Hello, everyone! I'm supposed to write this essay for school. It has to be about situational irony, and literature. Well, with a little bit of rulebending, I have the rights to write this! So now, I'm going to write an essay that I'll (heck, yea!) use in FFN! I give you, "A Name for Myself". Be warned, though. This has lots of mentions of murder and heavy spoilers for Episode 5 and Minecraft: Ocelot Mode. So, you've been warned! Hit it, Crisper!
Crisper: But isn't this a school-assignment? Am I allowed to hit it?
Me: Let me see. Rules: No biting, no cheating, no lying, no eating folks... Yep! You're clear!
Crisper: Okay! (hits it)
PS: WARNING! MAJOR SPOILERS FOR MINECRAFT: OCELOT MODE AND MC:SM EPISODE 5! ALSO, FEELZ! WATCH OUT FOR THE FEELS AND IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SPOIL MINECRAFT: OCELOT MODE OR MC:SM EPISODE 5, RUN VERY FAR AWAY!
PPS: SPOILERS FOR THIS STORY! This contains HUUUGE SPOILERS for this story. If you don't want to be spoiled, skip to chapte 5 "Something About Apples". That's where this story actually begins.
So, I'll start from the beginning. Even up till now, my life hadn't been the best one. I'm not about to get into that. I'm only allowed a book's worth sheets of paper, and my writings have to get checked by guards, y'know, to avoid any "escape plans" or things like that. Not only am I limited as far as resources, I also don't want them to know about my personal past. At least not while I'm stuck here. It's amazing that I still want to write, though, despite someone reading over my every word as I write. Maybe I'm just that bored. No, desperate is probably a better word.
But let's not get too into that.
I started hanging out with Lukas a few years back before all of... this. I really liked him. He appreciated me... or so I thought. But as much of a jerk he turned out to be, we had some good times. Then along came another guy, Gill. I wasn't exactly sure why Lukas let Gill tag along, and I wasn't too fond of him at first. He was... loud. But I don't regret Lukas's choice. He's a great friend now, as is Maya. They're my only friends.
Maya came along much later. Now I was more than ready to let her join the gang, for some... interesting reasons... but it was only much later when I developed actual reasons to like her.
So there we were: The Ocelots.
We weren't much different, but if we bonded anyhow, it was definitely through building. That's also the reason Lukas was our leader. He made the ideas, we made them happen.
I liked it. We were at the top, but I guess I was a bit too at the top of things. Long story short, I saw everyone as competition. So when Jesse and his friends came along, man, I let them have it. They became like my own personal woodstack. When my day wasn't going well, I'd flame them. It became a common practice. Lukas didn't like it much. It was one of the big things we didn't have in common with Lukas, 'we' being Gill, Maya and me.
And along came the Witherstorm. We didn't quite survive, though we held out for a good little time before everything really went to hell in a handbasket.
While Maya, Gill and I were still wandering away from that Witherstorm, we realized just how much we missed that guy. He was pretty much the only thing holding us together, even with the way I treated Jesse and his friends like dirt. We swore that if we found Lukas we'd never let him go again. And later, we all died. We got sucked into that thing.
I swear, I still have nightmares. It was so darn horrifying in that thing. It was dark, painful, I couldn't breathe. It was like being in hell. I couldn't remember it after Jesse saved everyone from it, but the day that memory came rushing back I was never the same emotionally.
Then, we were back on Minecraftia again. Jesse, somehow, destroyed that thing. Believe me, despite this, I'm still grateful to him.
Maya, Gill and I have clung together since.
After a few weeks, Gill finally found Lukas. We were so happy. I even forgot about Jesse. Who cared about one nobody when you'd just died, came back and found your best friend? I sure didn't. Maya wouldn't stop crying about it. But I couldn't blame her. None of us could. I can't really write about how it felt just seeing him again. It was so... surreal. Was he really there? For a while, I couldn't even move to hug him. It was so unbelievable. He was right there.
We celebrated for days. Literally.
A few days later, I noticed that something wasn't right. Lukas was really distant. Kept shrugging us off like he had better things to do. He told us that he was volunteering as a builder, y'know to help restore everything the Witherstorm had destroyed. That was okay. It was good.
Until he stopped spending even his freetime with us.
We might've just been clingy and he needed his space, but each day it was like we were seeing less and less of him. And his belongings around the house. I suspected that he was moving out, which he was. When I asked him where he'd been going one night, he told us the truth.
He'd been hanging out with Jesse and his friends.
That made me... mad, you could say. Like, not mad as in angry. Mad as in 'mad in the head', that kind of thing. And mostly the angry kind of mad, too.
Recently, I'd heard, Jesse and his friends Axel, Olivia and Petra had become "The New Order of the Stone" or whatever. They went around, exploring new places, doing things the Old Order did, like keeping the public peace, and, most of all, treasure hunting. As if I wasn't irked that the victim of my childish rivalry was just skipping around the world claiming its treasures as his own, this blew my cap.
He just decided 'Hey, I collect treasures. Why don't I collect people, too?'. And so he decided that Lukas was on his 'to collect' list. But I don't entirely blame him, as much as I actually blame him.
It was Lukas that really ticked me off.
He knew what we'd been through, even before the Witherstorm. And even after our way-too-near-death encounter he hadn't learned a thing. I guess we just weren't any good for him any more. He hadn't joined Jesse and his gang until after they became the New Order. So was he even really into us in the first place, or was it just because he thought we were cool? Were we really ever true friends?
So, Lukas completely abandoned us for some fancied up has-been misfits. Now that they fit in even better than we as Ocelots had (I'll admit that much), he decided to buddy up with them. Even if that meant leaving us in the dust.
And that's how Maya and Gill became my real friends. They could've just rubbed shoulders with Jesse and did the whole 'I'm sorry let's be friends' act, the same way Lukas had. But they decided to stick with me. Why? I'm not sure. I didn't have anything to give them, and look at where I landed them. Jail. But they still want to stick around. Me-from-the-past would probably be calling them stupid right now, but I think it's because they genuinely care about me. So I care about them, too. I just wish I'd made some better choices since then.
First on my list was to get back at Jesse. I'd pretty much owned Lukas the same night, you might say. I still don't regret that.
And so we became Blaze Rods, because we'd make Jesse and Lukas burn for what they did to us.
Maya, Gill and I started planning some revenge. Since Jesse was so fancy-prance and all that, we thought we'd need to do something just as flashy to get his attention. And, boy, we sure did. Even if we went way over the top...
I started by getting Gill to do a bit of eavesdropping on Jesse's "mentor" Ivor. He came back and told us that Jesse was going to be finding some sort of treasure at a temple in the jungle. My plan was to get there ahead of time, get the treasure for ourselves, and roll up on Jesse and show off. The first night didn't go as planned, but the following day, with a bit more eavesdropping from all three of us, we ambushed Jesse at this golden portal.
Long story short, we stole the portal-key, as we soon learned it was called, lit the portal, and wound up in a new place we hadn't been before.
I wasn't expecting that, but boy were we happy as larks! Whatever larks are...
It was a whole new place for my friends and I to make a lasting name for ourselves. And that's exactly what we did. We bored a name into these folks heads'. A name they wouldn't forget.
A few lies later, I was a murderer. Well, almost, but I had a murderer's intent. A few weeks ago, when I'd kicked Isa, Jesse and Lukas over the edge, it was only savage satisfaction that came with the thought, but now it's terror. I didn't know I would go as far as killing. I only knew that the Void was a place of eternal nothingness. Anything that went in would be gone forever. I only knew that I wanted that kind of fate for Lukas, Isa and Jesse, even if I regret it now. It still fazes me that I'd really go that far. I never thought of myself as a killer until now. Now I can't forget, even if my victims survived me. Thank Notch there was land down there. I can't handle this now, even if they're alive...
Moving along, I started my tyrannical reign, having had killed the queen along with (guesss who) Jesse and Lukas. I still can't believe I tried to kill three people including my first friend, even if he turned out to be a backstabbing cheat. I'm quite far from justified.
I left Maya and Gill to their own devices, allowing them to do whatever they wanted to get their anger out and to tear apart the citizens. I don't know what it was I was trying to do then. I sure didn't know at the time either. I was king for a few minutes and everything was going awry. How typical. That was just the way it went after Lukas left. Leader for the rest of the night and things already were going downhill. Pretty much my life in a few words.
Reginald tried to yell some sense into me, but I didn't listen. Besides, there was no turning back. I'm surprised, though. I'd been expecting him to tear me to pieces, but I guess he didn't have a sword. Besides, I do remember threatening to kick him into what I thought was the Void, like I'd done Jesse, Lukas and his king the Founder. I'm quite aware that he saw nothing in me, no potential, no hope. The only thing he saw in me was the sword at my side. The thing I could've killed him with if I wanted his death to be swift at least.
But then Jesse showed up. He always had to show up, didn't he? I was screaming mad at him, literally. I just wanted him to die. I screamed that at his face a couple of times, too. Plus, I'd killed him once. I was more than ready to do it twice. Now, that just scares me. It only adds to the pile of things that keep my sleep riddled with nightmares, if I can sleep at all.
We clashed for a few minutes, him with his sword and I with mine. Of course, Jesse emerged victorious, kicking my butt again and all. That was terrifying. There was no way for me to defend myself from him, and we were on another edge of that city in the sky. I was subjected to the same death I had presented him with: Getting pushed into the void.
It was horrifying. I still remember begging for my life, on my knees. I don't know where Maya or Gill were at that moment. Wherever they were, I knew it was my fault. If they were dead, it was my fault. If they were caught by Jesse's other friends, it would be my fault. If they had slipped too close to an edge and fell, to be forgotten by all except me, it would be my fault.
Everything going wrong was my fault that day.
Just looking into Jesse's eyes made shivers run down my spine. I had never seen him so powerful. It was almost always I who held the upper hand. This was such a new, deadly sensation, something I just wanted to be over and through with. He just stared at me, musing. I could literally only wait for his reply, seeing Reginald glaring at me from behind Jesse. It wasn't a pretty sight, even though I get to see it every hour a guard in regal gold passes me by.
I remember his endless death stare pinned on my soul. It drowned out even the cry of Ghasts as they floated off behind us to destroy more and more of the city. Finally, he moved. I don't remember feeling more unsure in my life, and I'm a really insecure person. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me up, and if anyone would say 'iron grip', I'd tell him that Jesse's grip was about as brutal as a snake's fangs closing down on my arm. He looked downright venomous.
He threw me into one of the waterfalls that would take me to the Void. I remember breaking into tears, begging him for my life. I wasn't even speaking fine English at that point. I couldn't. I just wanted to go home and be finished with whatever it was I had decided to do. I asked him to reconsider, to think about his decision. To kill me made perfect sense. I deserved it from the man I tried to murder, but the words that came out of my mouth were 'Please, don't be rash about this'. As if he was the rash one at that point. And so he let me go, literally. Leaving his mark on my life, as well as my physical body.
At this point, I don't even know what would've been better, had I died from the stab wound and then the impact of hitting the bottom, or living. I think, though, that the best choice has nothing to do with that. I think my best choice was to give up trying to be better than Jesse. I should've left alone the man who killed the Witherstorm.
So now I have exactly what I thought I wanted. A name for myself in Sky City.
Author's Note:
Crisper: I'll be taking over the Author's Note. A little bit into the narrative, Gamer (the Aiden-sympathizer she is) lost it. No joke. Tears were shed.
Me: *loud crying* I FORGIVE YEH!
Crisper: So... tell me what you thought about this. It's supposed to be something for school, so leave a review about that too. I'll tell her when she's finished weeping her face out. If you forgive Aiden or any of the Blaze Rods, tell us in a review! Eh, I guess I should close it then. (closes it)
Me: WAAAITT! If you want another chapter in which one of the guards reads over Aiden's work and talks to Aiden about it, leave a positive review!