by Mark Mulle
struck one of the Ender Men. It looked surprised before it turned to ash. However, that caught the attention of a group of Ender Men. They began to teleport towards us.
Liam switched to his sword. Chloe, armed with her bow, kept firing arrows. However, most of them missed. These Ender Men moved faster than the ones we had dealt with earlier. They could vanish in an instant and appear far away from us before we could take them down.
I fell forward. An Ender Man had appeared behind me. Chloe’s arrow struck it but this one was different – it was taller, glowing, and was wearing a necklace. Her arrow bounced off him.
I scrambled to my feet but I was too slow. The Ender Man snatched me up, examining me. Liam ran towards us but the Ender Man held out one of his hands. Liam went flying backwards, crashing into a tent. Chloe tried something similar and ended up the same.
The Ender Man chittered to himself. He looked pleased. The necklace pulsed at his throat. He turned his head and made a strange barking noise.
Two Ender Men appeared out of thin air. One of them bowed. The other dropped to its knees. It held out its hands and a sword appeared. The same sword that I had seen last time – the one that had burnt me.
The sword floated in the air. The Ender Man picked it up with his free hand, still painfully holding me up in the air with his other. No matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t break free. There was some sort of shield around us making sure that no one could get to us.
The Ender Man moved the sword. To my amazement, a portal appeared from the tip of the sword. So, the sword wasn’t a weapon. It could create portals. I filed that information away. If I got out of here, then that was important to know.
It was clear the Ender Man with the necklace was going to pull me through the portal. With no one to save me this time, I wasn’t about to let myself get dragged to the End. I swung my legs back and kicked them forward into the Ender Man’s chest.
I saw panic on his face. He thought I was going to strike the fragile necklace. Alarmed, he let go of me. His hands went to the necklace to make sure it was okay. I snatched the sword off the ground.
It was so hot! The End had always been a freezing place when I had gone. Yet this was different. It hurt my hands even though I was wearing gloves. Yet I ignored the pain and swung the sword.
The Ender Man let out a shriek and then turned to ash. The other two minions panicked and teleported away. The portal that had been opened next to me closed instantly. I dropped the sword and blew on my hands as if that would cool them off.
Liam and Chloe hurried over to me, “Are you okay? That was amazing! What did you do there?”
“I have no idea.” I admitted.
I was going to tell them more but a dark shape fell across the field. It blotted out the moon. We looked to the sky. A massive portal was opening over the city. All we could do was stare in horror as it spread across the sky. The portal was purple and stretched out across the entire sky.
“What…what is that?” Liam breathed.
“It’s an End portal.” Chloe mumbled in shock.
If the field had been crazy before, the sight of a massive portal over the capital city sparked panicked screaming. The Ender Men were retreating as if their jobs down here were done. We watched them leap through the portals which closed behind them.
“This is bad. This is very, very bad.” I said.
The portal in the sky stopped stretching. It was massive. I had never seen a portal that large before. It began to glow. It grew brighter and brighter until we had to close our eyes. The humming noise was so loud that it made my head ache.
With our eyes closed and ears not hearing anything besides buzzing, we didn’t see what was going on. It felt like ages had passed when the noise and light suddenly vanished. Slowly, I peeked through my fingers to see what was going on.
All I could do was stare.
The entire capital was gone.
It was as if it had never been there at all.
Later that night
The entire capital city had vanished. It had gone through the portal to the End which had closed right after snatching it up.
We sat there in shock. The area around us was plunged into so much chaos that nothing was getting done. Chloe, Liam and I sat by the river. What could we do? Something like that – it defied all reason and logic. Something like that shouldn’t have happened.
Now the capital city was gone. That meant the king was gone. Our government was gone. What were we going to do?
“I can’t believe that happened.” Chloe mumbled.
We had been repeating ourselves for over an hour now, unsure what to do next. I watched the water pass me by. People were by the stream, clustered around it, gathering buckets of water or trying to wash their clothes from the attack.
The field had gone oddly quiet since the capital vanished. Some people were wandering the area where the capital city had been, as if there would be some sort of secret to discover.
“I’m going for a walk.” I announced, getting to my feet.
“Let me come with you. You shouldn’t go alone.” Chloe said, standing up.
“What about you?” I asked Liam but he shook his head.
“I’m going to see if the guards need help. With my experience, they might want me to help patrol or something. Just be careful, alright?”
Chloe and I set off along the field. We didn’t have any destination in mind. We just needed to get away from the crowds. I wasn’t surprised when we ended up just outside the jungle.
“Come on.” I said and we walked inside.
The jungle was quiet as if even the animals were shocked by what had occurred. It felt as if the entire world had changed somehow. Something that powerful – coming out of the sky – could I have done something to stop it? What could I have done? It was too bright and too loud. Even if I could have gotten past that, I couldn’t have closed the portal. I had barely escaped from one of the Ender Men trying to snatch me up.
When we made sure that we were alone, Chloe looked at me.
“Carl, don’t you get it? With the warning?”
“No. What?”
She began to pace, cracking twigs with each step, “The End Guardians – future you said that they were gone. Missing or something. That is what has thrown the End into such chaos. Someone has the crystals. We have to stop them.”
“Stop them? My warning came too late. How are we going to stop them now?” I asked.
“No, your warning came at the start of this. We can still fix whatever happened. Something worse must have happened for you to find a way to bend time itself and warn yourself. We just have to figure out what.”
I was going to reply when we heard a louder cracking noise of a twig snapping. Alarmed, we turned around to look deeper into the forest.
“Is someone there?” Chloe called out.
I moved towards the noise and held my sword. I wasn’t taking any chances. Chloe and I were alone out here – no one else would have been wandering this far into the jungle. Chloe was gripping her bow.
“Come out. Whoever you are. Are you from a village?” I said as I peeked around the nearest tree.
To my horror, I found myself staring at an Ender Man. I jumped backwards and raised my sword. What was this? A scout? I was about to bring the sword down when to my shock –
The Ender Man looked at me, waving his hands wildly, “No, no! Don’t! I’m not – I’m not on their side!” He spoke.
Chloe lowered her bow, looking surprised, “Did that thing just speak?”
“Don’t! Carl sent me! I mean you sent me! From the future,” The Ender Man said to me, “Future you sent me. I’m here to help.”
All I could do was stare.
About the Author
Mark Mulle is a passionate Minecraft gamer who writes game guides, short stories, and novels about the Minecraft universe. He has been exploring, building, and fighting in the game ever since its launch, and he often uses in-game experiences for inspiration on cr
eating the best fiction for fellow fans of the game. He works as a professional writer and splits his time between gaming, reading, and storytelling, three hobbies and lifelong passions that he attributes to a love of roleplaying, a pursuit of challenging new perspectives, and a visceral enjoyment the vast worlds that imagination has to offer. His favorite thing to do, after a long day of creating worlds both on and off the online gaming community, is to relax with his dog, Herobrine, and to unwind with a good book. His favorite authors include Stephen King, Richard A. Knaak, George R. R. Martin, and R. A. Salvatore, whose fantasy works he grew up reading or is currently reading. Just like in Minecraft, Mark always strives to level up, so to speak, so that he can improve his skills and continue to surprise his audience. He prefers to play massive multiplayer online games but often spends time in those games fighting monsters one on one and going solo against the toughest mobs and bosses he can manage to topple. In every game, his signature character build is a male who focuses mostly on crafting weapons and enchanting, and in every battle, he always brings a one hander sword and a shield with as much magical attributes as he can pour into them. Because he always plays alone, he likes to use his game guides to share all the secrets and knowledge he gains, and who know—he may have snuck some information into his fiction as well. Keep an eye out for his next book!