Bytes: Power of the Imperfect

2: Contretemps

Jeana carefully pulled out her iron pickaxe with her right hand, trying her best to only make the slightest sound possible.

She looked once at the sleeping knights and nodded to herself, confirming that they had completely fallen asleep.

Then she slowly pushed her hands onto the floor to sit up.

Jeana bit her lip and looked at the knights for the last time. She tightened her grip on the iron pickaxe, and was ready to swing it.

"Hey!"

A familiar whisper stopped her from proceeding further.

It came from Alexis, who hadn't been sleeping very well. His hand was rubbing his left arm, which Jeana's eyes quickly bulged at.

"Weren't you bitten by that creature earlier?!" Jeana asked a little bit too loudly.

"I dunno either. Somehow I managed to survive with just a scar."

"Do you feel any different?" Jeana asked.

"Seems like everything has gone back to normal," Alexis said, stretching his arms and sitting up.

"I feel hungry as the Nether though. I'll get food," he continued as he broke a two block tall hole of the shelter and went outside.

"There are monsters out there!" Jeana whisper-shouted. "I'll go with you," she offered.

"Alright, let's go."

After patching the hole up, they headed out to the wilderness to search for any possible creature to hunt down.

Only after a few blocks had passed, Jeana seemed to hear something other than their footsteps.

More footsteps.

Something or someone had been following them.

"Turn back with your fists ready in three."

"One.. Three!"

They both lurched backwards while turning around.

What they saw before their eyes was a small, shadowy figure behind some grass.

...With a meow.

Murray.

"Geez, It's just Murray.." Alexis said in relief, recognizing the cat's meow. "And can't you count correctly? That was one Nether of a shock," Alexis grumbled.

Jeana sighed relievedly and answered, "Well, don't blame me -- if that was something else, that would've been the right thing to do."

They continued walking to an opposite direction from the city with Murray, soon finding a pig coming by.

Jeana pulled her pickaxe out slowly, signing she'd soon strike at the poor thing.

She slammed the sharp tip of the pickaxe onto the flabby body of the pig, dealing a two-heart damage and causing the pig to squeal.

It ran away in panic, and the two chased it down into a grassy area; they had to be searching through bushes and tall grasses for the little fellow now.

The darkness of the night made it even harder to look.

Alexis landed a hit on the pig once with bare hands, dealing only very little damage.

Then they realized they'd went too far from the shack.

"Hey, I think there's no way we could find it now. Let's just go back to the shelter," Alexis gave up on running with an empty stomach.

"You sure?" Jeana asked.

"I mean, we'll just tire ourselves even more if we keep looking for it."

"Alright.."

So they walked back to the direction of the shelter, only to run into a despicable monster on the way there.

They heard a terrifyingly familiar hiss; almost the same as the sound of the spark of fire.

"Creeper!"

It was them now, who were frantically fleeing from the creeper that was nearing them.

But they failed to escape the explosion.

Jeana managed to survive with three hearts left, landing on her hands and knees.

A few seconds after they landed, the effect from the explosion was still buzzing in Alexis's ears. He was holding his head with both hands; his vision seemed to be blurry and distorted, everything twisting and spiraling around visually.

Alexis only had half a heart left.

And they soon realized, the explosion the creeper caused had led them to someplace that was certainly man-made.

They landed in the middle of a glass corridor.

[Author's Note]
Creepers are the most despicable mobs in Minecraft for me..

When you hear that sound, unless you can kill the creep with one hit, it's just boom-bye-bye.

[Fun Fact]
I got blown up by a creeper four times today, all showing up with the classic jumpscare-from-behind..