The Journey Home: A Minecraft Story

Six

Six

At some point during the night I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes, I was stretched out on the floor and daylight streamed in through the door’s small window.

“Man, that sucked,” I groaned. My back and legs were stiff and achy and my head pounded as if a million drummers were in there banging away on pots and pans. “C’mon, body, let’s move. We’ve got lots to do today.”

With some difficulty, I managed to get t my feet and stagger over to the door. Even though my legs protested, demanding that I lay back down, I reminded them that I was the boss and that if we accomplished what I had planned, we’d have a comfortable place to sleep that night. When put like that, my body seemed to perk up a bit. I checked my pockets and found my axes. I was ready to go.

Opening the door, I stared in shock. The ground was littered with loot from all the dead monsters. Everything from rotten meat to bones and arrows. I collected it all, figuring that the stuff would come in handy at some point during my oh so unwelcomed adventure. I ran to the edge of the desert where the sand met the grass. Since I had cut down the trees closest to my home, I was going to have to venture further out into the savannah wilderness to gather supplies.

With nerves on high alert, I proceeded with caution away from the safety of my shelter. Spiders roamed the wide open landscape, but none of them seemed interested in me. There came a point where one big brute of a monster walked right up to me, screeched and then walked off, leaving me holding my breath and sweating like crazy.

The first chance I got, I dashed over to the nearest tree, a tall double canopy, and started hacking away at it like a mad woman. The tree was so tall, that I had to place a block of wood back on the ground to get the top-most piece and just like the other day, once it was disassembled, the leaves began to disappear. Gathering the saplings, I made another mental note to replant them closer to home.

“Replant closer to home. REPLANT!”

Hopefully the memo would stick this time.

After a few hours of clear cutting much of the savannah, I ended up with two full stacks of wood. “I won’t be needing wood anytime soon. One hundred and twenty-eight blocks should go pretty far.”

“Baa,” came a reply, one that I was expecting.

I jumped almost three feet into the air, not realizing that the sheep had been right behind me. “Not cool, dude. Not cool.”

The animal looked up at me and, uninterested with what he saw, stooped to munch some grass. I stepped up beside it and laid my hand on its back. The wool was black and tightly coiled, but very soft.

“Baa.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know, but how do I get your wool, Mr. Sheepie?”

He ignored me and walked off. Following him was easy peasy, but also harder than picking a sewing needle off the floor without stabbing oneself. The sheep never moved very fast, so I had no problem keeping up with him, but the problem was erratic pattern. He couldn’t just walk in one direction, oh no! He had to do something like: move three blocks forward, stop, spin around, backtrack two blocks, move left, forward, stop, munch some more grass (little porker!), go right four blocks, stop, spin around three times, and move forward again.

I didn’t know if I was going crazy or just getting dizzy!

So concerned was I with following the sheep that I wasn’t paying attention to where I was. That carelessness almost cost me my life in a very painful, very brutal way.

Once I regained my balance and sense of special awareness, I glanced down. A ravine spread out below me, the edges hidden behind the tall grasses and small rolling hills. Tiptoeing out a bit, I caught a glimpse of the bottom – dozens and dozens of blocks deep – and the river of lava partially obstructed from view by an outcropping of stone. Higher up on the walls, the solid monotony of gray stone was broken up in a few places by blocks of stone encrusted with either black or pink…stuff.