Escape from the Nether

by Winter Morgan

  “It was a small town called Farmer’s Bay,” said Eva.

  “Farmer’s Bay!” Joe called out. “That’s where I live.”

  “I don’t recognize you,” said Eva.

  “That’s because this is a different time period,” said Brett. “We have to go back to Meadow Mews and find out what time period this is. We can ask our future or past selves.”

  “You can’t go back to Meadow Mews,” said Eva.

  “Why not?” questioned Brett.

  “Theo destroyed Meadow Mews ages ago,” Eva explained. “I never even went there. I’ve only read about it in history books.”

  “What? Meadow Mews is gone?” Poppy cried.

  “Let’s go back to where it used to be and see if there is anything left,” suggested Nancy.

  “Before you go back to find a demolished town, can you help save the people left in the Overworld? I know Theo is set on destroying it all. Once he finds out that I’ve escaped, he will come looking for me, and I’m afraid it will be dangerous for all of us,” said Eva as she wiped tears from her eyes and sniffled.

  “I think we should look for Theo. Stop him before he comes after you,” suggested Brett.

  “I agree,” said Poppy. “We don’t want to wait around to see if we are attacked or waste all of our energy hiding from him.”

  As Poppy spoke, thunder boomed through the town and a heavy rain fell on the desert, making the sand thicker and harder to walk on. “What?” exclaimed Joe. “It never rains in the desert.”

  “It rains every day in the Overworld. At least ten times a day,” said Eva. “What are you talking about?”

  “It wasn’t always like that,” said Brett.

  “I never knew a time when I didn’t have to battle mobs in the rain,” said Eva. “And now my inventory is empty, and I can’t even battle. I am doomed.”

  Brett handed her a diamond sword from his inventory. She thanked him as she grabbed the sword and lunged at a skeleton that spawned inches from her.

  Brett didn’t even have to turn around to know there was a zombie behind him; he could smell it a mile away. He swiftly turned around and struck the zombie, plunging his sword into the zombie’s rotten flesh. Once he obliterated the zombie, he raced toward a skeleton that was ready to destroy Eva and slammed his sword into its bony frame. He picked up the bone it dropped on the ground when it was destroyed, and he handed it to Eva.

  “Thanks.” She smiled.

  “How long do these rainstorms last?” he asked as he struck another skeleton that stood behind Eva.

  Eva leaped at a zombie, destroyed it, and took a deep breath before she replied, “There is no time frame. Some last hours, some minutes.”

  This rainstorm was lasting longer than a minute, and the group was getting tired. They were still low on potions and only had a few bottles of milk to help them recover. They tried not to sustain any injuries from the attacks, but it was impossible. Helen and Nancy were both down to two hearts, and they only had one bottle of milk between them. Everyone was on edge, which was why they all shuddered when they heard the loud clanging of bones and saw a massive skeleton army marching toward them.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Poppy.

  “I wish I had potions,” said Eva. “The only item I have is Brett’s diamond sword. Do you guys have any potions I can borrow?”

  “We don’t have any potions. That was why we were in the Nether,” Poppy explained, but there wasn’t time to discuss their lack of potions because within seconds they were face-to-face with a large skeleton army. Arrows flew through the sky, and they tried to duck.

  “Help!” Eva screamed.

  When Brett slammed his sword into the first skeleton, the sun came up, and the army disappeared.

  Eva said, “We have to be prepared. There could be another attack at any time. It’s funny, but when I was imprisoned in the Nether, I made myself feel better by reminding myself that at least I didn’t have to deal with these daily attacks in the rain.”

  “I can’t believe you live in a world that is under constant attack. We experienced a bit of it before we left on our trip to the Nether, and it was awful,” remarked Poppy.

  Brett said, “What if the attacks that we were experiencing in Meadow Mews were just the beginning of a larger attack? Perhaps Theo was just starting to destroy Meadow Mews?”

  “I’m not sure Theo is behind the storms, but that does make sense. I just know that he has an army and they take over property and force people to change their skins and join the army. He also won’t let anyone else practice alchemy,” said Eva.

  “We have to find out if he is behind the storms. He could be controlling them with command blocks,” said Brett.

  “I wonder where he lives,” said Joe.

  “I’ve never seen where he lives,” said Eva. “People say that it’s in the cold taiga and he houses all of the people in a large ice castle. They even say he has a farm, which I find very hard to believe. How can you make a farm in the snow?”

  “We’ve done it,” said Joe, “and I bet Theo is hiding in the cold biome that we worked on.”

  “And I’m sure he’s housing his soldiers in the ice castle I created with my friends Callie and Laura,” said Poppy.

  “Do you guys remember how to get to the cold taiga?” asked Eva.

  “When we worked there, it was called Hillsdale,” said Brett.

  “Hillsdale.” Eva paused. “It doesn’t sound familiar to me.”

  Joe said, “I think we can find it, but we need to be prepared before we leave for the journey.”

  “How?” asked Eva. “I don’t have a home, and I have an empty inventory. How can I prepare to attack Theo and his army?”

  Poppy said, “We have to get out of the desert and find an area where we can pick fruit and vegetables and hunt. Also, I am a builder. I can make a house for us, and we can set up a crafting table and brew potions. We have to take a break and plan. It’s the only way we can save you and our town.”

  “I know there is a pasture right outside the desert. If you’d like, we can stay there and try to create a farm and make a house,” said Eva.

  “Can you lead us there?” asked Poppy.

  “Of course,” Eva said.

  Brett was glad they were going to spend a few days with Eva. He wanted to study her. He was beginning to trust her, and he hoped that she wasn’t setting them up to be trapped.

  7

  FAMILIAR FINDS

  Brett kept waiting for the rain, but it never came. He was relieved when they finally reached the pasture and saw the remnants of a farm. “Joe, we can work on this farm while the others build the house,” he said.

  Poppy led the group to a shady stretch of land and began to construct the house. Eva kept apologizing because her inventory was empty and she couldn’t offer any wooden planks or other items one needed for building a house.

  Brett and Joe inspected the ground. There was an irrigation system in place, and wheat still grew in some patches. Brett pulled a potato from the ground. “It looks like they had a nice farm here. I wonder when it was destroyed,” said Brett.

  “It’s so sad to think that this is the future. I’m so glad we are here and have a chance to help everyone and change the future of the Overworld. I’d hate to know that Farmer’s Bay and Verdant Valley didn’t exist. I can’t live in a world like that.”

  Brett nodded. He didn’t want to live in a world that was under constant threat from a bully named Theo. He looked over at his friends and marveled at how quickly they constructed the house. Poppy was putting in a window. He loved the way she worked so well under pressure. They had been through a lot together, but she still amazed him.

  “Looks like we have a place to head to if it starts to rain.” Brett pointed to the house.

  “Wow,” exclaimed Joe. “They did a great job. That’s such a nice house.”

  It was a nice house. It was larger than they expected, and there was a long picture window that looked out at
the farm they were building. Brett saw them place a door in the frame and walk inside the house. He hoped they were crafting potions.

  Joe placed seeds on the ground. “We should have crops in a few days. We still need more food. Perhaps we should hunt.”

  Brett wasn’t very good at hunting, but he knew they had to get a few chickens for dinner. “It seems like there aren’t many animals around here. Have you seen any?”

  “No,” said Brett. “That’s weird. I wonder if Theo has done something with the animals.”

  A loud voice called out, “Did somebody say my name?”

  A man wearing a yellow robe appeared and stomped on their freshly planted row of seeds.

  “What are you doing?” asked Joe. “We just planted those.”

  “You can not create a farm without my permission,” Theo screamed, “so I must destroy it.”

  “Who made up that rule?” Brett asked as he pulled his diamond sword from his inventory.

  “I’d put that away if I were you,” warned Theo.

  “Why?” Brett asked as he pointed the sword at Theo.

  “You know, I’ve never seen you guys before,” said Theo, “so you must be new and must not understand how the Overworld works. If you put down the sword, I’ll teach you.”

  “I am not putting down the sword. Why don’t you explain it to me anyway?” asked Brett as he moved the sword closer to Theo’s chest.

  “Army!” Theo called out, and within seconds a group of people dressed in yellow surrounded Brett and Joe.

  “Army commander,” Theo called out. One of the soldiers came forward, and Theo instructed him, “Take these men to the jail.”

  “No,” Brett said, but he knew fighting was pointless. He followed the soldiers through the pasture and into the cold taiga.

  Brett and Joe instantly recognized the taiga. Joe said, “This is Hillsdale.”

  “You’re right.” Brett stared at Poppy’s well-designed ice castle and recalled when she built it with her two friends. He looked over at the farm he had created with Joe. He saw soldiers dressed in yellow picking various foods. He began to salivate when he saw the lush farm filled with potatoes and apples. He wanted to race over and scream, “This is our farm, and we deserve this food,” but he didn’t say anything. He just walked in the direction of a bedrock prison that was constructed next to a snowy mountain.

  Joe reached down on the ground and made a snowball. He placed it in his inventory. One of the soldiers noticed and asked him what he was doing. “I was just keeping it in case I go to the Nether.”

  The soldier laughed. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Can I keep it?” asked Joe.

  “You can’t have anything in your inventory. Once we put you in jail, we empty it all. So you can keep it until we enter the prison. Enjoy it for the next minute.” The soldier chuckled.

  Brett wanted to plan an escape, but he didn’t know what to do. He also had a few snowballs in his inventory, and he thought about throwing them at the soldiers, but it would be a waste. The soldiers outnumbered them. As they walked toward the bedrock prison, they heard a loud noise.

  “A storm!” one of the soldiers screamed.

  “Be prepared,” another solider called out.

  This time the storm brought a gusty wind and snow. Skeletons spawned, and they appeared camouflaged in the white snowy landscape. Arrows flew at the soldiers. Brett and Joe tried to shield themselves from the arrows by standing behind the soldiers.

  “Run!” Brett screamed to Joe.

  Dressed in armor, the two sprinted out of the cold taiga and toward the pasture, avoiding attacks from hostile mobs as the snow turned to rain. After a while, it stopped. It was almost night when they finally reached the pasture. A lone skeleton walked in the dusk and aimed its bow and arrow at the guys.

  Brett lunged at the skeleton, annihilating it with one hard strike. He picked up the dropped bone and said, “We have to warn the others.”

  Joe hurried toward the house; Brett walked behind him. By the time Brett reached the front door, he saw Joe standing outside of the house. He was pacing and talking to himself.

  “Joe, are you okay?” asked Brett.

  “I don’t understand what happened,” Joe said, and he repeated this statement as he paced back and forth in front of the entryway.

  “Let me go in. I want to see Poppy,” Brett demanded.

  “No,” said Joe.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t understand what happened,” said Joe.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look inside.” Joe’s voice cracked as he spoke. “The h-house,” he stuttered. “It’s empty.”

  8

  HOT AND COLD

  Brett walked inside the house, and it was eerily empty. There weren’t any beds or signs that anybody had been there. He walked through the entire house, but he didn’t find anything. Joe was still pacing in front of the house. He called to him, “Joe, come in.”

  Joe reluctantly walked inside. “What did Theo do to them? Where are they? Where are the beds? I thought they had enough time to make beds and even craft potions. Where is it all? And where are our friends?”

  “We will find them,” said Brett calmly.

  “Will we?” asked Joe. “We might not. And we might be trapped in this time period forever. We were almost prisoners in a bedrock prison with no possibility of escape. How can you be so calm?”

  “I don’t see the point in not being calm. We have to come up with a plan. We know we have to save our friends, save the Overworld, and especially save Meadow Mews from being destroyed.”

  “That’s a lot,” Joe said and then added, “I don’t think we can win our battle here.”

  “What?” asked Brett.

  “We have to go back in time to save the future. This part of the world is done. We can’t destroy Theo in the future; we need to destroy him in the past, before he could cause all this damage.”

  “But how? We don’t have a time machine,” said Brett. “We never get to choose when we go back and forth in time. It always seems so accidental.”

  “We will have to figure out how to either make a portal or find a portal,” said Joe. “It’s our only hope.”

  “Do you think we should travel back to the Nether?” asked Brett.

  “We can,” Joe said. He looked out the window. It was dark out, and he saw two block-carrying Endermen off in the distance. “But we should stay here for the night. It’s too dangerous for us to go out. We could be attacked.”

  “Don’t you think it’s dangerous for us to stay here? I think the soldiers will come looking for us,” said Brett.

  “It might be, but we don’t have a choice.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Brett.

  “Do you have the supplies to craft a portal to the Nether? I think we should go back there in the morning and see if we can go back in time through the Nether fortress,” suggested Joe.

  Brett started to think about heading to the Nether, and it made him feel uneasy. He didn’t feel right heading back into the past without Poppy, Nancy, and Helen. He could never forgive himself if they were stuck in the future forever. He had no idea where they were, but he had to find them. He expressed this to Joe: “I don’t think we should leave without our friends.”

  “I agree, but where are they? Do you think they are in the bedrock prison?”

  Brett didn’t think they were there. “If they were placed in the prison, we would have seen them. I wonder if they saw what was happening to us and hid. Maybe they are in the cold taiga now trying to save us,” theorized Brett.

  Joe said, “That actually sounds like a real possibility, but how are we going to go back to the cold taiga without getting caught?”

  “We will have to be very careful. Hopefully we can find them as we travel there,” said Brett.

  “Do you think it will work?”

  “I don’t know,” Brett said as he crafted a bed, “but I think we should sleep h
ere tonight and get up the minute the sun comes up and look for them.”

  Joe was weary and worried that they would be caught in the middle of the night and brought back to the prison, but he felt he had no other choice than to craft a bed and go to sleep.

  As they crawled into their beds, there was a sound at the door.

  “What’s that?” asked Brett.

  There was no time to respond. A zombie ripped the door from its hinges and attacked them with its extended arms. Brett plunged his diamond sword into the zombie’s smelly flesh.

  “There are more!” Joe pointed to two more zombies lumbering through the doorway. He raced toward them and held his breath as he struck the undead beasts with his diamond sword.

  When the final zombie was annihilated, Joe and Brett placed the door back in the doorway.

  “I’m exhausted,” said Joe as he yawned.

  “Me too, but I hope we can sleep. I’m worried Theo will come soon,” said Brett.

  “I feel the same way, but we agreed we have to stay here,” said Joe.

  “I know.” Brett crawled into the bed, pulled the wool blanket over himself, and then said, “Good night.”

  That night they both slept lightly, worrying that they would be caught. Brett tossed and turned until he finally fell asleep. When he awoke in the morning, he looked over at Joe’s bed. It was empty.

  9

  MOMENT IN THE MINE

  “Joe?” Brett called out, but there was no response.

  Brett sprinted outside and was shocked when he saw Poppy talking to Joe by the farm.

  “Poppy!” Brett called out as he raced toward his friend. “You’re here!”

  Poppy spoke quickly. “We have to get out of here. The others are hiding in a mine outside of town.”

  Brett and Joe followed Poppy to the mine. They raced through the pasture and toward a hilly biome, where she led them down a path shaded with trees.

  “How did you find this place?” asked Brett.

  “Eva,” she replied breathlessly. She pulled out a torch and entered the small musty cave.

  “Brett! Joe!” the others called out. “Poppy found you.”