I smiled.
Finally, a world that doesn't suck.
That was my first thought as the world generated, the fifth new world I had made in just the past few minutes, and my expectations were quite low. I was getting screwed by the world generator, spawning in boring plains with no trees over and over again.
That's why when I spawned at the base of a huge mountain, adjacent to a snow biome and a jungle biome on either side, I was elated. Now this is Minecraft, I thought happily. I quickly began to go about the usual routine: I chopped some wood, made some basic tools, and cut out a little shelter in the side of the mountain.
As I went outside to place a door down, I noticed a wolf standing right behind me, watching me. Unfortunately, I didn't have any bones, as I hadn't been able to find any skeletons yet, so I couldn't tame him. However, it seemed this little wolf liked me regardless.
The wolf began following me around everywhere I went. As I collected more wood, built windows in my house, and made a makeshift staircase up the mountain, he was behind me everywhere I went. I jokingly decided to call him Lassie.
When night fell, I quickly shut up inside my shelter. Unfortunately, I hadn't come across any sheep to make a bed, and I didn't have enough torches to attempt mining, so it was going to be a boring night. As I stared out one of my windows, trying to decide what to do in the morning, I heard a bark and remembered Lassie.
He was at the foot of my base, looking up into the window. I went over to the door and opened it, and it was only a few seconds before Lassie found his way in. As I closed the door and turned around, I noticed he had walked over to the window and was looking consistently in one direction.
When morning came and I opened the door, Lassie ran out in front of me. I followed him over to the snow biome, not far from the base, and suddenly, I realized I was being followed by three more wolves. Lassie's pack, I thought with a laugh.
The way the wolf pack moved was odd. They seemed to move in all one direction for a short distance, and then run back and follow me, almost if directing me somewhere. Humoring myself, I began to follow them this way.
We left the snow biome and entered a hilly area with a few mountains and some flat land. The pack and I passed a small pond and dodged a small pit in the ground. We had only traveled for about a minute or so before I suddenly noticed a ravine poking out from under a mountain. Being careful not to be pushed down by one of the wolves, I tried to get a peek.
Ravines are always pretty cool, I guess, but this one didn't seem that great to me: No visible lava, gold, or diamonds, and the small area where sunlight poured in seemed to be bare of ores. I turned around and decided to make my way back to the base, because I had things to do and this was wasting precious daylight.
When I got to the area where the small pond we passed earlier was, I hadn't been expecting anything to happen. I was used to the wolves spawning in front of me as I ran, so when it happened, I didn't notice anything was wrong for a split second.
As I was about to pass the pond, one of the wolves spawned in front of me. I heard the sounds of a wolf being hurt, those disturbing, squealing sounds, and I noticed the wolf in front of me was on fire. Before I could even react to this, the wolf fell over dead.
I hurriedly looked around at my surroundings. It was the middle of the day. There was no fire, lava, or hostile mobs anywhere in sight. There is no way that wolf could have caught on fire. For a second, I thought maybe the wolf had fallen into the ravine, landed in lava, and then automatically spawned near me, but I remembered that there had been no lava visible in the ravine.
Suddenly, my eyes caught a current in the pond that I could have sworn wasn't there before. The water was flowing down as if there was a hole there. Curious, I jumped into the water and began to make my way down the hole before I realized just how deep it really was.
The dirt floor suddenly disappeared from beneath me, and the water pulled me down. It poured me down a dark stone tunnel and dropped me fairly hard onto a stone and dirt floor. I instinctively placed a torch down and noticed the wolf pack, now only three, had followed me down as well.
The small cave I had landed in appeared to open into a much larger cave, and as I made my way over in that direction to explore, I realized the cave it opened into was the ravine I had been examining earlier. The same ravine the wolves had led me to that I had deemed uninteresting.
And uninteresting was still a very accurate word for it. The only ores I could see was the occasional piece of coal or iron, in places not worth trying to reach, and there was no safe way down to the bottom of the ravine to explore more. Hostile mobs patrolled the depths of the place. I decided I would try to come back here when I was better supplied, but for now, I really needed to be heading home.
I turned around and began building a shabby staircase upwards, hoping I wouldn't break into the surface too far from my mountain base. I was fairly far up, probably quite near the surface, when I heard the squeals of a wolf again. I turned around and saw one of the wolves glowing red as if taking damage, but there was nothing there to damage it. I had been making the staircase three blocks high and two wide, so it couldn't be getting stuck. And besides, it was being thrown back as if being hit.
After a few seconds of this attack, the wolf fell over and died with that disturbing howl. There was now only two wolves left, and I was really beginning to be creeped out. It seemed like every time I began to stray from the ravine, the wolves suffered an unexplainable death. Freaked out by this, I decided I definitely needed to leave the immediate area. I finished the staircase quickly, and was relieved when I saw the night sky.
Well, I shouldn't have been relieved. After all, I had scarce supplies and my home was fairly far away, and I was going to have to make a dash to my base. I poked outside and took a look at my immediate surroundings. There didn't appear to be any threats too nearby, so I began to sprint in the direction of my base.
Suddenly, I stopped sprinting. Stopped moving, actually. It was like there was an invisible wall placed in front of me. Everywhere I went, no matter how far I traveled, I could not possibly go in this direction. I turned around with mixed feelings of anger and fright and realized the only direction I could travel was back towards the ravine.
The wolf pack, two of them remaining, was there behind me, watching me. One of them suddenly came closer, and sat down at my feet, which I knew was only possible if you tamed a wolf and made it sit. Needles pricked up my arms as I sat there with a sort of curious fright.
Out of nowhere, the text box suddenly popped up with one word.
Please.
Please what! I thought desperately. I stood my ground, trying to decide what to do. I decided it was best for me to quit. This game was freaking me out, and it couldn't hurt me if I got rid of it. I hit Escape to go to the menu.
But when I hit the Escape button, another message popped up in the text box.
Please.
I hit the Escape button again.
Please.
I mashed the button over and over again desperately.
Please, please, please, please.
Finally, as a last resort, I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del, opened up task manager, and went to end the Java process. Suddenly, I heard the pain-filled howls of a wolf taking damage, and I realized something was happening again. I brought Minecraft back up and was terrified to see the wolf that hadn't been sitting was now levitating midair, surrounded by the same purple aura of the Endermen, being killed by an unseen force.
I cringed, waiting for the final death howl of the wolf, but it didn't come. The wolf simply continued to take damage, floating there in the air, and each time it was hit, the wolf's cries became more and more distorted.
Frustrated, frightened, and confused, I looked down at the wolf sitting at my feet, knowing it was Lassie. And hating him. What do you want from me?! I thought angrily. What am I supposed to do?
As if he read my thoughts, Lassie suddenly stood up and looked in the direction of that goddamned ravine. I knew I had to go down there and find whatever these wolves had been trying to direct me to all along. As I nervously headed back in the direction of the ravine, I realized it was my fault those wolves had died. They had relied on me to save them, and I had failed them. I was a murderer.
Wait, murderer? What was I thinking? They were pixelated animals on a video game! Was I going insane? As I pondered this, I noticed I was already standing at the entrance of the ravine.
I dug my way down, spiraling through the stone, and it was an unfortunately short amount of time before I was standing in the depths of the massive cave. I looked to Lassie for instructions.
My heart sank into a void of terror as I realized he was gone.
Screw this, I thought, and in a panic, I bolted back towards the spiral staircase I had just made down the ravine. But again, it was like a barrier was put up between me and the staircase, and I couldn't move in that direction. I tried moving in another direction, but to no avail.
I was completely stuck where I was. I tried pressing Escape. Nothing. Ctrl+Alt+Del. Nothing. I was stuck in this game, and for some reason, I didn't think once just to shut off my computer, or run away, or anything. Because suddenly, I didn't want to.
Murderers didn't belong in the world. They had no place. I had killed those wolves. Trapped down in this dark, lonely ravine, far from any other life, is where someone like me belonged.
The text box simply echoed what I was thinking.
You killed my friends, it said, almost tauntingly.
I know. I know I did.
It's your fault they are dead.
Yes, it is.
Why didn't you help them? The text asked, almost pleading for an answer. This message sent a jolt of self-hatred through my body.
I don't know.
You don't deserve to live.
I know, Lassie.
And, suddenly, I knew what I had to do. I stood up and walked to the kitchen. I searched all of the drawers. And it wasn't long before I found what I wanted.
I opened up the cutlery drawer.
I smiled.
The police of the rural Montana town were shocked to find what they did in that house that night. Their town was peaceful, quiet, and calm—things like this just didn't happen.
The man was found with over 40 stab wounds and curved lacerations in his cheek bones, cut eerily like a smile. The presumed murder weapon, a butchering knife, was found in his hand, and the only DNA on it was his.
To this day, there are no suspects for his apparent murder. No evidence was found, although when one policeman was investigating his room, he noticed his computer was on. When he went over to investigate, he saw that Minecraft was open.
The character appeared to be standing in a blocky area that looked to the policeman like some sort of dark cave.
The policeman noted that, sitting in front of the character and looking directly at the screen, appeared to be some sort of dog.
"Hey Lassie," he said jokingly.