You are not a hero | A Minecraft-inspired Story

Dear... Steve.

You've really done a lot, huh?

Hard to believe that you started off your first day punching trees and making dirt houses to hide in... but you did, and somehow, you survived, against all odds. You survived. Day in, day out, you survived, fighting the monsters in your way, searching for a new place to live. It was a village, right?

That first village was unsuspecting.

You enslaved the villagers, destroyed their guardians, ruined their houses, and locked them in little rooms, forcing them to use their magic to trade items with you. But you did it all for the greater good. With the items you got from them, you became stronger. You took on harder challenges.

The Nether was your second victim. As soon as you had iron equipment, you went straight there; hopped through the portal, cornered the indigenous life, and forced them to give away natural resources with their own materials. You slaughtered their children, raided their bastions, stole their goods, and moved on.

When you saw that first fortress, were you blinded by its majestic design? The purplish-red bricks piercing into the lava, the intricately-made engravings on the walls telling of stories long passed, the farms of strange plants you had never seen before? You disturbed the dead, thieved their magic items, and left, uncaring of any damage you had caused.

Refugees that fled to the warped forests were your final victims of the Nether. The Endermen didn't stand a chance. You didn't let them. You stabbed at their feet until they collapsed, then brutalised them as they begged for their lives. You took their pearls, and when you had enough, you fled, returning to the Overlord from which you came.

Did you even know what you were doing? Probably... you've done this before... thousands of times... maybe even millions of times. Fusing the Ender Pearls with the essence of the Blazes, you located the stronghold, and tore open the fabric of reality, prying your way into the uncaring void. The End.

The people were living under a tyrant dragon, and you set them free. You killed the dragon and stole its egg, not caring about the consequences of your actions. You raided the cities of the final inhabitants, and erased the defences.

Congratulations.

You could have stopped there, though, right?

But you didn't.

The dragon wasn't enough, huh? You just had to keep going. You explored the world. Went to places that you never before thought possible. You pillaged everything that looked valuable, stuffed them into boxes made from End City weapons, and moved on. Only if you ran out of space did you stop, temporarily.

You burned the forests and scorched the Earth you walked on, but it wasn't enough.

Again and again, you'd go to a new world, and start again, doing all the same. Until you finally got bored, and you altered reality... you added things... challenges... points of interest. You modified existence to your liking, then beat the world again. You overwrote it again and again. Erased it again and again.

But you know what?

You are not a hero.

You're a villain.

It's time you die like one.