"Oh, no."
That was Jesse's too calm-of-an-exclamation as she unsheathed a wooden sword against a horde of zombies. In comparison to her tiny size and the pathetic weapon she wielded, trouble was lurking in the air.
Jesse felt her limbs tremble as a much taller zombie flung its rotting arm at her, attempting at a vicious blow to the head. She barely dodged out of the way in time, feeling her hair being brushed against the zombie's fingers.
"Axel! Olivia! Help!"
No response.
Jesse mentally cursed herself. How she always managed to end up in these situations, she'd never know.
She dodged another rotting fist. Any longer and she wouldn't know how to hold up. She would surely lose the fight if she tried to go in fighting. And backing up had only led her into a dirt wall.
She needed to act fast.
Jesse mumbled under her breath, "This is a horrible idea." And she proceeded to close her eyes and blindly swipe her way through the zombies. She heard one of the zombies fatally groan, and a moment later, the sound of a dead body falling to the ground. Jesse opened her eyes in alarm.
Most of the zombies were now staring dumbly at their dead companion. Their decayed brains had trouble processing the aspect of death, Jesse figured.
Jesse saw her chance, a single ray of sunlight through a blanket of clouds. And she took it.
She smirked as she darted past the zombies, glancing over her shoulder just in time to see their heads slowly raising up to look at her. Jesse's smirk melted off her face as she took notice of the moon still hanging high in the night sky. It was nowhere near daytime.
Jesse sighed, pleading with whatever forces ran the world that she wouldn't encounter any more mobs.
Those forces had always been cruel to her.
With a startled yelp, Jesse just barely managed to skid to a rough stop in front of a very aggravated spider. It hissed, revealing poisonous fangs, before staring her straight in the eye with its own beady red ones. Jesse gulped.
Without warning, it pounced. She only just managed to leap out of the way in time. The spider toppled over and onto its underside, Jesse using this to her advantage and plunging the sword into its belly. She shuddered as she was showered in a sickly green substance.
"Spider blood. Yuck," she gagged.
The spider's legs scuttled madly as its reaction before falling limp into a curled state. Jesse wrinkled her nose in disgust when an arrow whizzed past her head, the unmistakable rattling of skeleton bones following shortly after. The girl whirled around just in time to see the arrow flying at her at top speed.
Without a second thought, she shielded her head with one arm while bringing the one with the sword up. Fortunately for her, the sword deflected the skeleton's arrow, the latter bouncing off its blade.
Jesse jumped from her defensive state in surprise, staring at her sword in confusion before putting the pieces together.
The skeleton also seemed locked in a frozen stance. Or at least, Jesse thought it was, until it suddenly pulled another arrow from its quiver and pulled back the bowstring, launching it at Jesse at top speed. She acted instinctively this time, automatically bringing her sword up protectively.
As expected, the arrow bounced right off. The skeleton, however, was showing no signs of stopping, continuing to launch arrows at her without a moment's hesitation. Jesse looked up at the sky once again, searching it for any sign of daytime.
The moon had shifted slightly towards the horizon, but the sky was still pitch black. The night's format was enough to support the existing mobs and encourage the spawning of new ones. The skeleton wouldn't be burning anytime soon, not in this eternal darkness.
Arrow after arrow, shot after shot, dodge after dodge—
A lighting bold suddenly shot up Jesse's leg, igniting her bones and spreading a newfound pain throughout her skin. She toppled over onto one foot, grimacing as the world through her vision turned hazy. The whiz of arrows could be heard alongside the moans of zombies, but they were insignificant to her at the moment.
Jesse absent-mindedly reached for her injured leg, eyes still focused on the blurry white shape that was the skeleton in front of her, until her fingers grasped a thin, slender...twig. The shaft of an arrow. Jesse tightened her grip on the arrow, hissing in pain as she violently tugged it out. The head came out covered in red, as did her grass-stained overalls. She could feel a warm liquid pour out of the cut, cascading down her leg in a gruesome waterfall.
Jesse looked back at the skeleton. If skeletons could smile, she was sure it was grinning the most sinister of grins.
Anger flared up in her chest. With a bout of determination, she reeled her arm back and thrust the arrow at the skeleton with as much strength as a girl her age could muster. The skeleton froze for a minute, confused by the sudden change of events, but it was too late when it registered that its own arrow was embedded deep into its head.
Jesse's eyes widened. The skeleton's head was made of made of one thing. It consisted of just bone. A solid skull with nothing inside or out. No blood to be spewed, no skin to tear, no flesh to rip.
Instead, a series of cracks from where the arrow made contact with the skull.
Those same cracks progressed, spiderwebbing around the entirety of the skeleton's head. It shattered to the ground in a shower of bone and marrow, falling cleanly off the neck. The rest of the skeleton stayed fixed in that same shooting position before finally falling, one by one, bone by bone, top to bottom, to the ground, where it met the rest of its decaying counterparts.
With no time to spare, Jesse fled. As fast as one could with an injured leg. Nighttime was never a time to be out. And if she was already miles away from her treehouse...there was no other option.
She had to bed down for the night.
Jesse sighed. A makeshift dirt hut would have to do. For now, at least.
A few minutes and dirt blocks later, a dirt hut that looked like it was built by an amateur (not even...probably a new spawn) lay in front of her. She smiled at her work and placed her hand on her hips. In record time, she'd managed to construct a house of solely dirt, while having an injured leg. To Jesse, that was quite the achievement.
A zombie moaned in the distance, reminding her as to why she'd built it in the first place.
To escape those very things.
She limped into the hut, setting a wooden door behind her, and settling into temporary house. Just as the door shut behind her, a loud crash of thunder in the distance and the patter of rain that followed shortly after told her that it was raining. Great. Even more time to wait until the mobs burned.
A gust of cold wind rushed past her, causing her to shiver in the chilly night air and wrap her arms around herself. Despite this, Jesse knew that a fire wasn't an option. You'd have to be an idiot not to know that a fire was a no-go in an enclosed space.
Jesse sighed, instead using the time to inspect her wound closely as another rush of pain crept up her leg.
The wound was large, no doubt about that, but it wasn't the worst she could have gotten. It hurt like hell, but then again, it could have been much worse. Jesse used the bloodstained denim of her overalls to wipe the blood still gushing out of it, wincing in pain as she did so.
Every negative though at that minute swarmed her brain, whispering every obstacle in her way. It was always in situations like these that that side decided to give her a visit.
You're cold.
She wrapped her arms around herself to preserve the very little body heat she had.
You're starving.
Her stomach growled loudly.
You're alone.
How she longed to have Axel and Olivia with her.
You're in pain.
She shifted, her leg stinging in protest.
But her optimistic spirit refused to die out, constantly reassuring her that it could be a lot worse.
Jesse smiled to herself at the thought of what Olivia might have been doing in this situation. Probably lose her cool and blindly try to find her way through the forest at night. Pessimism at its finest.
That was the biggest difference between her and Olivia that Jesse could name. Jesse was the optimist, Olivia was the pessimist, and Axel...well, it was hard to name with him. In Jesse's opinion, though, he was leaning towards that pessimistic side as well.
BANG!
Jesse screamed, shoving her knuckles into her mouth to muffle any sound. She immediately regretted that decision, however, as a metallic tang met her tastebuds and her whole hand was covered in red again.
BANG!
BANG!
"Shit!" Jesse cursed under her breath. The wooden door rattled with each bang, said bangs growing progressively louder and more frequent. Jesse scrambled to her feet, drawing her wooden sword and hoping against hope that she wouldn't injure herself even more.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Jesse's stomach lurched. Something was trying to break down the door. A zombie, she presumed, and those things always meant trouble.
Her curious spark took over for a minute, however, and Jesse inched closer to the door. It was against her better judgement, but for the sake of her curious side, she gave in. The little square windows allowed her to see a little ways outside her hut.
But when she finally made her way over enough to see through those windows, there was nothing but the eerie silhouettes of the mobs in the distance. They were nowhere near her door. In fact, Jesse had a hard time distinguishing what mobs they were from this length.
Jesse squinted through the darkness. Perhaps there was something she was missing..?
BANG!
"Ah! Damn it!"
The banging had returned, but it wasn't nearly as frequent or as loud as before. Reluctantly, Jesse inched forward once again and took a deep breath, her other hand reaching for the doorknob. The voice she called reason screamed for her to stop, but she shoved it to the back of her brain.
She was such an idiot.
A slight push, and the door creaked open. The rain outside was pelting hard, loud thunder rolling in the distance. Jesse's eyes darted madly around the scene. Grass, dark sky, clouds, more grass, and a little piglet cowering at her feet.
Jesse shrugged and blinked once, turning around as she shut the door behind her, when she whipped around again almost instantly.
A little piglet cowering at her feet.
She stared down at the little piglet that was currently looking up at her with huge brown eyes, trembling from its head to its toes. The thunder crashed loudly, causing it to jump and run into the door.
BANG!
"Hey, little guy," Jesse whispered to it, reaching her hand out to pet it. Its eyes were big and scared, but it hesitantly reached out to sniff her fingers. She gazed down sadly at it, creaking the door open slightly to allow it to enter. It dashed in, edging around her injured foot. She closed the door behind it and flopped down next to it.
The piglet squealed, starting to lick the blood from Jesse's wound with its tongue. She grimaced in pain at the action.
"Stop," she said to the pig, before realizing what she'd said. To her surprise, it tilted its little head and stepped back. There was no way this pig could understand her, right?
She stared in confusion at it for a few moments before looking back out at the thunder. "It really is going hard out there, isn't it?" she said, trying to prove that she was imagining things. Aiden and the other Ocelots already thoughts she was losing it, as was apparent through the nasty taunts and jeers that she was daily confronted with. She was certain that Axel and Olivia were starting to question some of her actions as well. The last person who hadn't believed she'd gone completely cuckoo was...herself.
Wow.
The piglet nodded, making Jesse gasp out loud and quickly cover her mouth.
"Um...okay. Okay okay okay." Jesse shifted in her seat, hissing in pain slightly. "I am talking to a pig."
She exhaled.
"I'm talking to a pig."
The piglet gave her a glum sort of look that read, why is that so hard to believe?
"Because you're a pig!" Jesse blurted, before realizing that it couldn't actually talk back to her. "I-I mean...it's not everyday I talk to animals."
The pig oinked sympathetically.
"So...um, what do you go by?" Jesse asked dumbly, feeling even stupider when it gave her a blank stare.
"I'm guessing you don't have a name."
It nodded as if to confirm her statement.
"Would you like one?"
It nodded again, this time enthusiastically, its little brown orbs gleaming with excitement.
"Okay...let's see here. Alvin?"
The piglet shook its head. No.
"Crookshanks?"
No.
"Elwood?"
It full-on snorted with disgust, shaking its head vigorously.
"Hm...let's see." She put a finger to her chin in thought. "What about...Reuben?"
It squealed happily and nudged her uninjured leg. She laughed. "I'm taking that as a yes."
Reuben nodded happily and gave her the brightest piggy-grin that she'd ever seen before plopping down next to her. Jesse leaned against the wall, her eyelids suddenly feeling the slightest bit heavy.
No, she couldn't sleep now, she thought as her consciousness flickered between dream and reality.
Suddenly, she was with Axel and Olivia, their laughter echoing in her ears as the Endercon building competition came into view—no, she was in a dirt hut with thunder raging on outside—now she was signing in her group for the building competition—the little piglet beside her snuffled in his sleep—when a young man approached, and she felt anger blossom in her stomach.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the Order of the losers!"
The thunder outside her hut crashed loudly.
Gil's jeering voice followed shortly after. "Yeah, losers."
Lightning flashed, the light seeping in through the tiny windows in the door and creating ghostly shadows.
"Good one, Gil!" Maya laughed mockingly.
BANG!
Jesse jolted to her feet, her injured leg screaming in protest. Reuben shot up from beside her, squealing hysterically, when he noticed the zombie currently having its attempt at plummeting their door down. The wood groaned with each hit, becoming more tarnished by the second. Before Jesse could even think to grab her sword, the zombie approaching her with its arms hanging in front of it and its feet dragging lazily behind it. Jesse screamed.
One hit was all it took for her scathed leg to crumple underneath her weight. The zombie flailed its arms violently, its fist connecting with her skull. Suddenly, it grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head against the ground. Jesse's vision blurred, bile quickly rising in her throat. Bile with a faint...metallic tang?
It took her a second to realize that it wasn't just bile.
It was blood.
Despite her current condition, she managed to throw herself upright just in time to witness the contents of her stomach—that currently consisted of blood and remains of her lunch—spurt out of her mouth. She gagged and coughed, momentarily forgetting about the zombie, when it delivered a swift blow to her side as if to say, "I'm still here!"
That was the final straw for her. Time seemed to have slowed with every hit she took. All she could feel was pain, her injured leg flaring up like fire, her insides churning, her vision blurred and beginning to be obscured by black dots, her stomach heaving. The thunder in the distance roared, ringing in her ears and burning through most of her ability to hear, but in the background Jesse swore that there was that faint sound of quite hysterical—squealing?
Jesse didn't have the energy to even question it. As soon as she obliged to her screaming limbs and aching pains, her eyes closed by their own accord.
And everything went black.
"Jesse? Jesse, please—"
"Dude! Get up! You can't leave us this early! We still haven't beaten the Ocelots yet!"
"Axel, this isn't a joke! What's wrong with you?!"
"I'm not saying it is!"
Words Jesse could barely make out streamed into her ears in a tune of voices clamoring over each other, voices she knew all to well. She felt a hand shaking her shoulder vigorously, making her groan and inhale sharply.
"Axel, look! Jesse! Jesse, oh my gosh, can you hear me?"
Jesse pried her eyes open, revealing a dirty hut ceiling and two worried faces staring down at her. Axel and Olivia.
"Jesse, oh my goodness, even your eyes are red!"
"Dude, what happened? We were worried out of our minds!"
With the help of the two people next to her, Olivia letting her lean on her shoulder, Jesse managed to prop herself upright. She stirred, letting her eyes flutter closed again, her arms immediately going up to clutch her pounding head, but instantly regretting that decision as a jolt of electricity went through her muscles—
"Hey, it's okay," Olivia's voice came from beside her. Her pain must have been evident on her face, tears the color of rosewater leaking from her bloodshot eyes. Olivia brushed a strand of hair from Jesse's eyes, Axel proceeding to lay a comforting hand on Jesse's shoulder.
"Jesse, what happened? One minute you were with us at the building competition, the next—you were gone. And what's with all the blood?" She gestured at Jesse's overalls. Jesse forced her eyes back open, squinting down.
Sure enough, it was as if she had been stabbed. Blood seeped through the fabric, surely staining it from her red-and-white t-shirt all the way down to the cuffs of her overalls. It probably came in abundance from her mouth from when she retched, she presumed. There was still that metallic taste lingering on her tongue.
"I made this dirt hut to escape the monsters," Jesse explained. Her voice was weak and raspy. "A zombie busted the door down."
"That explains the rubble," Axel confirmed, gesturing to a pile of wooden splinters in what was once was the doorway. "You're lucky no other mobs attacked you when you were out cold."
"How'd you guys find me?" Jesse mused, confused when Axel and Olivia exchanged knowing looks. Their lips curled into little smiles at the corners of their mouths.
"You can thank this little guy for that," Axel said. He stepped up out of the way, revealing a little pink piglet. Jesse gasped.
"Reuben?"
"Oh, so you've named him already," Olivia said. "He came to us as we were looking for you in the forest, probably looking for any form of help. He literally dragged me and Axel to where you were laying. It took us a while, but we finally found you. Coincidence that it was us that he came across first, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"He looks very attached to you, Jesse," Olivia smiled as Reuben approached her.
Jesse smiled weakly, raising her hand out softly. Reuben nuzzled her palm. "Thank you, Reuben."
Reuben oinked, and even though he was 'just a pig', the pig equivalent of a smile beamed at her on his little piglet face. He communicated his unspoken conversation through his bright brown eyes.
You're welcome.