I walked back to camp, humming the tune from a song I listened to back in the real world, and once I got to the tree line, I stopped and looked at everything ahead of me. The houses stood tall and proud above it all, the cave adding a dull contrast to all the vibrancy of the world around it, and the lush green countryside tied it all together in a gentle yet beautiful way. I placed my hands on my hips and smiled in pride and amazement. I love Minecraft. I thought.
I pulled out the hoe that I made and thought about where to put our little 'community garden'. I decided on next to the house I lived in. I walked over to where I wanted to start tilling dirt, which was two or three blocks 'east' of the house. I crouched down, hoe still in hand and began to drag the blade of the hoe across the grass block, and once the blade fully crossed the block it changed from a grass block to a farmland block. One down, 20 some left to go.
Maybe a minute or two passed once I started on the fifth block. I crouched down and started to drag the hoe through the grass, but about half-way through I felt a sudden and unexpected pain explode in the back of my head, causing me to drop the hoe and clutch the back of my head with one hand. "Ow! What the?!" I exclaimed, and that's when I noticed a oak plank laying on the ground next to me. That was enough evidence to tell that the attack came from above, but the response I received definitely confirmed it.
"Oh my God!" Kelly gasped. "Jace are you OK?" I looked up and saw Kelly leaning over the edge of a partial wall, fear and sympathy written all over her face. I figured that Kelly must've dropped the plank over the edge accidentally. I smiled playfully and said "Kelly, if you're gonna try to kill me, I think you need to try harder."
She sighed in relief, probably because of the fact I was OK but probably also that I wasn't mad at her, but she asked again, "Are you OK?"
"I'm fine, don't worry." I replied then picked up the oak plank in my left hand and said,"Here, catch!" then tossed the block back up to Kelly. Kelly reached out and caught the block in midair. "Thanks, and I'm so sorry about that Jace." She said.
"It's alright Kelly, don't sweat it." I replied, stressing that it was ok. I continued, "Let's just get back to work. And hey," She looked at me, "Try not to think about it too much. I'll be fine Kelly."
She sighed again and said, "OK, I'll try." And then she disappeared behind the wall edge to go back to building. I chose to do the same, just for digging instead of building.
I picked up the hoe and went back to plowing the field.
. . .
I finally got to the last block of grass I was tilling, and once it was tilled up, I stood up and stretched my back, which was stiff from being crouched down for so long. I exhaled, stowed the hoe in my inventory and made a quick glance at the sun, which had lowered considerably since the last time I checked. In fact, it was starting to get late and it would be dark soon. Time to check in for the night.
"Alright everyone pack it up! It'll be dark soon so let's get indoors." I called down to those in the cave. Once everyone was up and out, I gave out the beds I made to everyone, and we all gathered outside for supper. We ate some of the food gathered earlier, talked about the day we had (explained from - what felt like - a million different perspectives) and once everyone was fed we all departed for our respective homes.
Or at least everyone else did, because as I walked toward my house, I realized I forgot to plant any seeds in my farmland. "Aw hell," I breathed, then turned to London who was walking next to me and said, "I'll be right back. I need to plant the seeds for our farm."
"You better make it quick, sun's nearly down." She replied and made a small nod at the sun, which was nearly gone behind the horizon.
"Just worry about yourself. I won't take too long." I said then broke off from the others and jogged over to the farm.
I walked around the perimeter of the farm, and at every corner, I placed down a torch. The torches would help the crops grow during the night, but it would also help keep the mobs from spawning so close. There were two rows of farmland, each two blocks wide and seven long, and in between both was a small trench three blocks long and one wide. I pulled out the water bucket I had and dumped its contents into the trench, instantly creating a water source for the farms. I then pulled out the wheat seeds I had and began to fill the farms with seeds.
I sort of squashed the seeds into the dirt, totally ungracefully and almost pathetically but I guess the game knew what I was trying to do and it sort of took the seeds from my hands and planted them into the dirt. Ok. That's a start. I thought, and just as I did, I caught whiff of something foul on the air.
And then I heard a moan.
Aw crap. Not again... I drew my stone sword and my eyes swept over the darkening terrain. Even in the diminishing light, I could make out the silhouettes of entities somewhat well. And when my gaze swept over a small section of trees, I finally saw it. No, not it. THEM. Three zombies. Heading right towards me.
"Aw (add expletive of choice here)!" I said, realizing that this was gonna be no easy battle, but it should be doable thanks to my battle skills. My cocky-ness got the best of me when I thought, Three on one? They shoulda sent four. The zombies were about halfway between me and the forest when I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing, listening to everything around me. The gentle wind, the moaning, my heart thumping in my chest and...
... something tapping on glass?
I opened my eyes and looked back at the house and through a 2x3 picture window and saw my friends all gathered around it, pointing at the approaching abominations and looking absolutely worried.
I smirked cockily at my friends, then turned to face the approaching zombies, then charged at them valiantly.
I ran forward - towards the zombies - and as I did, I started screaming at the top of my lungs, trying to boost my fear factor.
It worked.
The three zombies paused and hesitated ever so slightly, but then continued limping/shambling toward me on a collision course. I was now about a dozen blocks away from them, but I kept running forward. The zombies looked like the were ready to slaughter me.
9 blocks...
I could see their black, dead eyes focused directly on me, hungry for violence and flesh.
Five blocks...
The combined stench from the Undead before me was so powerful I almost gagged. Almost.
Two blocks... NOW!
Time seemed to slow down as I leapt as forcefully into the air as possible, brought my sword up over head high, and at the top of my arc, I then swung my sword down with lethal force just as I began to fall.
My stone blade impacted with the first zombie about a second before my feet hit the ground, and it hit him so hard it knocked him backwards and right off his feet. I ALMOST felt sorry for him.
My feet landed on the ground and I immediately spun to my left and fell on the second zombie, sword swinging in lethal arcs. 4 hits and he has nothing but a cloud of smoke and 3 experience balls. The third zombie nearly managed to tackle me to the ground as I was so focused on the second zombie, the third had a chance to sneak up on me.
I saw him at the last second out of the corner of my eye and I managed to roll to my left, easily avoiding the zombie's attack and I sprung back to my feet and lunged at the zombie. I swung my sword and landed a blow on the zombie, momentarily stunning him.
SLASH!!
Out of nowhere, a sudden and violent pain exploded on my back, so violent that I screamed at the pain, but running on instinct and adrenaline I lashed out with my left leg in a sort of reverse roundhouse kick that - to my surprise - actually hit home. And by home I mean the first zombie's shoulder, and the kick caught him off guard and threw him off-balance.
That was his last mistake.
Angry over the fact that this guy managed to land a hit on me, I drew the wooden sword I still had and, with a sword now in each hand, I fell on the zombie with reckless abandon, slashing and chopping until...
Poof!
The zombie died and disappeared and puff of smoke. The final zombie still looked hungry, but I guess after seeing his buddies get their butts kicked he decided that this wasn't a good idea anymore, and tried to turn tail and run. Or... shuffle in this case as zombies can't run. Needless to say, he didn't get far.
Before he got five blocks away I threw my wooden sword like a Frisbee, it flew through the air in sideways spirals, then stabbed right into the zombie's unprotected back. He jerked at the pain, and stopped moving away, allowing me to close the gap.
I sprinted forward with my stone sword in my right hand and once I got close enough, I slashed at the zombie one final time. I must've hit him pretty hard, because he didn't even fall over to die, he just poofed where he stood and my wooden sword clattered to the ground.
Breathing heavily, I stooped down and retrieved my wood sword, then went about collecting the loot from my intense battle (when I say loot, I mean the experience balls and the other drops from the zombies). Once done, I glanced around at the forest to see if anything else would come out and challenge me. Nothing came. With a big sigh of relief, I turned back to the farm, sheathed my swords and replaced them with seeds, and went back to work filling the farm.
Once all the farmland blocks were filled I did a full 360 turn, glancing around to see if any monsters were around. Thankfully there were none, but even though there was no immediate threats I jogged back to the house, the fear of what other nasty surprises might be waiting in the darkness fueling my efforts. I made my way inside, closed the door behind me and was grateful when I heard it shut with a satisfying click.
I turned around to find all my friends in the room. They were standing at the window, likely shocked into silence by me, but once I walked in, they turned to face me with dumbstruck looks on their faces. I looked around at everyone and I was about to say something when London asked, "How did you DO that?" I wasn't sure how to answer that at first, so it made the moment kind of awkward. Finally I decided to respond with, "Well, it helps to have played Minecraft a lot before this."
"Yeah. I'm glad you're on our side." Kelly breathed, hinting at how scary I can be when I put my mind to something. "No kidding. That was awesome though." Petra added, awestruck.
All these comments made me happy, buy it was London who sealed the deal. She stepped closer to me, looked me in the eye, smiled and said, "I MIGHT just pay to watch you do that again."
I smiled back and said, "Maybe next time you can join in on the fun too. One thing's for sure: they'll think twice before taking on this badass again."
And with that, we all burst out into laughter.
Once we finally stopped laughing, Petra asked with a slight smile, "So, how's your farm coming Jace?"
"It's going great, I think. I got a few rows of wheat growing as we speak, so that's good." I said, then added, "I would've been better if I didn't have to fight those zombies that is."
"True. But where's the fun in that?" Ally said.
"Fair enough." I replied, yawned then said, "Come on guys. Let's get to bed, it's been a long day."
"Amen to that." Kelly added, suddenly tiredly.
"And now that we have proper beds, it will actually be nice." London said as she walked toward a bed.
Soon we were all tucked comfortably under blankets and slowly drifting off to sleep. I had even removed one of the torches in the room to help us fall asleep a bit easier. Once the light was out I snuggled in under the wool blanket of my bed, then closed my eyes and waited for sleep to claim me.
But sleep wouldn't come easy that night. It felt like it took forever before I finally drifted off and even after I did, my dreams we not very comforting. I dreamed that my friends and I were in an extremely heated battle against hundreds of monsters, some not even from Minecraft, and we were losing. We we standing back to back, fighting for our lives against seemingly impossible odds. I was fighting with all my might, even decked out with full diamond armour and gear, but even still the situation was hopeless. I thought it couldn't get any worse, but as if my subconscious were reading my thoughts, it made it things worse.
Much worse.
One by one, my friends started to fall, unable to holdup against the immense tidal wave slamming down on us, until it was only London and me left. We fought with intense desperation, but it was not enough. Soon, against all my efforts, London fell under the monsters wrath and in doing so, lost her life.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" I screamed, then collapsed in defeat and let the monsters flow over me.
I shot up I'm bed with a gasp, wide awake, and scared. I frantically looked around, and once I realized I was in no immediate danger and that my friends were safe and sound, I sighed and slumped back onto my bed. What the hell did I just dream? I thought to myself while staring at the ceiling. I decided that I needed to get some air, so I sighed then climbed out of my bed and made my way out of the room and up the stairs to the second story, which was still largely open to the elements. I paused at the top of the stairs to look back down them to where my friends were asleep. I sighed, then walked over to the edge of the house.
I sat down right on the edge, legs dangling over the side of the wall and looked out to the night sky. There weren't many clouds in the Minecraft sky so the moon was able to shine quite well on the cubed land below, allowing me to see the terrain pretty well. I sat there and did... nothing. I didn't even really think, I just sat there gazing out on the land and just listened. But there was almost nothing to listen to... or for. No mobs, no cars driving by, no distant sirens from emergency vehicles, not even the wind really. Nothing. The only real noise was my own breathing, so I was slightly startled when I heard a voice from behind me say, "Trouble sleeping?"