Danger in the Jungle Temple

by Danica Davidson

  “Fine,” I said.

  Blue settled back on Yancy’s shoulder, but this time Yancy didn’t crack any pirate jokes. We made our way much more carefully down the hallway, testing each step before taking it. This was going to be a long night.

  A room opened up to our left and I moved the torch to shine into it. Then we all jumped back. The room was full of hulking shadows.

  CHAPTER 9

  I WAS SURE WE’D FOUND A ROOM FULL OF HOSTILE mobs, all ready to attack us. But when I looked more closely, I realized the hulking shadows were cast by old furniture—not anything that was alive.

  We crept cautiously into the room. If the whole jungle temple felt haunted, this felt like the very center of the haunting, somehow. Like whatever awful thing had made this place haunted had happened right here. The furniture was all savagely broken, as if someone had gone a rampage, wanting not only to destroy, but to destroy completely. I saw what used to be tables and chairs torn to pieces.

  In the torchlight, I also saw the wall was slashed with enormous claw marks.

  “Here’s another one of those invitations with Steve Alexander’s symbol on it,” Yancy said, picking up a piece of paper. It was so old and eroded, it looked almost as thin as cobwebs.

  “Does it say who J is?” I quickly asked.

  “No,” Yancy said, turning the paper over. “This one also cuts off, even before it gets to the J.”

  Maison put her hands to the claw marks on the wall. The marks were deep enough that she could fit her fingers into the grooves.

  I continued to slowly walk into the room, testing the floor and holding the torch in front of me. There were chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and they were so covered with cobwebs that they looked like white cotton candy from Earth. Our footsteps thudded loudly in the empty room.

  I noticed some writing on the wall and stopped to check it out. Was it a message?

  My heart jumped in my throat. The message read HELP.

  The letters were shaky, as if whoever had written it had been trembling with fear as they did it. And there was nothing else—no more writing to tell me if they’d gotten the help they needed.

  Yancy followed my gaze, saw the writing, and halted in his tracks. “Well, that’s not creepy at all,” he said sarcastically.

  “Do you think someone is still trapped in this temple?” I asked. “I mean, people from before who tried to come in here?” If anyone was still stuck here, we had to find them and get them out!

  “I doubt anyone would come here unless they had a really good reason,” Destiny said.

  “Maybe some treasure hunters who wanted a thrill,” Yancy said. “A real Alex type.”

  As soon as he said that, I saw Yancy wanted to snatch the words back. He had reminded all of us that Alex was missing.

  Could she have scratched this herself, trying to get our attention and tell us we were going in the right direction? No, it looked too old.

  At the far end of the room was a giant raised area, like a stage. It was littered with more destroyed furniture, and I saw more claw marks on the stage floor and on the wall behind it.

  I was so caught up in looking at the claw marks that I wasn’t paying attention. I stepped on a floorboard and I heard something rattle. I jumped back, thinking arrows might fly out at me, the way they had with Destiny.

  Then I saw the rattling was the sound of several door-sized holes in the walls opening up behind the stage and along the walls. Secret rooms! Maybe Dad and Alex were in one of these!

  “Come on!” I called to the others, and we approached the closest door. My heart was jumping like a piston again. I stepped through, and was in for a shock.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE DOORWAY I HAD CHOSEN LED TO A GIANT room that circled the whole previous room. All those doors just led to this one area. Why would they need so many doors to one room? And why did it have to be hidden? Was there treasure here? I swept the torch over the wall, looking for any clues, like the S-A symbol.

  It’d be a lot easier to cover this area if we split up, but I wasn’t making that mistake again. We huddled together as we searched the circular room, but all we came across were shattered arrows and swords from years and years ago. They couldn’t even be used as weapons anymore.

  Then I looked more closely at the floor—and saw old blood!

  No, that wasn’t right. It was actually redstone in the floor blocks. I let out a big sigh of relief. The red on the floor had sent my imagination racing, and I was thinking something outlandish, like that this was a place where a battle had happened. But why would a battle happen inside a jungle temple? There had to be a logical, non-scary answer to the red on the floor. And there would be a logical, non-scary answer to where Dad and Alex went. This place isn’t haunted, I told myself.

  I just wished I could shake off that evil feeling. It was the same feeling I got when the Ender Dragon spoke to me. I felt hate and anger and revenge and cruelty all rolled up in one. Like someone was telling me, Get out of here. Get out of here before it’s too late.

  And then I heard a voice in my mind.

  You’re in over your head, Stevie.

  That voice, that evil voice!

  Welcome to my home, the Ender Dragon continued. To my old temple.

  I froze. The claw marks! I thought.

  Yes, she said. I made those.

  Get out of my head! I yelled at her silently. I won’t side with you, no matter what!

  The Ender Dragon didn’t answer that. Instead, she changed the subject, her voice a low growl. The villager was right: terrible things happened in this temple. And what a sense of humor he has, putting the shard here.

  He? I thought, confused. You mean the villager?

  She gave a little snarl. Don’t be absurd! No villager could have done this.

  So “he” wasn’t the villager. Then who was she talking about?

  You don’t need to worry about that right now, she said. You don’t know what’s behind the next corner. That villager was wrong that there are armored ghosts here, but he’s right that there are haunted guards. And I know you’ve noticed my Endermen. I’ll be out of my prison soon enough. But you will never see daylight again.

  “Stop it!” I yelled, gripping my head. Everyone was staring at me, alarmed. Then I realized the Ender Dragon’s voice was gone, and it was like a terrible weight had been lifted off me.

  “It was the Ender Dragon!” I said, panting. “I’d hoped—I’d hoped—”

  I’d hoped she’d finally leave me alone. I hadn’t heard her awful voice since we’d returned home after finding the last crystal shard at Herobrine’s temple, and I’d wanted to believe that meant she wouldn’t haunt me anymore.

  Haunt me. Maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words.

  “Oh, Stevie,” Maison said, putting her hand on my shoulder. She had also heard the Ender Dragon’s voice in the past, and knew its evil. But because she hadn’t ever turned into an Enderman, the Ender Dragon’s voice wasn’t able to follow her like it had stuck with me.

  I started to fill them in on the details. I hoped they couldn’t see that my hands were shaking. And as I described it, I felt another haunting feeling come over me. It wasn’t as bad as the feeling I got hearing the Ender Dragon, but it still sent a chill running up my spine.

  I wasn’t the only one to sense something bad.

  “Oh no!” Destiny cried, looking behind us.

  We whirled around. Three Endermen had joined us in the little room.

  I opened my mouth to tell everyone to run, but it was too late. The Endermen had already spotted us, low growls coming from their throats like thunder. And then they were teleporting toward us.

  CHAPTER 11

  WITHOUT EVEN THINKING ABOUT TRAPS, WE dove through the nearest door, back onto the stage in the big, scary room. Which block had I stepped on to open all those doors? I needed to find it again so I could close them!

  The others all had the same idea. Caution forgotten, we lunged from bl
ock to block, landing as hard as we could as if that would help. Blue hopped on a few blocks, too, looking proud of himself.

  I hit on another block and I heard a noise. The doors were closing! I looked back just in time to see the doors close in the Endermen’s faces. A second longer and they would have been able to teleport out into the room with us.

  “Phew, that was close,” Maison said.

  “We’re not safe yet. There are probably more,” I said.

  As soon as I said that, I heard the growl of an Enderman right next to me. I whirled with my diamond sword out, thinking one must have teleported at the last second and gotten out with us. But the creature my sword was pointed at wasn’t a tall, menacing Enderman; it was Blue.

  Blue looked at me funny and made the same growling sound I’d heard. I’d been so scared by that silly bird!

  “Oh, so you can’t repeat anything I tell you, but you can repeat monster sounds,” Yancy said, still looking pale from our rush to safety. Blue flew over and settled back on Yancy’s shoulder, ruffling his feathers as if he were pleased with himself.

  “That’s right,” Maison said. “In the Minecraft game, parrots can mimic the sound of mobs.”

  Blue growled some more for effect and then fussed with his feathers happily. I felt my anger simmer. That bird had no idea what sort of danger we were all in!

  “Let him go outside, Yancy,” I said. “Set him free. He might cause problems for us. What if his noises lead more mobs our way?” Dad didn’t think mobs would care about birds, but I didn’t want to take any chances. We need to be as invisible to mobs as possible.

  “I can’t get rid of Blue,” Yancy said. “He’s part of the family now. And tamed parrots in Minecraft dance to jukebox music, which I am dying to see.”

  I eyed the bird. “Then just keep it quiet, please.”

  Yancy gave Blue another Oreo. At least the bird was silent as he gobbled the cookie down and sprayed crumbs everywhere. Then Blue let out another growl, though this time it sounded content.

  Silly bird, I thought again. I’d always wanted a pet parrot myself, so if we weren’t running from flying arrows and making our way around a (haunted?) jungle temple, I’d probably have enjoyed Blue’s antics more. Right now I just wanted him to fly back into the jungle so we had one less thing to worry about.

  We crept out of the creepy room and back into the hallway. It was time to go in the other direction. We kept close together, walking cautiously.

  “I think I see trip wire,” Maison said.

  I held my torch out, and she was right. You could barely see the string in this lighting—it would have been hard to see even in daylight. But on each side of the wall there was a little indentation where the trip wire hooks were, and the string was attached to them. If we went walking straight though, arrows would fly out at us.

  We ducked into the indentation to the side, which gave us just enough room, and moved the string enough that an arrow flew through the air right where we’d just been.

  “I think I see where the source is too,” Maison said, gesturing. A little farther down the hall there was a floating green bush. When I walked cautiously over and cut the bush away with my diamond sword, I saw the arrow dispenser. I quickly broke it and took its arrows. That meant at least this trip wire couldn’t hurt us again!

  “It’s weird,” Yancy said. “We got all the way down this hall, but I don’t see any rooms. The other hallway had that big who-knows-what-happened-there room, and in this hall . . . nothing?”

  “What are you saying?” Destiny asked.

  “I’m saying there’s no point in building a long hallway with nothing connected to it,” Yancy said.

  We all stood there and thought about it, until Blue began making skeleton sounds. Argh, that bird!

  “Yancy, how many times do I have to tell you to keep that bird quiet?” I snapped.

  “He is quiet,” Yancy said.

  I looked at Blue. He’d found his way into Yancy’s backpack and was helping himself to whatever Earth food he was finding in there. The bird’s beak was too full to be making any noises.

  “Wait,” I said, “does that mean . . .”

  CHAPTER 12

  SEVERAL ARMORED SKELETONS WERE STANDING right behind us, hissing. A hole in the wall had opened up, allowing them to sneak up on us from another hidden room.

  Not only were the skeletons armored, they also had weapons! My eyes widened as I realized one of the skeletons was holding Alex’s bow. Another skeleton let out a roar and lifted Dad’s diamond sword about its head, shrieking in outrage.

  Even though I couldn’t speak skeleton like Blue could, I knew what that roar meant: Get them!

  “Run!” Yancy said.

  “No!” I said. “They have my dad’s and Alex’s weapons!”

  I charged toward the skeleton holding Dad’s sword, striking at it with my own diamond sword. The skeleton roared again, pushing me back.

  “These aren’t armored ghosts!” Destiny exclaimed. “The haunted guards are armored skeletons !”

  My friends dove for the skeletons, raising their own weapons. The skeleton with Alex’s bow sent arrows flying at Maison, and she ducked and dove out of the way, barely dodging. In all the chaos Blue got knocked off Yancy’s shoulder and flew away.

  Destiny had to be right! The story must have evolved and changed over the years, so that it went from skeletons to ghosts. But this explained the skeletons on the warning sign outside the temple.

  These skeletons got Dad and Alex! I thought, horrified and enraged. The monsters must have grabbed them and taken them somewhere. Skeletons will pick up better weapons if they’re dropped, so they must have picked up Dad’s and Alex’s weapons when they got the chance!

  “Give my dad and cousin back!” I hollered at the skeleton in front of me. Our swords clashed again, sending up blue sparks. “I know you have them!”

  The skeleton hissed viciously in response, hitting me with its sword so hard it knocked me back. I wasn’t down, though. I caught myself before I fell and charged the skeleton again.

  The skeletons took this time to step completely out of the wall, and their door closed behind them. I never would have known there was a hidden door there because it looked like all the other mossy blocks in this temple.

  I struck the skeleton I was fighting in the face with my sword, knocking off the armored helmet it wore. Then I hit it on the bare skull with my blade. I expected this to be a good hit, but it didn’t faze the skeleton at all. I might as well have tapped it. Maybe that was why a story had spread that these skeletons were ghosts—they weren’t as easy to damage as regular skeletons!

  “I can’t beat them!” Maison called, slashing with her sword. The others were protecting themselves and keeping the skeletons at bay, but they weren’t able to weaken them any more than I was.

  Maybe Yancy was right, and we should run. But what if that hidden door led to the dungeon the villager had warned us about, and Dad and Alex were being held there? Besides, I couldn’t stand the thought of these evil mobs having weapons that rightfully belonged to Dad and Alex!

  The guards have found you, Stevie, the Ender Dragon mocked.

  Not her! Not now!

  She continued, They have one mission: to protect this temple from outsiders. Outsiders like you and your family.

  Leave me alone! I shouted at her, trying to concentrate on the skeleton in front of me.

  Bow to me, she ordered. Bow to me and you will be saved. Your father and cousin are already gone. But I can make everything better. I’m the only one who can.

  I sucked in an angry, trembling breath. Even though she was evil, her voice sometimes had a soothing quality, like letting go and allowing darkness to surround you like a blanket. It was wrong and it was frightening, but it also meant I could just stop fighting. Just stop fighting and surrender to her.

  No! I yelled. My dad and Alex are still safe! I’m going to find them and rescue them!

  Only one man has eve
r escaped here, the Ender Dragon said. And you do not have his skills. You will fail.

  Her words made me so angry I felt full of energy, like a redstone current. I hit the skeleton with all my might, hoping to knock Dad’s sword out of its bony hands. The skeleton didn’t even waver, but the force of my swing left my legs unsteady.

  The skeleton easily struck me back with Dad’s sword, throwing me to the ground.

  CHAPTER 13

  MAISON JUMPED IN FRONT OF ME, HOLDING out her sword. “Don’t even think about it!” she told the skeleton.

  This gave me time to scramble back to my feet. The ground was slick with moss, making it harder for me to get up.

  That’s when the hidden door opened again. I looked over, hoping against hope that Dad and Alex would show up. But it was more armored skeletons with their own swords and arrows.

  A rain of arrows shot at me and I dodged, rolling across the ground. When I got back up, I was dizzy but unhurt. Quickly I turned, charging back into the fight.

  “There are too many of them!” Yancy shouted. “We need to retreat!”

  “They’ll just chase us!” I argued.

  There was movement from the darkness on the other side of the hidden door. More skeletons were coming out. In the torchlight, their teeth gleamed in wide, morbid smiles of destruction.

  I realized I couldn’t argue with Yancy anymore. I didn’t know what to do. “All right, let’s go!” I said.

  We took off racing down the dark hall, the skeletons at our heels. I looked out a window as we passed it and saw several Endermen just outside the temple, hunting for the shard on the steps. That meant we couldn’t go back outside. We were surrounded by mobs!

  We could run down the stairs, but that would trap us in the little room again. We could run into the room with the claw marks, but we’d be trapped there too. If we went through the trap door at the back of the stage, that would just put us back with more Endermen. There was no way out. What were we going to do?