How To Move Dirt (a Minecraft fan fic)

Day 6: Desert Pearl

Another day, another battle; I wasn’t going anywhere like this… Isolating myself in this forest, I have to seek new horizons. Discover new places and see new things in the surface. Today my journey will take to the end of this forest to see what lies beyond it… Whether it was the edge of the world or this forest had no end, I had to know!

I packed a stack of beef, a stack of wooden planks, torches and some cobble stone for this journey, for I knew not what I’d expect… whether I’d return to this place I called home… And whether I’d see another day…

I didn’t follow any of my markers leading to the ocean, no, I followed no path and went the opposite direction dropping torches behind me so that if I were to return, the way home would be safer.

Through, hills, valleys and over ravines, I found my way to a river where temperature, geography and life was at a strong change. I none side of this river was where I stood looking over a land of sand that stretched farther than I could see; a land of no trees, few creatures and evidently a hostile land to live in. It was baron, empty, abandoned, deserted, and calling it a desert was as best of a name I could think for it. Perhaps this land of sand was exactly what I was looking for, maybe in that landscape of death lays my destiny…

But I had to swim through a river to get to it…

I paced back and forth by my side of the river, figuring a way around this river that didn’t end in water… I could not simply swim through, or at least I didn’t think I could. I had to think of a method, something that could ensure my crossing to the other side without landing in a watery death. There was only one way through besides swimming, I had to construct a path over it, a needed to make a bridge.

Without wasting any cobble stone or wooden planks, I dug up some dirt to provide for my footing. Carefully, I placed a block of dirt by the edge of the river and I kept on placing more dirt the more I had to move forward. Before I knew it, I was alive and well in a baron wasteland where chances of anything surviving was slim.

Seeing that I already was on the other side, I decided to see if anything was worth looking at here. I walked through the boiling temperatures in the desert, seeing life living by lakes but nowhere else. The geography was new and alien compared to my forest, and all I could see was sand, sand and even more sand scattered all the way to the horizon.

I had seen all I had to, and when nothing seemed to be worth my time seeing, a glint came from a lake some distance from myself. Whatever I was it was if it was calling to me, I was hypnotized by it. Ignoring my thirst, ignoring my hunger and ignoring the heat I was drawn to it without my own notice. I could here a chant the nearer I got to it; it said something like come to me, come to me and see The End…in a small choked whispering voice. But perhaps that was the desserts heat leaking into my mind, I cannot be certain what it was and all I can say was that I heard this whisper at that time and place.

The voice stopped when I was by the edge of the lake, I could see it now. I could see the source of that reflection so far away and it was beautiful. It was a definite treasure at first sight. Jumping into the shallow waters never felt great, I was relieved of the heat, of my thirst and I had the thing in my hands. It was round and smooth and no bigger than my hand. There was something powerful about it, it throbbed in my hands and it weighed more than it should have. I looked back at the endless. I though I had seen something, A tall black figure that seemed to have appeared then disappeared in a blink of an eye. Thinking it was the desert playing tricks on me, I went on home without seeing the night enveloping itself around me…

I ate four pieces of beef while in the lake and waited a minuet or so to replenish completely. Once I had, I did not wait, I did not hesitate, I ran back home as fast as I could. Outrunning all hostiles and dodging those before me. I ran and ran following my torch trail to the point where… some of my torches had gone off! Now there was no light to stop the monster of the night, only an item I left behind that was as useless as the dirt I ran on. I sprinted in faster, and the cries and shouts of hungry creatures were following me, they were crowding more and more of them were pursuing me now. Though I’d lost a large number of them, more and more mobs were following that night and the will to live was what kept me running beyond my limits. I saw the light in my home; it had stayed lit probably because it was safe from the outside environment. But that wasn’t important, what was important was getting back to safety in my bed where I could admire the thing I had found even more!

I broke through the dirt barricade I placed where a Zombie attempted to follow me inside without success, a placed the dirt back before it could do so. I sat down on a wooden plank and took a deep breath of relief; most of the monsters around me would stop attacking me during the day which was a good thing at the time.

I laid down on my bed once again, admiring the thing I found in the desert lake, I played with it on my fingers till I eventually grew tired and slept. But on the brink of sleeping I heard a voice, a dark voice from outside, ‘It has the Ender Pearl…,’ it said and a similar voice replied, ‘We must recover the Ender pearl…’

Then I fell asleep thinking nothing of it…