Error 404

Chapter Four

I realized a few something's about myself today. One, I was totally useless. Two, I was the best stick to bring along if you wanted someone who planned ahead. And three, I was a slug without my coffee.

Out of everyone excluding the Gang, I did not have anything helpful to break out of this error. The Lord--I decided to call him that instead of Dark--had his knowledge of tech. Chosen had his fire. And rage. King had his staff. The Gang . . . I was still unsure about, since I did not see them anywhere.

The red torus-headed guy was pooling through miles of blinking ones and zeroes, searching for something. His eyes had glazed over and he stared at it like it was his life support. I hoped he found whatever it was he was looking for before he completely blanked out.

The black one was trying to burn a hole in the wall. The light revealed a smoking ring, and some ash clung to it, but probably more out of their fear of heights than them actually burning through anything. He must have gone through a centimeter, though, which was actually impressive.

King was using the staff to try and break through. He used a combination of whatever he thought of. Lightning, acid, mobs, but it did not do much damage. I think King was trying to make it snow in his corner, what with all the effort out to hack at the wall, but only a few pitiful flakes complied.

Out of these four candidates, I was the only one who had set up a house like I was going to live here.

I lay on my back, staring at the Error 404 Not Found sign. It was very entrancing, with its colorful popcorn and slight pulse, and someone could lose their mind in it. There was not much I could do anyways, so I just hoped that somebody would find a way out of here sooner or later, because I had nothing to add that might help.

Yawning, I shut my eyes for a second. I wish I had my paperwork with me. It would have at least given me something to do. But it was taunting me from the real world, sitting comfortably in my house with the half-cups of coffee strewn everywhere.

I groaned and wiped the sleep from my eyes. I need to stop thinking about the stupid coffee! Just the mention of it made me tired. I did not realize how addicted to the stuff I was, but half a day without it and my body acted like it had no bones.

Staring up again, I watched the Error. It swelled in size, paused, and the perfect font glitched for a second, before it slowly sank into an exhale and continued to grow and shrink. Before I could frown at it, the bright light dimmed a little, and something cold touched my legs. I quickly drew them to my chest as I sat up and my eyes goggled at the ground.

"Wha-?"

Instead of the blank white I had already gotten used to, odd-looking and discolored stones littered the place. Walls of the same material crawled up a few meters, thick at the bottom and a foot thin at the top. At least it offered some chill against the oppressing heat, and I scooted closer, sighing as I felt the cold waves shock my hot body.

But what was this? Some sort of maze? How did it appear? Was it because of the Error 404 sign? I placed my left hand on the chilly wall and got up. If this was a maze, I heard that taking the left corners will always lead you out. Even though I have no idea where I am in it, it couldn't hurt to try.

My elytra rustled behind me as I walked along, reminding me that I still wore them. I always had them on, so I forgot about them sometimes. Looking up, I saw that I still had lots of stacks of fireworks in my Minecraft inventory, so I should not run out of flying power any time soon. Maybe I could zip over the maze once I completed it? That might be fun.

I followed the twists and turns, humming myself a tune and knocking on the wall to make a drumbeat. I even skipped for a few minutes, but that exercise had me huffing pretty quickly. If I had my coffee . . . Well, I don't, so there is no point griping about it.