"What the fuck is this?" asked Karkat.

Karkat had opened the Minecraft application on Sollux's computer. Karkat looked about the title screen for any clue to what the stupid program might be.

Sollux sighed and walked up behind him, "It's called Minecraft, Karkat. It's a game. It just had a big update."

Sollux had invited himself over to hang out at Karkat's place. Karkat sure wasn't going to do any inviting. The two young trolls wasted hours with coding and code-related conversations. They wrapped up their day's work and continued to hang out into the evening. Karkat and Sollux briefly switched computers to check over some final errors when Karkat started clicking around and opened up the Minecraft application.

Karkat pressed a few buttons, "Am I winning?"

"No," said Sollux, "You have to start a new game. Click 'Create New World'."

Karkat clicked a few more times.

"Am I winning yet?" asked Karkat.

"No," said Sollux, "You can't win. There's no goal."

"What?" said Karkat, "That's retarded! What kind of idiot plays a game with no goal?"

"You shouldn't be so presumptuous, Double-K," said Sollux, "Give it a shot. Maybe you'll enjoy it."

Karkat scowled, "And maybe I'll enjoy jumping down a fifty foot cliff into a jagged rocky abyss while punching myself in the face and thinking of all the time I wasted playing retarded video games without any goals or objectives."

"Maybe," said Sollux, "Once you're done here, maybe you should take a walk out into the woods and give that a shot, too."

Karkat was quiet. Sollux was in a snarky mood so Karkat instead put his focus on playing the damn game. Sollux watched from behind him with a warm grin on his pressed a few keys, clicked the mouse a few times, and adjusted the volume control.

Karkat then asked, "So what do I do first?"

The sun was just rising over the wide open field. Karkat found himself in the middle of large, empty grassland with only a few trees in the distance and a few sheep nearby. Not much more could be seen among the rolling hills around him. Only the clouds were above.

Sollux's disembodied voice came in, "First, you have to build shelter. Find some trees."

Karkat looked over at the trees far in the distance, "Why aren't there any trees around here? Is this place sick with radiation poisoning? What kind of game starts you off in a contaminated area?"

"Don't worry about it," said Sollux, "Head over to those trees. You want to build a shelter before night sets in."

Karkat walked. And as he did he looked around at all the world had to offer. A small pond surrounded with a slope of sand. Tall grass rose from the dirt. There were patches of red and yellow flowers among the waves of land. The land seemed to go on forever with a million secrets waiting to be unveiled.

"What happens when night sets in?" asked Karkat.

"Zombies come out," said Sollux, "Zombies and skeletons. But the one's you really got to watch for is the creepers."

"Thank you for the hint, oh wise one," said Karkat, "Let me check my encyclopedia of bullshit just to find out what the fuck those are!"

"They're bad guys, KK," said Sollux, "Okay... don't worry about them for now. Just find some trees."

Karkat groaned, "Okay."

"I have found some trees," said Karkat, "What now?"

Karkat stood at the end of a large forest. Tall, fearsome trees drowned the floor with the shadows of oblivion. For a second Karkat could see something in the distance, but no. No, it was nothing. Just seein' things.

"Punch them down!" said Sollux.

"What!" said Karkat, "What kind of dumbass goes around punching trees?"

"It's part of the game, Double-K," said Sollux.

Karkat scowled and approached a short oak tree nearby. He glared at it. This tree before him was an enemy and it was his sworn duty to defeat it. He heaved back his arm and swayed his body forward as his unleashed one fuck of a punch. There was a loud quaking crash as his knuckles connected with the tree's barky surface. The tree fell towards the ground and exploded into a bunch of spinning wood block pickups.

Karkat went wide-eyed, "Wha-! Did I kill it!"

"Uhhh... sure," said Sollux, "Take the wooden pieces and make them into planks."

Karkat picked up one of the blocks and asked, "What do I do? Just chop them with my bare-!"

The block in Karkat's hands had popped into four wooden planks. After a brief juggling act, Karkat lost hold of the planks and they all fell to the ground. Karkat stamped his foot in a show of anger.

"What the fuck!" said Karkat, "They turned themselves into a bunch of wooden longboards!"

"Take the planks," said Sollux, "and build yourself a crafting bench."

Karkat groaned some more and picked up some of the planks. He cobbled them together until they formed a crafting bench. It wasn't a very professional looking one. It was uneven. Some of the wood on the sides was chipped and coarse. Heck, even some of the nails weren't in all the way. But what was Karkat supposed to do? All he did was press a bunch of planks together like a sorceror!

"Isn't that cute?" said Karkat, "I have myself a wooden pile of shit!"

"Yes you do," said Sollux, "Take the planks to make some sticks and take those sticks and some planks to make a pickaxe. You have only a few hours until nightfall so you better get digging a hole or building a shelter because you don't want to be outside when the creepers come out."

Karkat slapped the planks on the bench, cut them into sticks, took the sticks with a few more planks and built himself a nice sturdy wooden pickaxe. For some reason a wooden pickaxe made out of scrawny twigs was strong enough to break through hard rock, but Karkat wasn't going to question the physics of the alien world. But then he did!

"How does a wooden piece of shit pickaxe break into solid rock?" asked Karkat, "What kind of bile-spewing part-"

"Quiet, Karkat!" ordered Sollux, "Start digging down. You'll need stone to make better equipment."

Karkat groaned and picked up the pickaxe from the bench. He stumbled around the grass for a bit before settling on a nice spot to dig down. He heaved the pickaxe high into the air and struck the dirt with all his might. A block of dirt popped out! Karkat wasn't a fan of the blocks and tossed that one aside. He dug deeper into the ground, tossing more blocks aside.

While Karkat was busy underground mining stone and dirt, day was coming to a close. The sun was falling back behind the horizon and darkness was blanketing over the fields. Monsters were starting to dwell out of the forests and into the plains. The world was turning hostile.

Karkat walked out of his pit with dust on his face and stone in his hands. He panted coarsely as his lungs had been smoked with rocky dust.

"It's nighttime!" said Karkat.

Sollux chuckled, "It's too late to build a house now. There are monster out. You should use your cave for shelter for now."

"I'm not living in some stale cave!" said Karkat, "Fuck that! I'll build a house!"

Karkat looked around. There were skeletons with bows, and pale-fleshed zombies. And off in the distance he could see some green pole-creatures, whatever they were. His world had turned against and now he had to fight to survive.