There was a long pause where I couldn’t hear or feel anything. All around me was the same swirling blackness, and then everything went white. It was like being sent to oblivion.
The game rendered again and I found myself somewhere off to the side of the central island on a long obsidian platform. Esme was at the other end of it, crouching in her armor with a sword gripped in her hand. Lonnie was already standing behind her, while Anton was a little way farther on, closer to the circle of obsidian pillars where the dragon kept its egg. I ran to Esme’s side, and armed myself with a bow.
“That took a while,” Anton said, walking back over to us. “You okay?”
Before I could respond, Anton’s eyes went wide with fear. I looked back at the portal. The scarred enderman was emerging. The wound I had pulled at had opened farther. There was nothing behind it. Nothing at all. But one eye remained open, and it was looking straight at Lonnie. I lunged forward and placed myself between the enderman and Lonnie, with Anton taking up a position at my side.
Esme’s gasp from behind us was loud enough to pull the enderman’s focus, but only for a moment.
It stood before us like a ghostly watchman, but it didn’t attack. There was nowhere for us to go. We wouldn’t move away and leave Lonnie vulnerable to attack, and on the long platform there was only one other direction we could go. We were stuck. The enderman looked at me with its one eye. Its empty face sent shivers down my spine. Then it leaned forward, its gaze shifting to Lonnie.
“No,” I said. “No.” I moved closer to my best friend.
The enderman reached a long arm toward us. I squeezed away, avoiding its grasp.
“No,” I said, this time more forcefully. “You can’t take him!”
The enderman lunged, but I ducked down and scrambled past it, dragging Lonnie with me. The enderman struck him as we passed, but as it pulled its arm back again, I turned and delivered a flying kick that sent the scarred enderman through the portal again, its battered form dissolving into nothingness.
“I told you it would come back,” Esme said, with a sidelong glance at me.
“I’m working on it,” I said quietly. “Dealing with the things that I have to deal with, I mean.” I looked at Lonnie, who was standing ahead of us as if nothing at all was happening around him. “I just need to finish this game.”
Esme frowned for a moment, then said, “If you’re sure that’s what’s going to help you.” Then she turned toward the pillars, focused on the task at hand.
“Why hasn’t it shown up yet?” Anton asked.
We all looked around. The dragon should have been here by now.
“It’s awfully quiet,” I said.
We moved to the end of the platform and stepped out onto the firm, green-tinged earth of the End dimension, taking up a position in a straight line with Anton to the right and me to the left. Then we began to walk in a triangle formation, with Esme at point and Anton and me forming the bottom points. Lonnie we kept in the middle as we crept toward the circle of pillars.
There was the sound of something large, and the feel of wind blowing down at us. Anton was the first to look up. I followed his eyes to the ender dragon. It was larger than I would have imagined, and black as the hollow we’d braved to make it through the end portal.
“It’s huge,” Esme said. The dragon circled overhead, and then came around again, aiming down, but still giving us a wide berth.
“That’s weird, right?” Anton asked. “It hasn’t tried to attack us.”
We continued to move toward the obsidian pillars until the end crystals came into better view. Of the ten pillars, four of them were very tall, and two shorter, while the other four were of varying middle heights. As the dragon wove and dipped in the air, it stayed always close to one of the crystals, so that when necessary it would be healed without a moment lost.
The creature’s large purple eyes blinked once, and I felt it was looking straight at me. Lonnie’s face surged to the forefront of my mind.
* * *
—
“Hey, what are you doing here?” Lonnie sat on the edge of the park bench that faced the playground. His hair in his eyes and his tablet in his lap, he was trying to play Minecraft with one hand. A bright red cast wrapped around his right wrist like a hard-shelled glove.
“Hi,” I mumbled, digging my toe into the wood chips of the playground. I wore my purple overalls that day, the ones I tried to wear way past the time they’d actually fit. “My mom drove me here to apologize to you.”
“It’s okay,” Lonnie replied, shrugging. “I was trying to be a hero. It didn’t work out.”
“It was a good try, though,” I said, hopefully. I looked to see if there was any trace of anger in his gray eyes. But there was only focus and determination, as he tapped furiously at the screen.
I peered over to see Lonnie’s avatar shooting arrows at a mob of creepers inside a cave.
“Do you still want to teach me Mineraft?”
“Minecraft,” Lonnie said. “And I don’t know, do you still want to learn?”
“Yes,” I nodded enthusiastically. “I do.”
“Bianca?” My mom appeared behind me, placing her hands on my shoulders. “I didn’t hear you apologize.”
“Oh, right!” I said. That was why we were there in the first place. “I’m sorry, Elon.”
“Call me Lonnie,” he said, extending his free hand out to shake. I smiled as I felt the warmth of his hand in mine.
“I’m sorry, Lonnie.”
* * *
—
“I’m so sorry, Lonnie,” I repeated, closing my eyes, and feeling those four words stab like a sword through my own heart. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I could feel the dragon’s energy surging toward me. It was me it was waiting for. The whole game—everything in it, and everything that had happened—was what I’d created, my problems brought to digital life. Minecraft was a world you made, wasn’t it? And I’d made one heck of a world.
I knew what I needed to do.
I broke formation and ran toward the dragon with my bow pulled tightly against my shoulder. The dragon snaked around again, folding nearly in half as it circled back. I didn’t hesitate. I continued running, straight at it.
“You can’t kill the dragon without getting rid of the end crystals!” Anton called out.
“Maybe you guys should start on that!” I shouted back. “I’m going to be the bait. Only this time, it’s my choice.”
The thwack of bowstrings resounded and I saw a volley of arrows go shooting into the air as I barreled toward the dragon. It whipped its head around so that its eye leveled at me, the size of my entire head. I skidded to a stop and gasped. Now that I could see it directly, it was hard to ignore the long scar that cut across its face from its left eye down through its nose and snout, ending at the bottom right of its tooth-filled mouth. I took a deep breath and let my arrow fly off, straight into its iris. It blinked just in time and the projectile bounced off its eyelid. But at the same moment, several other arrows hit their marks, clinking against end crystals all around the dragon.
The dragon’s eyes narrowed and it turned, whipping its tail around and hitting me. It sent me flying to one side of the central island, and I rolled all the way toward the very edge. I tried to get my hands to secure a grip on something, but the earth there was too slippery and the edge of the island was getting closer, fast. I raised my bow above my head and brought it straight down into the earth in front of me. One end of the bow stuck in the ground, and I held on desperately to it, while my legs dangled off the side into nothingness.
I pulled myself up and swung my legs back onto the island. Esme and Anton were in the middle of the obsidian pillars, firing arrows as the ender dragon circled them, shooting fireballs. Lonnie was off to one side, between two of the taller pillars, when the drag
on came around again and careered toward the ground. The whistle of air that went past the dragon’s wings was audible, even from where I was standing on the edge of the island.
The dragon had taken a few hits, but it wound its way up to the nearest pillar and was already being healed. I ran to a column on my right and aimed an arrow at the end crystal two pillars away. It was a short one. I had a pretty good shot. I let the arrow go and it struck, the ping on the crystal echoing throughout the island. The dragon looked toward it, then around to see where the attack had come from. I squeezed myself behind one of the pillars, out of the dragon’s line of sight.
Esme used the distraction to shoot off another two arrows at the same spot. She was more successful, and the end crystal shattered in a sprinkle of pinkish-purple shards.
I let my head dip out to see where she was, and she nodded once in my direction.
The dragon roared as Esme ran to find cover. The beast turned on her as Anton targeted another crystal, and I followed up with two more shots of my own.
Without discussing it, we had settled into a neat pattern: one person would be bait, while the other two tried to take out crystals. It was a good plan, and it was working.
Anton and I managed to destroy yet another end crystal. The dragon howled again, and Esme got off a couple more shots into its skin. It looped upward toward one of the high crystals to be healed. Next, I ran into the center of the circle, taking aim at the dragon and the crystal it was using to fix its injury. I got solid hits on both of them, and then ran back to hide behind one of the pillars.
Esme and Anton took out two more of the crystals. There were only six to go. As the dragon came down, strafing us, I ran out, zigzagging to avoid being hit, and fired off one last arrow toward a crystal on a high pillar. It shattered, but not before one of the blasts from an ender charge sent me flying straight into an obsidian column. I felt it rock with the force of the blow.
Anton took his turn in the middle as bait while Esme and I continued to shoot. We taunted and teased the dragon, luring it and shooting until there was only one crystal left—the highest one. It was impossible to get an angle to shoot it from inside the circle. Someone was going to have to go out far from the center and take the best shot they possibly could, maybe from the edge of the island, where it was the least safe. There was nowhere to hide there. The pattern we’d fallen into to get rid of the rest of the crystals wouldn’t work now.
Anton, Esme, and I blinked at each other from our positions behind cover. No one made the first move.
The dragon rose to the tallest pillar, hugging the end crystal with its huge, black wings and sending down ender charges for good measure, in case one of us got the wrong idea that this was a crystal we should try to mess with.
Anton shot off a few arrows, and the dragon roared, but did nothing to expose the crystal. We were at an impasse.
Then Lonnie sauntered into the center of the obsidian pillars.
I froze. I couldn’t think of what to do or say.
The dragon spotted him and roared, then sent down two ender charges. I felt the blast of them, but neither of them seemed to harm Lonnie at all. He opened his mouth and roared back at the beast. The dragon flapped its wings, lifting itself up and off the final crystal, and then made a dive-bomb toward Lonnie again.
Somehow I managed to move, diving toward Lonnie and knocking him out of the way as the dragon came in low and scraped its belly against the ground. The sound rang out like metal scraping against metal. I threw my hands over my ears to blot it out, but it went on and on, and I felt paralyzed. The dragon reached the opposite side of the circle, and miraculously neither Lonnie nor I had been harmed. And now the monstrous creature was far from the one pillar that held its salvation. Maybe it wasn’t worried. It was an impossible get, after all. The mob perched on one of the middle-height pillars and waited for our next maneuver. But it didn’t have to wait long.
I pulled Lonnie up to stand, and the dragon stared at us. I waved my hands at the dragon as we walked away from where Anton and Esme were hiding, but it didn’t move from its perch. When that didn’t work, I shot off one arrow in its direction. The monster perked up. It shook its massive head, then leaped into the air, banked right, and dipped straight for us. I moved Lonnie and myself into position and waited. Lonnie stood tall next to me as if he was waiting too, as if he knew what was coming. But I knew he didn’t. He had no idea what was coming. Not now. And not before.
I turned to face the dragon, knowing I was facing it alone. I could finally feel tears on my cheeks.
Its eyes blazed as it charged straight toward us. I could feel the heated air radiating from its flapping wings. Just before the monster hit us, I tackled Lonnie, knocking us out of the dragon’s path. Its wing whooshed over our heads and the beast barely missed us, flying too fast out of the circle to easily turn back around. Its final crystal was now unguarded.
I looked across to where Esme and Anton stood. Always quick on the draw, Esme was already walking backward to get the right angle. She pulled her bow tight as she found the perfect spot, sighting the crystal. Esme’s arrow flew. It arced over the circle of pillars and straight at the target. There was another arrow, and then another. Anton had caught on. At five, the crystal shattered, and there was a burst of purply-pink crystal pixels. The dragon had finally wheeled around and was now hovering in the sky above us, flapping, furious, but finally vulnerable.
It was time to take this thing down.
It was time to end the game.
The dragon circled and strafed as Esme, Anton, and I crisscrossed each other between the obsidian pillars, making sure it never had a steady target. It screamed and howled, blew fire at us and dropped ender charges. The world was a cacophony of sound and blurred movement as we fought with everything we had in the hope that sheer force of will would get us to the end of the game.
It wasn’t working.
The dragon twisted, turned, dipped, and dove out of the way of our entire assault. Few hits landed, even from Esme who was easily the best shot of the three of us. The dragon rose again, so high into the air above us that it was little more than a black splotch. It came down once more, roaring, then turned and flew away from the pillars, circling the outer rim of the island. It was teasing us. There was nothing we could do but wait. Finally it curved inward, flying straight for us. It was a few seconds before I realized that it had targeted Lonnie.
He was on the opposite side of the island, where my arrows couldn’t reach. I had moved too far away from him. Both Anton and Esme were closer.
Suddenly, everything was quiet.
Esme fired shots that, at least from where I stood, seemed to hit the dragon all along its left side. But that did nothing to slow it down, or alter its course.
Anton ran toward Lonnie as if he planned to block him, or push him out of the way.
The dragon dropped its wing and clipped Anton on his back. He lurched forward, landing at Lonnie’s feet and staring up at the sky. Anton didn’t move.
Esme’s mouth opened into a scream as Anton’s body dissolved into a mass of black and gold pixels, and then disappeared. She took off running, leaving the relative safety of the pillars, shooting as she went, catching the dragon in the belly before it twisted like a corkscrew and doubled back on itself. Esme was near the middle, shooting straight at the dragon’s head. There was nowhere to hide. No pillar was close enough for her to run behind it and fake the dragon out. As it leveled its purple eyes at her, Esme dropped her bow and stood tall as the dragon charged her, sending her flying. Black and gold pixels filled my vision as she disappeared. The dragon turned to me. The white scar slashed across its snout was blindingly bright. Cold realization flooded my stomach.
This thing was always my monster, and my monster alone. The only one who could face it was me.
Feeling flooded back into my body. I moved slowly around the is
land as the dragon resettled itself on one of the mid-height pillars. It started preening, perhaps trying to heal, while keeping a watch on me with one purple eye.
I looked at Lonnie, standing like a scarecrow propped against a pillar. I pressed forward and scooped him up, hauling him away from the battle. I placed him in a sheltered part of the ground that had a little bit of an overhang. He fell on the ground just ahead of me, flopping over like a rag doll. The spark that I had seen in him before—that, I realized now, I had made in him with my thoughts and hopes—was gone. This villager was never the Lonnie that I knew, no matter how hard I pretended.
“Lonnie, I…” I began to speak but my words tangled in my throat. There was nothing I could do or say in the game or in real life that would ever make up for the pain I’d caused. There was too much of it, like a tsunami that would drown me where I stood. I swallowed my sorrow back. I gently placed my hand on the villager’s face, the one that looked so much like my best friend, Lonnie. I closed the avatar’s empty eyes.
“Power through, power through, power through,” I said, repeating the last part of Lonnie’s advice to me.
I took off my armor. I dropped my bow, since I was out of arrows anyway, rendering it useless. All I had left was the single diamond sword. As I moved toward the center of the pillars, I could feel the ground beneath my feet. It was hard, but had some give. I could see the dragon’s belly heave as it breathed, and the huge scales that covered it glistened in the dim light of the End.
The Crash: An Official Minecraft Novel Page 21
