Down into the Nether Read online

  “Herobrine!” I said. “We beat you on the mountain-

  top!”

  Herobrine laughed as if I’d told a good joke. “Oh, I disappeared, but I wasn’t defeated. You know my story, Stevie. Yancy created me as a joke, but then I started to become aware of my surroundings. Because I was originally built from Yancy’s anger, I fed on the anger of the world, and it became my mission to bring more anger. Haven’t you noticed how the people around you have grown so angry and suspicious of one another lately? That’s my doing, and I’m only getting started.”

  “You put the mobs in front of my house, didn’t you?” I demanded. “You’re the one who left that sign?”

  Herobrine smiled wickedly. “Guilty as charged.”

  “Well, we got past your mobs,” I said, seething. “We’re safe from them now.”

  “Your father did do a good job at making that house mob-protected,” Herobrine said. He grinned wider and leaned in on me, his eyes gleaming in their happy madness. “But that’s okay. I don’t want your house. I want something better.”

  Something better? I swallowed, and then I realized.

  “The portal,” Herobrine whispered, knowing exactly what I was thinking. “I want the portal to your friends’ world.”

  “No!” I said, struggling harder than ever to draw my diamond sword. It was useless; I still couldn’t move. What had Herobrine done to keep us from moving? “You can’t go through that portal.”

  “That’s why I’m so interested in you,” Herobrine went on as if I hadn’t said anything. “You’re the boy with the portal. With that portal I can go into your little friend Maison’s world. And do you know what I’m going to do there?”

  “Stop it!” I shouted.

  “I’m going to take it over,” he said. “I’m going to turn people against one another. That will be the start of my powers. But my powers will keep growing, and the people there will be helpless to stop me. They think Minecraft is just a game, and most of them out there won’t even recognize me. Isn’t that a grand plan, Stevie? I want you to say ‘good-bye’ to your good friend Maison right now, because you’ll never see her again.”

  CHAPTER 4

  I COULD MOVE AGAIN! I LASHED OUT AT HEROBRINE, but this woke me up and I realized I was fighting with the bed covers. Sunlight filled my bedroom and the zombies were all gone from outside the house. Ossie was still with me, and I could hear Alex downstairs, muttering something to herself.

  Dad still wasn’t home.

  I quickly got dressed in a turquoise shirt and purple pants. When I got downstairs, I saw Alex had already dressed in a green shirt and brown pants and had fed herself breakfast. She was gathering her toolkit and bows and arrows.

  “Oh, hey, Stevie,” she said when she saw me. “I wanted to let you sleep in so you’d be all healed up. How are you feeling?”

  There was a storm going on in my head. I couldn’t figure out what to do. In my heart, there was a terrible aching. I looked at her and said mechanically, “I slept okay.”

  I couldn’t tell her what I’d dreamed. And I definitely couldn’t tell her what I had to do. I was scared she’d try to talk me out of it.

  “I’m going to the village to ask about your dad and see what’s going on,” Alex continued. “I’m bringing along one of the music discs just in case it starts giving prophecies again. You eat breakfast, and when I get back we’ll go to the portal to see Maison and the others. Okay?”

  I didn’t want to tell Alex that this wouldn’t be possible. I couldn’t lie to her, either, though. “Mmm,” I said, all noncommittal, because that could mean anything.

  Once Alex was out the door, I ate a quick breakfast for strength. Everything tasted like sadness. I picked up one of the music discs again, and shook it in anger and desperation.

  “Please!” I begged. “Give me a clue! Don’t make me have to do this!”

  The music disc was silent. I threw it across the room and put my head in my hands. I didn’t want to not have Maison in my life.

  But if I didn’t do anything, Herobrine might … he might….

  I couldn’t let myself think of what he might do to Maison or her world. I found myself picking up Dad’s diamond pickaxe without thinking and putting it in my toolkit. I picked the music disc back up, still hoping it might say something. Ossie followed me outside and we walked through the sunlight, past flowers and oak trees.

  I noticed that none of the trees I passed had any leaves. That gave me a shudder. Leaves falling off trees was a sign that Herobrine was nearby.

  I went to the house that held the portal and slowly opened the door. Once I stepped inside I could only stand there, heart pounding in my ears.

  I put my hand against the side of the portal. Maison had first made this very portal when she was playing Minecraft on her computer, back before she knew Minecraft was a real world. She’s found weird stones she’d never seen before—I’d never seen any stones like them either, to be honest—and tried her hand at making something new. That was how this special portal came to be, though none of us could have predicted just how it would work!

  Ossie mewed up at me. I could tell from her eyes that she knew something was wrong.

  Slowly I reached into my toolkit and pulled out the diamond pickaxe.

  “I’m sorry, Maison,” I said. I only knew one way to prevent Herobrine from going through the portal and destroying Maison’s world. I would have to destroy the portal first.

  When the diamond pickaxe hit into the stone of the portal, Ossie cried out as if she were trying to stop me. She jumped on my shoulder, mewing and clawing at me.

  “No, Ossie!” I didn’t realize how close I was to crying until I heard it in my voice. I forced Ossie off my shoulder and she gracefully landed on the floor, staring up at me with hurt eyes. As if I didn’t feel terrible enough already.

  “I’m sorry, Maison,” I said again, hefting the pickaxe. No matter how many times I apologized, it wasn’t going to feel like enough. I hit the portal. Again. Again. The stone blocks split noisily and broke into pieces. The portal collapsed down all around me, demolished.

  When there was nothing left to save, I let the diamond pickaxe fall to the ground.

  I stumbled back home, head down, feeling shaky. I imagined that after a good night’s sleep Maison would wake up and head to her computer, ready to go through the portal and check on how I was doing. However, her computer screen would be solid, like all the other computer screens in her world.

  “Stevie!” I imagined her crying out when she couldn’t get through. She would hit the computer screen with her hand and then pound on it with her fists.

  Maybe she’d think it was just a sad mistake. She’d probably never guess that I was the reason our two worlds would never see each other again.

  “I hope you understand why I had to do this, Maison,” I found myself whispering to her again, as if she could hear me. What I wouldn’t do to hear Maison’s voice one last time!

  When I walked back over the hill and got a glimpse of my house, I saw two things. The first thing was Alex running as fast as she could over toward the house, a scroll rolled up in her hand. The second thing I saw was a new white sign propped up against the house. I knew it was a message from Herobrine, but I was too far away to read it.

  “Stevie!” Alex exclaimed when she saw me. Changing directions, she dashed my way, out of breath by the time she reached me.

  “Did you find out anything about my dad?” I asked immediately, even though I didn’t want to hear her answer. I could tell from her face that whatever she’d learned at the village, it was bad. Really bad.

  “No,” Alex gasped, shaking her head. “I couldn’t even get into the village. There are guards everywhere, and people fighting, and … and….”

  Trembling, she slowly unrolled the scroll.

  “I found this on a tree not far from the village,” she said.

  On the scroll there were drawings of Yancy, Destiny, Maison, Alex, and me. Underneath,
it said: WANTED. ARREST ON SIGHT.

  CHAPTER 5

  I SNATCHED THE SCROLL FROM HER. “PEOPLE WANT to arrest us?”

  She nodded. “It must be because we helped Yancy escape from the dungeon.”

  When we’d brought Yancy back into the Overworld to help us fight Herobrine, Yancy had quickly been arrested. And we’d had no choice but to break him out of the dungeon. It had been extra weird because the guards who arrested him worked for Mayor Alexandra, who was my aunt and Alex’s mom. Now we were all criminals. Aunt Alexandra was another one of the people who’d been brainwashed by Herobrine.

  “We have to go through the portal and find the others,” Alex said, hefting the quiver on her shoulder. “We’ll tell them about the sign from last night, all the zombies and skeletons waiting for us….”

  “Um, Alex,” I said slowly.

  “Maybe they’ll have clues on their end, too,” Alex went on, already making purposeful strides toward where the portal used to be.

  I fidgeted. “Alex,” I said again.

  Alex stopped and glared at me in frustration. “What, Stevie?” she demanded. “It’s not like we have time to spare!”

  I stared at the scroll in my hand. It wasn’t very long ago I’d been a hero because I’d saved the Overworld from a zombie takeover, and now I was one of the Overworld’s most wanted fugitives. And somehow all that was still less painful than telling Alex the truth.

  “What is it, Stevie?” Alex said, stomping close to me. Fear replaced her usual take-charge persona.

  “We-can’t-go-to-the-portal,” I said. The words were so mumbled and strung together I could barely even understand them myself.

  “Huh?” Alex asked.

  “We can’t go to the portal,” I said more carefully.

  “Why in the Overworld not?”

  “We can’t go to the portal because….” Stop. Deep breath. “Because the portal has been destroyed.”

  “No!” Alex cried. “Can it be rebuilt?”

  I shook my head. “No, it can’t be rebuilt.”

  “That rotten Herobrine!” she raged. “He must have done this!”

  She was really making this difficult. “It wasn’t Herobrine,” I said.

  She turned wide eyes on me. “Then you know who did it? Tell me!”

  I was trying really hard to stall and think of a way to tell her the truth. Except I couldn’t think of a non-terrible way to say it, and my guilt felt hotter than the lava of the Nether. “Well, you see, I know it wasn’t Herobrine because….”

  “Because?” she prompted.

  There was no non-terrible way to say it. “Because I was the one who destroyed it.”

  Alex grabbed me by my shirt so forcefully I thought she might knock me over. “You fool!” she roared. “What were you thinking?”

  I tried to wrestle out of her grip. “I’m having a hard enough time with this myself!” I wailed. She released my shirt with disgust.

  “It makes no sense that you would destroy the portal!” she ranted, storming around in circles. “You will never see your best friend again. You know this, right?”

  “I know, I know!” I said. “But what was I supposed to do? Herobrine showed up in my dream last night, saying he wanted me because I was the boy with the portal and that he was going to destroy Maison’s world. What was I supposed to do? I had to save Maison and her world! I tore the portal to pieces so Herobrine has no way of getting there.”

  Alex still looked disgusted, but now at least she seemed to understand a little, and that made her stop yelling and storming around. “Why didn’t you tell me about this dream and your plans?” she asked.

  “Because I was scared you’d talk me out of it,” I said. “It’s the same reason I didn’t go through the portal one last time to say ‘good-bye’ to Maison. If I got talked out of it and then Herobrine destroyed their world, I’d never be able to live with myself. It’s like my dad said, sometimes you have to do unpleasant things because you don’t have any other options.”

  At this point I was sniffing and sniveling and I could tell Alex didn’t know what to do with me. She sighed and put her hand to her forehead, thinking long and hard.

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay, we’ll have to figure out something else now. If there are wanted posters for us, it won’t be much longer before people come looking around here to take us to the dungeon. You do realize that, too, right, Stevie?”

  I sank down on the ground and Ossie rubbed against me, trying to give some comfort. No luck. “It never ends, does it?” I said. “My dad’s missing, Herobrine is still on the loose, we’re going to be caught and put in a dungeon. And all I can think about right now is how much I want to hear Maison’s voice again.”

  That’s when I heard Maison call out, “Stevie! Stevie, where are you?”

  CHAPTER 6

  ALEX AND I BOTH WHIRLED AROUND, AND FOR one heart-pounding moment I thought I would turn and see Maison there, safe and sound and still able to visit the Overworld. But the fields around us were completely empty.

  “Stevie!” Maison called again, sounding more panicked.

  Alex and I both looked down. The music disc I’d brought with me was spinning and glowing.

  “Maison!” I cried, putting the music disc close to my face.

  “Stevie, is that you?” Maison asked frantically. Her voice was definitely coming from the music disc. “I don’t understand this. I hear you, but I don’t see you.”

  “I can hear your voice on a music disc,” I said.

  Maison gasped excitedly, understanding. “Me, too!” she said. “Yancy forgot to take the other music disc out of his backpack when we got back, and I have it here in my bedroom. It’s spinning and glowing and I can hear your voice.”

  “Yes, yes!” I said. “I can hear you, too!”

  Alex’s eyes bulged. “Amazing!” she said. “Those music discs are working like … what are those things they have in their world that let them talk to each other no matter where they are?”

  “Phones!” I said. “They’re working like phones. Oh, Maison, I never thought I’d be able to talk to you again!”

  “Stevie, I tried to go through my computer portal when I got up this morning,” Maison’s voice came out. “Except it’s not letting me through. I invited Destiny and Yancy over, and they can’t figure it out, either.”

  I heard Yancy’s voice then, as if he were standing behind Maison and leaned in to get closer to the music disc.

  “Yo, Stevie!” he said. “Do you have any idea what might be preventing us from getting through the portal? Because we, like, really, really, really need to talk with you.”

  Alex leaned in and answered for me. “We need to talk with you, too. The portal’s gone.”

  From the music disc I could hear Maison, Yancy, and Destiny all exclaiming in shock.

  “No way, no way,” Yancy said.

  “That can’t be!” Maison said.

  I hung my head, feeling the heat in my cheeks, too embarrassed and ashamed to explain.

  “That’s not all,” Alex said. “When Stevie and I got back to his place last night, Herobrine had surrounded it with mobs and left a sign out front. Stevie’s dad is missing, and when I went to look for him in the village, I learned that all five of us are wanted for arrest. And then Stevie had a dream about Herobrine last night that said he was going to destroy your world …”

  “But why is the portal gone?” Destiny asked. “We need that portal, right now!”

  Alex gave me a do-you-want-to-explain? look. I didn’t want to explain so I turned my face away.

  “Stevie destroyed the portal,” Alex said. “Because he wanted to protect you from Herobrine.”

  “Oh, Stevie, say it isn’t so,” Yancy said.

  “It’s true,” I said. “I didn’t want to say anything because it hurts so much, but this means that even though Alex and I still have to fight Herobrine, you’re all safe from him.”

  There was a long and terrible silence. At first
I thought the music disc was broken, but then Destiny said in a frail voice, “Should we tell him?”

  Yancy cleared his throat. “Stevie,” he said. “Herobrine tricked you. I know you meant well by destroying the portal, but that’s really the worst thing you could have done. You see, Herobrine is already in our world.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “NO!” I STAMMERED. “NO, THAT CAN’T BE POSSIBLE! I broke the portal, so there’s no way he—”

  Yancy cut in then. “He got out through the portal last night, Stevie, before you destroyed it. All destroying the portal did was trap him here in our world.”

  “Are you sure?” Alex demanded.

  “I had another Herobrine dream last night,” Yancy said. “He was mocking me, saying he’d faked us out at the temple so we’d believe he was gone. But all he did was jump into the Minecraft game on my phone and we carried him through the portal and into our world without even knowing it.”

  I remembered how Yancy kept his Minecraft game on his cell phone, and how we’d played the zombie noises on it to distract the guards so we could break Yancy out of the dungeon. At the time the cell phone had seemed like a miracle worker, but now this!

  “It’s worse,” Maison said. “When I turned my computer on this morning, there was Herobrine’s face staring back at me from the screen. He said, ‘I am Herobrine, and you will all be receiving a visit from me shortly. Your world is doomed.’ I ran to my mom, and her computer was doing the same thing!”

  “You don’t mean—” Alex began.

  “He has taken over all the computers, phones, and tablets in the world,” Destiny exclaimed. “Everyone with one of those devices saw him and heard his message.”

  “It didn’t matter where they lived or what language they spoke,” Maison said. “He spoke the same message in different languages. He wants everyone to know he plans to destroy our world.”

  “But that’s so arrogant, and that will be his downfall,” Alex said. “If he’s told all the people in your world that he’s going to attack, then you can all band together.”