Tales of Minecraft: The Curse (Remake)

9: Secrets?

Zip's POV
"Where is he?" Tim asked.

"Um..." Fury hesitated. I watched as Fury's eyes filled with tears, and she bit her lip. "I have to go," she quickly mumbled and she ran off, jumping off the platform and swinging down the vines before disappearing into a room. We stood still for a moment, stunned.

"Did I say something wrong?" Tim asked.

"I assume so," Jade said.

"Something about her brother," Luke wondered. "Did something happen to him? Maybe they argued or something."

"Could be anything," I said.

"So what do we do now?" Jade asked.

Everyone looked at me, waiting for an answer. I hesitated. "She told us where the kitchen is and where we could sleep, so I guess... grab some food, head to bed. It's pretty late anyway."

"Should someone check that Fury's alright?" Tim asked, glancing at the door Fury disappeared into.

"I'll do it in a few minutes," I said. "Give her some time to calm down."

"And what about her dog?" Alex asked, looking down at Fury's dog, Wolf. He was lying on the ground, looking up at us with intelligent eyes.

"I'm sure he won't hurt us, as long as we don't hurt him or Fury. Let's go get food."

We headed down two flights of stairs, Wolf following us. The room Fury had disappeared into was on the floor below. The kitchen was on our right as we came to the end of the stairs. There were several apples in a bowl on the bench, and some other vegetables in the cupboard. I quickly ate an apple and left, looking for Fury. I found an armoury and a room with a few seats that was partially open to the elements. I found the stairs and went down to the second floor of Fury's house. I couldn't remember which room Fury had disappeared into, so I carefully looked into the first room I came across and walked inside.

It was a bedroom, with light grey walls, one big window and a large bed with striped blue sheets. In the corner was an art easel with a half-finished painting resting on it. The painting, the easel and the paint jars were covered in a layer of dust. The walls had pictures hanging on them, like a timeline. The one closest to the door showed two children, a boy and a younger girl, sitting on a tree branch, looking at the setting sun. The picture next to it showed the same children again, running away as a village burned behind them. In the third picture, the children were huddled together in a cave, dimly lit by light. It looked a lot like the cave that we had found.

There were more pictures on the next wall. The boy - older now - hunting cows and pigs, the girl - also older - training with two swords, both of them jumping over tree tops, heading for a large tree in the distance. I took a closer look at the girl. She was small in most of the pictures, but I recognised her as a young Fury. She could have only been 8 years old or so in the last picture, while she was a lot younger in the first one. The boy had the same brown hair and face shape. Was this her brother? Where was he now? Why was his room dusty?

The room held no answers, so I left and continued down the hallway. The next few rooms were empty. I had a feeling that a lot of these rooms were empty. When I came to the door at the end of the hall, I heard suppressed sobs, like someone was crying but was trying not to. I carefully looked into the room. It was fairly large, with a big window that was open. On one wall was a sword rack with a few iron and stone swords. A double sword sheath was lying on the ground, two diamond swords still in it. A single bed with dark blue sheets had been pushed up against the wall, and sitting on top of it, her knees huddled to her chest, tears running down her cheeks, was Fury.

She glanced up as I looked in and quickly wiped away her tears, but they refused to stop falling. So she looked away from me, her plait swinging as she tried to hide her face. I carefully walked inside. I didn't know how Fury would react to me walking into her room, if she would just whip out a dagger she had and try to attack me or something.

"Are you okay, Fury?" I asked quietly.

Fury didn't answer, but she didn't need to. It was obvious that something was wrong. I sat next to her, not too close though.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked her.

She barely shook her head, another sob escaping. I looked around her room. There were no pictures except for a single picture stuck up next to her bed. It was another painting of her and the boy who I assumed was her brother.

"It's about your brother, isn't it?" I said. "Something happened to him."

No answer, just another sob. I moved closer to Fury and carefully put my arm around her. She shrugged it off at first and I let it drop.

"It's not bad to cry, you know. We all do it."

Fury sniffed and wiped her face again, trying to get rid of the tears. I sat there uncomfortably for a few minutes, my finger tracing patterns on the bed quilt. After a few minutes, Fury shuffled a tiny bit closer to me. I took that to be a good sign and I put my arm around her shoulders again, giving her the tiniest of hugs. I asked myself why I was doing this. I wasn't normally a comforting type of person. Maybe it had something to do with Fury's age, and the fact that she was alone. Well, almost alone. Wolf walked into the room, walking that funny walk that dogs do. He jumped up onto the bed and climbed into Fury's lap, curling up. She gently patted his fur.

"I'm okay now," she said after a few more minutes, wiping some more tears away.

I nodded and stood up. "Okay. See you tomorrow then," I said awkwardly and left. I headed up the stairs to the third floor, I think. I found an empty bedroom that had the light from the moon shining in and went inside, taking off my sword, bow, and arrows and leaving them in the rack that was attached to the wall. I climbed into the grey sheets, but didn't fall asleep.

Fury confused me. At first, she seemed so strong, capable and wary. But she was kind, otherwise we wouldn't be here. But just then, she seemed to young, so hurt and alone. What had happened to her brother? Why was she alone? That burning village in the picture, was that her village? How did she survive all those years with just her brother?

And how did she know about that Elite skeleton? In fact, how did she know where to find us in the first place? Was she following us? Was she in the village to take what she could? To steal? Could we trust her? Should we trust her?

Somehow, I managed to fall asleep. But I slept fitfully, my mind jumping between dreams of being attacked by skeletons, and a burning village.

Chapter in original book: 11

Random thought I had today: Whenever you think you're horrible and can't achieve anything, remember this: You're setting a new record for the most number of consecutive days you've lived. I've current got a record of 6208 days.