by Max Brooks
How much longer until dawn?
The last plank fizzled. I tore through my pack for something to burn. I threw in the trapdoors, regular doors, that thin, flat, pressure plate thing, even the little push button that didn’t last more than a few seconds.
Then I started burning my tools. Just the wooden ones, I promised. I don’t need them anyway. But once they were gone, I turned on the stone versions. In went the shovel, then the hoe, and finally the axe, all fed to the waning flames and my ever-growing mania.
Ironically it was that mania that kept me from throwing in the last two wooden items I had: a couple of standard sticks. Since my cracked, worn, stone-tipped pickaxe looked about ready to break, I thought I might need to make another one to collect more cobblestone for the furnace.
Whichever goes first, I thought, hammering at the bunker’s back wall. If the flames go first, I’ll use the sticks. If the pickaxe snaps, then—
The fire died. The darkness returned. But in that final second of fading light, as the last block of stone flew from the wall, I thought I could see something different behind it. Were black spots embedded in its face?
Blindly picking away, I heard the crack of a successful strike. But instead of the new rock flying into my pack, I got a small, hard, black lump.
It didn’t feel familiar, not like the sense memory of that first dirt block I smelled. This was more distant, like I’d heard of this substance without ever having seen it up close.
Wasn’t there a natural resource that my people had been pulling out of the ground for centuries? Hadn’t it been controversial; dirty and dangerous, but also plentiful and cheap? Not oil. Oil was a liquid. This might be—
“Coal?” I asked the lump. “Are you coal?”
I placed it in the furnace’s lower slot and stood back as it flared right up.
“Coal or not,” I said with a grin, “I’ll take it!”
By its guiding light, I rushed over to the original mining point and found an identical black-flecked block. Picking out the nodule, I hurried back to the furnace.
I didn’t have to. The first coal fire kept burning, and burning, and burning! At this rate it would last at least five times as long as normal wood. And all on its own without me having to strike a match. That last thought gave me the idea to try to make another torch.
Luckily I still had those two sticks for making a backup pickaxe. I held one up to the furnace just like I’d done earlier in the night. Hopefully this brighter, hotter, coal-fueled blaze would be able to do what the milder wood fire couldn’t.
Just like before, the stick wouldn’t catch.
I’d run out of luck, but not ideas. Thinking about this world’s rule of combining materials, I placed a stick in the center square of the crafting table with the second lump of coal above it.
“Here we go!” I chimed, as four large, match-shaped torches jumped into my hand. “Let there be light!”
Feeling like the smartest person in the world—which might actually be the case if this world had no other people—I bounced back over to the still-burning furnace and exultantly held a torch to the flames.
And, once again…
Well, you get it.
“Grrr,” I growled, in a tone that would have made any zombie proud. “What’s missing?”
I knew the torch had to work eventually. This world wouldn’t have let me make it otherwise. Would it? I just had to find the missing part of the equation, some kind of igniter I’d not yet learned to craft.
“Or maybe it’s not that I need a new device,” I said, remembering my experience with the hoe. “Maybe it’s how I’m using this one.”
I thought, given how fire worked in my world, that maybe I hadn’t given the torch time to catch. Just like with the sticks, I’d held it against the flames for only a few seconds. Maybe it needed a lot longer.
I tried, again, to lean the coal-tipped cudgel against the furnace, and this time I counted a full sixty seconds. Maybe longer? I wondered, but saw that I was running out of time. The flames were dying. I couldn’t have more than another minute. I’d have to use that precious light to try to dig for more coal. Reaching for my pickaxe, I decided, just on the spur of the moment, to place the torch on the ground next to the furnace. Who knows, maybe there was still a chance that the radiating heat would do the trick. Slim, I know, but still better than it sitting in my belt.
The moment I set the torch down next to the flickering firebox, it sparked into brilliant incandescence.
“Wha…” I sputtered, reaching for the smoky little flame.
The torch went out the moment I grabbed it, and then reignited when I set it back down. “How?” I asked incredulously, picking it up and sticking it to a wall, which caused it to spark again. How could a torch spontaneously combust when set down, then switch on and off like a flashlight?
The only answer I had was sheer acceptance of the fact that just because the rules don’t make sense to me doesn’t mean that they don’t make sense.
And this time I couldn’t have been happier about it! Not only did these torches work anywhere I set them; not only did they extinguish the moment I put them away; not only did I not have to worry about burning myself ’cause they gave off no heat; by far their most welcome, spectacular, completely nonsensical trait was the ability to burn forever.
You heard me. Forever!
Forget physics, forget logic, for-ev-er! Long after the furnace went cold, I watched them continue to keep my bunker as bright as day. Now this, I thought with nothing short of awe, is something I’m pretty sure even my own world doesn’t have.
It might have seemed that easy back home, just flicking on a light switch and going about your business, but flicking that switch meant a power plant somewhere was using up some kind of stored fuel. Even the renewable energy I remembered hearing about needed a natural source; sunlight or wind or waves. Not here. Not with these. Yes, I’d need more coal to make more torches, but once I did, they’d burn as long as the stars!
“No more darkness!” I sang. “No more night!” Doing my victory dance, I hopped and spun around my hideout. “No more darkness, no more night, no more terror, no more fri—”
I stopped at the bunker’s door, blinking at the daylight now shining through.
“Ha!” I chuckled happily, realizing that my nightlong battle had lasted well into the day. I stepped outside into the walled courtyard of my half-demolished shack. Looking first at where my wooden door used to be, before I burned it in my craze, I squinted up at the rising sun. I hadn’t noticed until that moment that this world let me look right at the sun without damaging my eyes. I couldn’t help feeling like there was some kind of reason for it.
“Don’t worry,” I told the warm, welcome square. “I won’t need you tonight.”
I went back inside, punched a wall-mounted torch into my hand, and then carried it back outside.
“You can rest easy now,” I said, holding the torch up to the sun. “I’m done being afraid of the dark.”
Smiling up at the sun, my stomach brought me back down to earth. I wasn’t too hungry yet, but now that I’d eaten all I had left, the search for food had to be today’s goal.
The first seeds I planted were higher than the others; not by much, but enough for me to try harvesting them. People ate sprouts, right? Alfalfa sprouts, brussels sprouts, maybe there were some new kind of—
I didn’t get to finish the thought. The second I touched the shoots, they turned right back into seeds.
All right, I thought, putting them back in the ground, so they just need a little more time, no big deal. There still have to be more apple trees, I reasoned, picking my way up the hill. I just haven’t looked hard enough. I poked my head over the top, and came face-to-face with another giant spider.
“Gah!” I gasped, instinctively jumping back. Out of control, I toppled down the hill, bounced off a rock, heard a sickening SNAP, and landed hard on the sand below.
Pain shot up my leg as I hobbled
back to the safety of my bunker. This isn’t right, I thought, slamming the door behind me. This is daytime.
Peering through the door’s opening, I waited for a flash of legs and eyes. They never came. I opened the door nervously, tried to look in all directions, then took a tentative step outside.
And that first step scared me worse than any spider. My ankle still hurt. My hyper-healing wasn’t working.
Of course I should have expected this now that my stomach was empty, but to actually have it happen was terrifying. Worry rose up on a bubble of realization. I was just a mere mortal now. Any major injury, any accident or monster attack, could be the end. I tried putting weight on my injured leg. White-hot nails of pain jabbed through my ankle.
What was I going to do now, if I couldn’t outrun the spider? Just one of those vicious bites would finish me. But if I stayed where I was, if I didn’t eat, didn’t heal, I’d end up just as dead.
Grabbing my battered, nearly broken pickaxe, and what little nerve I had left, I limped carefully out onto the beach.
Nothing stirred up on the hill. I listened for the arachnid’s familiar hiss. Silence. This time, instead of climbing back up the cliff, I thought it might be safer to swim around it.
I paddled slowly past the southern slope, keeping my eyes fixed on the summit. I got halfway around the hill when I spied the tips of two black legs. I froze in place, treading water as slowly and quietly as I could. The spider crawled creepily into view, its cherry red sensors locked on me.
I swam backward, ready to make for open water. If that thing didn’t swim, maybe I’d have a chance to double back to another part of the island. I got a few strokes away before I realized that the arachnid wasn’t coming after me. For a moment, we remained frozen, silently trading stares. Clearly it saw me, so why wasn’t it attacking?
Did the light blind it, or was it something to do with the day itself? Were spiders only hostile at night? We watched each other for another few seconds before the eight-legged horror just up and disappeared. No fire, no smoke. One second it was there and the next, gone.
I swam back to shore, my mind flooded with questions. Why had it disappeared without burning? Why hadn’t it been dangerous in daylight? And why had it lasted in the daylight after all the zombies had burned?
Limping back up onto the southern beach, I wondered if creepers also lasted longer than zombies, and if that was the reason I’d nearly been killed by one. I scanned the dense line of trees, making sure one of them wasn’t a mottled green. I didn’t see any creepers, thankfully, but noticed how dark the shaded wood was. Had the creeper been sheltering from the sun?
If that was true, and if there were other monsters hiding under those leaves, then that’d be the last place I looked for food. I limped west along the southern shoreline, looking for shellfish or even seaweed. The beach was completely barren. For the first time I also noticed that I hadn’t seen any fish, or whales, or seals, or anything aquatic besides that sinister squid.
Coming around the edge of the island’s southern claw, I saw that the water of the lagoon was as lifeless as the open sea. Squishing across its soft clay bottom, I climbed up onto the northern claw, looked down the beach, and spied a plant I’d never seen before.
It had stalks, three actually, that were light green and tall and growing right out of the seaside sand. “Bamboo!” I exclaimed, hopping painfully over. People ate bamboo, right? Wasn’t it on some menus as bamboo shoots? If this was the mature version, then I could surely find a way to replant it and eat the shoots.
I took one swipe at the lowest section, and, unlike trees, the whole stalk came tumbling down. Collecting the three sections in my left hand, I saw the image of a grainy white pile in my right.
“Sugar,” I said happily. “This isn’t bamboo. It’s sugarcane.”
After so many failed attempts with the egg, I should have at least half-expected that this new food didn’t want to be eaten. “Fine, whatever,” I pouted, stuffing the pile and the two remaining stalks into my pack. “Bad for my teeth anyway.”
Trying to stay positive, I wondered if the sugar might still be useful when combined with another ingredient—but what? I couldn’t see anything else that remotely reminded me of food. No berry bushes, no mushrooms. There weren’t even any worms or bugs, and believe me, in the state I was in, I would have gladly munched them down.
I even tried nibbling a few of the red and yellow flowers growing at the edge of the woods. Not only did they not oblige, but holding them in my left hand gave me the option of turning them into useless dye. “What else can go wrong,” I grumbled, just as it began to rain.
“Had to ask,” I moped, the warm, light drizzle perfectly matching my mood.
Limping tensely through the forest, my eyes flicked this way and that. I tried to keep my attention on the trees themselves and not what might be lurking behind them. It didn’t help when I passed the crater that had almost been my grave.
Strangely enough, it hadn’t yet filled up with water, even though a steady stream was flowing in. “Even the water here is weird,” I muttered, and moved on to try to find an apple tree.
Which I didn’t. The only trees left growing on the island had muted leaves and black and white bark which kinda reminded me of birches. I couldn’t find one single apple tree, which I now called “oaks” because I didn’t want to think of apples anymore. I’d always taken for granted that there had to be at least one more oak tree nestled somewhere in the forest. I figured, hoped, that I just wasn’t looking hard enough.
Now I’d run out of excuses, and there was nowhere left to go but forward. Maybe these birches also have fruit, I wondered, grasping at straws—which, by the way, I also would have tried to eat. Maybe they’ve got nuts or acorns or…something.
With growing desperation, I punched out a few blocks of the nearest tree, whipped up a crafting table, and then a stone axe. I laid into the birches around me like a madman, swinging at trunks and leaves.
Nothing came down except more logs and a white-flecked sapling. “It’s okay,” I said, trying to stay cool. “Maybe this species just has fewer nuts. That’s all, just gotta keep looking.”
Pocketing the logs, I placed the useless sapling on the ground, and gave a startled shout as it suddenly grew up right in front of me. Chopping down that one turned out to be fruitless as well.
“Maybe this one,” I grunted, turning to the next birch, “or maybe this one.” Frustration growing into fear, I cut my way through the forest. “This one,” I huffed, getting halfway through another tree before my axe snapped. Twisting back to my crafting table, I forgot about the injured leg.
Agonizing sparks erupted from my ankle. I slumped against the half-cut tree, choking back tears, waiting for the throbbing to cease. I could deal with the injury but not with the pain. How could anybody? Feeling this way every minute of every day? How would you not go crazy? Isn’t that why my world had whole shelves of different pain pills? Even if you weren’t better, at least you felt that way, and right now that’s all I wanted.
“Make it stop,” I whispered. “Please. Please just make it stop.”
“Cluckcluckcluck,” came the sound of an approaching chicken.
“Get outta here,” I barked, waving the annoying bird away.
The chicken looked up at me for a second, laid another unbreakable egg, then stubbornly pecked the grass at my feet. “Beat it!” I growled, waving my hands right in front of its face. I didn’t need this right now, didn’t need to see another creature eat, didn’t need to be reminded of how delicious cooked chicken tasted.
“C’mon, now, I mean it!” I commanded, shuffling over to my crafting table. And it continued to follow me, pecking away while its clucking rang in my ears.
“Go!” I shouted, my fist clocking it in the beak.
“B’gack!” bawked the bird, sprinting away in a flash of red. “I didn’t mean…” I started, guilt quickly replacing anger.
“Moo,” came a friendly sound
to my right. I looked over at the familiar eyes of the cow. In those eyes, in that serene face, I found the centering I needed.
“I know,” I sighed. “I gotta get ahold of myself.”
“Moo,” it agreed.
“I gotta remember,” I continued, “that no one’s ever died of a twisted ankle, and if the sprouts grow into food then they’ll take care of that.”
Again, the cow gave an agreeable “Moo.”
I could feel myself calming down, my breathing returning to normal. “Here I am acting like I did that first day when, well, look at all the progress I’ve made since then. I gotta remember that progress, and that vow I made to you the day I almost got lost at sea.”
“Moo,” said the cow, which prompted a quick correction.
“Okay, maybe it wasn’t you, maybe it was your friend I was talking to who got killed by the creeper…and I’m sorry about the steak thing, by the way, but, you know, I was hungry and it was already dead and…well anyway, back to the vow.”
I started pacing again, just like I had that first day with the cow, albeit with a pronounced shuffle. “I told myself that I had to figure out all the rules of this world, but I get now that I’ve gotta go further. I’ve gotta figure out rules for myself.”
“Moo?” asked my bovine foil.
“No, I don’t just mean the lessons I’ve been learning,” I said, “or having a grand strategy like we talked about. I need a methodical way to achieve that strategy, a detailed discipline of specific steps for each individual task.”
I stopped and turned on my good heel. “I know that’s a lot of big words but what they boil down to is that I need to know not just what I have to do, but how I’m going to do it.”
“Moo,” chimed the cow, finally getting what I was saying.
“Isn’t that what gets people through life back in my world?” I asked. “They get up every day and already know how they’re going to face that day. That’s what I need.”