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Copyright © 2014 by Danica Davidson
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Owen Corrigan
Cover artwork by Lordwhitebear
Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-103-3
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-104-0
Printed in the United States of America
CHAPTER 1
THE MONSTERS CAME OUT WHENEVER IT GOT DARK. I didn’t realize the sun was setting until it was too late.
I had gotten totally caught up in what I was doing: building my very first tree house. When you’re the son of the man who’s the best builder around, it means you have a lot to prove. I was Stevie, from a long line of Steves, in a land where just about everyone was named Steve. Here’s the thing, though: my dad is The Steve.
No one calls him that to his face, but everyone knows him, and everyone knows I am his son. My dad had forged a diamond sword when he was twelve, only one year older than I am now. That sword was so good he still uses it to this day to slay zombies, and he is known as the best zombie slayer around.
He has the greatest farm in the area, too, with wheat, pumpkins, carrots, and everything else. He likes to go mining and isn’t scared of going down into the fiery realm of the Nether, even though there are even worse monsters there and no sunlight to protect you from them.
And then there’s everything Dad has built. The giant farmhouse. The barn. The summer home. The winter home. You get the idea. All the houses had iron doors to keep monsters out, plus torches to keep them from spawning near us. My dad also tamed an ocelot he found, making her into a sweet cat, because cats are good at keeping creepers away.
I would help Dad farm and go with him to the Nether, but when it came to making and handling things on my own, that was different. My dad would brag, “Someday, Stevie is going to be a great builder.” But it didn’t feel like he was encouraging me or anything. It felt more like he was saying, “Stevie’s going to be a great builder because he has no other option except to live in my shadow.”
One thing my dad had never built was a tree house, so I decided that would be where I’d have to show off my skills. The first thing I decided to build was my own stone tools. They wouldn’t be as cool as a diamond sword, but everyone had to start somewhere.
I picked a tree that was just out of sight from the biggest house Dad had built, which was the house we were living in at the time. I figured this gave me enough distance so that it was my tree, but it was still not too far from Dad or home.
Next, I walked all over and gathered wood from oak trees. My dad had a whole stockpile of obsidian sitting around that could be used for building—though I knew better than to touch that. Obsidian was really difficult to get, so I knew Dad wouldn’t want me to use it after all the hard work he put into collecting it. Besides, I wanted to show Dad I could do everything on my own. I didn’t even buy anything from the village because trading emeralds for supplies would have made it easier for me.
After I’d gotten my handmade supplies together, I went out to the tree and made a ladder out of sticks. The next step was to clear out the leaves in the tree so that there would be room for my tree house. Once I had the space in the tree, I started to set up the blocks for the floor. Block by block, that’s how I did it. After the floor was done, I got to work on setting up blocks for the walls. I wasn’t a big fan of heights, so I didn’t put the house too high into the tree.
As I built the tree house, I had lots of time to think about things. Like how the tree house was turning out okay, even though I’d been really nervous about it. I’d finally jumped from making small items to making something bigger—something so big you could actually live in it.
Maybe I could get some of the kids from the village to come over and hang out with me. Whenever Dad and I went to the village to trade, I would look for the kids my age and we’d play games like putting saddles on pigs and having little pig races. But the kids never came to visit me. It was lonely out here in the country. It would also be great if Dad could hang out in my tree house with me, and for once it would be a home I built, not him.
When it started getting difficult to see my work, I realized I’d made a major mistake. One that could be deadly. I spent so much time thinking and building that I wasn’t watching the sun. It was slipping down toward the horizon, the sky going gray.
When the sun went away, monsters—or mobs—would spawn. They liked to seek out people, especially ones out in the dark, away from everyone else.
Very quickly I made my way toward the ladder and began to hurry down it.
It’s okay, I told myself. I knew Dad would be furious if I got home after dark, but what really mattered was that I would get home. And I will, I thought. Just because I couldn’t see home didn’t mean it wasn’t nearby . . . I’ll make it, I told myself, I’ll make it.
As soon as I was partway down the ladder, I saw that I wouldn’t make it.
CHAPTER 2
ON THE GROUND, JUST A FEW FEET AWAY, STOOD a creeper. Creepers may look harmless with their armless bodies and their frowny faces, but don’t let looks fool you: they’re some of the most feared mobs in the Overworld because of the way they can silently sneak up on you and because of the scary amount of destruction they can cause.
I was hanging from the ladder, frantically trying to grab some sort of tool out of the pouch I had tied around my waist. I had exactly 1.5 seconds to fight the creeper, or else it would explode.
In my panic, I couldn’t even lift the lid of my pouch. But 1.5 seconds gave me enough time to realize how bad this was, try to do something, recognize there wasn’t going to be enough time, and open my mouth to shout, “No!” as if a creeper has ever listened to a human.
The little green mob looked up at me, started shaking and shivering, and then everything exploded.
I fell back against the ground with the wind knocked out of me. My pouch flew through the air and landed with a thud somewhere off in the darkness. The creeper was gone, dead. They always die when they explode, and they love to take your work with them. Overhead I could see the floor of my tree house break into pieces.
I lay there, trying to catch my breath. It was full night now, the square moon overhead. I didn’t want to admit it, but I wished Dad was around to help me. But then again, I was glad he wasn’t, because I didn’t want him to see my ruined tree house. Tomorrow I would have to start over on my building. No good creepers!
I struggled to get up but I was too weak. It was going to be a little bit before I’d be able to sit up and limp my way back to the house.
Dad would never give sympathy, even though I could have really used some right then. He’d never had any of his work blo
wn up by a creeper.
I shut my eyes against the square moon and breathed deeply. I needed food and milk to feel better, and then a good night’s sleep. I didn’t want to think about how much I’d been hurt. I especially didn’t want to think about how it was still dark. Or that my tools were off in the distance and I was now weaponless. Or that home was as far away as ever. Instead of all the scary things, I thought about how I would get back to work on my building in the morning. Lots of people in the Overworld have had their hard work blown up thanks to a sneaky creeper, so maybe the next time I went to the village, I would tell the other kids about it and we’d bond and I’d make real friends
And that’s when I realized I wasn’t alone. In the distance I could hear the zombies moaning.
CHAPTER 3
TWO ZOMBIES LURCHED TOWARD ME, THE MOONLIGHT bringing out the putrid greenness of their skin. I opened my mouth to scream for help, knowing it was the only energy I had left. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t run. Out of the darkness another zombie materialized, following the others. More moans came from behind me, but I couldn’t move my head enough to witness how many zombies were moving toward me from the back—or how close they were.
I clamped down my eyelids so I didn’t have to see the ones right in front of me. But I could hear them approaching. Their gurgling rasps were just over me, their decomposed breath almost touching my body. Then when all seemed lost, I heard someone running as fast as he could. I opened my eyes just in time to see the blue streak of a diamond sword come crashing down on the zombie that was kneeling right over me.
“Get away!” Dad was yelling. “You filthy mobs!”
The zombie fell back and disappeared immediately, so Dad turned to the next closest target. Undeterred by the weapon, the zombie continued to pitch forward. Dad finished that mob off with a quick stab of his sword, and then he turned to face another zombie. The third zombie was coming at him, its moans loud in the night, its arms outstretched. It was a scary sight, but Dad was ready. He was always ready, no matter how bad the situation was. All I could do was watch helplessly as the sword arced in the air and took out the zombie.
Three more zombies were approaching from behind. When I looked straight up I could see them, looming overhead. They were the ones I’d heard before but couldn’t see since they were moving in from behind.
Now Dad turned to them with a furious look in his eye. Letting out an angry roar, he charged. All three zombies lunged for him at once, but one perfect swipe of his sword took them all out.
The next thing I knew, Dad was sheathing his sword and coming over to my side.
“Stevie!” he said. “You know better than to be out at night!”
That was Dad for you. He could never say, “I’m glad you’re alive” or “You’re so important to me.” He always had to say a put-down, like, “You know better.”
I couldn’t really argue with him, though, because he was right that I did know better. I’d gotten so caught up in trying to prove myself with the tree house that I had cut corners when it had come to my own safety.
Dad looked up at the tree house and tsk-tsked. “And a creeper,” he muttered.
Well, there was no keeping secrets from him. With a huff, Dad hefted me up against him and half dragged me back toward the house.
“I’m glad to see you’re taking an interest in building,” he was saying as he found my pouch and put it around his own waist. “But there’s a point when it’s just reckless.”
Off in the distance I could hear the moaning hiss of more zombies, but this time none of them got too close to us. Soon we could see our house with its protective iron doors. All the torches were lit out front.
Dad lay me down in my bed and Ossie the cat jumped up next to me to lick my face as her way of helping me feel better. While I lay there, Dad got food and milk from the kitchen.
“Here,” he said, sitting me up and helping me eat. He sat next to me on the bed. “You’re going to need to get this all down and rest. We’ll have to go to the village the day after tomorrow.”
We had planned to go to the village the next afternoon for trading, but Dad saw I needed time to rest. I nodded weakly and drank more milk, starting to feel a little better already.
“But the thing is, Stevie,” he said, and I knew he was getting to the point of the lecture, “you’re eleven years old now. You’re going to be a man before long. I went out looking for you at sunset, and you are lucky I went in the right direction. If I hadn’t gotten there just in time . . .” He trailed off and shook his head, not wanting to think about it.
He stared at me, but I looked down in shame. He went on, “You were helpless out there. Sometimes I think you get so into your daydreams you forget the world is a dangerous place. Creepers, zombies, spiders. There’s so much out there that could kill you.”
Another weak nod from me.
“Even on overcast days, if it’s dark enough, you might see a zombie!” Dad went on. “And here it was, pitch black out, and you were lying defenseless on the grass.”
“It won’t happen again,” I said.
“You can’t make that promise,” he said. “Sometimes they take you by surprise. Remember when I was sixteen and the village was attacked? Thank goodness I had my diamond sword.”
He nodded to the sword where it was now hanging on the wall—as if I could ever forget that sword.
“I’m not always going to be around to protect you,” he said. “I know you’re still young and still have training to do, but what happened tonight wasn’t about training, it was about common sense.”
And then, he said the worst part. “You disappoint me.”
He got up from the bed and went into another part of the house, leaving me alone to sit with those words. You disappoint me. Somehow these words hurt worse than all the other pain I’d been through that evening.
CHAPTER 4
OSSIE SLEPT NEXT TO ME ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT. She purred as if she knew I needed sympathy and love, but none of this could let me forget Dad’s words.
In the morning, Dad made me breakfast and instructed me to rest. He was going to go mining and see if he could find more emeralds to trade with the blacksmith in the village.
I stayed in bed until I got hungry again. It was lunchtime and I was feeling mostly okay by then, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the night before. The creeper had done a real number on my tree house—I could only imagine what it looked like today. It had been too dark so I couldn’t see all the damage it had done.
I gave Ossie some food, grabbed my tool pouch and headed out to see the tree house.
My tree house was a sad sight: everything I’d done was in pieces, scattered around the area. I sighed. After checking out the situation, I decided I might as well get back to work now. I was still weak enough that I couldn’t work too hard, but I was feeling well enough to get some things done.
With my stone pickaxe I began getting more oak wood. The full sun was overhead and I wiped the sweat on my brow. I needed to get a drink and there was a lake not too far away.
I knew the grounds well because I’d followed Dad around since I was little. So when I got near the lake and noticed a portal glowing under a covering of trees, it made me stop in my tracks.
Portals were the gateways from the Overworld into the Nether, a place I’d never gone to without Dad. Too dangerous. Dad had made some of his own portals, putting together the obsidian blocks and the spark of fire in the middle. Those portals looked like black doorways with sizzling purple centers. If you leaped through it, you would be taken to a land of fire and lava.
The thing was, this portal wasn’t made of obsidian, and it wasn’t glowing purple in the middle, either.
I squatted in front of it, running my hands over the strange rocks. I’d never seen rocks like these before. The middle part was sizzling and glowing with different colors, which was even stranger. Nether portals stayed purple, but this one was rapidly changing from green to blue to red.
&nb
sp; Had Dad put this portal together this morning? He was good about teaching me all the things he knew, and he’d never ever mentioned a portal like this. I stared into its pulsing center, to try to detect what lay on the other side.
A part of me really wanted to step through it and find out, though I hesitated. If it was the Nether I could jump right back out. But something told me that if it was a Nether portal, it would have looked like one.
Maybe it’s some other realm, I said to myself. Another world sounded nice, a place to go where my dad wasn’t mad at me. A place where maybe I could make new friends.
I waded into the fresh water in the lake with my tool pouch on my shoulder. I filled the glass I had with me, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off that portal. Even while I was drinking, my eyes zeroed in on it. It almost felt as if the portal was calling to me, as if it wanted me to move forward. Sometimes Dad said he could feel the diamonds calling to him when he was mining. I always thought that sounded impossible until now. He said the diamonds had called out extra loud the day he found the ones he used to make his zombie-killing sword.
I was so caught up in staring at the portal that I didn’t see the spider until it was almost too late.
CHAPTER 5
THE SPIDER WAS CHARGING TOWARD ME, RED EYES glowing, hostile under the shade of the trees. Just in time, I yanked my pickaxe out of the tool pouch and sent it flying. The pickaxe hit the spider on one leg and then bounced off. For a second the spider stopped, stunned. And then the mob was coming at me again.
I turned and ran, reaching into my pouch for another weapon. I was struggling to get away, still weak from the creeper attack. The spider advanced toward me, and all the tools I threw at it either missed or bounced ineffectively against its legs. Those red eyes were getting closer and the spider emitted a high hiss. This time there was no one around to save me.
I backed up against the portal, and faced the menacing spider. I knew there was no other choice now. Just as the spider reared up and my entire vision filled with its red eyes, I let myself fall back into the portal.
Escape from the Overworld Page 1
