We don’t talk about what happened to the last Steve.


We don’t look at the things he left behind—a half-eaten cake, a chest full of untouched shovels, various precious ores, detailed maps, a used notebook, literal stacks of wood, and furnaces. Furnaces still hot to the touch, overfilled with cooling steaks.


This was a Steve with plans.
Was.


He’s not the first one to come through our village and ... and, well, we’re not supposed to talk about it. That’s one of the Rules. Stupid, but it’s better this way. We all remember the first Steve who came through our village, a few years ago.


Because of him, we have Rules. Because of him, we know not to get too attached to every Steve that comes through here begging for emeralds, bread, or just some pants.


That first Steve, we called him Hero. Well, until he built a wall around our village to keep us “safe.” Mostly, he just wanted to keep us. Like pets.


But this last Steve was different.


The sun set on his first night in the village and he huddled inside the butcher’s house with us, a journal in one hand and a map in the other. He didn’t constantly check the windows, he didn’t pace the room, or take a swing at one of us just to see if we’d burst out the front door in panic and stumble right into the hungry, outstretched arms of the undead.


Instead, he sat down. He opened his journal and he wrote. He planned, late into the next day. The others didn’t like that. They didn’t like that at all.


…A thinker. It’s only a matter of time until he thinks about fixing the wall that the first one made.


…He won’t trade with anyone! He just watches. He just follows. Something’s wrong with this one.


The first Steve was also … different. At first, he did great things. Gave us more farm land, built up our houses, gave us stronger doors.


Then he walled us in and declared himself our God. For his first act, he demanded, of all things, salt water.


We didn’t have it.


But he flooded the village with it anyway. We weren’t even near an ocean, people said. Where did he get all of it?


That’s when we started to call him Herobrine.


I never liked Herobrine, not when he was just Hero, not even when he was just a Steve. But the last Steve, I liked him.


I’ve been sad since he left. Stupid of me, because it’s better this way. He had to go, they all have to go. It isn’t long until they notice the remains of the wall we tore down. It isn’t long until they get sick of hiding in our houses at night thinking, if only there was a way to block the monsters out…


It isn’t long until their plans diverge from ours.

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UPDATE:
Would you enjoy reading a rather lengthy sequel to this? If there is enough interest, I may post it.

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