Look me in the Eyes

Your Answer and Mine

I wandered farther, searching for more answers, more stories to tell me why so many considered this place worth their blood. I questioned every Enderman I came across, but their words offered no comfort. "For the beauty of the world." "To observe the Players." "Because they're everywhere." Nothing satisfied me.

I searched the sky for Phantoms, summoning them down by staying awake for nights on end. Wearily I asked them why they did not move elsewhere, why they stayed on this plane. Their answers confused me even more. "Death." "Playtime." "You're it."

When at last I slept and they went away, I could hardly be sure I'd seen them at all. Nevertheless, what replies I'd been given wrestled with my heart and I was still not appeased. I could have just gone home. Given up on my search. Asked the elders why they had stayed so long only to come back to the End at last.

But still, something kept me here too. Home, despite its stark beauty, could not compare with the multitudinous virtues of this world. Even the thought of the Ender Dragon, of her loving warmth and her giant purple eyes, was not enough to call me away. And so, every morning I woke and plucked another block of peace from the ground, carrying it until the pain inside me made it crumble in my hands. Every morning I stood and accepted the wind's caress. I tried to remember what this world had once looked like to my eyes.

At last, after many weeks of wandering, I found my answer. But it was far different than what I'd been expecting, and for that I was profoundly grateful. It was a summer afternoon and I was nearby a village; the sun hung unobscured in the sky, shining its ever-comforting warmth on my black skin, while a cool breeze stirred the boughs of the oak trees behind me. I was back in the meadows, watching hundreds of tulips, sunflowers, alliums, cornflowers and rosebushes nod in the wind. As the bees came for the pollen they would later make into honey, a fresh breath of air pushed us all back a little and carried the scents of every one of those flowers to me. Blue and gold and purple, the flower petals almost glinted in the sun. White and red and pink, they swayed as the bees landed on them with their fuzzy, delicate feet. My heart was apparently heavier than the bees were, for I was sure no flower could take the weight of the bitterness that still weighed it down.

I didn't sit long, though. A weird squealing, that I had at first taken for village animal noise, was growing steadily louder nearby. Curious and somewhat alarmed, I got up and strode back through the trees to investigate. A few steps brought me to a little clearing, where stood a Nether portal. Several chunks of its obsidian had corrupted, rendering the portal useless. Before it, scrabbling and writhing on the foreign Netherrack, was a Piglin, slowly zombifying in the sun.

This world is a cruel place to those who do not belong to it. For a Piglin, zombification is never a painless process. It lasts for days. My heart cracked as I saw the convulsing body and I teleported to him in an instant. Gathering him up in my arms, I held him as tightly as I could. He should not have to go through this alone, as so many of his kind have had to.

The Piglin squealed again, rolling his eyes up to meet mine in agony and terror, his hands reaching out to me for help. I could do nothing to ease his pain, but I could at least be here for him. I had to fight the urge to look away, though, to break the vital reassurance my gaze provided his frantic mind.

He twisted in my arms, his hands now clawing at his throat as he he began to gasp. His lungs were rotting inside him. His hooved feet kicked out, striking against stone and earth, desperate to escape the pain lodged inside his body. Again and again I resisted looking away from the Piglin's hideous panic, from the spots of flesh that were already turning green. His eyes were locked onto mine and I saw the exact moment they glazed over, the life fading slowly away from their soft brown, turning them dull and empty. The Piglin shuddered in my arms and then lay limp.