Nights of Fire: The Prophecy

Ch.1 The First Night

I have just arrived on a newly generated world of Minecraft with an empty satchel bag and a backpack loosely hanging down. The area suddenly expanded before me into a world covered in hills and snow, the water frozen over with ice. I shivered gripping both my upper arms with my hands scanning the area for a place to shelter for the night I set off searching for a place to make it. I stood atop of a small hill side that was relatively flat with a few holes here and there. About twenty to thirty blocks away was a slight forest.

I worked for about two hours collecting wood from the trees and crafted my first work bench. Making a pick I dropped down into a small cavern filled with shallow water and found a vein of coal. Working for a few more hours mining stone and coal I checked my inventory and decided that was enough for the first night and climbed out going back to the relatively flat hill I had decided on. Digging up a stack of dirt I began stacking the dirt three high in a rectangle shape. My shelter finally made I noticed the light in the room began to dim and poked my head out the door to see the sun descending to the left of me.

Grabbing up my workbench that I had placed on the ground I hurried inside and blocked the door with dirt. It would take me a little craft a wooden door for the doorway. Outside cows mooed and bellowed as the night slowly took hold over the land. I crafted torches and placed them around the room so that I could see what I was doing and to make the dirt house a bit more homely. I placed the workbench at the rear of the shelter and sat down on the cold hard ground to make the door. I hammered and nailed away for thirty minutes and finally sat back wiping my forehead , surveying my craftsmanship.

It was my first time to make a door and it was a tad lopsided but it would work to shield my shelter from the wind and snow slightly. Later on I'd make a new one that was a bit better. I began to craft a sword and a furnace before I drug the door to the door way and fastened it to the dirt blocks on the side. I wasn't paying attention when I noticed footsteps coming towards me and a groan made my skin crawl. Turning around a zombie was right upon me.

I yelped swinging my sword chopping him into bits and finally slaying him. He dropped a feather as his body disappeared in smoke which I picked up and retreated inside. Sitting down in the middle of the small shelter I tried to regain my heart. He had scratched me a bit here and there but nothing too serious. Listening to the cows outside gave me some comfort in the fact that I wasn't alone as much as I thought.

The cows moos got further and further away as they wandered around. I sat in front of a torch getting warm since I had nothing to burn in the furnace right now. Watching the flame dance around on the stick my mind wandered back to home. All of my family had traversed Minecraft and had made a living out here. They would be kicked out of the house when they came of age to travel.

Of course the age limit was different in every house hold. The age limit for me and my siblings was fifteen. After my birthday my dad had awoken me, handed me a custom made back pack, a satchel that my mother had made for me, and opened the door. My brothers stood out in the yard with armor and swords equipped, their equipment gleaming in the morning light. They had escorted me to the border of the town that we lived in and waved me off as I walked away.

Tears fell down my face as I hugged my legs. I missed home. The scratches that I had received from the zombie were beginning to sting now as blood trickled down my arm slowly. I shivered and cried more, listening to the things outside that wanted to harm me walk about. I wondered how my brothers faired their first night.

I took more torches and put them around me to heat the air a bit better. Maybe in the morning I'd find a different climate area. A nice warm place would be nice, after all, this was just my shelter. I could leave and make an actual home. I frowned, well now that I thought about it I didn't have to settle down, I could make houses all over Minecraft and have wealth everywhere! "I wonder if my brothers have a lot of houses?"

I began to get brave thinking about my brothers and how they lived. I picked up my sword and opened my door. Looking bout I noticed a zombie coming towards me up the hill. I braced myself and charged forward. Battling it to nothing and taking its loot, an arrow narrowly missed me as I noticed a skeleton not far from me.

It climbed the hill shooting, I retreated into my shelter. Sliding around the door frame I stabbed the skeleton repeatedly into his skull and slayed it. A spider hissed and leapt for me as I turned around and stabbed it, making it jump back. It leapt again letting me do a forward slash and stab it in its head, killing it. I picked up my first string and retreated inside not having any more damage done to me.

I smiled to myself as I had just fought several enemies on my first night and lived. It made me happy enough to know that I could fight like my brothers had, like my parents had, like everyone before me had. I knocked out a hole in the wall to look out and filled it back in. The air in the shelter seemed a bit warmer thanks to the burning torches. I'd feel much more comfortable if I had some wool to snuggle with.

Watching the world outside through the cracks in the door I began to hum a song my mom used to sing from the radio a long time ago. My parents had a large chunk of land that went on for a long time. Fields spanned across the land with wheat and trees, cobblestone makers, and a huge field just for animals to spawn in so that dad and mom could get hides and pork easily and not travel all over to make just one kill for something. Minecraft had changes happening to it every couple of months where things would be added and things would be fixed.

A normal day on a farm for us. We had TV, radio, and the like to keep up with what was going on in the world. Life was good and it got better when my brothers returned home from their adventures to settle down and help out with the chores. One brother tended to the trees while another tended to the wheat fields. I had to tend to the animals and feed them.

The animals seemed to like me for the most part. I liked them but when the food was served and I took the head count I always knew who got slaughtered. It made me slightly saddened that I had lost an animal to a butcher knife but I couldn't be affected by it, they were animals that helped us live in Minecraft from day to day. Help us make clothes and such to keep us warm at night. We were blocky humans that needed to be sustained to cultivate this world and others.

I remember when a young adventurer had opened up a cavern while mining close to a distant pork plant and caused a mob of creepers to get set off by his presence and destroy most of the plant. The stocks dropped a good bit in the pork industry and caused the plant to shut down for a while to rebuild. That was a three years back and the plant is now bigger and better than ever, producing pork raw or cooked for buyers twice as fast. Minecraftians lived life day by day doing the usual stuff, foraging, buying, building, and playing. It was our usual life here and everywhere it seemed.

There were sports networks with football, soccer, baseball, hockey, and spleef. Spleef was a good sport, it was me and my brothers favorite. Our town even made a spleef arena a few months after it came out and the town would all get up one afternoon and play round after round. Football was a bit more of a challenge cause Minecraftians couldn't really throw far, so fights would break out sometimes on the field during a game and referee's would have to run out and break them up. Usually the room would be put in complete darkness where hardly anyone could see and the TV. would be sent to a stand-by phase.

Me and my brothers played all the sports that came out in Minecraft from adventurer's to players. We always had fun on the farm, like chicken races and riding pigs. I even put a saddle on a cow and rode it around the farm and accidently trampled dad's newly planted wheat fields. I didn't know he had planted early that season. I also remember when my brothers let a creeper into the barn and closed the door, trapping it inside.

Dad almost had a heart attack when he opened the door and had a green penis running at him hissing and flashing. The barn had to be rebuilt after that and my brothers had to dye the wool red and make the barn like dad wanted it. Dad's ideas for buildings were very good and useful every time something was redone. He knew what kind of changes needed to be made to make the building more useful. The farm animals were herded into the barn when it would snow or rain.

Sometimes a pig would get struck by lightning and become a pig man which my brothers would have to burn. If the pigs or the cows were touched by a pig man they would be tainted and wouldn't be any good to us. It would be sad to see the pig man burning and squealing in pain but he wasn't a living being anymore.

We never really knew how they lived from lightning strikes to become a pig man but the preacher would always say it was the will of Notch, our creator. He was the one that was always making changes in the world and the land and the items that we use day to day. People build statues of him all over the place to signify their praise to the man we call God.

I lifted my head and wiped my eyes of the tears as I thought. I stood knocking out a window between two torches to see the sky lighting up. I had survived my first night. I turned back to my stuff and began to pack up everything for my big trek to find a different climate. I was nowhere near ready for a winter climate.

I removed the door and put it in my bag. I looked over the landscape to see the zombies and skeletons burning from the sun's rays. I took up my sword, adjusted my bag, placed the required items in the satchel that was across my shoulder and set off across the land to a new place.

My adventure had begun!