The Player

Prologue

I've been running for hours, maybe days. In the distance, I see a glowing light. What is it? It can't be a portal, since nobody can make them. The players were deleted from existence years ago. Once again, without realizing, I trip. My leg is severed, so I simply attach it to my body. I sit there wincing for a couple seconds, then stand up. I bump into something, which is Enderman. My partner, who was supposed to come with me to look for signs of life, had been distracted and chased a sheep. Jeez, and I thought zombies didn't have brains. "Thanks for ditching me, by the way." I say casually. "And here I thought the lord's minion wouldn't chase sheep."

"And here I thought you wouldn't run away from your own partner." He says back. I huff and blush. "You scared me, okay? When you see a purple eyed, ten foot man behind you when you don't expect it is freaky."

"Okay, so I scared you. Fine, and for the record, I don't chase over world animals." He snaps. "Or so I thought." I say back with an evil smile. He does not look happy. He gives a neck snapping symbol.

"Whatever." I brush myself off and continue walking.

"I mean like it's not like my life would ender anything." I grin.

"You're not funny."

"I know, it's just some comic relief."

Enderman catches up and continues walking in front of me.

"Minions first." He teased.

"Hey, I'm his minion too." I reply hastily.

"Hm." He shrugs it off.

He suddenly stops walking. I catch up beside him. His eyes are pure purple, the one thing I am used to seeing him do. He suddenly comes to. The lord has given him orders. I'll never understand how that works in such a fashion.

"The lord says we have to go back now. He's had enough of us looking, and enough of you cracking jokes." He points at me.

"Well think of it this way; have you ever seen the lord laugh anyway? Not me." I say as an excuse.

"Only when things go his way, or something goes successfully." He says.

Fine, I guess that was the response I was expecting. Enderman is always so serious, so he probably told him with his...physics or something about me cracking jokes. Now that, that isn't funny.

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"You know, we could have used Ender pearls to get here rather than walking the whole five miles." I complain. My feet are wet from rainwater that fell down here. There is also a waterfall. Well legs, this is my last goodbye. It's a dark cave, too. Enderman forgot to pack torches. "Well frankly, you need the exercise." Enderman teases.

"Wha- I can't digest anything!" I shout.

"Okay, chill. Now I'm making jokes." He says.

"In other words, it's late." I grumble.

Enderman sighs and walks deeper into the mossy cobblestone cave. I guess it looks different from other caves so he knows what it looks like. I don't, so I just follow him.

"You don't need Ender pearls to find your way back to your own home." He says suddenly.

I flinch because his words scare me, but continue walking at a steady pace.

"You know where the End portal is?" I ask.

"Yes, I do. Why wouldn't I?" He asks. "I've lived there for hundreds of years."

"So getting out and about is like a vacation?" I ask, as if I didn't know.

"Yeah, kind of." He replies. "It's peaceful. But only without you."

"Ouch, dude."

"Sorry. Too far?"

"Yeah."

He simply continues walking and huffs. His breath begins to come out of his mouth in white clouds. That can only mean one thing, which is that we are getting closer to the end portal. I suddenly freeze when I hear footsteps from the cave. I tug on Enderman's side.

"What?" He asks.

"Did you hear that?" I whisper. "Someone's here."

"Oh relax." He says. "It's probably you hearing things again. Suddenly light pours from a spot in the cave and I see a gleam of metal in the distance. A figure appears from the dark and shoots the metal. It drops by my feet. When I pick it up, I almost faint.

An arrow just shot from the dark.

Enderman stares at it like it's the most interesting thing in the world, but I grab his arm and try to run before he can stare for too long. I trip and fall hard on my face and I see something coming from the darkness, placing light. It looks like a player, but that's crazy since the universe hasn't bothered to make players. This world should be free to walk on by monsters. It might be a skeleton, but I hear Enderman die from the other end of the cave, and I would think a skeleton would notice before he killed that it's an Enderman. When the figure comes back, it spots me instantly and shoots right into my chest, hitting me hard. I barely have any physical form so I didn't feel it, but when it places the torch, my heart stops anyway. A player in a blue shirt and a beard. He had a diamond sword and a bow with 64 arrows.

"A player..." I whisper to myself. The blade is held up above his head and stabbed right to my chest. His grin will never be forgotten as white dust scattered where I was hit.