Disclaiming Note: Hemming is the human counterpart of Herobrine. As Herobrine is Markus's dead brother in the lore, and since this story first takes place in the third-person POV of Markus's (alive) brother, I had to give Herobrine a human name and a human life. There is nothing online to suggest that Herobrine's real name is Hemming, nor is this story "true" in any way - obvious, yes, but I just had to put that out there ;) Please enjoy 5-17-09!

"Markus, look OUUUT!"

"-!"

A flash of light. That's how quick it happened. A flash of lightning in a window ended everything. Two people in the same area, one person left blaming himself somewhere far away. Two brothers... And a hacker.

"Thanks for sending me the game, Markus." Hemming adjusts his headset and smiles earnestly at the webcam.

Markus's face blurs and lags as he shifts around in his office chair. He smiles back in a distracted reply and ducks back down. Hemming frowns as his brother finally pulls himself back up for air, clutching a notebook scribbled with neat, labeled notes. "You do have a notebook, right? After all, you are here to beta test this. If you're here to help me out, Hem, you have to actually work."

"I know, I know. I um, I found a great notebook on sale last week." he fibs, flicking his pale eyes off to his left. Markus frowns and gives his brother a concerned look. "Really, I'm fine. I have one, Markus." Hemming manages a weary smile and tightens his hold on the battered computer mouse. "Seriously though, I'm really grateful for this opportunity." He mumbles it, ashamed of his joblessness.

His brother turns his frown into a relieved smile and turns back down to his own mouse, shifting the small white arrow to the corner of his screen. Hemming's lagging face closes into a tab at the bottom of Markus's computer; the removal of the live webcam image reveals the programmer's cluttered computer screen.

Hemming rubs his temples before doing the same, the little arrow moving at the speed of slow. He growls and jerks the mouse hard before returning it to the corner of the screen. Markus's face disappears with an almost-unbearable lag to it, enough so that Hemming could see it shrinking down square by square until it was tiny, then eventually fully tabbed and invisible. Hemming's screen is clutter-less, the only digital decoration adorning the blank blue background is a small white square of an application: no design marks it as special, and no coherent label gives a clue to what it contains. The application title is glitched out. His arrow clicker - lagging horrendously - drifts over to it. "So... You sure Jens is okay with me playing..." His voice drifts off into uncomfortable silence.

Markus's side of the conversation crackles before he responds with an all-to-confident answer. "Well, obviously. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to help me test Minecraft."

"Right..." Hemming's tone is nervous. His head jerks sharply off to the side, making him wince and rub it with a fingerless-gloved hand. "Ow..." he mutters, massaging it.

"You alright?"

"Just that twitch again. It's nothin', Markus." Hemming pokes his tongue out and double clicks the blank application. Markus does the same, his mouse clicking twice on the other end of the communication link.

"Join my world." Markus asks bluntly. Hemming nods nervously and clicks Multiplayer, letting out a small "ah" of recognition when his pale gaze connects with his older brother's screen name. A lagging world loads up on his cracked screen, the game's chunks loading painstakingly slow. "Oh... Hero... Brine..? Hemming, what kind of username is that?"

"Is there a problem with my screen name?" Hemming replies quietly, voice unnervingly calm and expressionless. Markus shudders at his brother's dark response and whispers a "no", dropping his gaze back down to his trembling hand tensed on his computer mouse.

Markus suddenly cringes as a weather alert blares an automated voice in his ears. "Hemming, be careful playing tonight. There's suppose to be a lightning storm in your area." he murmurs, moving his character forward toward his brother's standard avatar.

"Lightning won't strike me twice, Markus!" Hemming laughs, ignoring the gentle pull of his head to his left, twitching straight, left, straight, left. He rubs it with his palm before focusing back to Minecraft and Markus. Without giving it a glance, he closes out of the same alert, revealing Minecraft once again. "So that's your username, right? Notch?"

"Mm-hm. Better than Herobrine, that's for sure!" Markus says, teasing his brother playfully.

Hemming protests and attempts to explain the best he can, but deep down, he knows that his brother really doesn't feel hatred toward the game handle.

His also moves his character, yet unsteadily compared to the expert controls of Markus Persson, who's been slowing building Minecraft from the ground up. Hemming is only a pawn in its development.

"Oh, Hem, 'e' to activate your inventory, 'q' to throw an object you're holding in your hand, 't' is... Something I'm working on. 'wasd' keys are moving around, or you could always just use the arrows..." Hemming smiles. "The left clicker of your mouse is destroy, and right clicker's use the item in your hand."

"How do I tell if I'm holding it? How can I hold it?"

"You just click and select what you want to hold in your inventory bar." Markus replies flatly and a little annoyed. "It'll show the box outlined in green."

"Excellent, most excellent..." Hemming mutters, trying out some of the keys before giving up with an exasperated expel of breath from his mouth. He double clicks the top arrow key, expecting walking speed, then lets out a scream when his character begins to run. "Ah-ah-?!"

"Oh! Hemming!" Markus begins to chuckle, trying his best to cover his mouth. "That's sprinting. It's something still in the works, and it's top secret, just like you. Alright?"

Hemming purses his lips tightly, fully knowing his brother's webcam window is also tabbed. He can't see his face then. "Yeah. Sure." he murmurs, narrowing his eyes. He's just a secret. That's all. So if he really isn't suppose to be helping his brother...

He can end up doing more harm than help.

"You've really adapted quickly, haven't you?" Markus raises his eyebrows at his brother's avatar, digging up dirt blocks and punching off leaves from trees. "But Minecraft isn't just about destruction-"

"-it's about creation. Hey, look, Markus!" Hemming cries out joyously. He right-clicks the trunk of the tree, the dirt going where the leaves were. Markus rolls his eyes at his brother's cackles of joy. "Hey, hey, can we go into that mountain over there?"

Both avatars swivel toward the towering chunk of stone glowering over them. "Herobrine" starts to sprint over to the digital rock, his real life counterpart yelling in excitement over the webcam conversation. Notch reluctantly follows along.

Herobrine begins smashing his block fist into the grey wall in front of him - holding down the mouse button with excessive force - but the rock holds strong despite its simple appearance. "Dang it, dang it... Come on, come on..." The avatar swings his head behind him, to where Notch stands fully accompanied by a joyous ring of laughter. Hemming's face grows hot, and he turns his player's full body toward his brother's. "What the crap, Markus, stop laughing!" he complains loudly. Markus continues to laugh over the microphone, then falters into snickers and later a gasp. The embarrassed brother stares down at the crusty carpet underneath his chair and bites his lip hard. Dang, he thinks bitterly, tears starting to water his eyes. He rubs them hard and glares at the webcam, despite his full knowledge that Markus can't see him while they're playing. "There's an in-game item I hafta use, don' I?" he asks wearily.

"Here, I'll give you some iron I collected a while back. I've been on this world a while." Herobrine reluctantly picks up several flat, pixelated bars of iron that fly out from Notch's avatar. He stares at his inventory bar and equips the iron in his hand. Seemingly useless... How is this suppose to help me? Hemming can't help doubting his brother, despite his extensive knowledge on the subject of Minecraft and online gaming: knowledge Hemming himself doesn't have. "Punch that tree you defaced. You'll get some wood blocks which you can use to make sticks for the handle of your future pickaxe."

Hemming lets out a quiet "oh" and shuffles his character from the mountain back to his claimed tree. The trunk breaks easier and quicker than the rock, dropping little flat trunk squares that Herobrine sucks into his avatar and his inventory bar.

He concentrates on his open, enlarged storage, his finger retracting from the "e" back to his trembling hand. Grinning as understanding suddenly comes to him, he drags the trunk pieces into the larger square - divided in four - and gets planks. He crafts farther, spreading four plank blocks in the four smaller squares to get one "crafting table". Hemming cackles and slams the new block down in front of him on the crunchy grass. "See, Markus? Hahaha, I'm not stupid! I can figure this game out!"

"Yes, you certainly can... That's very good, Hemming!" he replies, surprise tinging his voice. "Now click it to craft bigger objects."

Eagerly clicking the "crafting table", Hemming, while excited, obeys his brother's instructions with nothing less than jealous disgust. There he goes again, bossing Hemming around and treating him like a mentally-ill child who can't do anything. His hand tightens around the mouse, anger flooding through him as he's forced to "keep up" with Markus's molasses-slow steps-to-craft-an-iron-pickaxe.

"Drag those remaining wooden planks into a square... Any square now... Make some sticks, Hemming... Remove the excess planks..." Hemming's head hits the keyboard as his brother drones on for several long minutes, plowing through the newbie-player's exasperated growl - buzzing through the webcam audio - as if it didn't exist. "...you should now have one completed iron pickaxe." Markus finishes proudly.

Hemming's lower lip trembles as he stares at the in-game item, floating gently in his right-hand field-of-view. I don't want this. I didn't earn it or find it or even dig it up somewhere - if that's at all possible. It's like welfare. It's just handed to you, all because you're too helpless to actually work. There are multiple reasons for everything in life, but this? Beta testing a game that I'm not even suppose to be testing? Receiving the main material for a iron pickaxe all for what? To properly dig a hole through a mountain? There is no... REASON for this, and as long as I'm playing this game...

...I'll figure out the reason.