The Broken Flame

The memories changed to another early morning, but this time, something felt off. Cebrina and Brine were walking down the hallway, their children, now older, walking by their sides. Juliana was dressed in a beautiful pink and purple gown with her long hair in a braid and a golden crown on her head with a green gem. Robert Jr. had a blue vest over a green shirt, black pants, and white ballet flats, his head topped with a golden crown with blue gems.

“Papa, what are we gonna do today,” asked Juliana, a big smile on her face.

“I’m not so sure yet, my dear,” Brine answered her. “Maybe we can go play in the gardens today. How does that sound?”

“Ooo, I’d love to do that!”

“Me too!” Robert Jr. responded, his gray eyes lighting up. 

Cebrina chuckled. “We’ll see. I think that would be nice though.”

“Princess Cebrina! Lord Herobrine!”

The family looked up as a young knight in iron armor approached them, nearly out of breath from their run. “Alexa,” Cebrina asked. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“Princess, you and your husband need to come to the throne room, quickly.”

Herobrine and Cebrina shared a serious glance, but nodded to each other. The Demi-God looked at his children. “Julie, how about you and your brother go to the gardens? We’ll meet you there in a while, okay?”

“Okay, Papa!” Juliana then took her brother’s hand and giggled as the two ran down the hallways, heading down a small corridor to head to the castle’s gardens.

Herobrine and Cebrina rushed to the throne room behind the guard, seeing several guards and the rest of the family talking in the throne room.

“Mama? Papa?” The king and queen turned their heads at seeing their daughter and her husband come into the room. They quickly ran to the princess and Demi-God with tears in their eyes, worry on their faces like nothing either of them had ever seen. Herobrine looked around, noticing all the guards were here, as if investigating something. He noticed something. “Where’s Tulip?”

Rita turned to Herobrine. “Some guards came to us this morning, Herobrine. Tulip was kidnapped.”

He snapped his head around to look at her, Cebrina letting out a gasp. “What?”

Robert nodded with sorrow on his features. “We were asleep until early this morning. We heard several of the guards shouting and running through the streets, and we came out to see what was going on. Last night, some of the guards thought they saw someone… or something… sneaking through the castle. However, they didn’t really think anything of it until Alexa heard Tulip scream. Knights ran to her room, but a figure was already dragging her away. The guards have been searching for her all night, but there’s no sign of her or the intruder.”

Rita sobbed softly as she looked between her daughter and son-in-law. “We’ve been looking all morning, but there’s no sign of her. I’m so afraid. What would someone want with our daughter? She’s only fifteen. She… she’s just… I…” Rita looked like she was about to faint.

Herobrine looked at his wife with seriousness in his eyes. She turned to her father. “There was nothing to signify who could have done this?”

“No, Cebrina. Not in any of the places the guards checked.”

“Well, they may have not looked close enough then,” Herobrine spoke up. All eyes turned to him. “I’ll investigate and see what I can find. There may be something the guards missed that could lead us to Tulip. Rest assured, my king and queen, I’ll find her.”

Cebrina looked to her husband with determination. “If you’ll be investigating, I will too.” She looked to her parents. “Mama,Papa, we’ll find her.”

Rita let out a large sigh. “Oh, thank you two. I hope she’s alright. I couldn’t imagine what I would do if we lost her…”

“We’ll find her, Rita,” Herobrine said. He then turned to his wife. “Cebrina, let’s go see if we can find anything in Tulip’s room. If this was last night, surely she was taken from her room.”

“Agreed. Let’s go.” The princess and the Demi-God turned and made their way through the halls. Celina could see them make their way to the princess’ room, walking through the open doors. The room was a mess with panting torn and different things from her bed and chests strewn about the floor. Seems like Tulip had tried to fight back against her attacker with everything she had around her.

Cebrina and Brine looked around, picking up some of the stray objects from the floor. “She must have been throwing things at whoever took her,” Cebrina spoke. “Her stuff is everywhere.” 

“Yes, and judging from these…” Herobrine said as he looked at the high paintings on the wall that were torn. “Seems like whoever took her was pretty tall. Taller than most people.”

Cebrina looked at her husband with those big gray eyes. “Do you think… maybe-just maybe--an Ender got in here and took her? We’ve had it happen in the village before where Enders will accidently take people holding onto blocks that they grab.”

“Seems like it, but… none of the blocks are missing in here.” And it was true. No block was out of place from the walls or floor, and Endermen really didn’t take items, only blocks. “I’m thinking that, if it wasn’t another person, the mobs may be getting smarter. I’ve never heard of an Enderman purposely kidnapping someone. However, I remember something I saw from the Aether.”

“And that would be,” his wife questioned.

“Some mobs I would observe in the night, before I came down here? They could speak common and seemed… sentient. It was mostly Endermen though.”

Cebrina tapped her chin. “Do you think one of those Enders took her then?”

“Possibly. I--” That was when something flickered in the corner of Herobrine’s vision. He turned to see a spot of blood that seemed to be flickering in and out of reality, under a slime ball that had melted a bit over this spot. The blood, however, wasn’t crimson.

It was purple.

And that was the same color of blood that most Enders had. 

Cebrina followed Herobrine’s gaze and followed him to the spot on the floor. “What is that?”

“Ender blood.” Herobrine looked up at her. “Their blood usually remains invisible, even if they’re injured. Their blood has very strange properties, mostly healing ones. The only thing that can injure them that causes the blood to be visible or flicker like this is water or liquids with water in them… like slime. Did Tulip keep slime balls with her?”

“Yeah, she did. She played with them sometimes.”

Herobrine summoned a water bucket into his hands, before carefully pouring some on various places on the stone floor. When he poured some near the door, he watched it spread and flow.

Sure enough, near the door and out into the hallway, purple blood appeared on the floor.

Cebrina gaped in shock. “It’s Ender blood. Looks like whatever or whoever took Tulip, they were injured prior to taking her or by her. She kept an iron sword from Mama on her at all times.”

“Then she must have used it to injure them.” Herobrine summoned more water into the bucket, letting it spill over the floor and seeing more blood appear. He began to follow the apparent trail it made, Cebrina close in step as her husband worked with the water.

The blood led them through a back hallway that led to the area around the side of the castle, where there weren’t as many guards. 

“Looks like they found a side way in,” Cebrina muttered. “Smart of them.”

Herobrine nodded. “Let’s see if we can keep following it.”

Celina watched the husband and wife continue to pour water to follow the blood as it appeared. She could see them walking around the village, towards a large forest not too far from the kingdom. As the two continued to follow the blood trail, it led into a cave that was hidden among bushes and plants at the case of a hill. It was like someone had actually tried to hide the cave entrance. Herobrine knelt and looked down at the blood trail. “...I think it leads inside.”

Cebrina pulled her iron sword from her inventory. “Looks like it. They hid this place well, I’ve been in this forest and had never seen this cave before.”

“Neither have I.” Herobrine stood, pulling his diamond sword from his inventory. “We need to go inside, Tulip could be in there.”

“Then let’s get going.”

Celina watched the Demi-God and the princess as they began to make their way into the cave.

Celina could see them going further and further into the cave, and she noticed that there were Redstone torches within the cave. She didn’t think much of it at first, but the further they got in, the more she saw.

“I was wondering when you’d notice that.” Herobrine spoke to her. “We didn’t really notice it at first, didn’t think much of it. But as we got further into the darkness, we didn’t just see Redstone torches.”

Celina watched the couple as they fought off monsters and narrowly avoided traps in the cave, as if they had been set up for the two when they came into the cave. Every trap and every mob gave her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. “That’s… weird. It’s almost like they were set up for you, like… like someone was expecting you.”

“And to this day, I agree with you. Someone was expecting us. And I feel like you’ll see who it was soon enough.”

Celina watched as Herobrine and Cebrina continued. By the time they reached a large cavern within the cave, the human woman was panting with a few small wounds and bruises on her skin. Herobrine handed her a regeneration potion and she quickly swallowed it down. “Thank you, Brine.” She stepped into the cavern, her husband close behind. “What in the Nether? This place is…”

The cavern looked like someone had taken the time to carve it out from the natural stone. There were mushrooms all over the floor, vines hanging from the walls, and some of the stone had been replaced with strange purple blocks, blocks that resemble stone bricks in a different color. There were also various blocks made of a yellow stone.

“What are those blocks,” Cebrina questioned.

“Those are blocks from the End,” the Demi-God answered her. “I’ve seen those before.”

“What do you think it means?”

A sudden roar had the cavern trembling and the married couple were nearly knocked off their feet from the stone shifting under their heels. Herobrine quickly held his wife close until the shaking stopped, and that was when stone burst from in front of them, a wall of the gray block nearly falling on top of them. Herobrine and Cebrina stepped back as red eyes appeared from a darkness cavern where the wall was only moments ago. Herobrine readied his battle stance and Cebrina did the same. Low growls and snarls of the animalistic kind came from the hole in the wall. 

It didn’t sound like any mobs they had heard before, but more like a combination of mobs of the night. It slightly frightened Cebrina as she asked, “Brine, what is that?”

“I don’t know… but I have a feeling we’re in for a fight.” He brandished his diamond blade and pointed it towards the unknown creature.

The monster stepped into the faint light of the cave, and Herobrine’s expression fell to horror. He could hear his wife gasp behind him.

They had found Tulip.

But she wasn’t Tulip anymore.