I crashed to the ground, and felt the hard floor against my knee. The enderman raised its arms again and I caught sight of the white scar. That was when I realized that I had seen the scar before. In the accident. The person in the other car, he’d had a slash across his face the same way this enderman did. Only it wasn’t white. It was red. I shook my head to get the image of the gash on the other driver’s face out of my mind, but I couldn’t.
I was out of energy. The room felt like it was spinning around me. Then I realized I was being turned and dragged away. It was Lonnie, pulling me away from the enderman. But who was going to stop the enderman from attacking him? I lifted my head just enough to see Esme aiming with her bow and arrow. By the time Lonnie had gotten me to the lift, Esme had delivered a final shot and the enderman broke apart.
Lonnie and I stepped into the lift. It whisked us down to the first floor. Anton was there, and he looked horrified.
“What’s going on?” we both asked each other. We both answered at the same time too, which meant neither of us heard what the other one had said.
Anton held his hands up. “It’s night again,” he said. “So you know what that means.”
I looked behind him, at the rows of endermen outside the house.
“There was one inside,” I said.
Esme burst through the false wall in front of the lift and looked at the three of us. “Why are you standing here?” she asked. “We have to run.”
“There’s nowhere to run,” Anton said.
I pushed Lonnie in his direction. “We’ll buy you enough time to craft the nether portal. Go!”
Anton hesitated, but grabbed Lonnie after a moment, and went back into the lift. I moved with Esme toward the front door. The line of endermen faced us. Two, no three, rows deep. It was going to be a massacre, and we knew it.
“What now?” Esme asked.
“Keep firing and hope for morning,” I said as I loaded my first arrow.
“What about that guy back there?” she asked.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t remind me about him,” I said.
We both aimed at the crowd and began to fire.
The arrows weren’t helpful. There were too many of them coming. What we needed was—
“Look what I found!” Anton was behind us again. He and Lonnie had TNT. He lobbed the bombs over our heads as we kept firing. Most of the endermen were starting to slow down. But some kept coming through the remnants of the blasts, and as the smoke cleared they were still advancing.
We had used up all of our arrows. Esme started to break apart anything made out of wood, to craft sticks. Anton caught on and got as many feathers out of our supplies as he could, then went back upstairs to raid the chickens.
“There isn’t enough flint,” Esme announced.
In the middle of the line of endermen, still heading toward us, was one with a white diagonal scar on his face.
“No,” I said.
Esme looked up. “No way.”
We pulled back. Esme fired arrows behind us as we moved as far back into the room as possible. We had one last TNT bomb.
“Take cover,” I said.
We moved behind the broken bookcase and I tossed the bomb at the wall. The blast threw us back a little farther, and buried us under rubble, but we were mostly unharmed. There was some kind of cave behind the wall we had blasted open. As we scrambled for it, Esme accidentally dropped a small object. It went skidding on the ground away from us and came to a stop just at the lip of one of the blast holes. A shulker box. Esme groaned when she realized what she’d done, then moved carefully toward it as it teetered on the edge of the hole, grabbing it as soon as she was close enough. I breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Good save!” She smiled and we kept moving.
Inside the cave, we followed a narrow path at Esme’s feet that led deeper down into the earth. At one point the path narrowed to a thin strip, and to our left were the gaping holes in the ground that I’d created with my blasts. I was still trying to puzzle out what had happened with the scarred enderman. How had it reappeared? And why did it have that scar? Esme stopped suddenly and I bumped into her. There was a lake of lava beneath us, and I could feel the heat of it searing my skin.
“What if we get stuck?” she asked.
“An entire mob of endermen are behind us,” I said. “Do you really want to go back that way?”
“Good point,” she said.
We stepped forward and were rocked by a blast that came from somewhere over our heads. “What was that?” Esme asked.
I suddenly remembered A.J.’s warning about the chickens and Anton going to get feathers. “Chicken bombs?” I suggested.
“We better keep moving,” Esme said.
We went deeper, and with each step, I dug down, ruining the path.
“You know they can teleport, right?” she asked.
Yeah, but I’ll take every precaution I can.
We stepped around a corner, and entered a glittering cavern.
“Diamonds,” Esme said.
Without a word, we both jumped off the path and began mining. There were more than we could carry in the shulker box, so we maxed out what we could, and continued on. In another cavern, a mob of zombies moved toward us. I had an idea, and hacked away at the low ceiling. My intuition paid off, and a load of gravel came tumbling down, between us and them. No fighting necessary.
“Nice! How did you know that would work?” Esme asked.
“I just…had the idea. I thought I’d try this and see if it would work, and it did. Anyway, I’m tired of hand-to-hand combat, aren’t you?” I asked.
She shrugged.
After a few more steps, she said, “We need to get out of here.”
“How?” I asked.
She pointed up toward the top of the cavern. I nodded. We slowly started picking our way up the dark rocks, planting torches as we went to light the way that we hoped was out. It grew cold again, and we hacked up and out of the last bits of rock, to blinding white on the other side. We’d reached the surface of the tundra. I looked back toward A.J.’s house and found it far in the distance, gray and beige against the white snow. The cliff and forest were behind us. Somewhere between the house and the forest were Lonnie and Anton.
Esme and I started for the forest. Neither of us wanted to go back to the house, though we never said that. We just started hiking away from it. Esme pointed to a narrow ridge, like an undulating shelf above our heads, and we climbed up to it. It made for a good vantage point. A.J.’s house was to the right of us, and straight ahead was the spot from where we’d seen the house in the first place. It was like going backward. I was annoyed that we had been separated. We’d had a good thing going in A.J.’s base with all the food and supplies.
We got to the place where I had started cutting down into the rock to make a path for us to the house. But the boys weren’t there. We went back up into the trees and climbed them to be able to look around, but there was nothing. Finally, I put my hands to my mouth and called out, “Lonnie!” but Esme shot me a hot look that got me to stop before I even got to the “ee” at the end of his name. She jumped down from her tree and moved away from me, clearly annoyed. I jumped down after her and followed.
“Just when I think you’re finally getting better at thinking things through first…”
“We couldn’t find them. What was I supposed to do?” I asked.
“Not draw the mobs’ attention to us! Could you do that?”
I didn’t say anything. I was tired. And irritated. Plus, maybe she was right.
There was movement ahead, and I pointed, nearly saying something, but remembering not to at the last moment. Esme held her hand out as if she wanted me to stop moving, so I did, and she went on ahead. Then there was a garbled shout, and she came back running my way. Behind her was the
scarred enderman, and behind it, Anton and Lonnie.
Esme took out a sword and got ready to face off. She walked around it, and it turned, following her, putting its back to me. I understood what Esme was doing. I took out my own sword and approached the enderman from behind. Now at the enderman’s left side, Anton pulled out his own diamond sword and got ready. The enderman swiveled to look at each of us, and then it chose the most vulnerable to attack—the person I was most hoping it would ignore—Lonnie.
We broke formation, piling on the enderman, striking it with as many blows as we could manage before it turned back on us, and now that we were closer, it got several good punches in. I felt weak. From the sluggish movements of Anton and Esme, I knew they felt the same. Lonnie was lying on his side, not moving. I started slashing again, screaming at the top of my lungs. The three of us got into a bit of a rhythm, each of us swinging in succession until the enderman had enough of us, and the purple particles around it started to go inside. It was going to teleport, but I wasn’t going to let it get away so easily.
I got in close, preparing to chop the fleeing mob with all of my might. I was so angry that it had somehow reappeared, that its scar reminded me of the accident, that it had chosen to attack my best friend. Before my sword could land, it disappeared in a swirl of purple pixels, and I screamed in fury.
Teleport, my frenzied mind shouted. Suddenly, trees disappeared, pixel by pixel. Ground cover. Dirt. Rocks.
Everything.
When the game world rendered again, Lonnie reappeared next to me, holding my hand. In his other, he had a shulker box. Then Esme and Anton reappeared, looking none the worse for wear.
“That was insane!” Anton whooped. “I’ve never teleported with an enderman before!”
“I don’t think that’s what happened,” I said cautiously, remembering the thought—the command—I had before we’d disappeared.
“Ugh, I feel dizzy,” Esme complained. She plopped down on her back to stare at the sky. “Give me two seconds.”
I looked around for a moment, terrified. But luckily, the enderman didn’t reappear with us. Whatever mod or cheat A.J. had put in this game must’ve required my command to be more specific, and I was calm enough now to be thankful for that. We were near a river. It was like no part of the world I’d encountered so far, with a lush forest of tropical trees and flowering plants in reds and oranges. It curved around on both sides, making me think it was some kind of island, rather than one huge landmass. There was a boat in the river, and off in the distance was another shore, which I guessed was the mainland.
“I don’t recognize this place at all,” Anton said. “Where are we now?”
“It’s definitely a jungle biome, wherever it is,” Esme added.
“Great, I love getting lost in the jungle!” I sighed, took a breath, and tried to rein in my frustration. “You okay, Lonnie?”
Lonnie nodded and surveyed the landscape around us. Then he moved forward and started cutting down trees, making a shelter. I didn’t want to jinx it by saying something, so I just helped. He was always better at making things than I was anyway. It was better to follow.
“Good idea, we should put up a base as soon as possible,” Anton said, acknowledging Lonnie’s actions for once. “When we go over into the Nether, we need to protect the portal on both sides from mobs.”
“Good going, Lonnie,” I said loudly, emphasizing his participation to both Anton and Esme. Esme rolled her eyes as Lonnie got to work on crafting a table, and a bed, which would be handy if we wanted nights to go faster. So far, we hadn’t used that tactic enough.
“We should check our inventory. Did we lose anything?” I asked. I was worried that maybe we had suddenly reset the game without meaning to. I calmed down once I saw that all my food remained intact. I moved my extra flint and steel to the front of my supplies. We would need it to reactivate the portal from the other side to get back to the Overworld.
Then I went to count up my obsidian. I should’ve had a huge amount from what we’d collected up to this point. I should have had enough for three portals, really. So my stomach twisted in a sudden panic as I saw that all those inventory slots were now empty.
“Oh no,” I said. “No, no, no!”
“What is it?” Esme asked.
“My obsidian! It’s completely gone!” I racked my brain for how it could have happened. My thoughts immediately went to the scarred enderman that had attacked us. Could he have done it? Could endermen steal now?
Anton opened the shulker box to inspect the goods. A.J. had stockpiled it with a lot that was useful. Food, flint, redstone, a couple of pieces of obsidian—though not enough for a nether portal—some triggers, wool, and paper.
“Well, there’re some blocks here.”
I wanted to burst into tears. I had worked so hard for that obsidian and now we had to start all over.
“It’s okay,” Esme said, seeing my face. “Obsidian’s not so rare. I’m sure we’ll find some more in this biome. And once we do, we’ll make the portal and get what we need from the Nether, no big deal.”
She was right. I nodded and tried to calm myself down.
“Okay, so we need blaze rods to eventually make eyes of ender, nether wart for potions…” Anton’s voice trailed off as he and Esme wandered away, lost in their planning. I let them go, taking the moment alone to focus on my own next steps. I needed to find obsidian.
As soon as Lonnie was finished with the inside of the base and I was sure he’d be safe there alone, I moved to another part of the island to hunt for obsidian. Anton and Esme had disappeared, probably still talking through every detail of the Nether run. I explored and mined, finding coal easily enough, and dug through a tunnel that seemed to lead under the water. Eventually I chose to stop rather than risk hitting a rock that would flood the entire thing with me in it.
I got back to the house, telling Lonnie about my finds: more coal, some flint, and redstone. He nodded and made some grunting noises. I was excited. He was improving. Even Esme and Anton were noticing it. A sudden wave of exhaustion swept over me, and I staggered to the side of the room and leaned against a wall. We’d been going nonstop, and I needed a rest.
Lonnie came over, looking worried. It was the first time I recognized real emotion in his face.
“Hey friend,” I said. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
Lonnie made a sound, like he understood, or was trying to communicate something.
“I just needed a minute,” I said. “I know we have to get moving.” I took a breath. “Where do you think the obsidian is on the island, Lonnie?”
Lonnie made a sound again, which of course didn’t help at all, but I was grateful that he was there, at least. And I was glad that the others hadn’t managed to convince me that this wasn’t him. He was coming around. This was working. Now all I needed to do was get us out.
“I’m going back out there,” I said. “I won’t be long.”
But the island was larger than I’d thought. As I moved along the terrain, mining as I went, I thought it might not be an island at all. It might be a long peninsula. I moved methodically side to side, but as far forward as I went, there was no other shore. I moved into a thick growth of bushes and trees, and began to dig down. The island seemed to have nothing but coal, and a few cuts of diamond. I had enough to craft a diamond pickaxe, but there was no obsidian to use my diamond pickaxe on.
I didn’t realize how long I had been out of the house. Darkness descended quickly and I was forced to make my way back. I was exhausted, and wished for real, actual sleep. The kind where I could close my eyes and see nothing at all. My brain felt like it was alight with fire. I thought that was my imagination until I saw a burst of flame ahead of me. I was under attack.
I turned toward three witches that laughed at me from a tree above my head, raining down potions in vials of pur
ple and orange. They burst ahead of me. I ducked under another tree and ran, trying to draw them out. The first one took the bait. It dropped to the ground and began to chase me.
Since I’d scoured the landscape earlier, I knew exactly where to go. I ducked behind a short, squat tree as the witch ran past me, then I got behind the witch and started hacking. I almost laughed out loud when I saw what she’d dropped: a fire-retardant potion, and glowstone dust.
I doubled back and started to look for the second one, but I had gotten turned around while going after the first witch. As I stepped through the trees and grass, I came upon a tall, sharp hill. There was no way to climb up without digging out steps; then I saw that the other two witches were on either side of me. I was cornered. The first witch had probably been a decoy. And I had fallen for their trap, thinking that they had fallen for mine.
“Smart,” I said out loud. But that didn’t stop them from coming.
They pelted potions, and I warded them off with my sword as best I could. Then I charged the closest witch—the one on my right—slashing until it died, dropping sticks and glass bottles. I turned to the last witch. It seemed to be smiling. It came at me with such force that I got knocked over onto my back. The witch kept coming, hitting me with everything it had, until I couldn’t move at all. I wished I hadn’t gone out by myself, and as the witch prepared to strike me again, I flinched. But the witch never attacked.
I could hear a scuffle nearby, and when I got up, I saw Lonnie delivering a hard right hook to the witch before she dissolved. He grabbed my hand, and we ran the rest of the way to the house.
As soon as we got inside, we piled into the beds, and in seconds it was daylight again. Lonnie had saved me. For a third time.
He got up first and came over to where I lay. He held out his hand and pulled me up. I felt the warmth of it against my own palm.
The Crash: An Official Minecraft Novel Page 13
