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He kept having these dreams.
In fact, it was a one singular dream. That kept repeating over and over and over again.
Every time he went to sleep, he found himself in it.
Every time he closed his eyes, it was as if his mind was preparing to plunge him into it.
He couldn't escape that dream.
He always walked in it, too. Forward in one direction; not that it mattered.
The place looked infinite. Just a black void with just as black ground. When he looked down, he could see it reflecting the soles of his boots. Like some type of very dim mirror. Despite that, and the lack of any light source, he could see clearly. His hands, his legs. The entire place. As if the darkness wasn't actually there, but it was just an illusion.
.
.
.
And he walked further.
Nothing ever changed.
.
.
.
Coldness always seemed to surround him, the freezing temperature seeping into his marrow like tendrils of nothingness; empty, thus non-existent, but dreadfully palpable with your heart.
Yet his breath didn't materialize into puffs of steam as it should.
In fact, he sometimes wondered if he was even breathing in the first place.
But the worst part was the coming back.
Back to the awake world.
He always knew when he was waking up.
Cobwebs of cracks spread across the ground, dividing it into pixels of tiny islands of fragile glass.
He always stopped then. He held the breath he didn't need to have, his heart racing a weirdly slow rhytm against his chest.
And then something grabbed him and pulled him upward. It felt like if someone pulled him through freezing body of water before breaking the surface.
And thats when he awoke.
The chill faded, instead replaced by the warmth from the sunrays filtering themselves into the room.
.
.
.
He hated waking up.
Without his darkness. himself. safety. purpose.
Oddly enough, the void dream with all its emptiness and freezing temperature was a safe haven for him.
It felt like exploring something he already knew, walking in a path he once built.
The cold wasnt oppressive; it was reassuring.
The dark wasnt threatening; it was comforting.
And so he slept more, found himself irritated when he had to wake up, felt himself seeking the presence of this weightless cozyness.
And then it changed.
As he walked, he saw something that he never saw in his dream before.
A figure.
Or atleast he guessed it was one.
It was standing with its back to him, the only feature he could tell apart was the long black veil of hair falling like an ink waterfall down its back, pooling around the figure's feet.
He stopped good three meters from the figure, feeling a strange, familial pull towards it.
He could swear he knew it, and it knew him. He was there throught its entire life and so was it with him.
So why didn't he recognize them?
"Because you're too afraid to admit someone like me was there to help you to your feet," they spoke, their voice low but achingly tender.
"I don't understand," he admitted. "I'd never forget someone who helped me."
"You didn't. But you're ashamed of me; and thus you act like I don't exist."
"You still dont get it," they spoke up again after the silence stretched on for too long, hint of immerse amusement and anger in their voice.
"Let me ask you; what made you get to your feet, to make you move forward to achieve your dreams? Your goals?"
"My friends," was the immediate answer from him.
The figure clicked their tongue. "Not a second of hesitation. But we both know what it really was."
They turned to face him and he froze when he was met with his reflection.
Same nose, same skin, same jaw, if only the shadows didn't make it look much sharper.
The only diference was the hair.
Hair holds memories. The bitter, the angry. The pain. Because sometimes you can't just forget and forgive.
And those eyes.
Blazing magenta.
It was the perfect contrast to his emerald ones.
They reflected all the-
"Rage," his twisted reflection said, his lips growing into a grin that showed too many teeth.
He stepped back, but he stepped forward.
"Because all I am is rage."
The ground cracked and his anger put his hands behind his back, looking at him with something akin to a mix of love and dissapoinment.
"And all of my devotion turns violent."
The glass broke and he fell, still staring at his heart.
Because if he wanted to defeat Herobrine, he had to make peace with all of himself.
Because it takes a monster to defeat a monster.
And Runt awoke.