A Fault in the Code

Chapter 19

I am not sure how long I blacked out, or even if I blacked out at all, but I wake up in a pure black space. And I am floating. I have no space gear on, so there's no way I'm in outer space if I can breathe perfectly fine in here. This must be the code dimention.

"Password."

I jump. The command comes from a booming, robotic, female voice that fills my ears.

"I just had to type it," I say, "besides, I can't say something backwards."

"Password denied. Please try again. You have 4 attempts remaining." The voice answers. What happens in 4 tries? I don't want to find out.

I sigh. I try as hard as I can to pronounce the backwards sentence: kill Herobrine. I try to say each vowel the same as they would sound in the forwards way. Then I hear the same Ding! of success that I had heard in the portal room.

All of a sudden, the black space is filled with glowing, green letters and numbers and symbols, all very confusing, and I have no clue as to what anything means. How will I know which codes to delete? How will I even delete them at all? I search around, trying to find something that might help me.

I find a section of codes under the title of "Mobs". This may be where he is. I look down the list of thousands and thousands of codes, tons of codes for what looks like each and every single mob that has ever walked the face of the earth before. I see codes for Chicken #71, Zombie #2, Squid #48, you name it and it's there.

But then I find the endermen.

I try my very hardest to remember what Jeff said his name was before I named him "Jeff" I search the back of my mind for the memory of when we first met. I think of the number 261. I look down the list of codes and finally find Enderman #261. Right underneath it is a long, complicated code, but at the end are these words:

Life=false.

This code immediately catches my eye and I try my best to swim up to the code in my weightless state, and I am so close that I can touch the letters. I do not know how to change them, though.

When I touch the letters, they don't budge. Instead, a text box appears around it, and another keyboard appears at my hands, but it has a few extra keys. The cursor at the end of the text line is blinking, waiting for me to type something. I hit backspace 5 times. Then type in the word "true". And press the extra button on the keyboard that says, "Save". The text box and keyboard go away. And I am left wondering if that really worked.

I back away from the mobs codes. I try to find the bottom of the code list, but it seems to go down forever, fading into darkness. How am I supposed to see if he's in this section if the section is too big to look at the whole thing?

But then I realize I don't have to. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a single word, isolated, and too far away to read the word, but it seems to be glowing a bit more than the other codes. I move toward it. The word says, "Locked". Do I really have to say the password again? It was hard enough the first time.

I tap the word and the text box and keyboard appear again, and I press enter. Another word pops up. Of course, it's asking for the password. At least I don't have to speak it aloud. I type the password and it dings, then suddenly there's another long, long list of code. But at the top, it is titled "Herobrine".

I touch the first letter of a cluster of numbers and letters and drag my finger to the last letter of the cluster. Like on a computer, it highlights the text I selected so I can do a number of things with it. But I do not see any other things to do than to copy, paste, or delete. I do not delete this first section. I want to do it all at once to make sure that I did it right.

I touch the first letter of the first code, and drag my finger down down down, into the darkness where it seems the codes have no end. After several minutes of selecting each and every character of the millions here, I can see the end of the codes. I get excited as I touch the last letter. Then, I press delete. There's a loading bar in front of me. This has to take at least 5 minutes to delete this whole thing. Slowly, the loading bar starts to fill up, and the text starts disappearing letter by letter from the bottom up.

I hear the ding of success again. The text isn't done being deleted. Why did that sound? I turn around. Fear fills me. Why is he here? I thought I had escaped here from him. Why hadn't he come until now?

He must've blacked out for a while, like I did.

Herobrine makes his way toward me. But he seems slow and choppy. Like an old video game with bad graphics. This must be because his code is being deleted. As he gets closer to me, he gets worse. Slower, choppier, flashing white, turning into static every so often. The loading bar is at 50%.

Go faster.

Then Herobrine's features start disappearing. His glowing eyes stop glowing, his arm disappears. Then his other arm and his left leg. He is now a body with a head and one leg. He is getting close. I silently beg for the loading bar to go faster. About 75% done.

He is feet away. The loading bar now says 95%. He is now only an arm and a head.

Come on, I think, Hurry up!

Herobrine's remaining arm outstretches to touch my face, just 2 inches from my nose. The moment I step backwards, the loading bar is at 100%.

Herobrine's arm and head explode into 1s and 0s that scatter around the zero gravity space and eventually disappear. And everything is quiet. Then a familiar voice says:

"Wonderful job. You have defeated the evil Herobrine. But you may not stay here anymore. Wake up."

Wake up.