Steven Marcus Thompson—Steve to his friends, "that guy who still plays Minecraft at 27" to his disappointed parents—was having the gaming session of his life. And by "of his life," I mean it would literally be the last one.
It was 3:47 AM on a Tuesday, which is the sacred hour when all responsible decisions go to die. Steve sat in his gaming chair, the one he'd spent $400 on despite telling his girlfriend it was "only like $150, babe, it's ergonomic, it's an investment in my spine." The chair was surrounded by a graveyard of empty Mountain Dew cans, a half-eaten pizza that had achieved sentience three days ago, and enough Dorito dust to season a five-course meal.
"Just one more diamond," Steve muttered to himself, a phrase he had repeated approximately 847 times in the past six hours. "Just one more diamond and I'll go to bed."
This was a lie. Steve knew it was a lie. His cat, Mr. Whiskers, knew it was a lie. Mr. Whiskers had given up judging him around hour four and was now sleeping on a pile of dirty laundry, dreaming of a owner who touched grass occasionally.
Steve's Minecraft character—also named Steve, because he wasn't creative enough to come up with anything else—was deep in a cave system, the kind of sprawling underground nightmare that made you forget what sunlight looked like. He'd been strip mining at Y-level 11 (this was before the 1.18 update changed everything, back when Y-11 was the sacred ground of diamond hunting), and his inventory was looking absolutely stacked.
"Sixty-three diamonds," Steve whispered reverently, his bloodshot eyes reflecting the blue glow of his monitor. "Sixty-three beautiful, beautiful diamonds. I'm gonna make SO much armor. I'm gonna be INVINCIBLE."
Narrator voice: He would not be invincible.
The warning signs were all there, of course. His heart had been doing this weird fluttery thing for the past hour, probably from the combination of caffeine, sodium, and the complete absence of anything resembling nutrition. His left arm felt a little tingly, which he attributed to sleeping on it wrong the night before (he had not slept the night before). His chest was tight, but that was probably just anxiety from almost falling into lava twice.
"Okay," Steve said, munching on a Dorito that had somehow gotten wedged between his keyboard keys, "let me just get back to base and store these bad boys, and then I'll definitely, absolutely, for real this time, go to sleep."
He began the long trek back up through the caves, placing torches as he went, humming the Minecraft soundtrack under his breath. C418's "Sweden" was playing in his head, that melancholic piano melody that made every Minecraft player feel inexplicably emotional for reasons they couldn't quite explain.
That's when he heard it.
Sssssssssss
"No," Steve said.
SSSSSSSSSSS
"NO," Steve repeated, more forcefully, as if denial could alter the fundamental mechanics of the game.
The creeper had spawned directly behind him in a pocket of darkness he'd missed. It was the sneakiest creeper in the history of sneaky creepers, the Navy SEAL of explosive green monsters, the silent killer that had trained its entire existence for this one moment.
Steve spun around, but it was too late. The creeper's face was already that horrifying expression of resigned acceptance, the look of a creature that had made peace with its suicide bomber lifestyle.
BOOM.
The explosion sent Steve's character flying into a pool of lava that he SWORE wasn't there before. His sixty-three diamonds, his diamond pickaxe, his enchanted iron armor, and approximately seven hours of his life all dissolved into the molten rock with a sizzling sound effect that seemed to mock him personally.
"NO! NO NO NO NO NO!" Steve screamed, shooting up from his chair.
And that's when the heart attack hit.
It wasn't dramatic like in the movies. There was no clutching of the chest, no falling to his knees in slow motion, no time for final words. One moment Steve was standing, watching his items burn in digital lava, and the next moment his actual, real-life heart decided it had had enough of this abuse and simply... stopped.
Steve collapsed onto his keyboard, his face slamming into the keys and typing "ggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjjjjjjjjjjjjj" into the chat, which would confuse the three other people on the server for years to come.
Mr. Whiskers looked up briefly, decided this wasn't his problem, and went back to sleep.
Death, as it turned out, was not what Steve expected.
He had been raised vaguely Christian, in that way where his family went to church on Easter and Christmas and felt guilty about it the rest of the year. He'd expected either pearly gates, fiery pits, or simply nothing—the void of non-existence that atheists always talked about.
What he got instead was a loading screen.
"What the fu—" Steve started, but his voice came out wrong. It was deeper, echoey, like someone had put a reverb effect on his soul.
He was floating in an empty void, but not a scary empty void. It was the kind of empty void you get when a game is loading, that peaceful darkness before the world generates. There were even little block particles floating around him, cubes of dirt and stone spinning lazily in the non-space.
A menu appeared before him. It looked EXACTLY like the Minecraft title screen, except instead of "MINECRAFT" at the top, it said "AFTERLIFE v1.0.0" in the same yellow blocky font.
"You have got to be kidding me," Steve said.
The menu had several options:
SINGLEPLAYER (grayed out)MULTIPLAYER (grayed out)REALMS (requires Premium Afterlife subscription)REINCARNATION (highlighted)OPTIONSQUIT GAME (This will end your existence permanently. Are you sure? There is no undo.)
"This is a fever dream," Steve decided. "I'm in a coma. I ate a bad Dorito. There's no way this is real."
He tried to click on OPTIONS, curious if he could at least adjust the brightness in the afterlife, but an error message popped up: "OPTIONS disabled during tutorial phase."
"Tutorial phase? TUTORIAL PHASE?"
Another message appeared: "Please select REINCARNATION to continue."
Steve stared at the screen—if you could call it a screen when it was just floating in the void of death—for what felt like hours. He tried clicking on the grayed-out options. Nothing. He tried closing the menu. Nothing. He tried screaming into the void. Nothing, except a faint echo of his own voice sounding increasingly pathetic.
Finally, with the resignation of a man who had no other choice, he clicked REINCARNATION.
A sub-menu opened:
REINCARNATION OPTIONS
Select your new existence:
Human (Earth) - UNAVAILABLE: Karma score too lowHuman (Earth-616) - UNAVAILABLE: Marvel licensing issuesAnimal (various) - UNAVAILABLE: Requires 10,000 good deedsMinecraft Mob (random) - AVAILABLEFortnite Skin (random) - AVAILABLE but come on, have some self-respectNPC (various games) - AVAILABLE: Warning: may cause existential crisisLEGENDARY REINCARNATION (???) - AVAILABLE: Warning: ???
"Karma score too low?" Steve muttered. "I donated to Wikipedia ONCE. That should count for something."
His cursor hovered over the LEGENDARY REINCARNATION option. It was pulsing slightly, like the game really wanted him to click it. Every gaming instinct Steve had ever developed screamed that this was a trap. Legendary options were always traps. They were the "hardcore mode" of life choices, the "are you SURE you want to delete this file?" of existence.
He clicked it anyway because Steve had never made a good decision in his life and wasn't about to start now.
The screen went black.
Then white.
Then a loading bar appeared with the text: "Preparing your eternal punishment... er, we mean, your exciting new adventure!"
"That's not ominous at all," Steve said to no one.
The loading bar filled slowly, and as it did, text began appearing:
Congratulations! You have been selected for the HEROBRINE PROGRAM!
"The WHAT?"
You will be reincarnated as HEROBRINE, the legendary Minecraft creepypasta entity!
"I'm going to be a CREEPYPASTA?"
Your mission: Exist within Minecraft for eternity, spooking players and becoming an urban legend!
"That doesn't sound so bad, actually—"
SPECIAL CONDITION: Due to a cosmic accounting error and also because we think it's funny, you will begin your existence in Minecraft version rd-132211, the very first publicly available version of Minecraft from May 13, 2009.
"Wait, what?"
You must experience EVERY VERSION of Minecraft, in order, unable to skip ahead or escape. You will move to the next version only when certain conditions are met (mostly involving scaring the living daylights out of players and/or causing Mojang employees to question their sanity).
"WHAT?"
Also, you cannot die. Ever. Even if you wanted to. Have fun! :)
"WHAT?!"
Loading rd-132211...
"NO! WAIT! I DIDN'T AGREE TO THIS! I WANT TO SPEAK TO A MANAGER! THIS IS DEFINITELY SOME KIND OF TERMS OF SERVICE VIOLATION! I'LL SUE! I'LL—"
The void shattered like glass, and Steve—no, HEROBRINE now—found himself standing in the ugliest, most primitive version of Minecraft he had ever seen.
The first thing Herobrine noticed was how WRONG everything looked.
He was standing in a world that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the Minecraft he knew and loved. The grass was a garish, oversaturated green. The sky was a flat, oppressive blue with no clouds. The trees—if you could call them trees—were just brown blocks with green blocks on top, the kind of trees a five-year-old would draw if the five-year-old was having a bad day.
There was no sun, no moon, no day/night cycle. Just... eternal static daylight.
"This is what Minecraft looked like in 2009?" Herobrine said, looking around in horror. "This is UGLY. This is the ugliest thing I've ever seen. And I once watched my roommate eat mayonnaise straight from the jar."
He looked down at himself—or tried to. He was in first-person view and couldn't see his own body, which was somehow more disturbing than everything else. He opened his inventory with the 'I' key (thank god SOME things were the same) and saw...
Nothing.
Literally nothing.
There was no inventory. There were no items. There wasn't even a hotbar at the bottom of his screen. rd-132211, the very first public test, had no inventory system, no mining, no crafting, no nothing. It was literally just a flat world of blocks that you could look at and add or remove with an unlimited supply of basic materials.
"So I'm stuck," Herobrine said slowly, "in a pre-pre-pre-alpha version of Minecraft, as an urban legend that doesn't exist yet, in a version of the game where I can't even DO anything, and I have to stay here until... until what?"
A floating text box appeared in front of him:
TUTORIAL: Welcome to your eternal existence, Herobrine!
OBJECTIVE: Scare your first player to progress to the next version.
CURRENT PLAYERS IN THIS VERSION: 0
NOTE: This might take a while. Minecraft isn't very popular yet. Maybe try building something? Oh wait, you can't, because builds don't save in this version. HAHA.
:)
"I hate you," Herobrine said to the text box. "I hate you so much."
The text box disappeared, replaced briefly by: "We know! <3"
What followed was the most boring period of Herobrine's new existence.
Days passed. Or at least, he assumed they did—the sun never moved, there was no way to track time, and his sense of temporal reality was quickly dissolving into nothingness. He tried to count seconds, but gave up after approximately 3.2 million of them.
He explored the world, if "explored" was the right word for wandering aimlessly through an infinite flat grassland with identical blocks in every direction. There were no caves. No animals. No mobs. No structures. Just grass, dirt, stone if you dug down (with your fists, which worked instantly and was honestly pretty satisfying), and the occasional underground pocket of empty space.
"I could be in heaven right now," Herobrine muttered, punching the same grass block for the fifteen thousandth time. "I could be reunited with my dead grandmother. I could be frolicking in eternal paradise. But NOOOOO, I had to click the shiny legendary button."
He tried to build things, just for entertainment. He made a massive dirt sculpture of a middle finger, pointed at the sky. He built a scale model of his disappointing apartment. He wrote "THIS SUCKS" in giant stone letters across the landscape.
But nothing saved. Every time he turned around, his creations would just... stop existing. The game in this version had no persistence. It was literally just a tech demo, a proof of concept, a "hey look, you can place and remove blocks in 3D space" demonstration.
"I'm in dev purgatory," Herobrine realized. "I'm in ACTUAL, LITERAL dev purgatory."
And then, after what felt like an eternity but was probably only about two weeks in Earth time, Herobrine heard something.
A sound.
A player joining sound.
The notification appeared in the corner of his vision: Player420BlazeIt has joined the game.
"OH THANK GOD," Herobrine screamed. "ANOTHER PERSON! A HUMAN BEING! SOMEONE TO TALK TO! SOMEONE TO—" He paused, remembering his objective. "—to scare. Right. I'm supposed to scare them. Okay. I can do this. I'm HEROBRINE. I'm a legendary creepypasta. I'm going to be the most terrifying thing this unsuspecting player has ever—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
He had no idea how to scare someone.
Steve Thompson, in his previous life, had been many things: a subpar boyfriend, a disappointing son, a mediocre employee at a data entry firm, a passable World of Warcraft player, and an enthusiastic but ultimately unsuccessful Minecraft speedrunner. What he had NOT been was scary. The scariest thing he'd ever done was accidentally send a "haha I wanna die" meme to his company's group chat, and that had resulted in mandatory counseling and a very awkward meeting with HR.
Now he was supposed to be HEROBRINE, the legendary terror of Minecraft, the monster that made children afraid to play singleplayer, the digital boogeyman that Mojang kept "removing" in their patch notes.
And he had NO IDEA WHAT HE WAS DOING.
"Okay," Herobrine said, trying to psych himself up. "Okay, think. What do I know about Herobrine? White eyes. That's the signature thing. I've got those, presumably. Uh... he appears in the distance. Menacingly. He builds weird structures. Except I can't build because nothing saves. He... he mines tunnels? Can I mine? I can mine. He removes leaves from trees? That seems weirdly specific but okay."
He opened his menu (the only menu option that existed) and looked for some kind of appearance preview. Nothing.
"Am I a Steve skin? Am I just... me, but with white eyes? Do I even HAVE white eyes? I CAN'T SEE MY OWN FACE."
This existential crisis was interrupted by the notification: Player420BlazeIt: yo this game is trippy lol
The player had typed something. There was CHAT. Herobrine could COMMUNICATE.
Or could he? He was Herobrine. Herobrine didn't talk. Herobrine was supposed to be mysterious, silent, a ghost in the machine. If he just walked up and said "Hey dude, I'm the spirit of a guy who died of a Mountain Dew-induced heart attack," that would kind of ruin the mystique.
He watched from a distance as Player420BlazeIt spawned into the world. The player model was the default Steve skin (of course it was, there were no custom skins yet) and immediately started punching the ground, probably testing what the game was even about.
Player420BlazeIt: wait can I take this block
Player420BlazeIt: YOOOO I CAN TAKE THE BLOCKS
Player420BlazeIt: this is sick
Herobrine crept closer, staying behind a small hill he'd accidentally created during his weeks of boredom-induced terrain modification. He peeked over the top, trying to look menacing.
The player didn't notice him.
He moved closer.
The player started building a tower, giggling to himself (audible through whatever primitive voice chat or just assumed based on the typing speed).
Herobrine moved closer still.
The player turned around.
For a moment, their eyes met. Steve-skin to Herobrine-skin. Digital avatar to digital avatar.
Player420BlazeIt: oh sick there's multiplayer
Player420BlazeIt: hey dude
"...Hey," Herobrine typed back, forgetting that he was supposed to be scary.
Player420BlazeIt: this game is pretty cool huh
"Yeah it's uh. It's something."
Player420BlazeIt: you been playing long
"You have NO idea."
Player420BlazeIt: lol
Player420BlazeIt: wanna build something together
This was not how this was supposed to go. Herobrine was supposed to terrify this player. He was supposed to appear in the distance, disappear when they got close, leave ominous signs (except signs didn't exist yet), and generally be a creepy legend.
Instead, he was making friends.
"Sure," Herobrine typed. "What do you want to build?"
Player420BlazeIt: idk a house?
"Houses don't save in this version."
Player420BlazeIt: wait what
Player420BlazeIt: seriously
"Yeah, it's a tech demo. Nothing persists."
Player420BlazeIt: that sucks
"Tell me about it."
For the next hour, Herobrine helped Player420BlazeIt build a house that would never be saved, chatting casually about life, video games, and the fact that this "Minecraft" thing had real potential if the developer ever figured out how to make things permanent.
"So you're like a tester or something?" Player420 asked.
"Something like that," Herobrine said, which was technically true.
"Cool cool. Hey, weird question—why is your character's eyes all white? That a texture glitch?"
Herobrine paused.
This was it. This was his moment. He could be creepy now. He could say something ominous, disappear mysteriously, traumatize this player forever.
"Yeah," he said instead, "it's a glitch. Pretty weird, right?"
Player420BlazeIt: haha yeah man that's creepy
CREEPY. The player had said CREEPY. Was that enough? Did that count as scaring someone?
A text box appeared: OBJECTIVE PARTIALLY COMPLETE. Player has acknowledged your creepiness. However, they are not actually scared. Try harder.
"How do I try harder?!" Herobrine typed in the private void-chat that only he could see.
Try being less friendly. You're a horror entity, not a Minecraft buddy.
"But he seems nice!"
We don't care. Scare him or stay in rd-132211 forever.
:)
Herobrine sighed (or the digital equivalent of sighing) and turned back to Player420BlazeIt.
The player was building the twentieth iteration of their unsaveable house, cheerfully placing blocks and humming to himself. This was a person who had logged into a primitive tech demo just to experiment, probably saw it on some early internet forum, and was having a genuinely good time.
And Herobrine was about to ruin it.
"Sorry, dude," he muttered under his breath. Then, he walked directly up to Player420BlazeIt and stood perfectly still.
Player420BlazeIt: uh
Herobrine said nothing.
Player420BlazeIt: you good bro?
Nothing.
Player420BlazeIt: hello?
Herobrine took one step closer, positioning himself inches from the player's face.
Player420BlazeIt: dude you're being weird
Then Herobrine turned, walked exactly thirty blocks away, and stopped.
He stood there.
Facing the player.
Motionless.
Player420BlazeIt: okay that's actually kinda creepy
Player420BlazeIt: are you lagging or something
Herobrine remained still. He didn't even move his view angle. He just... stood there. Staring. With his white, empty eyes that he still couldn't actually see but assumed were properly terrifying.
A minute passed.
Player420BlazeIt: okay seriously dude stop
Another minute.
Player420BlazeIt: this isn't funny anymore
Herobrine took one step forward.
Player420BlazeIt: OKAY WHAT THE HELL
Another step.
Player420BlazeIt: DUDE
Step.
Step.
Step.
Each footfall slow, deliberate, rhythmic. The digital equivalent of a horror movie villain who knows they don't need to run because their victim has nowhere to go.
Player420BlazeIt: IM LEAVING
Player420BlazeIt: THIS IS MESSED UP
Player420BlazeIt has left the game.
A triumphant fanfare that only Herobrine could hear played in the distance. A text box appeared:
OBJECTIVE COMPLETE: You have successfully scared a player!
CONGRATULATIONS! You may now proceed to the next version of Minecraft.
Loading... Cave game tech test (May 14, 2009)
Fun fact: That player, Player420BlazeIt, will spend the next three years telling people on early internet forums about the "creepy guy with white eyes" he met in Minecraft. He will be widely mocked and told he's lying. He will never play Minecraft again. His name was actually Derek, and he will grow up to become a moderately successful accountant who still has occasional nightmares about being stared at. Nice job!
"Wait, I didn't want to traumatize him THAT much—" Herobrine started.
But the world was already dissolving, blocks breaking apart and reforming into something slightly different—the next version, the next step in this impossible journey.
Herobrine sighed as the new world loaded around him.
This was going to be a long eternity.
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2: "IN WHICH HEROBRINE DISCOVERS THAT EARLY MINECRAFT IS REALLY, REALLY BORING, AND ALSO LEARNS THE ART OF PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE CONSTRUCTION"
Author's note: In this timeline, approximately 847 more versions of Minecraft await our reluctant creepypasta protagonist. Each contains more features than the last, more players to terrify, and more opportunities for Herobrine to question his life choices. The next chapter will cover the harrowing period of 2009-2010, including the introduction of survival mode, multiplayer servers, and the historic moment when Herobrine first encounters a player who actually knows the Herobrine legend.
Stay tuned.
And remember: Herobrine was removed in the next update.
;)