I woke up in a cold sweat. Panting heavily as if I had been holding my breath the entire night. Once I was sitting up I wondered why I had woken up in the first place. Then I remembered that it had been a nightmare which had woken me up. I then remembered the nightmare itself. It had been a weird one for sure.
All it was was a slide show of third-person slow-motion instances in my life. All instances that made me despise myself. And being reminded of them didn't help any. There was one of me burning villages, me killing people, me killing my younger brother, me mind-wiping my twin, me killing more, me destroying more, me enslaving those strong enough to do my bidding, me, just.. me... And throughout the whole thing a voice, possibly even mine but I wasn't able to even recognize it as a voice, it kept telling me the same time the whole time. Slowly growing in seriousness and volume. "fix it... fix it.. Fix it... Fix It.. FIX IT.. Fix it!.. Fix it!! FIX IT!.. Fix it!! FIX IT!!. Fix it!!!.. FIX IT!!!" Just remembering the whole thing made me shiver under my blankets.
I decided to just lay back down and go back to sleep since I still felt a little tired. But my mind wouldn't let me. It kept bustling, trying to figure out how I could fix it. Then it hit me, as if my mind had known all along but just needed some time to think it over.
Time Travel.
Yes. It was the perfect idea! I had sent my brother back in time once. Why couldn't I send myself? It would be very risky, however, and last time I did that it took every ounce of my energy and several weeks to recover. Maybe I would upgrade the machine I had made a while back so it doesn't take as much energy.
Of course, I couldn't help but think back to one of the strangest images in my dream. One that stood out and didn't make any sense. One of the images from that dream was of me in my changing moments. The very instance I finally wrapped my head around everything and realized all I had done. That was the guiltiest I had ever felt in my life. When all I had done finally hit me. And of course that moment didn't seem to fit with all the others. All the others were of death and destruction, showing what I had done to the world. The one that stood out, was simply me looking into the sunset, just thinking. IT DIDN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!
I would have to save that thought for later, because I needed to get to work right away. I needed to work on my old-time machine once again. So I slid myself out of bed, that time in a thought set hurry, and teleported to my lab underneath the castle. Only I or endermen could enter there because there were no doors or windows.
The place was dark and dusty. No one had been there in years. I turned on the lights with my mind and walked over to my old desk where I had a file full of blueprints. Those who know me well enough know how much of an inventor I am. Steve and I used to spend most of our free time tinkering on all kinds of stuff together. I even had an old shop in the real world I would sometimes visit and work on things I couldn't in the game over there.
I pulled out some blueprints I had hidden under the shelves so no one doing a quick snoop could find it. I grabbed the whole folder and looked at it closely. The first page in there was something I had seen in a dream and did my best to replicate it on paper. For a long time I had no idea what it even was that I had drawn. But years later as I started researching time travel I had realized what I had drawn were indeed simplified blueprints of how to make time travel possible.
I then pulled out my second blueprints, which were much more detailed because that time I understood what I was trying to accomplish. However they were not perfect, so I made another, and another, and another, each time using the old drawing as a reference. I looked through each one, all of them both missing and adding something to the one from before.
Finally, I pulled out my most recent two. I hadn't been able to decide which was right so I just flipped a diamond and decided that way. Maybe I would try making the second one to see if it would work any better. Both of them had a very similar shape and function so all I would really have to do was remake the older one but using the second blueprints instead of the first. In the back of my head I couldn't help but feel as if I was missing something so simple, so obvious, but just out of comprehension. I chose to ignore the tantalizing thought and get to work right away.
I wasn't sure how much time had passed when I was interrupted from my work by a familiar voice with an English accent.
"Oh thank Notch!" Fred exclaimed with as much excitement as he could muster. "There you are Lord Herobrine! I was worried you had found a way to- um, well.. you know..." He trailed off mumbling. I just grunted and looked up at him as I crawled from underneath the machine attempt two.
"How did you even get in here Fred?" I grumbled as I wiped my dirty hands on my shirt. I guess I would be needing new pajamas soon. Forgot I was wearing them again.
"You gave me the ability to teleport a few years back." Fred reminded me.
"Oh." I said with no emotion. "Well, I am fine.. How long have I been down here anyway?" I decided to ask since time was brought back to mind.
"Well I am not quite sure when you arrived here, however I would have to guess somewhere around five to seven hours." Fred said. (Heh, that rhymes. :)
I jumped back in astonishment. "Wh- five to seven hours?!. Have the kids already left?!"
"I am afraid not sir. They seem to be making themselves at home here. It is almost impossible trying to keep up with them all, especially the little one." Fred informed. I just chuckled.
"Sounds like Teddy. Just make sure none of them fall into any lava, alright?"
"You have my word, sir." After saying that, Fred teleported off, and I continued working. It was actually pretty nice finally having a goal to set my mind to. Seemed to give me purpose, ya know?
After what I knew had to be several hours later I heard teleporting once again. I didn't acknowledge Fred that time because I was busy working on a delicate step that took a lot of my focus to get done. I was laying on my back again underneath the machine while carefully implanting a time-core shard, one of the last ones remaining, into a very specific spot in the motor. Then I heard the voice I wasn't expecting.
"Heloo Herobwine!" Chatty little Teddy piped up from somewhere around me. I jumped startled and almost dropped the shard. Good thing I caught it in time.
"I'm sorry sir! I couldn't handle his miserable wailing noises any longer! Teddy just wouldn't stop pestering me about seeing you!" Fred panted in defeat and hopelessness. He sounded pretty miserable. I just growled too quietly for anyone to hear. Then I heard shuffling around my head and saw Teddy army crawling under the machine towards me. I tried to ignore him so I could finish, panicking inside to hurry up. The worst thing would be for a four-year-old to break one of the last time shards in existence.
"What arre you doing, Herobwine?" Teddy asked as he laid on his back next to me to watch what I was doing. I kept quiet so I could focus.
"Teddy, get out of there and let Lord Herobrine work!" Fred called from underneath. He was too big to squeeze under there and pull Teddy out himself, so all he could do was speak for me.
"Can I help?" The little boy asked, completely ignoring the voice of reason. I just groaned.
"No, you can't. This is very important and I don't want you messing it up!" I grumbled. Teddy didn't seem to notice my 'in the zone' mood though. He just kept watching my hands anxiously as I tried fitting in the crystal perfectly. His anxiety moved over to me and my arms began to shake with stress. "Listen, Teddy, can you please leave?! I can talk to you later." I said in as much of a controlled tone as I could use.
"Okay, Herobwine!" Teddy said excitedly as he turned back onto his belly and spun himself around to leave. As he started to crawl away, Teddy's leg kicked my arm. And the crystal slipped from my hand. All time seemed to slow down as I watched the time-core shard slowly fall to the floor. If only I had been quick enough.
The shard shattered and I fell to my side in defeat. Unsure what to do, I just laid down flat on my face and forced myself to think. The urge to just blow everything up and kill Teddy began bubbling up inside me. I had to force myself to take deep breaths and remember why I was working on this in the first place. I just laid face down for a while.
"Lord Herobrine, are you alright?" Fred asked in a worried tone. I turned my head to his voice and saw a worried look as he stared at me. Teddy was also looking at me with a lot of shock. He looked between me, and the shattered crystal on the floor, just like my hope. I groaned and pulled myself out of there. I kept myself from looking at Teddy and Fred both, worried I might pull out my sword on old instinct and kill them. I could sense Teddy was scared by the dangerously low vibes I was giving off.
"I- I- I'm sowy Herobwine.." Teddy murmured. His innocent little voice soothed my trembling inside a little. I then realized my arms were on fire by stress. I really did have anger issues.
"JUST-DON'T-DO-BAD-DON'T-ANGER-GAH!" I vented while looking around wildly, flames in my fists. I had to keep myself from hurting Teddy. So I quickly teleported away to The End.
Once there, I looked frantically around for the nearest obsidian pillar. I saw one that was only mildly beaten up and flew right into it, an explosion of fire and ash going out of me along with bottled up anger came out on impact. I continued flying through it like a torpedo. Then I just punched it to my heart's content. The pillar was almost gone, and I was finally calmer. I took deep breaths once again and the fire vanished off my skin.
"Looks like at this rate the entire End will be completely destroyed. Well, I guess it is better than the Over World." A voice I wasn't expecting to hear in a long time, chuckled. I turned around and saw Evie floating to me at eye level. Her eyes were glowing like mine, which meant she had either been practicing some of her powers, or fighting, most likely both.
"Evie?!" I jumped back amid air. "What are you doing here?!"
"I got bored back at home so I jumped into the game to kill the Ender Dragon again. The only time I can use my powers in the real world is flying over to Walmart invisible or something. Minecraft is much more fun." Evie answered with a small laugh. I smiled slightly. "So what angered you this time?" The girl asked. I sighed as I thought.
"Ugh! Teddy bumped my arm and made me drop the only time-core shard I had." I huffed. Evie's face brightened up a little at probably the wrong idea in mind.
"Wait, did you get married?!" She squealed in excitement. "Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!"
"No, Evie! It isn't that!" I said both a little annoyed and a little laughing that she would actually suspect such a thing. "Teddy is just a little boy who arrived at my castle with his older siblings, wanting a place to stay." I interrupted Evie's little girly moment. She was usually chill, so it was odd seeing her suddenly step out of character.
"Oh, what are their names?" Evie asked with a slightly different kind of interest, her usual chill smile in place.
"The oldest is Sebastian. Probably fourteen or fifteen. The second oldest is Madely, who I think is eleven or twelve. And the youngest is Teddy, probably four or five." I answered, deciding to hand out the extra info myself. Evie chuckled internally. "What?" I asked her smiling self.
"Oh, nothing. Just wondering if those names are really common or something. Because I have three friends in my class with those exact names." She giggled. I would have rolled my eyes if I had pupils. Then an idea snapped into Evie's mind and she smiled. "Oh oh oh oh oh! Herobrine! I could help you find another time shard. I have nothing better to do so it would be perfect!" She smiled.
"Wow, um, thanks. They are spread across different worlds with the seed '1500fd' so make a few worlds and use this special compass to find them." As I said that I handed Evie a diamond compass with a little gem on the top. She smiled and took it happily.
"No, thank you! Now I have something to do this summer break other than chores!" She squealed. "Um, what are you planning on doing with a time core thingy anyways?" She asked.
"I plan to fix all the mistakes I have made." I said whilst drooping my head a little.
"Oh..." Evie said with a little sadness in her tone.
"Why sad? I was the one who gave you that ugly scar a couple years back." I asked her.
"Yeah.. but you also gave me these powers a couple years back, and the scar has kind of grown on me.. And you also helped me realize how much I needed my family. You unintentionally brought me closer to them by trying to take them away. I kinda owe you a thank you for that." Evie sighed. I was shaken by that. Evie, saying thankyou?! For being the villain of the story? I felt like saying more but didn't know what to say. "Well, I guess I should enjoy every moment I got with these memories. Bye, Herobrine." She waved before vanishing. I then sighed for no real reason and teleported back to my lab.
Fred and Teddy weren't there. Everything was so quiet. My mind was so quiet. Everything, was silent.