almost completely dead, he gave me a grin, saying, "You win." He didn't just fade away. When he faded to the point of being engulfed in starlight particles, he exploded. I saw the area of my chest where Notch had his hand through. It was fading itself. But my will was letting nothing kill me. After a while, I knew it was over.
"It's over," I told myself, closing my eyes. "I'm ready, game. I'm ready to die." I felt myself drift away from consciousness, and I felt nothingness. I was dead. And it was over.
- - - - - - - - - - READERS! In case wondering, the story isn't over yet. Be on the lookout for "The Final Chapter".
Voice 2: I see the player you mean.
Voice 1: Hello?
Voice 2: Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read our thoughts.
Voice 1: That doesn't matter. It thinks we are part of the game.
Voice 2: I like this player. It played well. It did not give up.
Voice 1: It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a screen.
Voice 2: That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a game.
Voice 1: Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the reality behind the screen.
Voice 2: They used to hear voices. Before players could read. Back in the days when those who did not play called the players witches, and warlocks. And players dreamed they flew through the air, on sticks powered by demons.
Voice 1: What did this player dream?
Voice 2: This player dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created. And it dreamed it destroyed. It dreamed it hunted, and was hunted. It dreamed of shelter.
Voice 1: Hah, the original interface. A million years old, and it still works. But what true structure did this player create, in the reality behind the screen?
Voice 2: It worked, with a million others, to sculpt a true world in a fold of the §f§k§a§bVoice 2: , and created a §f§k§a§bVoice 2: for §f§k§a§bVoice 2: , in the §f§k§a§bVoice 2: .
Voice 1: It cannot read that thought.
Voice 2: No. It has not yet achieved the highest level. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a game.
Voice 1: Does it know that we love it? That the universe is kind?
Voice 2: Sometimes, through the noise of its thoughts, it hears the universe, yes.
Voice 1: But there are times it is sad, in the long dream. It creates worlds that have no summer, and it shivers under a black sun, and it takes its sad creation for reality.
Voice 2: To cure it of sorrow would destroy it. The sorrow is part of its own private task. We cannot interfere.
Voice 1: Sometimes when they are deep in dreams, I want to tell them, they are building true worlds in reality. Sometimes I want to tell them of their importance to the universe. Sometimes, when they have not made a true connection in a while, I want to help them to speak the word they fear.
Voice 2: It reads our thoughts.
Voice 1: Sometimes I do not care. Sometimes I wish to tell them, this world you take for truth is merely §f§k§a§bVoice 1: and §f§k§a§bVoice 1: , I wish to tell them that they are §f§k§a§bVoice 1: in the §f§k§a§bVoice 1: . They see so little of reality, in their long dream.
Voice 2: And yet they play the game.
Voice 1: But it would be so easy to tell them...
Voice 2: Too strong for this dream. To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.
Voice 1: I will not tell the player how to live.
Voice 2: The player is growing restless.
Voice 1: I will tell the player a story.
Voice 2: But not the truth.
Voice 1: No. A story that contains the truth safely, in a cage of words. Not the naked truth that can burn over any distance.
Voice 2: Give it a body, again.
Voice 1: Yes. Player...
Voice 2: Use its name.
Voice 1: Hello. Player of games.
Voice 2: Good.
Voice 1: Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the universe again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things.
Voice 2: Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Ancestral spirits, animal spirits. Jinn. Ghosts. The green man. Then gods, demons. Angels. Poltergeists. Aliens, extraterrestrials. Leptons, quarks. The words change. We do not change.
Voice 1: We are the universe. We are everything you think isn't you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes. And why does the universe touch your skin, and throw light on you? To see you, player. To know you. And to be known. I shall tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there was a player.
Voice 2: The player was you.
Voice 1: Sometimes it thought itself human, on the thin crust of a spinning globe of molten rock. The ball of molten rock circled a ball of blazing gas that was three hundred and thirty thousand times more massive than it. They were so far apart that light took eight minutes to cross the gap. The light was information from a star, and it could burn your skin from a hundred and fifty million kilometres away.
Voice 1: Sometimes the player dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite. The sun was a square of white. The days were short; there was much to do; and death was a temporary inconvenience.
Voice 2: Sometimes the player dreamed it was lost in a story.
Voice 1: Sometimes the player dreamed it was other things, in other places. Sometimes these dreams were disturbing. Sometimes very beautiful indeed. Sometimes the player woke from one dream into another, then woke from that into a third.
Voice 2: Sometimes the player dreamed it watched words on a screen.
Voice 1: Let's go back.
Voice 1: The atoms of the player were scattered in the grass, in the rivers, in the air, in the ground. A woman gathered the atoms; she drank and ate and inhaled; and the woman assembled the player, in her body.
Voice 1: And the player awoke, from the warm, dark world of its mother's body, into the long dream.
Voice 1: And the player was a new story, never told before, written in letters of DNA. And the player was a new program, never run before, generated by a sourcecode a billion years old. And the player was a new human, never alive before, made from nothing but milk and love.
Voice 2: You are the player. The story. The program. The human. Made from nothing but milk and love.
Voice 1: Let's go further back.
Voice 1: The seven billion billion billion atoms of the player's body were created, long before this game, in the heart of a star. So the player, too, is information from a star. And the player moves through a story, which is a forest of information planted by a man called Julian, on a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus, that exists inside a small, private world created by the player, who inhabits a universe created by...
Voice 2: Shush. Sometimes the player created a small, private world that was soft and warm and simple. Sometimes hard, and cold, and complicated. Sometimes it built a model of the universe in its head; flecks of energy, moving through vast empty spaces. Sometimes it called those flecks "electrons" and "protons".
Voice 1: Sometimes it called them "planets" and "stars".
Voice 1: Sometimes it believed it was in a universe that was made of energy that was made of offs and ons; zeros and ones; lines of code. Sometimes it believed it was playing a game. Sometimes it believed it was reading words on a screen.
Voice 2: You are the player, reading words...
Voice 1: Shush... Sometimes the player read lines of code on a screen. Decoded them into words; decoded words into meaning; decoded meaning into feelings, emotions, theories, ideas, and the player started to breathe faster and deeper and realised it was alive, it was alive, those thousand deaths had not been real, the player was alive
Voice 2: You. You. You are alive.
Voice 1: and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the sunlight that came through the shuffling leaves of the summer trees
Voice 2: and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the light that fell from the crisp night sky of winter, where a fleck of light in the corner of the player's eye might be a star a million times as massive as the sun, boiling its planets to plasma in order to be visible for a moment to the player, walking home at the far side of the universe, suddenly smelling food, almost at the familiar door, about to dream again
Voice 1: and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the zeros and ones, through the electricity of the world, through the scrolling words on a screen at the end of a dream
Voice 2: and the universe said I love you
Voice 1: and the universe said you have played the game well
Voice 2: and the universe said everything you need is within you
Voice 1: and the universe said you are stronger than you know
Voice 2: and the universe said you are the daylight
Voice 1: and the universe said you are the night
Voice 2: and the universe said the darkness you fight is within you
Voice 1: and the universe said the light you seek is within you
Voice 2: and the universe said you are not alone
Voice 1: and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing
Voice 2: and the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code
Voice 1: and the universe said I love you because you are love.
Voice 2: And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love.
Voice 2: You are the player.
Voice 1: Wake up.