You woke up on an island, in a world that immediately made your stomach drop

Minecraft. Yeah.

How you got there didn’t matter—mostly because you couldn’t remember. What did matter was that you knew exactly what this place was. A game. A video game. Somehow, impossibly, you’d been dropped into it. Still, you supposed it could’ve been worse. At least it wasn’t Call of Duty. Getting spawn-killed by a twelve-year-old with a sniper rifle would’ve been way harder to process.

You were wearing your avatar’s clothes, which felt wrong in a way you couldn’t articulate. As you wandered, taking in the uncanny geometry of the landscape, it became clear you didn’t quite belong. The world was made of rigid shapes and perfect edges.

You weren’t.

Most of the villagers avoided you entirely. They watched from doorways and windows, stiff and silent, fear written plainly across their faces. No one tried to stop you when you took crops or supplies. They just… let you. Like refusing would make things worse, before you felt something tug your arm.

A child. Small, wide-eyed, clutching your sleeve with both hands.

“Are you Herobrine?”

Your blood went cold.

Oh. Fuck. He’s a thing here too? You really hope its just story's like in your world..

You knelt to the child’s level and gently told them no, absolutely not, wrong mysterious white-eyed humanoid, sorry for the confusion. The kid seemed disappointed—but undeterred. They eagerly told you about him. The man with empty eyes. The one who wasn’t made like the rest of the world. Like you.

They explained how to summon him.

You gave the child a flower—mostly out of guilt—and left before you could think too hard about the implications.

You thought about it anyway.

Curiosity is a disease.

The ritual wasn’t anything you recognized. No redstone nonsense, no internet creepypasta junk you remembered from childhood. Just instructions passed down like a warning no one quite believed anymore: two gold blocks. Two netherrack. Fire.

You gathered the materials with unsettling ease. Gold came from deep places. The netherrack from ruined portals—thankfully sparing you a trip to literal hell. But when you finished building it, a problem became apparent.

No flint and steel.

Rain started pouring down like the world itself was trying to discourage you.

You went back to the village to rest.

The next day, you returned.

The structure was already lit.

The surrounding trees were burning.

The air felt… thin. Stretched. Like something vast had pressed too close to the surface and pulled away again, the fog you'd awoken to find the world surrounded by felt off now, Suddenly feeling like there where eyes staring into you.

"Well,” you muttered, staring at the fire, “that’s probably fine. And totally unrelated."