Maybe it was the fact that we had what looked like a regular villager roped and were pulling him away, or maybe it was someone doubting the plan, but the rest of the village turned hostile the moment we got near the riverbank. They all turned on us, mercilessly raining down blows.
We ran for the boats, trying desperately to ward off the attacks, but we took several hits. Anton got the brunt of the blows because he was the one pulling Lonnie along.
We fell into our boats, crafting one quickly for Lonnie, and I pushed off hard, sending my craft spinning into the middle of the river. I felt triumphant, though, since there was no way the villagers could pursue us now. That was short-lived, as when I looked back, the villagers had gotten boats seemingly out of thin air and were following. I picked up the oars, righted the boat, and rowed hard for the other shore. Once there, we exited and looked up at the ruins of my house.
“We don’t even have anywhere to hide,” Anton said.
“There was a cave around the other side of that hill,” I said, pointing. “I saw it when I was exploring the first time I spawned.”
“Quick!” Esme said.
We ran around the base of the hill, but we hadn’t gotten far into the cave before we heard zombies moaning. I started to dig through a different wall to circumvent the threat. As I went, I embedded torches in the walls. The other three, and Howl, followed.
“You know, they can follow the torches as well,” Anton said.
“Yeah, but without them we’ll never be able to find our way out,” I said. “It might only be a game, but how would you like to spend some of your digital existence wandering around in a dark computer world?”
“He’s afraid of the dark, so I’m guessing he wouldn’t,” Esme said with a snicker.
“I certainly am not,” Anton huffed.
Esme didn’t respond. She came to my right and started digging through as well. She hit a block, and it opened up to a tunnel.
“Nice work,” I said.
Anton picked up one of the torches and followed Esme as she moved into the tunnel. Howl and I took up the rear. I could hear the sounds of the enemies we’d tried to escape, the groaning of zombies and the fizzing of creepers, getting closer each moment. Maybe the torches were not the best idea. But what else could I have done? We moved forward slowly, knowing that something else could pop into the tunnel at any moment. I stayed close to Lonnie as Anton pulled him with the lead.
I reached for Lonnie’s hand, hoping I could feel it, when something struck me from behind. I turned and was face-to-face with a zombie. Ahead of me, Anton dropped the rope that he was using to lead Lonnie along, and pulled out his stone sword. We were surrounded in the narrow tunnel. He and Esme started slashing through the mob as I picked up the rope and dug through to another part of the cave. I luckily managed to pick up some iron ore as I tunneled and pulled Lonnie through with me. I was hoping Esme and Anton would follow behind, but they got cut off by two zombies that refused to die. Luckily, Howl was still at my heels.
“Go!” Esme called out. “We’ll find you later!”
I kept digging through the ore, this time putting up fewer torches, so in places it dimmed to near black, and it was hard to tell which direction I was going in, or even if I was moving farther up or down into the hill. In moments, the darkness felt tight around me. There wasn’t even the sound of Esme and Anton fighting to guide me in the right direction. I tried to keep digging straight ahead in the gloom, hoping that at some point I would exit into more light, but I was getting nowhere.
“Any idea which way is out?” I asked the wolf.
She stopped and licked herself.
“Time to use more of the torches again, I guess,” I said to Lonnie. “I mean, we’re far enough away. It’s unlikely that they’d find us now, right?”
Lonnie gave no response.
I dug and put up torches and tried to find another tunnel, or some way out. I kept going, pulling Lonnie along with me, but everything ahead was darkness.
I tunneled through until I came to a cross section cavernous enough that I could stick Lonnie in one corner and have a look around. The wolf followed close by. The cave didn’t have an outlet, at least not one I could make out immediately. There was no way to know exactly what part of the hill I was trapped in. Any direction could mean trouble, but I figured up was my best bet because I’d hit light eventually.
“What do you say, Howl?” I asked the wolf. “Lonnie?” No response from either. “Well, here goes nothing,” I said to both of them and neither at the same time. I started mining upward in a jagged pattern, making stone footholds as I went. The wolf bounded up with me, jumping from ledge to ledge. When I’d moved up far enough to lose the light from the torches below, I went back down and grabbed Lonnie, and dragged him up to a landing I’d created that was just big enough for the two of us. Howl watched from a spot a little higher up and on the opposite side of the hole I’d made. I dropped Lonnie’s lead again and mined upward some more. There was light. I dug up faster and burst through to—not daylight—another cavern that was already outfitted with torches.
“Esme and Anton must have come through here,” I said to Lonnie and the wolf. The torches were all on one side of the narrow path, which was a tactic I often used when I was digging through a cave, to remind myself which direction was in and which was out. Only, I wasn’t sure which side they’d put the torches on to show “out.”
“Well, the game makes everyone a righty, which means as they came through they’d put the torches on their right, right?”
Lonnie stared into the distance, and the wolf walked up ahead, and back again, tail wagging.
“Which means they would have gone in this direction,” I said, pointing down the path.
The wolf followed my lead, and Lonnie came along mutely through the dark, winding trail.
I felt a chill, which I wasn’t sure if it was just me feeling eerie about being inside the game, or me actually feeling a chill out in the real world where my body was. I blamed A.J., really. If that kid hadn’t come into my room with his VR goggles, none of this would have happened, and I’d still be in the real world, in the hospital with my parents, and maybe someone would be ready to tell me what had happened to my friend. I took another look at Lonnie and tried to recognize something in his eyes, but they were the same dull, lifeless avatar eyes that everyone had.
“Are you there, Elon?” I asked. He always reacted when I called him that. He hated it so much. But it didn’t work. To be honest, at this point, I’d take another attack to see if he’d help out. At least then I’d know he was thinking something.
There was an audible fizz as I moved around the next corner and came face-to-face with a creeper. The fizzing was getting louder, so I backed off with Lonnie in tow. The creeper exploded as I moved back the way I’d come, but behind me were two more.
The path curved ahead to the left, so I cut through the stone, hoping I’d catch the path at another point, and avoid the explosive creepers at our backs. I mined through, pulled Lonnie along with Howl crawling closely behind.
I moved faster, despite the fact that every now and then Lonnie would bump into solid rock.
“It’s not real, so it doesn’t count,” I said, more to make myself feel better than anything else.
The path split into two up ahead, one leading up and the other leading to the right. But neither of them had torches. I had no way to tell which way Esme and Anton had taken.
“Heads or tails?” I asked Lonnie. It was our usual way of choosing stuff. The fizzing of another creeper got close. I chose to go up. It had worked before. There was a network of tunnels, and I kept choosing one and heading through any one that seemed creeper-free, but with Lonnie in tow I wasn’t moving as quickly as I could have on my own, and pretty soon I was surrounded again. Howl snarled and snapped. I let go of Lonnie’s lead and prepared to s
quare off against the creepers pressing in. One on a far end popped and set off a chain reaction. As the one closest got ready to go off, I pulled Lonnie out of the way, but Howl jumped on the creeper, pushing it back and muting the blast. The mob was gone and Howl lay on her side on the cave floor.
“No!” I shouted, feeling the sting of tears in my eyes. The sight of her on the ground hit me harder than I would have imagined. She wasn’t a real pet—none of this was real—but she’d sacrificed herself to save us. I shook my head and repeated, “None of this is real.” Then I looked at Lonnie. Maybe some of it was…I hesitated a beat, but the moan of a distant zombie got me moving.
Illusion, illusion, illusion, I said to myself as we ran. It’s all an illusion.
I chanted to myself as I crawled up and away from the cavern. I pulled Lonnie slowly along. The light dimmed the farther away I got from the torches on lower levels, but I still moved upward, hoping with every strike that we would come to the surface. But cut after cut into the stone and dirt of the hill brought us no closer to escape.
“What now?” I asked Lonnie, expecting no response.
He obliged.
“Keep going? Wait for someone to rescue us?” I waited, thinking in the dim light. “There’s no rescue, is there? We either get out of here on our own, or…” I paused to take a deep breath, then continued, “I’ll get us out. I promise.” I started moving again. “Prepare, plan, and power through, right?” I waited a moment to see if he would remember his motto, and then I started cutting up through the hill again. After what seemed like a few minutes, we burst through the surface and I pulled Lonnie out at the top of the hill. The light in the game was brightening. It was morning. While we had been underground, another day and night came and went.
This was a different hill entirely than the one near where I had spawned in the game. It was higher up, for one thing, and at the base of it was a large pool of water with green vegetation growing in patches all over it.
“It’s a swamp,” a voice to my left said.
I turned to see Anton putting his sword away. He had upgraded to iron. Esme came up next to him. She’d changed out her leather armor for iron, and she had new arrows.
“I know,” I said. “I see you’ve had some time to make some improvements.”
Esme initiated a trade and let me have an iron sword as well.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Not that you were any help,” Esme said.
“What?” I asked, taken aback.
“You abandoned us!” she said. “You left and you never even bothered to look back.”
“You told me to go. You said you’d find me!”
“Forget it, Es,” Anton said. Esme rolled her eyes and seemed anything but fine, though it was hard to tell with the avatar faces.
“Whatever,” Esme said. “The fact is, we’ve been fighting while you’ve been hiding out inside the hill. We need to regroup.”
“I haven’t—” I began, but Esme had already moved away, and Anton followed her. They weren’t listening. I followed grudgingly, tailing them at a distance until Anton turned around and gave me a look, then jerked his head forward like he wanted me to hurry up. I picked up speed, and a moment later Anton shouted with surprise. I looked up just in time to see a witch’s potion sail past my face. It burst behind me, and I ran. Anton called to Esme. She skidded to a stop and pulled up a bow and arrows, which she launched down the hill at three witches, each coming at us fast. There was little vegetation on this side of the hill that I could use as cover, and Lonnie was slowing me down, but I kept tugging him forward, moving as fast as I could.
“Leave him!” Anton yelled.
A potion hit me and exploded. My movements instantly became slower. The health bar over my head dipped.
Anton ran toward me and whacked at the witch with his sword. I moved between Lonnie and the mob so that any attack would find me first. I tried to get hold of my own sword, but it was hard. It must have been a strong potion. Anton kept on hitting until the witch died. Then he picked up the fire-resistant potion and the gunpowder the mob dropped, and moved off to the next one.
Esme looked back at me, shook her head slightly as if I was some kind of disappointment, then turned back to her own witch fight. She had also changed to a sword, and had gotten in close. I watched helplessly as both Esme and Anton attacked the two remaining witches. I didn’t see the fourth one spawn and head out of the swamp straight toward me.
Another potion erupted against my avatar’s skin. I fell to the ground. Above me was Lonnie, vulnerable to attack without me shielding him, and my health bar was vibrating. I was down to a mere four hearts. My food bar wasn’t much help. I had forgotten to eat anything since back before we’d taken Lonnie from the village, so there wasn’t anything there to help me heal.
I pulled up the few supplies I had and ate a little. It did nothing to help my health bar. I was still low on food.
A moment later, Anton was over me, pulling me to my feet. He snatched the rope away from me and screamed “Move!” right in my face. Then he took off again, taking Lonnie with him. I followed as closely as I could, but I was slow and weak from the witches’ potions. Another one hit me in the shoulder. My right arm went limp, as if it had been paralyzed. I couldn’t pick up my sword if I tried. I did it with my left hand, but it was hard to wield, and clumsy. I heard a witch nearby, and turned as fast as I could, swinging the sword around with me. It caught the witch in the side.
“Esme, you need to get your emotions under control!” Anton yelled. “We can’t just keep thwacking at mobs forever! We need to log off!”
“Not in mid-combat we can’t,” Esme called back.
“What happens if we die in-game?” I asked.
“When you hit zero life, you normally respawn. But if you’ve been playing for too long, instead of respawning, you get kicked out of the game and back to the menu until a doctor comes to check in on you and make sure you’re okay,” Anton said. “Considering you’re not even supposed to be in here yet, they might just confiscate your goggles.”
“I’m not going to get killed,” I said in a low voice, then louder, “I’m not going to get killed!” as I swung the sword around a second time, catching the witch in the other side. It still wasn’t dead. It aimed another potion at me. This time, I used all the energy I had left for one last mighty blow. That one did it.
The witch disappeared in a haze of fire and smoke, dropping goodies.
There was some redstone, lots of sticks, more spider eyes—we definitely did not need more of those—and string, but not one useful potion in the lot.
“How’d that work out for you?” Esme called back.
That girl was getting on my last nerve.
Another volley of potions came sailing over my head. They rained down a little too close to me, which told me that a) there were more witches, b) Esme must’ve still been angry at me, and c) I had a few more chances to stock up on supplies. Annoying as they were, finding a mob of witches was like going to the Minecraft general store. I moved just a little bit faster this time, but both Anton and Esme were way ahead, cutting into witches with abandon. Then I had that same feeling again that someone was watching me. Anton had left Lonnie by himself. He was away from the witches and the fighting, but he was looking at me. And I could feel it.
I grabbed him and pulled him into a small cavern just at the base of the hill before the swamp started. Most of the witches were trying to attack Esme, which—I’m not proud of this—made me the tiniest bit happy. But with the two of them fighting, it was my chance to recoup some of the energy I’d lost in the fight. I pulled up my supplies and had something to eat. Mutton. As I watched my food and health bars go back up, I thought about whether I could just wish for things to show up in the game, like an unlimited supply of mutton.
Every game has cheat codes. And A.J.
had said something about verbal commands, right? If I figured out the secret to this version of Minecraft, could I fix Lonnie just by wishing hard enough?
Out at the swamp, Esme and Anton were taking down witches and picking up supplies. I honestly wasn’t sure if I could trust everything they said. Something told me they were holding back. Plus, if they were so great at keeping their issues in control or whatever, why were they still having to deal with Esme’s mobs, and why’d they keep building Anton’s booby-traps?
As soon as my health bar stopped vibrating, and my food points were up to nine, I left Lonnie in the cavern and stepped back out onto the bank of the swamp. I dove right into the middle of the fighting, picking up another health potion that a witch—one that Anton had killed—had just dropped.
“Sorry,” I said. “I need that more than you do.”
“Be my guest,” Anton said, as he slashed through another witch.
The three of us mowed through the remaining witches quickly, but on this difficulty level, there were way more of them than even all of us at full strength could handle. I had the sinking feeling that we weren’t going to make it. My throat started to close up just thinking about what that would mean. That everything would stop, fading out to black.
I shook my head. There’s no time to think like that, I thought as I launched myself back into the battle. We were working so furiously, none of us had a chance to speak. This wasn’t like regular gameplay, when you’re on the outside and looking at a screen. Having witches press in on you from all sides triggers the same kind of sensations as when you’re in a crowd and everyone’s too close and all you can do is swallow your anxiety and try to find a way out. Only this crowd was trying to maim us, and it looked like they were going to succeed. I really wished we had some help.
Then there was snarling to my right, and one of the witches went down. More growling as I killed another witch and gathered the supplies. And then a bark as I pushed through to the last cluster of witches and saw Howl, who must’ve survived the attack.
The Crash: An Official Minecraft Novel Page 7