Section 8: 

     Sighing, Steve could finally relax as he rest his back against one of the four posts holding up the roof. The breeze was especially nice up here, whistling lowly as it glided past the human. All the cooped up anger floated away with the wind, leaving him to think about the past few days. Below his feet, which dangled off the watch-tower's ledge, was the village and small forest within the walls. He could see it all in its entirety from where he sat.

     The human tried thinking about nearly everything, up on the tower he had built, but no matter what, his thoughts returned to the younger man, Hero. Why did he not like seeing this "new human?" No one else was angry with Hero from what he had seen, so maybe it was he who was looking at him wrongly. The younger man sure seemed nice. He never said anything mean on purpose, aside from their last...argument. And that was just fact he was spitting. So...what about him was wrong then?... The man thought long and hard about the issue, but no solution came to him.

     Steve sat there until the sun was creeping back behind the hills to his right. The sky had lit up with firey pinks and oranges. What a beautiful sight. The human moved around the post he had been leaning against to face the sunset. He laid down on his stomach on the floorboards, arms crossing to hold up his chin. The evening breeze sang the man a lullaby, lolling him to sleep ever so softly. Slowly, the weight on Steve's eyelids began to increase, and more and more, he noticed himself dozing off for a few seconds at a time. He was nearly asleep when..a drop of cold water splashed the human on the cleek. A small raindrop was all it took to pry the human from his slipping into unconciousness. Suddenly, Steve sat up and wiped the small rain drop off of his face, looking to the building purple clouds in the sky, wondering if it was really going to rain.

     He was answered, yes, when more and more small droplets of rain began to fall. Pretty soon, it was sprinkling, so Steve decided to get to his bed before it began to full-on rain. Deciding this, Steve stood up and briskfully made his way down the spiral staircase, out one of the doors, and onto the already beaten path he would follow to reach his house.

     "HURRRR! HUURRRR!" A high pitch shout was heard coming from the direction Drake's house was in. Sprinting from the forest, young Tim ran right for Steve, eyes filled to the brim with worry, maybe even terror.

     "What's wrong?" Steve's mind began to panic as it thought of all the terrible things that could have happened. Once close enough for the human to see it properly, Tim pulled out a sign with some pretty bad hand writing on it, written in the villagers' symbols. The human had at least learned how to read those, so he could communicate with the rest of the villagers if he wanted to. Though the symbols were quite hard to read, Steve managed to translate it all to,

     ' "I am sorry I hurt your feelings. You worked really hard to earn the villagers' trust, and I do not want to ruin it. I also want to know what I am good at. So, I am leaving to explore the world, like you did. Who knows, maybe someday I will know what it is like to be you. Do not worry about me.
-Herobrine" '

     "Oh... no.." Steve's face paled. What had he done? What had he DONE?! "Oh, no-no-no-no-no! I've gotta stop him! He- he can't just go out there with little to no experience, expecting to survive! Even I was given a little grace by starting off on a small island where I could learn the basics first! But he-! He wouldn't survive a single night!" Steve shouted to no one as he began pacing back and forth again. "Wait." He again looked to the setting sun. It would only be a few minutes before it was completely gone, allowing the monsters to emerge from beneath the earth's crust. "I- I have to go save him! Tim, which direction did he head off in?!" Steve asked of Tim. The young villager just looked back at him confused. Oh yeah, only Billy was able to understand him completely. "Uhh.." The human began pointing north, south, east, and west, hoping that would get the idea across. It took quite a bit more of this for Tim to recognize the question, and he pointed south-west, which was mostly the hill covered meadow Steve knew to never walk through at night, because there were no trees to protect him from the skeletons' arrows, and literally every monster could see him when he was out there. Not the place you want to go out at night, especially your first night! Wait.. night... Now that Steve thought about it, he hadn't seen or heard of Hero sleeping the past three days or so! "Did you- ...oh wait." The human then coaxed the small villager to follow him as he ran back to his outside chest where he had some pre-made signs. Once he had one, he quickly wrote his question down on it with the symbols Tim would understand.

     ' "Has Hero slept since coming here?" '

     Tim shook his head. That didn't help calm the already worried human. "I'm so stupid! I should have told him about the phantoms!"

Section 9:

     Hero, with a deep sigh, gazed back at the small village from afar. So many memories had been made there, ones he would cherish.. but, it was time to move on now. If he was ever going to become his own person, like Steve, he would have to traverse the world himself in search for his own talents...and maybe even identity.

     The little sprinkles of rain began to grow more frequent as the overhanging clouds grew more and more. By the time little light remained in the sky, dying off in one weak display of firey red, the downpour had grown immensely. The wind howled across the meadow as it pushed and pulled at the man still making his way through it. Dim lights flashed above the clouds, followed by distant rumbles, making Hero wonder if he should return to the village and wait until the next morning. He had no idea what those thunderous sounds up above were, but he could only guess they weren't good.

Swooshhh...

     As lightning striked, Hero could see the faint shadow of something gliding above him. He was forced to look up, and as he did, he was met with two glowing green eyes headed straight for him.

Eeeahhhhhh!

     The creature screeched, its giant mouth taking up most of its head opening, revealing over a dozen razor sharp teeth. The young man ducked just barely in time, narrowly missing the sky monster's bite. More lightning, and more thunder erupted above him, this time much closer and MUCH more intimidating. The creature glided through the torrential downpour like it was nothing. Hero couldn't even keep an eye on it; the rain would only pelt his eyes when he would look up too long.

Rraaahhhhh!...

     The creature screeched yet again.

Swooshhh...

Swooshh..

     Suddenly, there were two more, and they all looked rather hungry. What sort of creatures were these anyways?! Hero had never seen, nor heard of them before! And he sure didn't want to have to learn for himself how much pain those sharp jaws of theirs(') could inflict.

Rrhhaaaaahh!

Eeeahhhh!

Rhaaaaahhhhh!

     All beasts swooped in at once. Hero had no choice. He would have to pull that sword of his out.

Whap!

     The young man's wooden blade swiped outward at the nearest creature, making it quickly turn and fly back up into the accepting rain where it could recuperate. His little maneuver barely did any damage to the soaring monster, however. At the very most, the small splinters made the creature angry. Another glider swooped in from behind. Hero had very little time to react, but he managed to jump away, falling into the soggy earth, just in time to have little more than some hair of his pulled. The third one almost crashed into the ground, because it hadn't expected its prey to move so quickly. While it was down there by the man's feet, it took the given opportunity to flick itself off the ground with its wings just enough so it could fall back down on Hero's leg, chomping hard with the intent of tearing a hole through his pants.

     Hero screamed, shaking and pulling the large pest off of him in a frenzy. The weird creature's spine stuck out of its slimy-to-the-touch skin, and the whole thing just looked unreal! The thing's teeth were, sure enough, razor sharp, and the teeth themselves were spiny and jagged. Hero managed to shake the thing off, but at what cost? From the injury, Hero could feel some warm liquid leaking down his leg. Still sitting down, Hero pulled up his pant leg to see the liquid was a dark red, and there was a lot of it! With the hunch that that liquid was supposed to stay in his body, the young man had no idea what he should do to stop it from coming out. Wait, was this blood?! The stuff Steve had on his shoulder a while ago?! Well, in that case, at least he knew it wasn't lethal to bleed... It still hurt, though.

Rrahhhh!

     Of course, the creatures of the night didn't leave the new human to ponder all of this alone. Again he was forced to duck and dodge the three gliders, but this time they had given him no time to stand up and run. Hero could only roll around on the soaking grass and mud that made up the ground beneath him.

Swooshhhhhh!

Swooshh!

Swooshhhh!

     Several more arrived, each taking their turn to bite, never giving him a moment to rest. Their dark bodies made clear against the sky filled with lightning. Bright glowing green eyes drawing closer. Pain in his shoulder, pain in his side, his back, his head. It was all getting out of hand, and Hero was growing too tired to dodge it all.

Raahhhhh!-

     A lone phantom chose to dive after an even lonelier figure approaching. Tough luck. A diamond sword pierced the monster. The glint of the blade sent a warning signal to the other creatures which swarmed the cowering young man. The blue blade was then drawn from the phantom's corpse, and the one holding it was appalled at the sight of the other, who was tightly tucked into a ball, blood leaking from his new injuries. Slowly, the diamond blade was lifted. And, firmly, its handle was grasped by a hand teeming with rage.

     "Rrahahhhh!!" Steve charged forward at the creatures. Before they could take another bite out of his friend, the human leapt over the other and sliced one of the beasts through the head. He tossed that body to the ground and jabbed up through the ribs of another. One phantom surprised the human by swooping in from behind. The creature latched onto Steve's back using a couple small claws on its wings, and dug its teeth into the back of his neck. Before it could deal lethal blow by reaching the human's nerves, however, Steve grasped the best by its head with both of his hands, carefully but quickly removing it from his neck, and then tossed it to the ground. Before it could fly off he stomped on the creature and held his foot there until he picked up his sword again. Then, with one chop, the creature's head was severed from its body entirely. (Brutal, lol)

     Hero couldn't describe how happy he was to see Steve here, saving his life. Unfortunately for him, he was too overwhelmed by the pain to move. He knew that Steve had everything under control.

     The human continued slicing and dicing through the phantoms, ignoring the new pain as if it were nothing to him. The creatures were relentless, and refused to fly for their own survival. Like everything else Steve fought, they wouldn't stop until they were dead.

     Meanwhile, Hero was fighting off a nasty wave of tiredness he worried he might never wake from. He would just black out, only to jump back awake several seconds later. Finally, he fought it off enough to stand on his two trembling legs. If this is what it meant to be like Steve, Hero wanted none of it! That's for sure!

     The last phantom died with a pitiful wheeze. A little bloody and sweaty, but otherwise just fine, Steve left his diamond blade in the ground for the time being to help out Hero. When he turned around to face the other, who was now standing, there was an odd and sudden skip of his heartbeat. The slumped figure. The tired, pupil-less eyes. The nearly dead expression. It was so similar to the many undead ghouls Steve had slain countless times before. A little drop of water fell down Steve's cheek, and it was too warm to be the rain.

     "What are you doing out here!?!" Steve's arms failed before him. "Wh- why on earth would you just leave like that, and as the sun is going down?! That was honestly the stupidest decision you made in your life!"

     Being, obviously, too tired to match Steve's intensity, Hero weakly responded, "...I just wanted to be your friend......"

     Steve stood, frozen. Then, one meek foot stepped forward, followed by the other one. His face was so set in stone that Hero took half a step back, but he was quickly caught in a hug. The hug only lasted a second or two before the human let go of him again. Not like Hero could hug him back, since his arms had been trapped. Having never been hugged before, the younger man felt it was the very thing he had been missing the whole time. When Steve abruptly left to let Hero stand alone again, the younger man stumbled in his tired, dazed state.

     "Oh, here. Let's get you back to the village." Steve said, offering to help guide the taller one there himself.

     "But... it's your village..."

     "....No... It's no one's village, not even mine.. and... Everyone is welcome to stay... Heh, unless if you're a zombie."

     "Heh.." The younger man began walking beside Steve as he slowly started back for the village. "But...I still have no idea who I am, or what I am good at.." The tall one sighed.

     "Hah! You say that as if I already know the answers to those questions myself." Steve half chuckled as the two walked. "To be honest, I don't even know my real name... named myself after my favorite author: Steven Chriss. Most of my early days were just me pretending to be him, documenting all my discoveries like he did, until eventually the name and lifestyle grew on me."

     "Really?" Hero squinted at the short one with a tight smile clear on his face.

     "Heh, yep. But don't tell anyone...please? I would prefer things regarding my name not be complicated." The human asked, looking down as he rubbed his other arm a little.

     "Um, sure. I don't see why not... The name fits you, by the way.."

     "..Thanks...So, you might think you don't have a clue, about who you are, but.. I'd say you know a lot more about yourself than you give yourself credit for...by the way."

     "Aw, thanks." Hero smiled back. Though the stinging pain in his wounds was immense, it really helped a lot to have someone to talk to on the way home. It helped drown it out. On top of that, it was nice finally able to see eye-to-eye with the one he looked up to. Sure, their conversation from that part shifted to casual chatter about mobs, how to fight, and building -- most of the talking provided by Steve -- but Hero probably liked it just as much. It was Steve choosing to be his friend. And, as for Steve, he finally realized that all Hero wanted was to be his friend; not to take away his friends. Thus, he was finally able to push that fear aside, slowly, as the night progressed, knowing that instead of losing friends...he would gain one.

.

.

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*cheesy friendship music plays* XD