by Mark Mulle
wasn’t going to let me speak, was he?
The judge turned to the rest of the people in the courtroom. “See, he admits it. I now proclaim that Sergeant Ghast is guilty of being insane! The trial is over.” He banged his gavel on his desk.
Before I could defend myself or do anything else, I was zapped again and the cloth bag was put back over my head. What’s going on here?
Day Five: Vengeance will be Mine!
Dear Diary,
The sun shone through the bars on my window this morning. Wait a minute; my room didn’t have bars on the window. When I got a better look around the room, I noticed that I was in a jail cell. Where was I?
“Look, he’s awake.” I looked outside of my cell and noticed that there were two Ghast guards on either side of the door.
“Let’s get him out of here,” the second guard said.
‘Finally,’ I thought. I was going to get out of here. The guards unlocked the doors and started leading me outside of the jail cell complex. I don’t know why I had been there last night, but it hardly mattered now. All that mattered now was that I was getting out of there. “There must have been a huge mistake,” I told the guards. “I have no idea why I was in that jail cell. I mean, I did have this crazy dream that I was on trial and...” The first guard starting chuckling. That’s when I realized that what I thought was a dream hadn’t been a dream at all. The trial was real. I had been in a jail cell for a real reason. I was filled with panic now. I had no idea what was going to happen to me.
Eventually, the guards brought me outside of the complex. “Have fun out there, Ex-Sergeant.” The guards kicked me. I was out of the building, and by the sound of it, I was out of the army.
I was filled with rage. I tried to zap the guards, but they were already back inside so I just ended up banging the door a little bit. “I’ll get my revenge!” I yelled at no one in particular. “YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE LAST OF ME!” I meant what I said.
I floated away from the base. I’ll get my revenge somehow. I just need to think of some ideas first. I’ll write more tomorrow.
Day Six: Out on the Street
Dear Diary,
The army was my home, and now I have no home. I’ve been wandering around the Nether looking for an empty cave to live in, but I can’t manage to find one. All of the magma around here is making me so hot, and I’m getting hungry since I don’t have those tasty military meals to rely on every day. I’m not proud to admit it, but my breakfast today was some bacon that I found in a dumpster behind a cafe. I’ve only been out of the army for one day, and already my life seems to be entirely ruined.
I’ve been trying to do whatever I can to keep my head up. I know that I shouldn’t waste all of my time being sad. Instead, I should use my time to build up my rage! I told those suckers that threw me out that I would have my revenge, and I was serious about that. First, I had to come up with an idea.
“Who needs to be in their silly army anyway?” I mumbled to myself. “There are better armies out there,” I lied to myself. There was only one Nether army, and I was never allowed back in. I loved the army life, and now I was banned from it. If only there was another army I could fight for.
That’s when my great plan came to me. I didn’t need to join another army...not when I could make my own! That’s what I’m going to do! I’m going to build up my own evil army to be better than the old Nether army. I can show them that I’m not crazy! I’ll get to work on that soon, but now I need to do some dumpster diving for my dinner. I’ll write more tomorrow.
Day Seven: Others Like Me
Dear Diary,
I continued my search for somewhere new to live today. Houses aren’t as easy to find as they used to be. All of the houses that I do find are either these beautiful mansions that I can’t afford or crummy dumpsters with “for rent” spray painted on the side of them. Either way, they aren’t places that I can reasonably live in.
While looking for a place to live, I saw some guy drop his wallet. I picked it up and gave it back to him. He was so pleased with what I have done that he has given me some money as a reward. With my newly found cash, I stepped into a cafe and ordered a sandwich and some coffee.
While I was waiting for my order I tried to think of ways to get people to join my army. I didn’t really have the money to hire my own soldiers, especially considering that I didn’t even have my own money to pay for lunch if not for the money that was given to me. I would have to rob a bank or something to get the kinds of funds that I would need to pay for something like that. At least, that’s what I thought until I overheard a very interesting conversation.
I heard two Skeletons; they looked like twins, talking about how they had recently been kicked out of the army. They sounded ticked off like they could do anything they could to get revenge just like me. As I listened in more, I heard them mention that a lot of their friends were booted out too and some of them weren’t even allowed in the army in the first place! It sounded like I could get a lot of soldiers for free if I found some that were angry enough. I’m going to wait a little while for these guys to cool off. I don’t want to get in a fight with them. I want to be friends with them. I’ll talk to these Skeletons tomorrow and see if they are interested in joining me. It could be the start of a beautiful army.
Day Eight: Coffee can make Anyone more Convincing
Dear Diary,
I floated into the same cafe that I went into yesterday in hopes of seeing the two unhappy Skeletons that I had overheard yesterday. I ordered myself some coffee with some money that I had found on the street and waited for the Skeletons to arrive.
I was just about to give up hope when the Skeletons finally showed up. I waited for them to get settled before I talked to them. I didn’t want them to think that I had planned this whole thing out already, the talking to them part, anyway. I waited until they started to complain about the army again. This was my time to shine.
I casually floated over to their table and said, “I couldn’t help overhearing you two complaining about the Nether army,” I said.
“What, are you some sort of general or something?” One of them said. He sounded like a jerk, but I needed him if I was to start my army.
“No,” I said bluntly. “I was kicked out of the army, too. I just thought that we might have something in common.” The two Skeletons eased up after I said this and they even invited me to join them.
We started talking about simple stuff at first, like what our names are and where we were from. The Skeletons were two twins named Larry and Jerry. Their parents were not very creative. They joined the army a while ago and got kicked out for throwing their own personal fireworks display. They’ve disliked the army ever since. Eventually, I got around to telling them that I was thinking about starting my own army. They told me that if I ever did it, they would love to join.
I know it isn’t official or anything, but I think that I’ve just managed to get my first two recruits. Two down...a couple hundred to go!
Day Nine: Good News from the Skeleton Twins
Dear Diary,
Since I don’t have a job...or a house...I have a lot of free time on my hands. I could spend my whole day roaming around the whole Nether, going on wild adventures, or doing anything else, but for some reason, I just can’t seem to stay away from this little cafe that I’ve been going to for the past couple of days. It’s just a really cozy place and they have reasonable prices. The best part is that they don’t kick me out even when all I order is coffee. It’s pretty great.
Anyway, I was sitting in the cafe again today when Jerry and Larry walked in. I waved at them, and they walked right over to me. It seemed like they just came here to visit me. Maybe my soldiers would also be my friends. I thought they just wanted to chat, but they actually had some pretty great information for me.
“So, we talked to some of our friends,” Jerry started.
“And they say that they’re interested in joining your army!” Larry finished.
I thanked them for their information and asked them if they knew anything else about the situation. Apparently, they had about fifty friends between the two of them who either couldn’t join the normal army and wanted to or who got kicked out of the Nether army. I wish I had that many friends to join my cause, but I didn’t, so it was pretty good that they did.
They said that their friends would meet up with me to talk about everything whenever I wanted. I wanted to meet them right away, but I knew that I couldn’t have a meeting to start an army in this cafe. I would need to find a house sooner than later if I wanted to get my army started. I’m going to be serious about house-hunting tomorrow. I’ll make sure to write about my progress tomorrow.
Day Ten: The Perfect Evil Lair
Dear Diary,
Now that I know that there are a lot of people who are willing to join my army, I really need to get moving on finding a place where I can have my evil meetings so I can really make this secret army the best that it can be. Of course, I’ve been having trouble finding a house to buy, so I wasn’t really all that sure that I would be able to find a place that was big enough to fit myself and my army. I just hoped that I would be able to get some donations from my army to pay for whatever place I did find.
I looked in the hidden parts of the Nether. After all, I was trying to keep this a secret from the real army. The more hidden we were, the better. There