Virus (A Minecraft Story)

Chapter 2

I sat in our house, idly turning the sword in my hands. I'd cleaned it of blood ages ago, but I hadn't yet put it down.
Ana was pacing the living room, muttering to herself as she walked.

Loca was slumped on a nearby chair, with Lyta scraping cobwebs off his arm after the spider attack, scolding him for not being careful enough. Nobody wanted to do anything; none of us knew what to do, who to go to, where to go.
And even if we did, we were still recovering from the shock.

Ana came to a stop in the middle of the room, swore loudly and said, "Seriously, what was that? We've all seen a few odd mix-ups before -"

Loca laughed and looked over at me. "Oh dude, remember that chicken with a chin that looked like a butt?"
I grinned. "That was hilarious. Didn't you keep it and call it Double Butt?"

Ana interrupted us quickly before the conversation developed further, into another of our bizarre conversations. "The point is, this is something completely different. Something strange. Something none of us has ever seen before. Did you guys see whatever crawled over that spider before it completely freaked out? I think something's up."

Loca shrugged. "Don't sweat it, Ana. It's probably just that one spider. A Realmer could've been experimenting on one to set on a User. You know what they're like."

He got to his feet and pushed open the door to walk outside, brushing the last of the cobwebs away from his arm.
As we followed him, we all spotted what he'd spotted - a creeper standing fifteen metres away, currently minding its own business and looking completely harmless.

"Look, I'll prove to you guys that they're normal." Loca said, picking up a spare iron sword that somebody had been polishing and then forgotten about.
The three of us all realised what he was going to do at the same time.
"No," Ana started, taking a step forwards. "Loca, don't -"

But he drew back his arm and threw the sword with deadly accuracy, the blade driving straight through the creeper's stomach. I sucked in a breath, and the other two cringed in shock.

It froze, eyes travelling downwards to the sword embedded in its gut, then turned and looked straight at us with its dead black eyes.

"You see?" Loca called out to us, spreading his arms wide in an exaggerated gesture. Getting cocky, he started walking towards the creeper, to prove everything was fine. "Nothing to worry about!" He called out, smiling.
But I wasn't feeling the same joy.
It began to expand, making that familiar, dread-inspiring hiss, and as I watched my gut told me something was about to go terribly wrong.

"Loca! Stop!" I shouted, running forwards. But, just as I reached for him, he took a step back, into the ten metre range.

The explosion rocked the world with a sound like a Wither screaming, and I was knocked backwards by the force of the blast, hitting the ground hard clasping my ears in pain.

When the smoke cleared, and the ringing noise in my ears had faded, I got slowly to my feet, brushing off chunks of dirt to find Loca staring into the depths of the crater the creeper had created, his face as white as a sheet.

Wincing at the bruises and cuts decorating my body, I came up next to him, caught my breath, and looked down.
What I saw took my breath away.
The crater was massive, about twelve by five metres wide. It went so far down, I couldn't actually see the bottom. I could hear rubble hitting bottom, though, probably a load of diamond fragments that were now useless.

Loca began to tremble violently at the close call, so I carefully looped my arms around him and dragged him away, protective of my shell-shocked friend.
I took him back to the house, the wall and pen still intact, and pulled him through the door, dragging him into the living room.