The Pain of Respawn
When I say "death", what do you think?
Do you think of the infamous Grim Reaper and his scythe that tears through souls, innocent or not?
Do you think of Herobrine?
Do you think of any small child who lost life at so young?
Do you think of your heart stopping, your brain giving up on itself, your breath ceasing?
Do you think of blood?
AntVenom clutched his growling stomach and bent over in the grass, moaning. It wasn't long after spawning into the Sky Ant Farm had he realized hunger would be a problem, but never had he expected it to attack him in such a way. His ravenous stomach cried out for the food he didn't have, sending waves of pain over his whole body, weakening his every meager move.
As his eyes searched the landscape they fell upon a pig minding its own business. A flash a hope surged through him. Food.
He took a tentative step and found his legs too feeble to even walk. Ant sucked in a breath, his lungs shaking, and collapsed.
It was obvious at this point he was going to die of starvation, which to the PvP master was a far too embarrassing way to go. Everyone watching would laugh at his lack of strength, one he so proudly boasted yet hardly showed at this point.
If he were going down, he'd rather do it himself. Show that he had no definite shame.
Ant rolled over and immediately screeched out in shock, half his body hanging over the infinite drop that was the edge of the map. With the Void below him, an idea struck him. He'd "jump" into the Void and respawn with a full belly.
At least suicide was better than starving to death.
Oh, did pitiful little Venom remind of respawning? The joyous respawning? It is like rebirth, resurrection, reincarnating to a fresher, healthier version of yourself. One of those unpunishable acts without unease, only benefit. A precious gift Notch was able to code for us Minecraftians.
It sickens me.
Now you begin to question me. You cross your furor at my comment, bewilderment overcoming you. Why am I criticizing such a wonderful thing Minecraft has to offer? With it we can play games that would otherwise be fatal. You don't want to really kill your friend in a Hunger Games now, do you?
Well it is not that, you see, that I dislike about respawn. I also enjoy not taking the eternal sleep. I do enjoy playing mini-games with my buddies without them going to the grave… or do I?
Lee placed the TNT in the proper spots as his cat friend bounced into the wool orca. Smiling nervously, Stampy waved and said, "Thanks Lee Bear."
The mute nodded, stepping aside. Stampy stood in the block of water in the middle of the cannon and looked up at the one-block opening. He'd make it, he's been making it safely always, never missing. And no way would he allow his streak to end by not landing in the hardest, farthest ring of his Whale of a Time game.
Stamps gave the stone button a good whack and let the TNT activate and fall around him. Water from the source block flowed around it, prohibiting his orca from being blown to smithereens, or he'd cry.
Just a tick before the TNT exploded, Stampy jumped and the blast launched him much higher than his feeble leap could ever do. Wind flying through his fur, he flew up to the clouds and laughed, feeling alive and so free.
Below him the lake was decorated with many different rings of so many bright colors, but one stuck out the most. Made of black wool, smaller than the others, and the furthermost back, lay his goal. Miss it, lose the game to Lee.
Oh he was so high there was no way he could be off target. As he arched downwards Stamps stuck his arms out in diving position, body straight, hand pointed at his desired course, and began to fall.
So what is it that I have against respawning?
I will tell ya. Promise to tell nobody else? But if you're gonna say no, leave now.
"Hey bro, look what I can do!"
Eli turned and saw his sister, Lora, at the bottom of the hill waving an iron sword at a straying creeper - straying due to the daylight.
"What are you doing?" he asked anxiously. Even though she was three years older than he was, Eli had to look after her sometimes. Lora's erratic imagination often caused her to do stupid things.
Lora put her sword across her chest. "I heard this blocks creeper explosions. I won't take any damage from the blast. I've even done it before."
"Huh?"
"I'll show ya!"
Watching Lora approach the creeper with only a chain helmet made Eli step up a little. Instead he held himself back. She'd learn her lesson soon enough.
There was a hiss as the creeper sensed the imminent Minecraftian. Turning on its four, stubby legs, it narrowed his eyes with instinctive, irrational anger and walked towards her. Soon both stood not even a quarter of a pixel apart, Lora's thin sword the only thing preventing the two from touching.
Her smile brightened up. Clever she called herself. That's just one less mob threatening her homeland.
"Go ahead," she taunted. "Blow up creepbutt."
And blow up it did.
The mob blinked white and expanded, obliterating everything within a five block radius to a crater in the dirt, something Eli realized that would need cleaning up or Lora's OCD would flip.
Oh yes, even the girl was blasted to only splatters of blood, the shards of her iron sword and chain helmet resting in the center of the hole. Back in the house, Lora jerked up in her bed, the red covers sliding down her fresh body. What a shock it was to her to see her plan backfire in such an abrupt way. And now she would have to face her laughing brother and reminiscence with the ache of her body being ripped apart.
PrincessLyoka was blown up by creeper.
…Consideration completed? Curiosity getting the best of you?
Well did you know that curiosity killed the kitten? No, it was not a cat. It was a poor defenseless kitten that had no respawn. But it felt pain.
Yes… the consequence of respawn is what I distaste, because all good must be paid for. Respawn's is the agony of death.
His laughter ended when he realized he was off target. Black wool came closer and closer at rapid speeds, right in line.
"No!" Stampy cried, trying to spin off his path, his cat-like paws thrashing in the air. But as fate would have it, he hit.
His fingers made contact first and instantly shattered, blood and fur spilling into the depths below. Next came his head hitting hard and his skull crushed with the force, bones splitting and piercing his brain. As the rest of his body hit the blocks, Stampy flipped into the water, only feeling it assuage the pain momentarily before he met Squaishy's duck eyes.
"You okay there?" she asked. In seconds Lee and ChooChoo surrounded him too, concerned.
Shivering, Stamps only nodded and slid from the bed that lay behind the fake orca. His emerald eyes settled on the cannon that lay within it. Then he smiled, not wanting his friends to know how much that hurt.
Stampylongnose fell from a high place.
Excruciating wasn't that?
Don't worry, the fun isn't over.
The PvP master took a deep breath, staring at the depths below. Others before him has done this sort of thing before, even himself, only never the Void. Ant has never fallen into the Void. He had heard horrendous descriptions of taking Void damage, but always had scoffed them off as over-exaggerations.
Now they came back on him with full force.
He gulped, grasped his confidence, and flipped off the map.
Honestly, he really did flip, rolling off the floating chunk of land with far too much momentum, thus smacking the glass walls. His head throbbed as he flipped over again, banging into quartz and dirt and back to glass until the map gave way.
It was not like a peaceful fall. No wind rushed through his hair, no feeling of freedom, only an unforgiving fall. The Void wanted him, wanted to end him, and grabbed him.
The blue sky fell away around him and turned nightly black, stars twinkling far off, or better said nowhere. There were no stars. There were no light, there was nothing, only Ant, Ant, and Ant.
Oh! Don't forget darkness! And fear! And death, death as well!
Vacancy snatched at him, an icy grip around his body. Ant screamed with shock then pinched his eyes shut, telling himself to not fall victim to terror, but it made absolutely no difference. Gravity surrounded him and pulled at his limbs nonetheless and dug into mouth and eyes, stealing his breath, his blood, every single thing he ever knew.
Ant screamed, a simply nonexistent scream no one could hear. The life was literally ripped out of him mercilessly without a single sign of sorry from the pitiless Void-
-He respawned.
He jerked up on a bunch of leaves and shouted. Body shaking, the PvP master climbed up to his feet and progressed, vowing to be emaciated than to go through that again.
AntVenom fell out of the world.
Most people are always dependent on respawn, like AntVenom here, who only suffered falling into the abyssal Void to escape dying of hunger and maintain his pride.
Many times we often forget about respawn in acts of carelessness, for it to be a big shock when our bodies hit the ground too hard as Stampy Cat had.
Some don't help others in situations that would be fatal only to know they'll reappear if they died, as Eli did to Lora, only letting his sister die to teach her lesson on stupidity.
Without respawn, he would've rushed in to save her.
Without respawn, Ant would be another lifeless body floating in the realm of nonentity.
Without respawn, Stampy's friends would be having a miserable, gloomy funeral.
Without respawn, there would be a lot more cemeteries.
There were no graves in the How to Minecraft world.
Look at that sentence and tell me about it.
Your first thought, I would assume is there aren't any graves in the How to Minecraft world.
You're wrong. I said were. If I am I to be more accurate, the sentence would become:
There are no graves in the How to Minecraft world – there is a grave. There used to be no graves, but no longer. Because respawn had failed.
Preston, otherwise known as TBNRfrags, knelt down into the soft dirt and rested a poppy, laying it across the ground, lacking the strength to plant it properly. His shoulders shook as he sobbed, his lava-textured head bent low.
He wanted to speak, wanted to talk to the person who lay under the dirt who would never show his face again, but his voice gave way to more tears.
Respawn had failed. It was rare, very very rare, for it to just not work. There were exceptions, per say the home bed was obstructed, though there was a still a bed in the deceased's home. It was never broken. Untouched. Rob was just dead.
When they had found him frozen stiff beside the incomplete ice farm, they thought it was just lag. However, after being warmed up and still for a couple days, Woofless was proclaimed dead.
It was a big shock. There was no way Rob could just drop dead like that. Most troubling was that no one really knew how it had happened. They weren't on hardcore. Rob's bed was in perfect condition. But there he was, lying in the snow with his gray eyes staring blankly into the sky. Dead.
Smoothing the ground, Preston swallowed, trying to speak, but once again he hadn't had the capability. Depression had taken his voice momentarily and would not give it back to the grieving person.
But Preston still mourned. He and Woofless… they were best buddies. #Poofless, you know. They were like brothers watching one another's backs, always and forevermore. They were inseparable.
Unfortunately he was now an only, lonely, puny child.
He sniffed and turned his head to the Salty Lagoon. It was drained and empty of any water, made ugly by Rob's prank. He had planned on filling it up later. Now he never would.
The lava-mob bowed his head, more wails escaping his body. At last he sucked in a breath, weeping, "R-Rob…. you were the best… you've done so much… you were so much fun to be around…"
Preston looked away from the grave and the dry pit of a lagoon, staring at the birch wood forest. "What… What killed you? T-Tell me so I can shove cactus down their throats."
Of course there was no answer. Still Preston couldn't leave silence as an answer. Rob couldn't have frozen to death – he was so bundled up it would've been possible he overheated. There was no blood on him when he was found, as if he had done the /kill command, but why in the world would he do that? There was no reason for him to commit suicide.
His body was perfectly healthy, disregarding the fact he was lifeless. So what killed him?
The question was like a million anvils on his back – pressuring, heavy. Preston just had to find out how his best friend died or he may as well join him in the Aether.
He resorted to finding his answer in chat.
It was a week ago when Rob was found, but he may've died sooner when no one was paying attention. That's why his death was so mysterious since no one had any evidence, no proof to follow up any claims. But they had forgotten about the death messages.
Preston scrolled through the comments, and boy there was a lot, searching for Rob's name. He passed it up and realizing so he scrolled back down.
Then he stopped, the breath taken from his chest.
Woofless was slain by ?
Poor, poor Robbie. Shall he rest in peace. Yet, how did he die? Why was he rejected from respawning?
To prove a point.
Oh, you're not satisfied? Who here isn't satisfied? If you're not, this mysterious figurewill come for you. I will come for you. You will lose your respawn.
I hope you have fun on your world. Little do you realize you're not alone.
Do you like dying? No? Well, that's a shame, really, because your days have been numbered. They have been documented and studied. Watched. Tracked to the last second.
Good luck.
A/N - And that's a wrap! I actually liked writing this. Little thing for the readers (if you stayed around this long), who can guess who was the narrator? Because I don't even know.
Fun fact, the Eli and Lora (PrincessLyoka, aka me) thing actually happened, me being stupid in front of my little brother.
I apologize for being dormant since... July. But, you know, life gets ya sometimes.
If you're more interested in what my situation is at the moment, see my profile by tomorrow, at least. 'Cause it's late hear and I need a bite to eat.
C'ya!