String of Fate

Chapter Twenty

I made it home a little later than I thought I would, especially since I technically had plans. I was late to join the Minecraft server that I visited for at least an hour every day, and had the most fun in the days. We were all people that had never met. It had been going for about six months and I'd found it through Tumblr. We had become a group of friends, and one of them mentioned that they had a Minecraft server and given us the IP and password. The seven of us had started joining the server regularly and connected to each other through Skype. I hit the power button on my computer and grabbed my headset, sitting in my seat without even changing out of my uniform. It was Friday, so, it didn't make a difference. I set the headset on my head as my cockatiel flew out of his cage and landed on my shoulder. "Good afternoon, Sherlock."

I logged onto the server and saw that it wasn't just me that was here. TryangleHead was also online. It was his server, so, I wasn't too surprised that he was here. He popped in when he could – for some reason his schedule was all over the place, so, he just came over when he could. The rest of us seemed to have a more regular schedule so you could kind of tell who was going to be on the server and when. I was about to add him to a phone call on Skype when the call came through from him. "Hey, Try. Sherlock says hi, too."

"Hey, Sherlock." TryangleHead answered. I didn't know his real name. That was the good thing about our group – no-one knew our names and no-one asked. We could ask but it wasn't something we needed to know or share. It was like a secret rule that our group had. Nobody had even felt the need to ask. "So, Beanie, how was your day?"

"I've had worse." I commented, not enjoying the previous events of the day but smiling at the shortened version of my username 'BeanBagDragon' after my favourite beanie toy from my childhood. I headed down to my mine in the game, it seemed like I needed a little bit of time to just chill and strip mine in the game. It helped me to unwind. "At least it's Saturday tomorrow and I can stay on here all night. How was your day? Was work busy?"

"A little. We had one grumpy person but I didn't have to deal with him." He replied. I pulled my bow out in the game and shot a Creeper who was heading towards me. It had somehow gotten into the strip mine, but I was sure that I had successfully blocked off all the caves that I had run into. The Creeper knocked back before deciding to blow up. I shot the zombie instead. "What was that explosion?"

"Me and a creeper." I explained quickly. "I'm surprised that you heard that wherever you are."

"Did you die?" TryangleHead asked.

"No! Not today! This time, I win Creeper!" I exclaimed. Usually, I didn't survive a Creeper. I heard him laugh on the other end of the line. "Come on, I must be getting better at the game now. Where is your base, anyway? I'm miles away from my home."

"Oh, I see your nameplate. You're on my left. I'm coming over." He spoke. I stopped walking, looking around for his nameplate. I didn't see it until he popped out of the stone on the side of my strip mine a bit further back, his new skin now making him look like Crash Bandicoot. I laughed out loud. "What? Don't you like my new skin? I thought it was a nice change from the penguin I had before."

"I like Crash Bandicoot. Did you make it yourself or find it on a website?" I queried.

"I made it, of course. No, I'm only joking. I found it on the skins website you recommended. I thought it looked cool. I was thinking that no-one else would recognise it." Try joked. He led the way back down to his mineshaft and we were quiet for a few minutes as I followed him into his base that turned out to be in one of the giant trees that the mods generated, spread across a treehouse, various levels within the tree itself and various basement levels. This place was huge. "Hey, Beanie, do you want to meet up in real life next weekend? You don't have to if you don't want to but I would like to meet you in real life."