Tell Me A Tail

Chapter 1 - A New World

Nothing is better than relaxing after a long day of strip mining, Alex decided, throwing herself onto a blue-colored bed on one side of the room. She stares up at the oak wood ceiling that was thrown together the night before, along with the rest of the sorry excuse of a house that she and her friend call home for the time being. Mobs were spawning quickly and they didn't have time to build much; just four walls and a roof, that's it. This slightly disappointed Alex since she loves the grind of building a home that not only looks amazing but that she's proud of. Her friend, on the other hand, Steve, didn't mind the typical beginner's hut.

It's not that the place was a horrible living area; that had everything they could need for their first few nights in their newly generated world. A couple of furnaces, a crafting table, as many chests as they could fit on a single wall, and two beds spaced evenly apart; one of which is occupied by her at the moment and the other empty bed with a red cover.

She chuckles, shifting her gaze from the ceiling to the bed across from her. Steve always liked the original color before the 1.12 update. He preferred a lot of the original Minecraft elements before the more recent updates. He doesn't mind them at all; he recognizes that they're all cool and unique in their way. But sometimes, he would talk her non-existent ear off about how "old Minecraft was better", this only makes her giggle more.

On the other hand, she loves the newer versions. All the new and exciting elements, just waiting to be explored. It fills her with more joy than anything in the world. Well, besides taking care of all the animals that the game provides; that's her all-time favorite. She can't stand the thought of killing an innocent creature, minding its own business. This of course gets a laugh out of Steve himself. His rebuttal to her refusing to go hunt is always the fact that they don't have feelings, they're just computer programing and natural resources that are supposed to be used. And yeah, she knows all of this, and the fact that tons of the same animal will respawn later on but for her, she just imagines that they do feel like Steve and she does. It gives her reason to smile when a sheep walks past their window because for a moment, she imagines the small baa of the sheep is a way of them saying "hello" to the pair.

Alex has always been the "find the light in every situation" kind of gal, and Steve couldn't be even more the opposite. She takes her time, exploring the world and all it has to offer, Steven would much rather run through the game as quickly as he can to see what time he gets. And because of their differences, they don't play in the same world as often as they used to when they were younger. But after a while of solo play, you start to miss your best friend.

And that's what brought them to this world in the first place. They wanted to reconnect after the time they had even realized they'd lost. They both made promises to enjoy each other's company as much as possible instead of doing their own thing. Steve would slow down and enjoy not having a count down or worry about his high score. And Alex would give trying to defeat the game a chance since she's never had any interest in it before. And although their clashing play styles would be tough to navigate, they were both pretty excited to try something new.

Speaking of which, Alex realizes she hadn't seen Steve since they first loaded up the game. He said he would go explore for a bit to see if he could find a better spot for her to build their house (since that's what he promised she could do) but he hasn't returned yet. Normally, this doesn't worry Alex since Steve is very capable of handling himself but there was something off about him not responding to her chat messages.

She sits up in her bed, facing the door. I should probably go after that idiot, she thinks, sliding off her bed and heading to the chests on the wall. She takes a small assortment of things out of the chest, putting them straight into her inventory. A stone sword and matching pickaxe, her leather armor which she puts on right away, a mix of different foods they've collected plus extra in case Steve didn't have any on him (which wouldn't be surprising since Steve is always asking for food) and a few stacks of cobblestone in case she needed to climb. And after all the strip mining she just got done with, a few stacks missing barely puts a dent in how much cobblestone she ended up with.

Before heading out the door, she sends one last in-game message: I'm heading out to find you since you've gone deaf apparently. She waits only a few seconds before finally pushing open the door and stepping back out into the world. It's still pretty early and night shouldn't be falling anytime soon so she figured it'd be safe to go out for a bit. He couldn't have wandered far since they've only been in the world for a little under 2 days. Piece of pumpkin pie, Alex thinks as she travels farther into the woods surrounding their small house to look for her friend.