Last Man Standing | Jack Manifold

| ɪ |

| apocalypse |

Real life isn't much different to a Minecraft hardcore world. 

You have one chance. You start at the bottom with nothing. And you have a horde of zombies chasing you 24/7.

A scream cut through the concentrated silence in the discord call.

<jimmyjamz hit the ground too hard whilst trying to escape a zombie horde>

"James! You had the blaze powder!" Nadia yelled.

"I'm aware of that, Nadz!"

"Why didn't you say that you were low?!"

"I wasn't low! I fell off a cliff!"

"But you didn't say anything!"

"You are aware that I didn't fall off the cliff on purpose, right?"

An American accent attempted to stop the argument; "Kids, kids. For the love of God, please shut up. Jam, what cliff was it?"

"Lewis, you're not our dad." I said, rolling my eyes.

"Yeah, that's 'cause Lewis is a virgin." James teased in a singsong voice. "Imagine being on this planet 21 years and never being laid."

"Okay, that's enough, zombie horde." I tried to shut Jam up before he was clipped or cancelled. I glanced over at chat, my 1,678 viewers lapping this up like cats with milk.

I only heard a grumble in response.

"Now, where did you go splatt?"

===

I opened the final trapdoor on our trench, very proud of myself. We had dug a 3 block deep hole around the end portal, preventing the horde from following us into the end. The thing is; zombies are dumb. Therefore, they think an open trapdoor is a full block; dropping them into the hole.

I clicked F5, showing my chat my full iron armour, before jumping into the portal after my friends. By the time I had made it to the main island, Lewis had already shot two of ten pillars, with Nadia and Jamie towering up to the taller ones.

"Lewis! Do you have extra arrows?" I asked.

"Yup, I'll drop you 10."

I picked up the arrows and began to shoot at some pillars. I missed my first shot, but I managed to hit 4 more just before Nadia eliminated the final end crystal.

James and Lewis were already placing and blowing up beds when Nadia and I got to the centre, leaving the dragon with only half her health. I tossed Nadia a golden apple before scoffing one myself, running towards the dragons head. Nadia followed me, and the four of us worked to eliminate the dragon.

"There's one bed left!" Jam said.

"That should kill her!" Lewis replied, placing the bed before crouching behind a cobble wall.

"Who's doing the honours?" Nadia asked.

"We all should. Click on go!" I began to count down.

"3...

2...

1...

Go!"

We all clicked the bed simultaneously, blowing up the ender dragon. A spray of green tinged orbs rained onto our players, creating a satisfying ding as they were absorbed.

A chorus of whooping and cheering cried out between the group.

"This is going on my CV!" Nadia screamed.

This sent us all into a laughing fit, cackling at how genuinely serious Nadz was. The ping of a donation and a monotone voice cut through our giggles.

"How does it feel to beat the apocalypse mod faster than the Dream Team? Less than 3"

The chat began to fill with '<3's and 'dream team pog's.

"We did?" Lewis questioned, probably going to go Google the authenticity of the donation's  statement.

"THIS IS DEFINITELY GOING ON MY CV!"

===

We sat in the discord call for 3 hours after we all ended our streams, just talking about our weeks. Lewis was in the middle of a hilarious story about his boss falling down the stairs with a shit-tonne of ice cream, when my flatmate ran into my room.

"Bethan! Zayn just knocked over the cactus and it's everywhere but Rosa just peed on the floor so I have to clean that up too and the landlord is coming over tomorrow and-"

"Zoe, calm down. I'll be there in a sec."

"Okay. Okay." Zoe said, taking a deep breath.

I turned back to my PC, "Sorry about this guys, I'll talk to you all next time?"

"Sure, I should go to sleep anyway." Jam's Australian accent rang through the call.

"Oh God, I completely forgot that I have an upside-down time-zone." I smacked my forehead.

"Well, that's your own fault for living in Wales." Nadia chuckled.

"True."

I heard Zoe yelling from downstairs, probably at Rosa.

"Okay, I've really gotta go. Bye guys!" I rushed, leaving the call. "I'm on my way, Zo!"

I took off my headset, turned off my PC and leapt out of my seat, making my way to the door. However, being the clumsy person I am, I stepped on a schoolbook, shooting me backwards towards the wall. 

My back hit the desk, shaking my shelves. I braced for impact and stood still for a moment, my eyes closed. When nothing whacked me, I began to move again, sighing from relief. 

Unfortunately, that relief was too soon; as the second I moved, "The Seven Lamps of Architecture" fell onto my head. I heard more yelling from downstairs.

 "On my way!" I shouted.

Downstairs was a mess. There were random towels on the floor, compost on our sage green couch, and a cat curled lazily on a cushion.

"Zayn," I sighed, walking towards the cat, "How did you even get up to the cactus?"

"Rosa!"

 I heard a yelp from behind me. I snapped my neck around, to see a ginger cocker-spaniel bound towards me. I tried to move out of the way in time, but I was too slow;  leaving the puppy an open space between my legs to run through. 

Zoe was chasing Rosa (the dog). She was hunched over like an old man, trying to reach her phone hanging precariously from Rosa's mouth. Therefore, as she was so low down, she didn't see me in her way, sending the two of us to the floor;  surrounded by compost, towels, and dog piss.

We didn't bother moving.