A bloated, rotting hand slowly wiggled its way out of one of the graves. The fingernails were fuzzy with purple-black mold. Worms squirmed out of a hole in the palm.
The gravestone above it read: HELLO.
It waved shyly at Mo.
Hi, baby, Mo thought.
“HEY!” yelled Koal. “It’s. Very. Rude. To. Give. Nice. People. The. Silent. Treatment.” He clapped his hands between each word.
“Mouth go like this,” Jax said in an exaggerated slow voice.
He reached out and wiggled Fin’s jaw mockingly.
Fin’s jaw came off in his hand.
Mo screamed. Not in her head. Not in Fin’s head. Not in Kan’s head.
She screamed. The sound echoed around the ship’s hold. The zombie horse screamed, too, in exactly the same pitch, but with a lot more volume. Learning was fun, even for demon ponies.
But it wasn’t Fin’s jaw.
It was a piece of pumpkin.
In the beautiful black shell of the enderman’s face, a shard of warm brown skin showed through.
Jax held it casually in his hand like nothing unusual had happened. “Ew,” he said. “Your pumpkin is nasty. It’s all old and rotty. I don’t know how much longer it’s gonna last, buddy.”
No, Fin thought, staring at Mo. It’s impossible.
“What’s that, friend?” said Roary encouragingly. “Once more with volume?”
“Impossible,” Fin wheezed. His voice was creaky and raw and harsh and husky. Like it hadn’t been used in years. Because it hadn’t.
Mo raised her hand to her own face. She felt like she was in a trance. The enderman wedged her fingers under her jaw, exactly where Jax had grabbed Fin. She tried to lift up.
A slice of pumpkin shell came away like rotted wood.
Mo dropped it like it was on fire. It fell to the ground. One side still looked black and shiny. The other oozed soft, gooshy, spoiled pumpkin. It even had a couple of seeds sticking out of it. After a moment, the piece of pumpkin shriveled up into dust and disappeared.
Kan raised his hand to his cheek. He slid his fingers under his jaw. He lifted it upward.
Nothing happened.
No, he moaned in his mind. No, no, no. It’s impossible.
He kept pulling at his face. Kept lifting, kept scrabbling along the line of his jaw to find the edge of the pumpkin mask. The mask that wasn’t there. Tears filled his mind. It does not make any sense. I am the one. It is me. It is not them. Please, please be me.
“I don’t…I don’t understand what’s happening here,” Fin said. It was so hard to talk! So many muscles! So many different movements! “Can you talk, Mo?”
Mo tried to open her mouth. Her other mouth. The mouth underneath the face she’d thought was her real face for all these years. “I…I think so,” she whispered hoarsely. “It hurts.”
Mumma. Paaaain, moaned the undead horse in her arms. Her mouth didn’t move, but Fin and Kan heard it, too. Mo stroked the baby’s forehead.
See, Grumpo? she thought. She’s not disgusting. She knows when I hurt and she cares, which is more than you’ve ever done. The horse began to gurgle happily, almost like a purr, if the purr came from hell itself.
Kan lay down on the floor of the ship. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. His brain just wouldn’t brain.
“Um…you’re people. Who found a couple of pumpkins and used them to raid the End without getting attacked every five seconds by an enderman with an anger-management problem,” Jesster told them impatiently. “Duh.”
“But that’s not true,” insisted Mo. Her throat ached with the effort of talking. And the more she talked instead of thought, the more she knew that they were right. “We’ve always lived here. I can’t even remember any other place. We grew up here. It’s our home. It was our hubunits’ home. We’re endermen.” She said it again, trying to hold on to everything she’d ever known about herself. “We’re endermen.”
We’re endermen.
“I mean…except for the part where you’re not,” Koal said, almost laughing at them.
“What’s a hubunit?” Jess asked, confused.
“We are endermen! We are so!” Fin tried to shout, but his voice wasn’t up to it yet.
“Okay, crazy,” Jax rolled his eyes. “Have it your way. We’re out.”
“Wait,” Roary said, holding up her hands. “Wait a minute. This is so interesting. Do you really not know? Do you not remember how you got here?”
“We were born here!” sobbed Mo.
Koal stuck his hands into his yellow pockets. “Fine. Where’re your parents?”
“What’s a parent?” Mo blurted in frustration.
Jess blinked. Roary blinked. Koal opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again and furrowed his brow. Jax laughed—a short, sharp, harsh sound more like a cough than a laugh. “You know, your parents. Like…a mom and a dad.”
“What’s a mom?” Fin asked.
“What’s a dad?” asked Mo.
“How can you not know what a mom and dad are?” Jess said incredulously. “The people who look like you only bigger and talk like you only louder, who make the rules and bad jokes and say things like ‘Not under my roof,’ and ‘What time do you call this?’ and ‘We love you very much but you can’t have cake for breakfast.’ The people who made you!”
“Hubunits,” said Mo.
“Mom and dad,” insisted Koal.
“Primary and secondary hubunits,” Mo allowed.
Mumma! the zombie horse thought triumphantly.
Roary rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay, what happened to your primary and secondary hubunits?”
“They died,” Fin mumbled. “A long time ago.”
Kan’s green eyes slid open. His brain perked up a little. It might, just maybe, have been willing to brain again. Temporarily.
Did they? He sent the thought toward his friends. Did they, though?
Of course they did! Fin snarled, whipping his head around in bitterness.
How dare you? Mo thought. The baby monster in her lap glared at Kan.
All right. Kan’s thought was very small and simple. What is your primary hubunit’s name?
Mo blinked.
How about your secondary hubunit?
Fin opened his mouth to say, but he…couldn’t. He reached back to all his memories of their End, of their childhood. But…it just wasn’t there.
“Hey!” Jax snapped his fingers in their faces to get their attention. “What’s going on here? Are you having an episode? You guys just keep stopping and staring off into the distance. Do you have a glitch? Do you need help? You need a healing potion or something?”
“Sorry,” Fin croaked. “We’re talking.”
“No, you’re not,” countered Jesster.
“Yes, we are. We’re endermen. Or whatever we are. Endermen communicate telepathically. That’s what all the little purple sparkles are about.” Roary reached out to touch one. It danced out of range. “They let us send our thoughts directly into other endermen’s minds. Shulkers, too, if they’re willing, which they almost never are. We’re talking to our friend there. His name is Kan. I’m Mo. This is my twin, Fin.”
“You’re friends with an enderman?” Roary said in total disbelief. “You can’t be friends with an enderman.”
“We’re friends with lots of endermen,” Mo said defensively. All the more defensively because they absolutely were not friends with lots of endermen. But the humans didn’t need to know they were the village losers. “Anyway, I think maybe he’s…like us? Whatever we are?” All right, they were something. Something different. But not humans. That was too horrible to entertain. Mo took her hand off the purring colt and stroked poor Kan’s miserable head. Her fingers left wet, dark marks on his temples. Her new horse was a messy horse. Kan didn�
��t mind. He didn’t mind much of anything anymore. What was the point of minding?
“Nope,” Koal shook his head. “That’s an enderman. A real one. They’re pretty easy to pick out of a lineup.”
“Maybe,” Mo said doubtfully. “But he’s different, too.”
“The eyes,” Roary mused. “I’ve never seen eyes like that on an enderman. Anywhere. Ever.”
“I bet you want to rip them out for your next portal, huh?” Mo said.
Jax thought about it, then shrugged. “Nah, we’re already here. We’re good. You only need eyes for the…er…outgoing call. And I don’t think you need actual—”
“Okay, but back to the actually interesting thing,” Roary interrupted. She seemed terribly fascinated by them. Almost like a doctor. You could tell she was just dying to examine them, figure them out, maybe even dissect them. “How can you be human and not remember being human? How long have you been down here? What happened to you? Jax, do we know any Fins or Mos that have gone missing? What if we take the pumpkins all the way off? Maybe their memories will come back.”
No, Kan’s thought flashed. No, do not do it. If you take them off, everyone will know. They will attack you.
You’re not attacking us now.
And he wasn’t. Kan didn’t know why he wasn’t. But he wasn’t attacking anyone in a room jam-packed full of humans. He didn’t even want to. What was wrong with him? Just how much of a freak was he?
“This sucks,” announced Jax. “Can he talk?”
“I told you, endermen communicate telepathically,” Fin began again.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, psychic monster people. Got it. But can he talk? I can talk, but I can also think. Ipso…you know.”
“Facto,” Roary finished for him. “You dolt.”
Mo put her head to one side. “I guess I don’t know.” She turned to her friend.
Kan, can you try to talk?
I am talking.
Talk like the humans talk. Can you just try? It’s pretty easy. Once you get used to it. You move the bottom of your face up and down and kind of…breathe out loud.
“Come on, buddy,” Jax said, like he was talking to a big, mean dog who would bite if he didn’t get a treat. “Give us a nice talky-talk.”
Kan glowered. “No,” he rumbled.
But it was so hard for him. His mouth was so little compared to the humans’ mouths. You couldn’t even see it unless he opened it as far as it could go. His tongue didn’t know how to do much of anything besides eat. Words hurt coming out of him. Hurt like knives.
“I bet you’re fun at parties.” Jax sighed. “Look, you can’t chatty-chat-chat with us and then be all woo-woo-spooky-mind-meld with him. Manners, people.”
Mo wrinkled her nose. Now that she knew it was there, the pumpkin made her face itch. How had she never noticed?
“You’re kind of awful,” she said to the big boy in the green shirt. He grinned. It didn’t bother him.
“Yeah, but he’s our awful.” Koal sighed.
“I might be awful but I’m not wrong! It’s rude. And it puts us at a disadvantage.”
“Again, I would like to stress that this situation is possibly unique in the history of the world,” Roary said. “They’ve been lost in Monster Central for maybe years. We’ve got to figure this out. At the very least, you guys, we can take you out of here. We can take you home.”
“Once we kill the dragon,” Koal reminded her.
“Yes, obviously we can’t go anywhere until Jax has his little dragon party, but after that, we can take you all back up with us.”
Jess crossed her arms and didn’t say anything. Fin realized he was staring at her. He hadn’t meant to. He was so used to living in a telepathic world that he hadn’t even noticed he was concentrating hard on Jess, waiting for her thoughts to appear in his mind. They didn’t. She was a closed book. Whatever was making her frown and stare off into the distance, Fin couldn’t just know it. It was frustrating and horrible and he realized he must look really odd glaring at her like that and yanked his gaze away. How did humans live like that? Anyone could just keep secrets from you and you’d never know!
Mumma remaaaaaain, howled the undead pony in the graveyard of her mind, and snuggled into Mo’s chest defensively. To the animal, this was home. She had been alive for only half an hour. She wasn’t ready to move to a new neighborhood yet.
“Are you gonna keep that thing?” Koal said, wrinkling his nose. The smell was overpowering. “Like, as a pet?”
MUMMA, barked the horse silently. Red spittle flew from her teeth.
“She’s my baby,” Mo said lovingly.
“Gross,” Jax said. He covered his mouth and dry heaved. A long, empty, gutteral burp came out.
“She’s not gross. She’s mine. I’m going to call her Loathsome. Isn’t that a nice name for a nice horse who definitely will not eat my brains the minute I’m not looking? Definitely not, right?”
Naaaaame, Loathsome thought lovingly. In that endless cemetery in her head, one of the gravestones suddenly read: LOATHSOME. She snatched up Mo’s hand in her rotting yellow fangs. Mo gasped. Her heart stopped. But Loathsome just held her fingers very gently, as if to say: I could, but I won’t. But I could. The zombie horse made a churning, crunching, bubbling sound in her decomposing throat. A giggle.
“Wow,” said Koal, shaking his head. He raised his hands as if to say: It’s your funeral. “Just wow.”
“Shut up!” Mo snarled. “And you better not still be thinking about fighting the ender dragon, because if you have to kill it to get home you might as well start building a nice house here in the End. I won’t let you hurt my dragon.”
“Your dragon?” said Jax softly.
“Well…not mine exactly. Not anyone’s exactly. But I love it, and that makes it mine.”
“That’s not how love works,” Jess broke her silence.
“Fine! But I’m not going to let you kill it, because it’s beautiful and unique and it breathes fire and knows my name. I’ll fight you to the end of the End to keep it safe and I’m pretty sure that is how love works.”
“We are not going to the Overworld.” Fin snapped them all back to attention. “And neither are you. I don’t think you’re totally aware of everything that’s going on here. We knew you were coming. Everyone knew. We were ready for you. We just…thought you were coming earlier. And that there would be more of you.”
“When they find out you’re already here, Commander Kraj will bring the greatest army the End has ever known down on your heads. There’re only four of you. You won’t survive.”
“Six of us,” said Jesster gently. “Six humans here, kittens.”
“What are you talking about?” Roary said. “Endermen don’t have armies. They don’t have commanders. What is going on down here?”
“We do now.” Mo shrugged.
“Ooh, I’m shaking in my enchanted boots,” said Jax, waggling his fingers. “I came here to kill a dragon and I don’t care how many of your weird freakshow countrymen I have to go through to do it. We’re better than them. Endermen are annoyingly strong, but it’s not like they’re particularly smart. I’ve always done just fine against them.”
Kan strained, moving his jaw unnaturally, trying to speak. Finally, he spat out his words. “Not a freak,” he coughed up like sickness. “Not a freak.”
“Okay, greenboy, you’re not a freak. Happy?”
Kan screamed. His skin flushed red. He bolted at Jax and threw him against the port-side wall. The ship groaned in the sky.
“Get off me! Get off me!”
Koal grabbed Fin by the shoulder. “Call off your friend or I’ll stab him in the back,” the human boy warned. “I mean it. You care about him, but I don’t. I care about Jax.”
“Kan, stop!” Fin shouted. “Stop it!”
T
he enderman stopped. It was so hard to stop. But he did it. He did it because Fin said to. Fin knew the right thing to do almost all of the time. He always had. Since they were small. But had they grown up together? Was it all a lie? What was happening?
Roary put her hands on her hips. “I think the first thing to do is get the pumpkins off. It might help. You might remember everything. I don’t really know how those things work. We found them growing in patches and started screwing around because it was a boring day and it turned out they were just…massively useful. Maybe if you wear them too long they mess with your head. It could make sense.”
“But the others…”
“Don’t worry, you can put them back on if anyone turns up,” the girl reassured them.
“Grumpo would tell us if anyone was approaching. Any enderman, anyway,” Mo said uncertainly. Would Grumpo warn them? He was suspiciously silent. Maybe he wouldn’t talk to them anymore, now that he knew they were outsiders. She picked a few stray pieces of eggshell off her pony. The pony was already much bigger. She had been the size of a chicken when she hatched. Now she was about the size of a dog.
“I guess it’s worth a try.” Fin sighed.
Roary knelt down to help Fin take his pumpkin off. Jesster and Koal went over to help Mo. Jax just watched resentfully, rubbing his chest where Kan had hit him. Kan hit hard.
Are you afraid? thought Mo to her brother.
I’m so afraid. Fin trembled. What if I don’t want to remember?
Too late now, thought Kan.
Roary pushed up and backward. Jess and Koal shoved forward and down. The pumpkins came free with a wet squelch.
Kan looked into his friends’ faces for the first time.
He started to scream.
Kan screamed into their minds. And apologized. And screamed. And apologized.
But, despite the noise, Fin and Mo couldn’t stop staring at each other.
“You have brown hair!” Mo said.
“You have black hair!” Fin said.
“You have hair,” they both said.
“Yeah? Well, you’re wearing clothes!” Fin accused.
“So are you!” Mo shot back.
The End: An Official Minecraft Novel Page 8
