Criminal

/minecraft/

/chapter one/

Steve, Minecraft, etc. belong to Mojang.

I looked down. I could feel the glares and tears of the families that had been ripped apart. I've seen them often enough.

The judge coughed and began. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. You have been selected as the jury in the matter of the families of Mr. Persson, Miss Smith, Mr. Jobs, and Mrs. Amsel v. Mr. Steven Joseph Stevens. Mr. Stevens is charged with four accounts of murder. He has pleaded guilty to second degree murder."

Guilty. The word left a bad taste in my mouth.

"The jury will now review the security footage as evidence." A blurry black and white security tape showed a man who looked exactly like me entering the room of one of the dead women with a ridiculous knife and exiting a few minutes later. The likeness was so exact that if I didn't know I hadn't committed the murders, I would have thought it was me. Only the perpetrator's face was never seen.

"In this case of circumstantial evidence only, Mr. Stevens will serve time at the Nature Rehabilitation Program, for a period of 25 years or until further evidence is presented."

There were a few gasps, and more glares from the victims' families. I still didn't look up. I knew it was a light sentence, but that word "guilty" still stung.

My lawyer had assured me that pleading guilty was the best option. A sort of Alford plea. If convicted in court, I could serve a life sentence. There was enough evidence that I could be convicted. At least with the Nature Rehabilitation program I could "start a new life." Right. As if being ripped from society and abandoned on an island was "a new life." But the one thing I couldn't stand was another day in prison. People began to file out of thee courtroom. I wanted to shout "I'm innocent!" but I knew that would get me nowhere. I was handcuffed and moved into a separate room so all two of my family members could say goodbye. My dad was the first to come, voice muted by the Plexiglas.

"Hey, Steven," Dad remarked solemnly.

"Hey Dad."

We stared at each other for a minute till Dad leaned in and whispered quickly, "You didn't really kill them did you?" I remembered Mr. Jobs was one of Dad's friends.

"No, dad." I sighed. "I promise I didn't."

"Then I promise I'll do what it takes to clear your name, son." His eyes seemed to be watering but he wiped them away quickly and mumbled "Good luck, son."

"Thanks."

A guard quickly escorted him out of the room and another came in with my mom. She was sobbing and clutching her chest.

"Stevie! How could you! How could you!" She seemed unable to do anything but cry.

"Mom! I swear I didn't kill them!" I protested.

"Oh Stevie, Stevie!" She rocked back and forth, sniffling. She calmed down and straightened up a bit in the grey plastic chair. "You swear you didn't do it?" she asked hoarsely.

"Swear."

Mom wiped her eyes ad then muttered something to one of the guards. He nodded and my parents walked in through the door. Dad gave me an awkward one-armed hug while Mom crushed me, still smelling like jasmine flowers and reminding me of when I was a little kid.

"We love you Steve," Mom said.

"Love you too, Mom."

The guard harrumphed and looked pointedly at his watch. My dad gently guided Mom out of the room and the door slammed shut.

The handcuffs were clamped around my wrists again and we walked out to the prison van which had all the comfort and coziness of home, if your home was a featureless metal can with bars on the windows.

We trekked out to the farm to get Lillie. At least she was allowed to come with me, though I had to sell everything else I had to pay for supplies and equipment. I wouldn't need it where I was going anyway, but it pained me to sell the farm I'd grown up on. Eventually we came to a stop at the farm. The green shoots were sprouting warmly in the early summer sun and I felt a lump in my throat. I whistled for Lillie and she pounded into the van panting and waving her plumy tail, all eighty pounds of husky mix glory. I still thought she was part wolf; she was at least twice the size of other dogs. She nuzzled my face and tried to crawl into my lap. I wished I could pet her but my hands were cuffed.

"Good girl, Lills," I whispered in her hear. She replied by planting a huge slobbery kiss all over my face.

To pass the time until they reached the ship, I tried to remember the lessons he had learned during my three (expensive) months of wilderness survival training. What plants were safe to eat, which could be used as medicine, how to tie a snare, basic first aid in the wild, how to quickly start a fire, anything and everything that could give me a fighting chance. The island was said to be forested, with some hills. All that I could think about was how very, very alone I was about to become. Twenty-five years. Twenty. Five. Years. Half my life gone on the whim of some psycho who killed people for fun.

The handcuffs were chafing my wrists now, and with every bump in the road they burned. I winced.

"Comfortable back there?" jeered the driver. I didn't grace him with an answer.

I wasn't naive enough to believe that everything happened for a reason. Some things were just out of human control. But that didn't stop me from asking, "Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this?" Twenty five years of solitary confinement. Then I recalled something that my grandma used to tell me. Though slightly bitter, she was a clever woman, and I could see where his dad got some of his intellect and dry humor from.

"Steven. No matter where you are in life, don't forget this. You are strong. You are powerful. You don't give up. You keep going. Life will keep going. Understand?" she explained to me in broken English.

As a little kid I had nodded and listened carefully. What would she think to see me now? Handcuffed in a van, wallowing in self pity. "Shape up boy, and get to work!" she would shout. This vacation didn't have to be the end of the world.

My slightly uplifted emotions dwindled when we reached the dock. The ship was nothing but a tiny working fishing boat, and the supplies that had cost me hundreds of dollars had dwindled to several cords of sting, some flint and steel, a box of seeds, some clothes, a flashlight, a pair of boots, a shovel, a knife, a tarp, and a pickaxe.

This was my 200,000 dollars? Some training, this ship voyage, and these scraps of tools? It wasn't as if I could turn back now, but I couldn't help but be disappointed at the paltry supply.

The boat looked hardly more than a scrap of driftwood, spit, and duct tape as it bobbed ferociously on the current. Lillie looked hesitant as she put first one paw, then the others gingerly on the deck. Each time it moved, she flattened herself to the fishy boards. The keys to my handcuffs were handed off to another officer, who proceeded to be violently sick into the ocean. I set my back against the rim of the ship in a pool of suspiciously murky water. Every wave that crashed over the ship made me more nauseous. Lillie pawed her muzzle and whined. The officer proceeded to be sick. The fishermen continued shouting and bringing up huge masses of briny silver fish on deck. It seemed like days later when we reached the shore.

My spirits dropped even lower, if that was possible. Black craggy rocks jutted up from the ocean like sharks' teeth, heavy grey clouds lined the sky angrily. A bone-numbing drizzle hung in the air. I pulled myself up while Lillie bounded off the ship and shook herself furiously. The queasy cop reluctantly unhinged my handcuffs and handed me my tools. It looked to be about noon, though the clouds mainly obscured the sun. As soon as the tools were unloaded, I was handed a small tin containing some canned goods, an opener, and a box of crackers. The officer read me a short official letter containing some fancy terms. The ship was to return once per year to bring some additional supplies and evaluate my health.

As soon as humanly possible the ship departed, carrying with it the last hope of human company I could hope to see for a very long time.

My predicament didn't set in for a full hour after the ship had left. I stayed on the beach, saltwater lapping at my new boots, for a good time after the ship had ceased to be a dark speck bobbing in the distance. I chucked some pebbles into the water and listened for the dull splash as Lillie tore around barking and snapping at the waves. My stomach reacted with a loud snarl of hunger and I was jolted back to the present.

How was I going to survive?

I blindly stumbled through the forest until I came to a small clearing rimmed with trees. Lillie followed faithfully at my heels. I sat on a stump and put my head in my hands. What the hell was I going to do? Some recessed instinct, or perhaps my recent survival classes prompted me. Find water. Find food. Find shelter. Make a fire. But then the truth of my total and complete loneliness on this godforsaken rock hit me like a brick.

Without thinking I whipped around and slammed my fist into the nearest tree.

Expecting to hear a wet thud or pop of his knuckles cracking, I was astonished when the tree gave way and a neat, almost perfect cube popped out of the tree, shrank, and hovered above the ground gyrating slowly. I blinked and looked again. The tree trunk was still missing a large section, and the tiny piece still hovered above the ground. I walked over to the tiny piece and touched it lightly with my finger. It zipped over to my bag and disappeared. I opened the bag and saw the little tree trunk piece was inside of it. I pulled it out and dropped it on the ground. It anchored firmly there and became a full size log.

I sat down hard. This had to be some kind of bizarre dream or mirage. My brain was probably just overreacting. Didn't stress sometimes cause hallucinations? Yeah, that must be it.

The clouds were approaching again. I needed fire and a shelter. Maybe in this hallucination I could use these strange blocks to my advantage. I hit the ground with my shovel. A block of roots and soil, with a little grass on top popped out of the ground in an almost perfect cube and floated as well. I hit a few more blocks and collected them. Each block added a few more pounds to my bag, though the blocks themselves were hardly more than an inch across.

I pulled a large handful of the tiny cubes out. The rules of physics were clearly broken, because I almost sprained my wrist trying to support the chunks of dirt. I tossed them out one by one, and marveled at their ability to line up almost perfectly with the block it was next to. Each block was nearly ½ the size of my body. I was most likely going to be in shock later, but for now I could handle it. Soon I had a shelter about three blocks high and six across with a small fire pit and a hole in the ceiling to let smoke out so I wouldn't suffocate. I called Lillie inside and blocked off the entrance, because I could hear wolves howling and had no interest in becoming food, no matter how peaceful people say wolves are.

Frantically I tried to start a fire with my flint and steel. A few sparks came, but they wouldn't ignite the damp wood. Eventually I ripped the labels off the cans and lighted them. The log finally dried out enough to star a decent little inferno and I curled up in a corner of the shelter with Lillie.

"Hmmmrrrrrm." A low moaning sound came from outside my shelter. I sat straight up and listened. The sound came again, more insistent. "Hrmmaughkk!"

"Hello? Is anyone there?"I stood up, drew my knife, and broke open the entrance of my pitiful shelter.

The stench of rotting meat overwhelmed me as an undead corpse launched itself at my face. Half-mangled skin and muscle hung off of its face in putrefying layers.

Slashing frantically, I beheaded the grunting monster and hacked its head into pieces. Lillie was barking and growling frantically as she lunged at- was that a skeleton? With a bow? The skeleton crumpled with a noise like hollow sticks being knocked together. I snatched the bow and arrows from its inanimate finger bones and looked around in horror. From every possible direction I saw skeletons, zombies, greenish furry things with hideous drooping mouths, and the worst: giant, fuzzy, bug eyed giant spider. I hate, no, loathe spiders.

A horrible, gut-wrenching, screaming hiss came from somewhere above my head. I turned slowly around to find myself face to face with repulsive bulbous eyes and sharp pinchers spitting fury. Reacting impulsively, I lifted one of the arrows and plunged it into the spider's eye. It screamed ferociously as blood spurted out of its socket and it plunged its pinchers into my throat.

Lillie snuffled my face and whined. I uncurled from my crouched position to see that the sun was finally rising.

My memories began to click into place. Trial… island… Abandoned. Magical cubes. Zombies skeletons SPIDER. My hand grasped for my throat where moments before the spider had savagely ripped it open. There was nothing. No marks. No blood.

Was it all a dream?

Stretching, I stood up and looked at my surroundings. I was still on the island. There were the jagged black rocks, the shore, and in the distance- my dirt shelter. Feeling dizzy, I staggered in the direction of the shelter where I was sure I had died just before. A few zombies floundered about in the sunlight, burning and howling, too busy to focus on me. The spider, three zombies, and two skeletons were torn apart, probably by Lillie. I rounded the corner of my shelter and collapsed.

There lay my body, face-down in a pool of dark, congealing blood.

As soon as I could stand, I lifted the bag off of my back. I inadvertently turned myself? my body? over. My eyes were still open and expressionless, clouded by death. A hysterical laugh threatened to burst from my throat. I covered the dead Steve with a tarp and began digging a grave, anything simple and mechanical to get my dead face out of my mind. Lillie looked nervous and confused, anxiously pacing the tarp-covered body and hovering around me. I realized I was wearing I was still wearing my favorite blue shirt and jeans, identical stains and all.

I carefully nudged Dead Steve into the hole and shoveled some dirt on top of him. I found it easier to think of him as Dead Steve, a different Steve who was gone now, not me. A twin maybe. Large grey chunks of stone lay everywhere so I picked one at random and plopped it on top of the grave. I began to feel lightheaded so I crawled into my little dirt shelter with Lillie and blocked up all of the openings.

My fingers were trembling and I couldn't seem to catch my breath.

The spider's terrifying red eyes kept lunging in front of me. I kept plunging the arrow into its eyes. My dead, bloated face kept looming up in front of my eyes and shifting into the gruesome face of the zombie.

Eventually I fell asleep. I awoke again in the middle of the night when my stomach growled wildly. Too wary to venture outside, I glanced with trepidation into the box of canned goods. Half of the labels were missing due to my frantic fire-starting attempts, but I could read a few of them with my flashlight. Spaghetti Bolognese, ravioli, Vienna sausages, pears. I tossed the sausages to Lillie, who yipped happily. I was about to take my first bite of cold ravioli when I heard that horrible hissing noise from outside. The spider didn't seem to sense me, or maybe it just couldn't dig through dirt, but it stayed on my roof spitting the entire night.

Needless to say, I got no sleep.

A/N: Hi, and thank you for reading! I apologize for my total incompetence with the court system; if you know how the processes work please tell me. Also, the Minecraft mechanics into real life did not work as well as I expected...

So did you like it? Hate it? Want to bash your head against a wall? Please review, I'm very open to suggestions.