Minecraft: The Diamond Chronicles {Book I}

Chapter 3: The Village

My eyes fluttered open. I sat bolt upright, panicking as I remembered the events of the night before to see that I had awoken in a dark, cramped room underground. I calmed down, fixed my hair and rubbed my eyes. Suddenly, a sharp, twisting pain jabbed at the muscles in my back, the skin stinging like hot beestings. I stretched and winced.
I brushed off most of the dirt from my clothes after wearily peeking out of my makeshift bunker like an anxious hedgehog awakening from its long hibernation.

I stretched again, the back ache stabbing me like a dagger. I moaned and turned around, lifting up the bottom half of my shirt to see a plethora of small, red cuts and purple bruises littered all over my back.
'That must have been from the explosion when I hit the tree...' I thought.
The back of my head throbbed just thinking about it.
Leaning against the tree I had slept under, I slid down into a sitting position. My eyes widened and my heart beat quickened as the images of last night flooded into my mind, breaking the dam of self-control, nearly drowning me.

All the horrifying images flashed before my eyes in an odd, illogical sequence: the monster's faces, the explosion, the remains of my shelter, the face of moon, how I was so close to death...
What were those things? Well, they were monsters! Just thinking about them made me sick to the stomach. The zombies, spiders, skeletons, slimes, the teleporting figure and the exploding thing that crawled on four feet. The scariest had to be the crawling, hissing one. The hollow eyes, the stretched mouth, the heart-striking hiss and its silent, terrifying approach. The one that destroyed my shelter. The one that almost killed me....
How did I even survive?

'Stop!' I shouted at myself, clasping the sides of my head. 'Stop thinking about it! You're okay now, you're alive, you're here - you're exhausted, hungry, injured and shaken but...alive....'
I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths.
My heartbeat returned to normal.
The images faded.
I was fine.

I couldn't possibly find my house now - for one, it got blown to bits, and I had run so far away from it, in so many different directions - it was virtually impossible. Maybe I should build another?
I noticed a small cave in the distance and decided my new house would be built with cobblestone and the trunk of a white tree with black markings on the trunk - I think it's called 'birch wood'? I quickly crafted two wooden pick axes and plodded to the cave entrance.
I was just lowering myself into the dark and grimy grotto when I heard something - it didn't sound like a monster - it was more of a sigh, as if someone was pondering something.....

Perhaps it was a person? Another human?? I clambered out of the cave, scanned my surroundings, and out of the corner of my eye I saw - a village!

I ran around the hill that covered the cave entrance and ran gawkily towards the village with a newfound energy, heart thumping in my chest. There was no wall around it, so I had no trouble getting in. I skidded to a stop as a certain delicious aroma teased my sense of smell:
Cookies!

The mouth-watering scent entranced me; the sight of warm, safe houses was wonderfully pleasing. It was beautiful. The people who inhabited the village carelessly wandered around, wearing clothes that were similar, yet very different.
They trod along gravelled paths, selling goods at stalls, the smaller ones - which could possibly be the children - played in the long strands of grass.
These people seemed very different from one another, but they all seemed to look the same; large foreheads, crossed arms, a monobrow and a long, droopy nose dangling over linear mouths.
I walked down the hill and smiled to the villagers, who smiled back and didn't seem so bothered about a stranger entering their home.