What I once thought was a flawed paradise seems now a little more like a perfect hell. My own personal hell. I can't even count the days I've been here. The nights I've slept in my bed cowering and praying for sleep so that if one of those things comes in, I'll die slumbering. It seemed so perfect in the beginning. I found this place and couldn't believe how close I was to the End. I didn't need the years of research or books I'd found to tell me how close I was. I could feel it. I balanced the work with the play. I dug and I mined but I also built. I built skyscrapers of glass. I built water falls from a single bucket of water. I even built this house. The possibilities of this place seemed endless. All I needed was my imagination and a bit of hard work. Even the food seemed to have healing properties. It all seemed perfect. But I also lost sight of what was important. Of why I came here.
The End was a shadow of a memory. A thought I had pushed to the side for the sake of my creations. Soon I dug for the raw materials and left ugly gaping holes in the landscape that served no purpose but to mar the beautiful picture of this place I had found. I suppose, in retrospect, that it didn't actually take that long before I grew tired of building. That's when I noticed the horrors this place held. I never remained awake after nightfall. It seemed senseless. I couldn't see what I was doing and thus slept. But I had such nightmares. Terrible creatures haunted my dreams screeching and groaning. The lack of hard work left me restless and I awoke one night to find my nightmares a reality. Skeletons and zombies pawed at my door while massive spiders hung low outside of my windows staring at me through the glass. It was still some time longer before I saw one of the four-legged beasts walking about. "Creepers" my research had called them. I had hoped I never saw them again after they destroyed the front wall of my house.
HAD hoped. Maybe it's the lack of sleep. Maybe it's the hopelessness I feel when I realize the goal I've lost sight of. Or maybe I've just found the right place. I came looking for the End. Perhaps I've found mine. I suppose it's irrelevant now. There's a field not far from my house where these Creepers seem to flock when they have nothing to chase. I'll go and watch the sunset and wait. And when they come, I'll keep waiting. If anyone should find this. Leave. Run while the sun still hangs in the sky. I go to my end.
-Bill
Steve flipped to the next page to find it blank. All the pages after that one were. It was the only page filled with text. The pages before it had been torn out but he didn't see them scattered anywhere. Perhaps he had them when he gave himself to the Creepers. It was impossible to say right now. He closed the book and turned it over in his hands. Leather. The crafting table in the corner had seen some heavy usage. The tools looked dull and gashes littered the table's surface where Bill had no doubt been sawing away and hadn't taken the greatest of care. The bed in the next room was neatly made having been some time since someone slept in it. The book, the tools, and the table all left as though he had been in the middle of something and simply left them behind to die.
Steve stepped out the front door looking across the landscape. He saw the field ahead and saw a sizeable crater where he assumed the man here before him sat down to wait. That's where he would start. Tomorrow. The sun touched the horizon and Steve was not about to risk testing what the book had told him about this place. He stepped back inside and pulled the lever that swung the iron door closed. An installment he had made when he first arrived as the front wall of the house had crumbled due to a lack of maintenance or a Creeper. He flapped the blanket on the bed a few times stirring up dust and set his head on the pillow. It wasn't long before Steve was snoring and sprawled out on the bed. This was the beginning of something new and he was going to need a lot of sleep to brave the days ahead.