All of a sudden, the pitch black of the screen seemed to envelop me. Then, I was falling. I couldn't see anything, and I was breathing hard in fear and panic. I began to scream as my stomach rose into my throat and the reality of the situation hit me. I was free-falling; I had no wings; I had no plane, no parachute to slow my descent, and I couldn't see the bottom yet. When I did, I'm sure I would hit it with the impact of a three-hundred pound wrestler, or probably even more. There was no way I was going to survive this. I continued to scream, straining my vocal chords as I continued to hurtle through the utter blackness. After five consecutive minutes of falling, my screams died out and numbness spread through my entire being, blotting out my fear and panic.
"I am going to die." I weakly thought, "After only 15 years of life, I am going to die by some freaky accident where my house fell in a really, really deep sinkhole or something…"
At least my family hadn't been home. They would live and mourn me, find a new house, and start a new life. I was consoled by that fact and relaxed into the fall, relinquishing myself to my terrible fate. I closed my eyes and flashed through some of my most precious memories of being with my family. I would miss them, and I know they would miss me. I sighed and prepared myself for impact. Then, it came. But not in the way I had expected it would. It was soft and light, like landing in a bed full of pillows. Sunlight filtered through my eyelids and a cool breeze gently touched my cheek. Puzzled, I slowly opened my eyes. The light pierced my eyes, and I hastily closed them again and groaned. I sat up, rubbed them, and tried once again. This time, the light wasn't as blinding. Once my eyes had adjusted, I looked around in awe. I seemed to be on some sort of grassy plain. It was beautiful, but something about it was off. Determined to find out what it was, I rose to my feet, groaning as my sore muscles stretched.
"How did I get sore?" I thought as I tenderly walked a few steps, "Maybe it was from the fall or the impact."
Ignoring my sore muscles, I strolled through the grassy plains, gazing at the green landscape. Many tall grasses were swaying slightly in the breeze; red and yellow flowers dotted the field, throwing bits of color into the overall green of the plains. Some horses to my left were grazing with some cows while chickens and pigs ran around their legs. I saw a small river to my right with bright, blue water and some sort of tall, bamboo-like plant that rose up on the sides of it. The water seemed to be shallow in some places, but deeper in others. There was no pattern to it, just random patches of deep and shallow. At one point, I could have sworn I saw something like dark blue sticks pop out of the surface, but when I looked again, nothing was there. I dismissed it, thinking I was seeing things. I looked in the direction the river pointed.
In all the adventure books I had read, when someone was lost, they would follow a river or small stream so they would have a constant water source. I decided to do the same, and headed over towards the river. The plain leveled off as it fell down to the river. Thinking it was just a small, normal hill, I walked normally down it, but as I took my first step, I fell a foot down. It was like I had stepped down a large stair. Curious, I looked back at the beginning of the hill. The dirt seemed to form a stair or a level that stretched out for a few feet, and then the top level resumed its track. I inspected the stair of dirt more closely and realized they were very block-like and compact. Then, I paused. The wheels in my mind started to turn. I suddenly realized why the plains had seemed so off before. Everything about it was very blocky. The levels and stairs were entirely block-like, even the deep and shallow parts of the river when I looked at them closer had those block levels in them. It was all vaguely familiar, but how?
It then hit me. It looked exactly like the introductory video of Minecraft. I mean, it sort of made sense why I was here then. I had just been about to play Minecraft when I fell into this whimsical realm. But, wasn't it just a game? As far as I was concerned, virtual reality games did not exist yet. So, how was this possible? I started pacing nervously, questions racking my brain, but I had no answers to them. Frustrated, afraid, and nervous, I plopped down on a block of dirt, putting my hand down next to me and leaning against it with all my weight. As soon as my hand touched it, large cracks started to appear in the grassy block next to me. Alarmed, I pulled my hand back.
"What was that?" I whispered as I lightly touched my hand against it again. The cracks appeared simultaneously, but instead of pulling back, I allowed them to grow. As they grew, a sound like digging up dirt rang out from it. Finally, the cracks reached the edges of the block and pop! The block disappeared, leaving a shallow, dirt hole. I peered inside the hole and saw a small object rotating inside. I leaned over and reached out to it. When I got close enough, the object zoomed out of the depression and flew into my stomach. I yelled out in fright and fell backwards, putting my hands on my stomach to make sure I was not terribly deformed in some way. I seemed to be perfectly fine. The weird, rotating object had disappeared. Shaking and extremely bewildered, I stood up slowly to investigate the hole.
No more objects appeared to be in it, but like everything else in this Minecraft-like world, it was shaped like a block. After I had thoroughly investigated the tiny burrow I had just made, I realized that something was flashing in the corner of my right eye. I turned towards it, but it continued to stay in my peripheral vision. After turning towards it several times like a dumb dog chasing its tail, I figured it might help if I just tried focusing on it without turning. Slowing fixing my eyes on the flashing item, it suddenly grew in size. Eventually, it was right in front of me, as large as an entire wall. It was a large white box with small light gray boxes inside it. There was a large section of gray boxes in the middle. I counted them and figured out there were 27 of them. Below those, there were nine more boxes, separated by a thicker strip of white. In the top left corner, I was surprised to find an image of myself with a vertical row of four gray boxes next to it. My eyes were moving and every time I turned my head, it turned, too. It was like looking into a mirror. However, when I raised my arm to see if it would do the same, all if did was lift its head.
"Weird." I said. It was like a mirror, but at the same time, it wasn't. After trying to wrap my head around it for several minutes, I finally gave up. I guess it was just another aspect of the game. My eyes widened in surprise.
"A game…this is a game isn't it?" I said as more of a statement than a question. If this was Minecraft, it totally explained everything: the blocks, the ability to break them, and even this weird box which seemed like some sort of game interface. I tried to remember everything I had learned about Minecraft. I knew you could break blocks and build stuff with the ones you had gathered. I also knew that at night, monsters came out and….
"Hold on!" I cried out. I immediately looked at the sky to see the sun was still high in the middle of it. I breathed a sigh of relief, my panic subsiding. I knew that the monsters would attack me if they were close enough. I decided I would have to find some shelter when night came. Calming down, I continued to run through my list of things that I knew. There were caves underground were you could mine, you could craft things using materials, and there were all different kinds of biomes. The two that I knew about were plains and mountains. That about summed up my knowledge of Minecraft. I groaned. I had no idea what to do now. This was hopeless. I didn't know how to play Minecraft, I didn't know how I got sucked into it, and I didn't know what this damn box was in front of me! I rammed my fist into the one of the smaller boxes, sucking in a breath as pain coursed through my arm.
"Ow!" I yelled, pulling back my hand to cradle it in my other one. I hadn't expected that to impact. I just thought my arm would've gone through. Plus, I really hadn't expected any pain. I mean, this was just a game after all. Maybe even a dream. I shouldn't be able to feel pain. The fact scared me badly. If I could feel pain, what would it feel like when monsters were attacking me? What would it feel like if a sword jabbed into my side? I started to hyperventilate and pace around. As soon as I took my first step, the big, white box disappeared. Its disappearance was enough to jolt me out of my panic attack. I stopped pacing, took a deep breath, and calmed down.
"Where did it go?" I inquired to no one but myself. As if answering my question, a thin, black box appeared in front of me. In it were white words that read: "Achievement Get! Open Inventory."
"So that's what it was. My inventory." I muttered; glad to finally know what that big, white box was.
"Now, I can add something else to my short list of 'Things I Know About Minecraft'." I sarcastically mumbled. I shifted my eyes to the bottom right corner of my vision to try to summon it again, but nothing was there. I turned around to try to find it, but to no avail. It had disappeared for good this time. I sighed and sagged my shoulders in defeat.
"So much for knowing about my inventory." I thought somberly. "If only I knew some of the controls…." At that thought, an idea formed in my head. Usually controls for games like this are buttons on the keyboard. Coming to that conclusion, I immediately started running through the alphabet out loud.
"A—"I was instantly jerked to the left as soon as I started. I almost fell, but managed to maintain my balance.
"Alright, so let's avoid W,A,S, and D for now…" I said, remembering the basic movement controls for most games. I continued to run through my alphabet, skipping A and D in the beginning.
"B, C, E—"And there it was. My inventory popped up as soon as I said E. I jumped back as the white box appeared right in front of my face. This time, instead of just seeing a bunch of boxes, I saw places were blocks and materials could be held. I studied it more carefully this time. In the second box of the lowest row, there was a dark brown block. I lightly tapped it and a label appeared above it, "Dirt". I slapped my forehead softly.
"Oh my god, I'm so dumb." I said. This was the small object that had disappeared into my stomach. It was the block of dirt I had broken. When I'd gotten close to it, I must have picked it up and then it went into my inventory. Experimenting, I tapped the dirt block again, but this time, I tried to drag it into another box. I succeeded and dragged it into the first box of the lowest row. As soon as I dropped it in, the small block appeared in my right hand. I inspected it closely. It looked just like the blocks of dirt around me, except it had no grass and it was smaller. Knowing that I could place blocks, I gently touched the block back into the hole I had made. It instantly left my hand and grew into a normal size, filling the hole once again. But it still had no grass on it, so it stood out against the other green blocks. Figuring that the grass would probably grow back again, I turned around to look at my inventory, but it had vanished. I quietly said the control and it popped back up. It looked the same, but the dirt block was gone.
"Guess once you use a block, it gets taken out of your inventory. Makes sense." I nodded my head a little as I spoke. I then took the time to thoroughly inspect and mess with my inventory. I broke more dirt blocks and placed them in different patterns, and found out that I had absolute freedom in placing them. I messed with the top right corner of the box which had four smaller boxes with the word "Crafting" above it. There was an arrow leading from the four boxes to a single box. I tried placing four dirt blocks into the crafting area, but nothing happened. Having no other block to work with, I gave up trying to craft something. I'd just have to figure it out later. I quickly closed my inventory and looked up at the sky again.
The blocky sun had definitely gotten lower, but it wasn't quite setting yet. I decided I still had some time and started to walk alongside the river. I passed more animals, which I realized are quite noisy, always mooing, neighing, clucking, or snorting. I jumped at every sound at first, but as I got used to it, I began to block them out. I kept looking in every direction to see if there was some change in scenery, but all I saw was the grassy plains. The monotonous journey began to become boring fast. I slowed down and withdrew into my thoughts, not noticing my surroundings as much. I didn't notice the giant hole in front of me before it was too late. I fell about 5 blocks down, crashing to the floor. It hurt. I could already feel the bruises forming on my legs and arms. Slowly and gently, I picked myself up off the cold, stone floor and looked up. The sun was already setting, and there was no immediate way to get out of the mine I had fallen into.
The sheer, smooth block sides offered no handholds to pull myself up. I sighed, realizing I would have to dig my way back up. I put my hand on the stone block in the front of me and waited for it to break. It took forever, much longer than the dirt blocks had. Right when the cracks had almost reached the edges of the block and I knew it was about to break, I heard a strange sound behind me. It was almost like…..a burning fuse noise that you always heard in cartoons like Tom and Jerry or Roadrunner before a bomb went off. I started to turn around to see what it was, but before I could, I was thrown off my feet and through the air until the hit the other wall of the mine. The impact almost knocked me out. I could feel myself losing consciousness, but my fear spurred me on and kept me awake.
I could barely move. Every part of my body was on fire. I felt as though I'd been loaded into a cannon, fired into the air, and crashed back down to Earth. I pulled myself up off the floor into a sitting position and rested my back against the stone wall. I bit my lip to keep back a scream as pain inflamed every limb. It was hard to breathe because every breath sent a shot of torture through my ribs. Breathing as lightly as possible, I waited for my vision to clear. Across from me, I could see the effect of the explosion that had knocked me from my feet. There was a two block deep and 5 block wide hole with little stone blocks littered across it. I wanted to pick them up and try to craft with them, but I was too injured to move. Instead, I stayed where I was, gathering my bearings. It was now night and stars covered the sky. A crescent moon hung there in between all the stars, shining brightly. I started to panic. I was out here in the open, stuck in a mine, too injured to move, and now it was night when the monsters would come out. I tried to get to my feet, but slumped back down when my legs gave out.
There was no way I was going to survive this. I started to cry as hopelessness and fear infected me. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I thought once again that I was going to die. I began to hear moans and hisses from the various monsters that had begun to come out. I cried harder as they got closer and closer. It was over. They would come after me, and I would die. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the moment when they finally attacked. My family's faces flashed before my eyes; my mom, my sister, and my dad. All of them were smiling, but suddenly, their faces warped and they were crying. They were screaming, grieving, mourning, and I knew it was because of me. Because I had died. It was torture, watching them in so much pain. I couldn't do that to them! I just couldn't! In a last burst of strength, I struggled to my feet, ignoring the pain that tormented me. I couldn't leave my family alone! They needed me.
"E!" I roared above the sounds of monsters approaching. My inventory popped open and I dragged the dirt blocks that I had gathered into the first box. The dirt appeared in my hand and I set to building a small shelter around me as quickly as possible. I placed the last two blocks to enclose me just as I saw a giant spider drop down into the mine right beside me. I heard it hissing, but it couldn't get to me. I was safe. I was alive. I dropped to the ground, the last of my strength fading away. My pounding heart finally quieted down and I drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.