Minecraft

The Battle Of A Lifetime

By Ren

Part one

 

“Do we have to Riley,” moaned Zoe, stepping into my clean house.

 

I rolled my eyes and said, “Well ya, you said if we played tag in my backyard for thirty minutes, we would then play minecraft for the same amount of time.” Zoe glanced over to the window. She does that when she feels like she messed up.

 

Zoe and I are best friends, but we have very different ideas of fun. Zoe is all in it for athletics, and sports. She’s fast, strong, she has good sportsmanship. She really chill as well, like the wind has made her personality. I’m a gamer. Most people beg me to go outside, and say games aren’t sports, but to be honest, I’m a natural gamer. I can play anything, mario games, pokemon, minecraft, you name it! I am one with technology.

 

“Ok, minecraft it is,” said Zoe sitting down on one of my large stuffed bean bags. Minecraft can be played multiple ways, you can play on a tablet/phone, a computer, or a game console. Zoe likes the game console because she likes the controllers.

 

I turned on the console. I tapped the game called Minecraft, and the minecraft menu popped up on the screen. “So, you want to play minigames or an actual world?” I asked Zoe, standing up next to her.

 

“What’s an actual world, is it like what we played outside?” asked Zoe, leaning back on the chair.

 

“I mean, it sorta is,” I thought to myself.  I half nodded half shrugged at her.

 

“Ok, then let’s do an actual world then,” Zoe said sitting up. I plopped down on the bean bag next to her and created a new world.

 

“Call it the real world, then it will feel real” said Zoe, getting comfortable. After doing that, we entered the game.

 

After a few mili seconds I heard a faint swish in the background. It gradually became louder as I stared at the screen.  *HISSSSSSS* There was a rush of wind. “What’s happening?” screamed Zoe, practically collapsing from fear.  I tried to move but I was unable to. I clutched the controller with all my might. Suddenly my hands were clutching each other, the controller had evaporated.  I looked over to see Zoes had done the same. I saw my home drift away, just like the controller, just evaporate, gone from my sight.

 

I breathed heavily, trying to keep myself under control, but I was unable to. “Zoe help me!” I cried, reaching over to the void.  I glanced over to her to see she was in larger shock then I was; her eyes were wide with fear, her mouth was trying to scream or shout for help, but was hoarse, and could not produce sound. She was terrified, you could just see it in her.

 

I heard familiar noises in the distance. They became louder in louder. They didn’t make me less scared, in fact they scared me more. They were the sounds I feared to hear most at this time, the sounds of the game.

 

In the distance I saw a small island. It slowly grew before my eyes, or maybe I was getting closer, I would never know. As we became just about a mile away the island seemed to be a world. But this world was different, it wasn’t earth, it couldn’t be.

 

The sounds and sight began to make sense when I figured out where I was.

 

Part two

 

Zoe walked up to a large oak tree. “This is definitely not real,” she said, “Where are we, I mean, this is just, not right!” She looked around flailing her arms in the air. She spotted a nearby pig and yelled, “Look, the pig looks like it’s been put in a molding machine!”

 

Zoe kept flailing and shouting about how stuff looked until I told her, “Zoe, I’ve played this game alot, and I know that at dark monsters come to get us, so we have to get a house prepared ok.”

Zoe turned to me frantically. “BEFORE IT GETS DARK?? It takes seven months to make a house, how will we make one in less than a day?” she hollered.

She plopped her rear end on the ground and started moaning. “Zoe, it’s a video game, and in a video game it doesn’t take seven months to do stuff like that, so will you help me?” I asked. Zoe shook her head, too depressed to answer. I walked over to a nearby tree and punched with all my might. Then I punched it rapidly and it broke, leaving a hovering piece of wood where it had been. I picked up that wood, and broke the whole tree. Then I went on to another tree. This time I broke the wood faster, and eventually I had enough wood to make a house.

 

I crafted the wood I had collected into planks, then placed a 7 by 7 perimeter for the house I was making. I build the walls to be 4 blocks tall, and then replaced the dirt on the floor to be wood as well. I then made a roof, and a terrace. Then I made a door, and placed some chests and crafting tables inside the house.

 

“Zoe, I think we have enough time to try get some wool for a bed, and maybe even some food. Do you want to help me get some?” I asked fiddling with the door. Zoe stood up and walked over to me.

 

“While you were building, I got hungry and got some lamb, and with the meat from the lamb I got wool as well,” Zoe said showing her collections in her hands, “But, the meats raw, it’s gross, really.” I picked out some wool from her hands. I counted them and we had 6 chunks.

 

“I’ll make us two beds then!” I said go back to our little house.

 

Once I had crafted the beds, I placed them in the corner of the room. After that I went and got some stone, and crafted a furnace. “Zoe, you can put the meat in here, I’ll cook it!” I said jumping excitedly. Zoe placed the lamb in the furnace and sat on a bed. I placed some wooden tools I didn’t need in the fire, and the meat started to cook.

 

After the meat was cooked it was darker. When I looked at Zoe I saw she was watching the sunset. “So, now the monsters will come,” she said looking hopelessly out the window.  I nodded. The sun was gone soon afterward. I saw a zombie in the distance. Zoe clung on to me. I lay down on my bed. Zoe watched me in terror. “YOUR SLEEPING AT A TIME LIKE THIS???” cried Zoe, jumping up. I nodded. Zoe sat there in complete horror. She sat down again She shook her head and lay down, and soon afterward, she was fast asleep.

The next morning woke up to the smell of burning. We looked outside to see multiple zombies and skeletons on fire. Their remains lay on the ground after they had fully perished. Zoes eyes bulged at the sight of burning people like things and lay back down. I walked outside to the many dying monsters and collected the drops. I got rotten flesh, bones, carrots and potatoes. When I showed Zoe my collection of items she said, “Why are you HOLDING rotten flesh in you hands. That’s just so, so gross.” I laughed as I placed the rotten flesh on the dirt outside.

 

“We have to try to escape this game Zoe, we can’t live here forever,” I said looking out to the horizon.

“I know right, I mean, it’s been way more than thirty minutes,” she responded. I picked up some important goods and walked outside. I started grabbing our beds. I signaled her to follow me. “You’re just going to leave this place, in the middle of nowhere?” asked Zoe stunned. I nodded. “Come on Riley, we can’t do that!” she begged. I could see the fear in her voice. I mean, she knows nothing about this game, we just settled, and now we have to move again. After a back and forth argument we agreed to leave.

 

We walked for miles, until we found a large village. Villages in minecraft are a town, with about some small houses in it. The village has many farms, and normally has a large population. The village would normally be filled with villagers, like people, that would walk around the area, go in houses, and care for crops.

 

“Riley look there are houses here!” Zoe said excitedly. I walked into a large wood one. I opened the door, and started decorating and placing important items in it. “What are you doing? This house doesn’t belong to us!” hollered Zoe, standing outside on the gravel. I rolled my eyes and told her that this was normal, but she insisted on making our own house.

 

After collecting more wood, we created a new house, that looked extremely similar to the architecture of the rest of the village. We made the house extremely homey, and then set off to get some crops. We collected wheat, carrots and potatoes. That night we had feast.

 

Me and Zoe decided to stay here until we figured out what was going on. After awhile we had started to call this place home.

 

One day Zoe and I saw all the villagers line up and walk down a long road. “What’s happening?” asked Zoe looking down the row of villagers. I shrugged. We decided to follow the crowd. We walked for a very long time, all lined up.

 

After a while we came across a large house. It was the most beautiful house I’d ever seen in my life. It was large, it had a grand yard, it had columns, it seemed to be to good to be real. Like it was made by the founders of minecraft. As we got closer I realized who owned this house. The one and only Notch.

Part three

 

“Riley what is this?” said Zoe looking up at the house in front of us. “It’s Notch’s house,” I said. I held my breath. How could this be real, this in my life. Notch, the creator of minecraft, lived here, worked here, was here.

 

I saw a small sign that said “Villager demands day”. I assumed that was why all these villagers came here. Below those words I saw, “Villagers only” in bold letters. Oh no! We weren’t villagers! I started to turn back to go home, but I didn’t see the village. The road of freshly packed dirt had became just dirt and was very hard to see.

 

“Riley can that Notch dude help us get some food. I’m starving.” Zoe said clutching her stomach. A light bulb just went off right there and then. I mean, if Notch created minecraft, he could help us leave the game. We would be freed!

 

“Zoe we have to get into this place, I mean, we could ask him for help!” I cried. Zoe pointed to the sign I had seen earlier, and rolled her eyes. “Zoe we could do it! I mean, I’m sure he’ll help us come on!” I begged.

 

Then I saw a long row of guards and my hopes went a bit lower.

 

Zoe thought deeply for a few seconds. I could see one of her brilliant plans bubble in her head as a smile grew across her face. “What if we climbed through the back of the building, and run into him so we won’t be stopped by the guards,” she said.

 

We walked out of the line and to the back of the large house. I saw a guard look our way. It was a iron golem, tall strong, indepent. He was made of pure iron with long green vines rolling down him. He stood as still as a statue and turned away.

 

“Why didn’t he attack us, I mean, he’s a guard, and we’re sneaking in,” asked Zoe.

 

“Because he only attacks monsters,” I said in return. She shrugged. I guess she was use to this by now.  

 

We snuck past the garden and headed to the back of the mansion. I saw the back of the house and gasped in amazement. The back was just as gorgeous as the front: it had flowers, windows, it was an architectural accomplishment. Zoe looked around the garden.

 

“There are no trees here, how will we make a bridge to the top?” she grunted.

 

Zoe only works in wood. She really hates dirt and mold. She says it’s important to stay clean. She’s not one of those friends that will make a “Mud Pie” or whatever, and it’s sort of funny how she thinks germs. Once in kindergarten during recess some people were making “Mud Town” out of dirt, and Zoe flipped. She got a broom and started “cleaning up” the “mess”. Soon she was just whacking the kids. By the time the teachers got there all the kids were on the ground crying, Mud Town turned back into just clumps of mud, and the broom looked very messed up. Zoe ended up making an apology card to every single kid.  

 

“RILEY WE NEED BRIDGE!!!” she said, totally ignoring the fact that her grammar was bad. I could see that happy excitement fade to a frown as she hid her face in her hands. I had kept some ladders in my inventory from our old house, so I began placing them along the wall. Zoe looked up and looked at me in surprise. After a few seconds her smile began to grow back on her face.

 

After I had finished placing the ladders, we climbed to the top. Zoe insisted on climbing first, and so I climbed after her. I raised my fist to punch the thin glass when Zoe urgently jumped in front of me.

 

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING RILEY???? YOU CAN’T SNEAK INTO THE BACK OF SOMEONE’S HOUSE AND BREAK THEIR WINDOWS! WE AREN’T BURGLARS!!!” she screeched. I sighed. I knew Zoe won’t let me leave this glass broken.

 

I looked through the window. Inside I saw the most random items you’d ever see. I saw wood, furnaces, sand, pumpkins etc. This time I started grunting.

 

“Riley, Riley, I got a idea! We could break the glass and make more glass. I see sand in there, and I know sand can be turned into glass with a certain amount of heat,” she said.  I punched that glass and ran into the room. I started scooping up sand and placing it into the furnace.

 

For a second I stood there realizing we had no coal, but Zoe pulled out some of the wood and we used that for the fire. After a few minutes, we collected the glass and placed it where the old glass was.

 

“Good work Zoe!” I said as I looked at our work. At the back of the room we saw a small oak door. I opened it and peeked out to see if anyone was in the hall. There wasn’t so we stepped out and started walking.

 

“Riley,” said Zoe

“What it is?” I respond.

“What if Notch doesn’t like us?” she asked.

I thought for awhile. “Maybe he wouldn’t help us. Maybe he would call the guards because we intruded,” I thought.

“The best we can do is try,” I said looking her in the eyes. She nodded, obviously scared. I could just see the tears in her eyes and the lump in her throat.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told her patting her on the back.

 

After some time we found ourselves to a room labeled;

 

Villager  Demands Room

From 3:00 to 6:00

October 7, 2011

 

Above that I saw a clock. The time was now 5:59. We rushed into the room. I saw a room with a long empty line, and then at the very end, the one and only, Notch. I gasped in amazement. I would’ve just stood there in shock if it wasn’t for Zoe racing across the room. She stopped about a foot in front of him and started talking immediately, “Hello Notch I am Zoe and this is my friend Riley. A few days ago we were transported into this game, and we want to go back to the real world, so, please can you help us?”

 

I walked over to Zoe and did a puppy dog face at Notch with her. Notch looked at us with a blank expression and said, “Well I’m sorry to say I can’t do that. The only way to escape minecraft is to go defeat Herobrine,” he said in a low voice.

 

“What does he look like?” Zoe asked.

“He is my brother, who died. He too, got stuck in my game, but he died. He had dug straight down into the earth, and had been griefed in lava. He came back to life, and created an army, monsters. When he arose he had been permanently damaged, he had white eyed, that were your worst nightmare. Stare into them and you can almost see his soul. When he rose he griefed and killed all the players he could find, he would put lava on the ground, burn down houses, and blow up villages. He lives in the Nether, the saddest, darkest, most horrible place in the world… Bye, leave my house now!”

Zoe clenched her fists behind her back. She grabbed me from my collar and stomped out of the room. She stomped all the way back to the weird items room and down the ladder. She stomped through the garden and out the house. I tried to tell her to stop, but she kept stomping. She just kept stomping.

 

“Where does he live Riley?” she asked.

“In the nether,” I said,

“Is the nether village?” she asked.

“It’s a dimension,” I responded.

“How do we get there, does it take long?” she asked.

“It takes really long time,” I replied,

“But I know how to make it shorter.”

 

Part Four

“Riley,” Zoe asked, “What is that white endless pit over there?” They were in a small village. The village was just like the one they had seen before, wood stone and crops everywhere. At the end of the village was a house that wasn’t exactly similar to the other ones.  It had no wood, and the crops were inside, and they weren’t exactly the plants they normally planted.

 

I looked at the whiteness and said, “That is the end of the world.” Zoe looked at me like I was a baby and rolled her eyes.

 

“Riley calm down, the world’s not going to end,” she said chuckling.

“In minecraft if you don’t play on an infinite world there will be a border, and this is it,” I said matter-o-factly.

After some explanations she understood.

“What are we doing here anyway?” asked Zoe.

I motioned her to stop talking as we sneaked down an alleyway. Zoe opened her mouth to speak but I cupped my hand on her mouth. We came to a door. This door was made of pure iron, and had no levers on it. I knocked on the solid door with my fist. A villager ran to the door. The door creaked open.

“What shall I do for you?” he asked in a high voice.    

“We need to go to the nether,” I said quietly, making sure no one would hear.

His eyes went small. They blinked and blinked again. The villager looked as though it had been punched in stomach.

“The, the nether?” he stampered. I nodded. Zoe looked at me with troubling eyes. He led us to the back of the room. It looked like a normal villager house from this part of the house, bookshelves, chairs, tables. He went over to a chest in the corner and tapped a secret lever underneath the chest. A hole in the ground opened up in front of us. There was a staircase with doors following. The villager ran down the stairs and opened the doors. We followed him.

 

What we saw amazed us. It was a secret underground lab, with all sorts of nether typed things, we saw a mini nether right in front of us, it had growing nether wart, ghasts blazes and pigman in cages, its floor was made of netherrack and the walls were made of nether brick. At the end of the room was a 5 by 4 block hall, that had a thin purple glass like layer in the middle. Particles drifted around it and made the room a more mysterious feeling.

 

“So, you want to go to the nether?” he asked, leaning against a cage. We nodded. He walked around the room, examining his own things.

“Why are you going there? Do you want to make a potion, cause I can give you some ingredients for some emeralds if you like,” he said. He picked up some strange items from a nearby desk and started stroking them like pets.

“This one here is beautiful, really sweet,” he said. He was giving his full attention to the ingredient, and was playing around with it’s stringy bits when Zoe stepped forward.

“We want to battle herobrine,” she said. The villager looked at her in the eyes. Her hazel eyes were in deep concentration, and they had a fierce look in them.

 

The villager stepped back and started giggling. Soon he was laughing and cracking up, bending over and having to catch everything to keep his balance. Then he started punching the table and just totally losing it. In the end he was on the floor rolling and panting. Sometimes he would calm down, and them look Zoe in the face and start laughing even harder.

 

Zoe marched up to him and shook her head slowly. Her eyes squinted as she stared at him in aggravation.  “Stop causing a commotion Mr. Giggles! We gotta get to the nether fast, so stop rolling on the floor we got work to do!” she hollered flailing her hands in the air.

I chuckled, “Mr. Giggles. Ha ha ha.”

Mr. Giggles got up and dusted himself off.  “Well you know I’m not free, so you’ll have to pay 3 blocks of emeralds for all of the preparation, training, armor, weapons, potions, strategy, food, guidance,” he said.

“Okay, sounds good!” I said. I gave him my 3 blocks of emeralds and we got straight to work.

 

“First off, we need to practice fighting. When you fight someone, you gotta know their strengths, some of their favored strategies. Most people’s normal fighting habits are unknown, but many people have tried to fight herobrine, and so his moves are known. Herobrine always has tnt, flint and steel and lava in his inventory, so you should expect normal grieving coming from him.   He also owns a thunder staff, which makes thunder strike you and you pretty much just die. He doesn’t actually fight with a sword so, good luck with that. *chuckle chuckle*. So you guys probably will be fighting with bows,” he instructed.

 

He handed out overly used bows and walked a few feet away from us. He then grabbed a target, and placed it on a far edge of the room. “Try hit the target, best is a bullseye,” he said, finding a safe place to watch.

 

I aimed my bow toward the target and released the string. It hit smack in the center. I lowered my weapon and looked toward my coach. He stared in amazement, his mouth hanging open. He slowly clapped his hands.

 

“Well, well, well, we got ourselves a little miss perfect don’t we?” he said walking toward me. He motioned Zoe to lower her bow as he got closer to us. “Maybe you will have a chance of beating this herobrine, you have pretty great aim,” he said smiling.

 

“Let’s see how you do Zoe, take a shot!” he said turning around. Zoe aimed her arrow and shot it on the target, but it was more towards the side of the target, it was misguided. “We’ll need to work on that wouldn’t we,” he said walking away.

 

Every day he made the target in a harder place to get, higher, moving, maybe in a narrow slot, he trained us to be very good. By the end of the month I could hit anything, from high to low, from lightning speed to a snail speed. Zoes aim became better, but it wasn’t perfect. She could hit anything up to 68 miles per hour, but the truth was , she wasn’t enthusiastic about bows. She said they hurt her hands and she would get frustrated a lot. She was the one that couldn’t wait for our topic on brewing. I’m an ok brewer, but you know, it’s just putting ingredients into a thingy.

 

After a month of pointing a bow at targets, Mr. Giggles announced, “Today we are going to start doing brew-”

“YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” cried Zoe.

He continued after the rude interruption by saying, “Today we are going to start doing brewing, which is making potions, and with potions we can disable our opponent and give ourselves more abilities. Now, if I’m fighting someone, I am probably gonna want to make them weaker, I’m probably gonna want to take down their hearts even if they have a lot of armour, and I’m probably gonna want to poison them. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That’s why we make potions, to win these battles. You can only win these battles, you can’t run away, or surrender. Like I say, second place is the first to lose.”

 

He walked us over to a small dim room in the back of the secret underground lab and handed us wacky materials. “Make me a potion that will make my opponent weaker,” he said. He had given us a weird brewing thing and materials.

 

Zoe got straight to work. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing. I wasn’t allowed to copy her so I looked away from her work. I would not learn if I copied. I stared at that brewing thingy for so long. I decided to take one of those empty water bottles and fill it with water. Then I took a ghast tear and placed it in the brewing thingy. It became a Mundane Potion.  I decided to try a different ingredient and I got the same potion.

 

After a lot of testing I had gotten no where. Zoe had finished her weakness potion and made multiple others. Mr. Giggles thought Zoe did such a good job in brewing that he should make her teach me her ways.

 

One day Zoe came up to Mr. Giggles and asked him, “I think we need to start getting prepared to leave, we’ve trained for a long time. Mr. Giggles face darkened and looked dull. He started to breath heavily.

 

“I don’t think you should leave yet, I mean, no, you definitely shouldn’t,” he mumbled. He looked incredibly scared and he kept looking away. He had the same line of confidence he had when we had first met.

He looked down to the floor and then met our eyes. “It’s a big risk. You could die. I’ve had so much fun teaching you, it’s just bean so lonely, I, I, I don’t what I could do after you left,” he said, pausing on words.

 

“We were going to have to leave at one point Mr. Giggles, we can’t just stay here forever,” I said. I put my arm around him. He seemed very upset. He mumbled a bit more and then ran off.

 

The next day when we woke up he was sitting near the armor room. “Today I will equip you with armor and weapons, the best of them,” he said. This door had a passcode, and was impossible to open by hand. He entered a four code passcode and the iron door opened.

 

We stepped into a long door lined with rows and row of armor. The worst armor was in the front, the best in the back. Me and Zoe slowly walked down the long, well light room, to the very end. There we saw two identical sets of armor.

 

“They’re some of the very first emerald sets right in front of you! All this armor was collected, from across the world. These are MY PRECIOUS and I love them,” he said stroking the soft ones. The ones in the back were practically all enchanted, (which is like giving them special advantages) and they gleamed like the sun. You could see that they were new by seeing it. They was polished, glimmering, and the color just bursted in contrast on the thick layers.

 

The best ones were the emerald ones. Very few people have emerald gear, emeralds are money, they are the villagers sacred ore. Villagers adore emerald armor, they sell it to each other and would wear with pleasure. But villagers are not capable of wearing armor, armor is for players.

 

“Please take what you wish,” he said. I could see him wipe a tear from his eye. Zoe softly picked one made of emerald that was enchanted. I did the same. Mr. Giggles led us to the changing rooms.

Once we had gotten dressed in our new shining armor Mr. Giggles led us to the main hall and we had breakfast.

 

“It’s been fun having you guys here,” he said biting some freshly baked bread.

“Thanks for having us Sir,” I said respectively. I smiled at him and he made a weak smile back. I could see him picking with his carrots and pretending to not pay attention to us we could tell he was listening and was sad.

 

When we’d finished our breakfast Mr. Giggles led us to a room in the back of the chamber. He climbed into a closet and motioned us to come in. It was squished and I could hardly see anyone. Mr. Giggles pushed his way to a part filled with clothes. He pushed through them. We followed him shoving coats and stepping on random shoes. Once we had gotten through the clothes there was a room with so framed diamonds. At the end of the room was a large painting.

 

“This is a beautiful weapons room,” Zoe said. It really just was a room with ores in it and there was a half broken wooden sword thrown in a corner.

 

Mr. Giggles chuckled and walked toward the painting. “You thought this was my weapons room? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!” he said. He walked through the painting like a magician.

 

“WHAT THE??? HOW’D YOU JUST WALK THROUGH THE WALL YOU WIZARD????!?!??!?!? ARE YOU A GHOST?” yelled Zoe. Her face looked so funny right then. She had that face of shock but at the same time anger and confusion. So it was like, ‘I’m angry about why I’m confused and I just can’t believe it.’ Her mouth was hanging wide open and her eyes were wide.

 

I laughed and walked through the painting as well. She followed in complete confusion.

 

Inside the painting was a bunch of strangely placed buttons everywhere. He touched a few of them and a few pistons moved and a hallway opened up. At the very end was the sight of a lifetime.

 

I saw a room lined with diamonds and emeralds. Glowstone was the light and quartz was everywhere, making the room seem important. There was pictures of important fighters on the walls and historic swords.  

 

At the end of the room I saw perfectly two sharpened blades that sparkled and gleamed, they were turquoise and bright. The handles were cushioned and padded and the guard was perfectly untouched.

 

Near them were two bows the shape of a U and they gleamed as well. They each had a special arrow at its side that seemed to be dipped in a potion.

 

“Take one of each, and here, you’re going to need this,” said Mr. Giggles. He handed us both a backpack. Then we set off to the end of the hall. We both grabbed one of each precious weapon and placed them in their sack. I noticed brewing equipment, potions and other random equipment in the bag as well.

 

Zoe seemed to love this bag because she was walking down the hall like it was a runway and “modeling” the bag like it was fancy or something. I swung it over my shoulder and thanked him for his generosity.

 

He led us back to the main room. In front of us was the nether portal.

Part Five

 

“Bye, I’m going to miss you two,” he said hugging us one last time, “I feel like I’m sending you in for slaughter. No one returns from a fight with Herobrine. No one, ever, not even Notch.”

 

“Then we’ll just have to be the first,” said Zoe confidently. She had no fear in her voice. “How is this supposed to help us get home?” asked Zoe.

 

“His soul can grant you one wish, and the only way to reach his soul is if he dies,” he said darkly.

 

We nodded. I could see that Zoe’s enthusiasm was on point and she felt pumped.

“So this is it then, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Will we see you again if we defeat him?” I said. He shook his head. Zoe patted him on the back and turned to face the portal.

 

She signaled me to follow her. She stepped into the purple fog and disappeared. I stepped in after her. Everything started to twirl. My head felt thick and my brain went fuzzy. I rough wind hit my ears and I staggered in pain. I felt horrible and everything just spun around and around.

 

After a few seconds my eyes closed and I fell straight to the ground.

 

I woke up to see a red and pink fire world. Lava was pouring everywhere and fire randomly spread along the ground. There were no oceans, there was pit of lava. The sky didn’t seem to exist in this place, it was just evil looking blocks everywhere.

 

I looked behind me to see the nether portal right behind me. “There is still a escape,” I thought to myself.

 

I instantly started to sweat, and my armor made it worse. I was so hot I wanted to just go back to the real world and forget this. I saw that Zoe was still unconscious so I decided to wait next to her for awhile.

 

After a few minutes I heard a loud moan from a distance. I sat up and grabbed my sword. The moaning became louder and louder. It was so loud I knew it wasn’t human, it sounded dreary, like it was sad.

 

Then I saw it, a fat ghost glided toward me. It looked sad and depressed. His eyes looked black and sad. Ten all of a sudden he put on an angry face and spit a fireball at me.

 

It hit me hard and my head hurt. I realized I was on fire so I grabbed a fire resistance potion from my sack. Then he shot at me again.

 

*WHAM* I reflected it with my sword. The fireball then went back toward the ghost, and he dodged it.  

 

He shot again, he seemed frustrated, I think he wanted to kill me. This time it went faster toward me and I had to leap out of the way. The fireball hit the nether portal. Instantly the portal’s particles disappeared and all that was left was a few burning pieces of  obsidian.

 

“NO!!!” I yelled. I grabbed for my bow and aimed at the ghost. I released and it shot his face. He then fell into the pit of lava, dead.

 

I reached back in my sack and saw a book labeled, ‘Animals and Monsters of Minecraft, by Mojang.’ I flipped through the book to find something that described what I saw.

 

Name	Monster or animal	What it does
Blazes	Monster	It burns you and shoots fire at you. Normally in nether. Stays on ground often.
Pigman	Monster	Half Zombie half pig. Attacks by hand. Normally in nether. Can’t fly.
Ghasts	Monster	Ghost like creatures that shoot fireballs at you. Normally in Nether. Fly a lot.

 

After some research I realized it was a Ghast.

 

I looked over to our nether portal. We we never escape this place. It was kill Herobrine or die. My armor had gotten extra sweaty during the fight and now I felt horrible. I mean, why would Herobrine ever want to live here? This place sucks!

 

Just then Zoe woke up from her sleep. She was sweating so hard when I told her that I’d been on fire. She couldn’t believe she slept through the attack, and thanked me for saving her from the ‘ghast’.

 

“I’m so sleepy. Can we just get out a bed and sleep for the night? I mean it’s not like he’s going anywhere,” said Zoe laying down. I looked into my bag to see that he hadn’t packed us a bed. Zoe moaned and stomped her feet.

 

“Well then we’ll make our own bed,” she said stubbornly. She had some wool in her inventory so she grabbed some of that and I gave her my wood from my inventory and she began crafting her bed. She was rather rough and every now and then would punch the bed and it would creak a bit, and then she’d get back to work. When she was done she gladly carried the bed to a nice ledge and smiled at herself.

 

She placed the bed and *KA-POO* it blew up. Zoe fell off the ledge and grabbed onto a block.

 

“RILEY HELP ME!” she yelled. I ran over and helped her up onto the blocks I was standing on. “How did that happen?” she asked. I shrugged and looked through my sack for another book. I found one called, ‘Bed Facts, by Wikipedia.’

Sleeping Beds are used by pressing the use item button looking at the bed during the night. At daytime, they can also be used during thunderstorms. Attempting to use a bed at any other time will result in a “You can only sleep at night” message displaying. The exact tick time span during which a bed may be used at night is between 12541 and 23458, inclusive. In order for the bed to work the player must be able to stand next to the bed at the same level as it, on a type of block that a bed could be placed on. In other words: Obstruction will not occur if there’s a solid block (the same restrictions apply as the bed itself) at the ‘floor level’ with 2 air, or transparent blocks above it, in one of the ten blocks that surround the bed. It doesn’t matter if the bed itself has blocks above it. If the player is close enough to click on the bed, but not close enough to sleep in it, the message You may not rest now, the bed is too far away will be displayed. Beds placed in the Nether or the End will explode when the player tries to sleep, and set fire to surrounding blocks. The player cannot sleep if a hostile mob is within 8 blocks of the bed horizontally (along each axis) and 5 blocks vertically. If a monster is nearby, even through a wall, the message You may not rest now, there are monsters nearby will be displayed and the player will not be able to sleep until the monsters leave or are killed. The player also cannot sleep while on fire.

“Seriously! ‘Beds placed in the Nether or the End will explode when the player tries to sleep, and set fire to surrounding blocks.’ I don’t care! I want to sleep! Why?????” Zoe moaned, shaking the book in frustration. She huffed and plopped herself on the ground. She found some more wool and placed them on the ground so we could lie down on those.

 

We decided to just stay where we were, we had read that you could re-light the portal, so we just waited for the perfect opportunity. Nothing ever came, and when it did, it wouldn’t hit the portal, it would just hit us. We became restless.

Everyday we waited we got sweatier, stinkier, and less energetic. Soon we would run out of food, and so there we thought we might as well try to find Herobrine.

After days we decided to find herobrine’s house. I mean, with so little food left, there was nothing to lose!

 

We started walking early that day, or maybe late. There is no time in the Nether. There is no winter. It is just hotness that melts your mind. We became tired in just a few minutes of slow walking. We sat down for a break and resumed walking.

 

“I can’t take this anymore! Let’s go back to the portal. There is nowhere left to go in this place anymore!” I cried after days of walking.

“NO! Keep, walking,” she panted. I breathed heavily.

“We can’t keep going like this Zoe, we’ve looked everywhere!” I yelled.

“There’s always something Riley, no matter what. When you’re lost there is always a way to find what you need, giving up will just make things worse!” cried Zoe. Her voice was cracked and dry, and saying anything above a whisper hurt her voice. It was the same for me as well.

 

Zoe marched off and looked from place to place. She was very determined, and was very brave. I don’t think I’ll ever see her give up in my life. She will never stop trying, even if her brain feels thick and heavy, her mouth is dry and bitter, and she is sweating and starving.

 

I weakly followed her, struggling to walk. I had scars all over myself from fights with nether monsters, and I had been knocked out multiple times by fireballs. The Nether was my worse nightmare, in fact, it was everyone’s worst  nightmare.

 

“Look Riley, I see some Pigman ahead! Let’s go fight them. Maybe it will give us some energy,” said Zoe. For the past few hours we had been using our swords as stilts and sweating like mad.

“Zoe I can’t take this anymore! How can you walk for miles with joy in your voice. It’s not right!” I screamed. Zoe spun around just in time to see me collapse on the hard red ground. She walked over and lifted me up.

 

“Do you need some water?” she asked sweetly. I nodded helplessly.  She looked through her bag.  “Here, some drinking water,” she said handing me a small bottle of hot water. I drank it slowly, to completely taste all of it. It soothed my dry bitter mouth. I stood up and began walking with her again.

 

“I know this has been hard Riley, but I guess this is life,” she said kicking some pebbles, “I don’t know why this was our fate, but it was, it was meant to be like this. I mean in a way we are heros, we are defeating an evil grieving dude, I mean it’s for the best. We have to at least give it our best chance, or there is no future.”

 

I looked her straight in the face. She smiled and nudged me a bit. I nudged her back, smiling as well.

 

“You got quite a speech there don’t ya, real deep,” I joked. She laughed.

“Thanks,” she said said, “Not to bad yourself. You can say amazing quotes as well.”

“I know, talking is my specialty,” I said, “I’ve done it since I was two!”

Zoe laughed one of her laughs that just makes you happy. I don’t know if it’s just me, but a friends happiness laugh is the best of them all, especially when you’ve made them happy. That’s the only thing that matters, helping your best friends  feel the best they can.

 

We joked around a bit more as we walked. Zoe seemed extra cheerful. I think it was because of my change in attitude. When we got pretty  tired we decided to have a rest and so we sat down on some wool and looked across the horizon.

 

“This is like a crazy adventure movie,” said Zoe, “Lava dripping everywhere, monsters, fighting people with swords and bows, this is crazy!” I nodded. This was more than crazy. This was madness. It was traveling, fighting, waiting, dying. There was no future here.

 

I stared off to the distance. “Zoe!” I screamed. I saw a castle, grand, tall and shining. It had lava dripping from it, and it had a large statue of a face in the front, herobrine’s face. We had found it, we finally found it.

 

Zoe looked where I was looking. She gasped. She hugged me and did her happy dance. “We did it Riley! We finally found it,” she gasped.
“One problem, it’s on a stranded island surrounded by lava,” I said. Zoe shrugged.
“Then we’ll make a bridge,” she said shrugging.

“It’s not that simple it’s really far away and we could get shot off by a ghast,”  I said rolling my eyes.

“I don’t care, we’re so close, we can’t wait for something better to happen, we are almost dead!” she yelled. She started grabbing some blocks from the ground a building her bridge. I sighed, and knowing no matter what I said she would keep building, I helped her.

 

We had almost finished our bridge when I saw a blaze coming toward us. He shot some fire at us. I grabbed my bow and shot him from afar.

“Great shot Riley,” said Zoe. Zoe has came to hate blazes, they always burn her, and we don’t have water to cool her off, and we’ve ran out of fire resistance potions.

 

In minecraft you have a certain amount of hearts, and fire really hurts them. When you run out of hearts, you die. Zoe is more afraid of dying from fire than a monster I guess, because she fights them with no problems.  

 

Once our bridge was done, we stepped on to the small island. Zoe gulped.

 

In front of us was a dozen small pressure plates scattered on the ground. I know that if you step on a pressure plate, it activates a redstone circuit, and I’m pretty sure the redstone circuit isn’t going to do anything nice, just saying.

 

Once I had warned Zoe to be mindful of the traps, we tiptoed across the lawn. “One, step out of place, and it’s over,” I thought to myself. The pressure was so high, I think I sort of freaked out. I could hardly move, I just stood there shivering. I waited for Zoe to make the first move. She walked slowly, making it abundantly clear she wasn’t messing up. She didn’t look back at me. She never looks back, she only moves forward.

Once we had made it past the pressure plates, we stood in front of a dark oak wood door. Zoe raised her hand to knock but I grabbed her and pulled her back.

“What are you doing? We can’t just knock, this is war!” I whispered to her.

“Well then what do you want to do, break the door down?” she asked.

“NO! That would make too much noise,” I whispered back, “We should open the door.”

“Don’t you realize it’s not polite to do something like that?” she whispered.

I rolled my eyes and opened the door. She watched in horror as I stepped in. She slapped me.

“STOP IT RILEY? ARE YOU INSANE?” she yelled. I stopped in my tracks. I heard thumping upstairs.

“Did you seriously just yell in this house?” I whispered.  

“Did not!” she yelled again, louder.

I wanted to scream and scream and shout but I knew that would make matters worse. I grabbed my bow. I held back the string, ready to shoot. I walked around, looking side to side.I heard a flash of lightning. I turned around to see Zoe, smoking a bit. She was on the ground, still, and motionless.

“ZOE!!” I screamed. I ran over to her and bent down to look at her. She remained motionless. “ZOE!” I screamed louder. I tear rolled down my cheek. A dark sinking feeling went down in my chest.

 

“It’s all my fault. I told her to play minecraft with me, none of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for me. She’s dead now, there’s no going back,” I thought. I cried more and more. I sat on the ground, her still in my arms. I laid her in the corner and aimed my bow again. This time I was ready.

“So, you’ve come to fight me. This should be easy, this time it’s a gang of two. Last time it was an army, 2,000 people. *Chuckle chuckle* Say good bye, little warrior,” A voice said. The voice was creepy, it made you feel uneasy, like you should run away, leave this mess behind you. But I couldn’t do that, there was no way back home, accept this battle.

 

I saw a floating body settle from above. In its hand was a stick, the stick of lightning. Once he hit the floor he aimed the stick at me and a flash of lightning went at me. I dodged it, rolling over to my right. I stood up and shot the arrow at him. It hit his leg. He hollered in pain for a second, and then rapidly started whacking his stick everywhere. I dodged most flashs, though some hit me. They made my hearts go lower and lower every single time. I shot at him again, this time it hit his left arm. Once again he hollered in pain. He started whacking rapidly again, and this time I dodged more of the flashes. I shot him in the right arm, and again he hollered in pain. He was holding his stick in that hand, and I thought he wouldn’t be able to use the stick anymore, but he was just as determined as I was. He flashed his stick again, but this time it was weaker, and off. He fell to the ground, and cried a bit. I aimed my bow at his head, and then ended up just watching him, sit and cry. I looked over to Zoe and thought, “Would she have wanted it to end like this?” My thoughts were disturbed when I saw him take out some tnt. He placed it all over the place. He seemed to be faster than normal, so I assumed he had drunk a potion of swiftness. Then it hit me. ZOE! She didn’t know what tnt did. Then I realized what had happened to her earlier and sighed. I was the last one standing.

 

I ran out of the way so when the tnt exploded it wouldn’t get me, but when he lit it I realized what the block behind me was, tnt.

BANG

I flung up in the air and landed on my butt. My hearts had drained to one left. I was almost dead. Out of a blob of smoke came a figure, Herobrine. He had a enchanted emerald sword in his hand and he was walking slowly toward me. I couldn’t move, I was in too much pain. It was all over, my life is gone.

 

Then out of the blues came a figure, emerald armor and a potion in their hand. The potion was a splash potion. I had heard about those from Mr. Giggles, you could through them. The figure threw the potion at herobrine. He then slowly started to lose hearts. When he had half a heart, the figures sword dropped, into the middle of him, right through his heart. We had done it. We had won. When the smoke had disappeared I saw that the figure was Zoe.

 

“I thought you were dead!” I yelled. She went up and hugged me.

“Ya me too,” she said chucking. We laughed and sat down.

 

Then it all happened again, the world blurred out, and everything seemed strange. I heard a faint swish in the background. It gradually became louder as I stared at the world.  *HISSSSSSS* There was a rush of wind.  I tried to move but I was unable to.  I saw this place drift away, just evaporate, gone from my sight.

 

When my eyes opened we were back on the bean bags, exactly where we were before. “So that’s the end, our adventure is over?” asked Zoe. I nodded. “Well that was really fun, despite the starving, dying, and sweating thing,” she said, “And since we played minecraft for so long, we are going to play tag for that long as well.” I rolled my eyes. Classic Zoe, classic, classic Zoe.

THE END