I wake up to the sound of dishes clattering and the smell of fish. My stomach hurts, but I assume it's because I'm hungry. My head throbs as I try to sit up and, on the second try, I'm able to. For some reason I feel worse than yesterday, and my whole body aches. I sit and until the feeling wears off, meanwhile trying to figure out where I am. I'm in what looks like a living room, and what I'm sitting on now is a very long couch, raised higher above the floor than any I've ever seen. In front of it is a narrow wooden table, which is almost as long as the couch, and on it are several carefully placed piles of books. The walls are mostly hidden behind bookshelves filled neatly with more books. What I find most interesting is the high ceiling. You'd think a miniature giant lived here.
I stand up slowly, almost having to jump off the couch, and hold my head. Only then do I notice that it's wrapped in bandages. I look down at the carpeted desert colored floor, to noticed that my shoes and socks are missing. I scan the well-organized room for them, but they aren't in sight. I am impressed by how neat everything is though. After a few seconds I start to get the feeling that someone's behind me. I stay where I am, pretending I'm completely unaware of their presence, until I hear them jumping over the back of the couch. I spin around and pin the person down with both arms, only to realize after a jolt of pain one is injured. A small girl with black hair that's dyed white at the bottom, light green eyes, and apparently the assailant, looks back at me with fear in her eyes. I let go and back away from her, confused, and in the process I bump into the table, knocking over a large pile of books. I clear my throat.
"Don't do that again," I tell her as she cautiously gets up. Then I walk around the table to return the books to their original positions. I look back up at her after having a thought occur to me, but by then she's running into another room. She's stopped, however, when she bumps into a very tall guy with dark hair coming out of the room, which I realize is probably a kitchen, wearing an apron. A fluffy pink apron. I take one look at him before turning around and covering my mouth to prevent myself from laughing. When I turn back to face him the apron is gone, and he seems to glare slightly at Stormy for a second. I notice that he's tall, very tall, and suddenly understand why the ceiling is so high.
The guy walks over to me, looking a bit concerned, and I begin to feel short. Of course, I've always been short for my age. At about 5 feet tall, even a few sixth graders are taller than me. Until I was 10 it was my goal in life to be 6 feet tall, but then I realized that being short had its advantages as well. For example, people are more likely to underestimate you because you look small, and you can fit into smaller spaces, so it can be easier to hide depending on the situation. Sometimes I still regret being short though, mainly when people have to look down at me. This person, or guy, reaches over to touch my forehead, and I back away.
"Ender," the girl says, now facing me, "I think you're scaring her."
Ender doesn't respond; he just leaves the room. I look back at the girl, wondering if his feelings were hurt. It didn't really look like it though. The girl stands in the kitchen doorway, giving me a smirk that implies she's planning my death. The thought that occurred to me before comes back, and I find myself looking carefully at her eyes. A memory comes back to me. My parents bought a cat with the same eyes.
"Stormy?" I say before Ender comes back with some bandages. I watch as Ender sets them on the table, and slowly back away, hoping they won't notice. Looking at the girl, though, I realize she's still watching me. She grins.
"Where am I?" I ask instead. Ender glances up at me briefly before continuing to unroll some bandages.
"Where does it look like," the strange girl replies sarcastically, "a cave?" I stare at her, wondering if that was a really bad joke or if it was the first thing that came to her mind.
"You're in my cottage." Ender says with a soft voice, "Stormy brought you here." This confuses me, and it must have shown because Stormy stops pretending to plot my demise and a look of realization washes over her face. Suddenly she looks guilty of something.
"Did she?" I say cautiously, trying to remember the previous day, "I don't even remember getting here, wherever this is, and the last time I checked Stormy was a cat." My voice starts to get smaller toward the end, until I'm mumbling almost, like it usually does when I talk too much around people I'm not yet used to.
"Actually," Stormy says slowly, "That would be the last time you remember, but don't worry about it." Ender looks up at her while she's saying this, though he doesn't say anything. I glare at her.
"I better not have any kind of permanent brain damage." I warn threateningly. She smirks and backs away slowly. Then Ender interrupts.
"I'm sure your memory will be back eventually." He glances at Stormy afterwards.
"Where are we anyway?" I ask, deciding to use this time to collect information instead of arguing.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Stormy asks me. I'm ready to strangle some one when Ender interrupts us both.
"We are in the Minecraft universe. That's what it's called in your world." he explains calmly, "There's no name for it here. Do you have any other questions?"
"How did I get here? To this world." I ask, specifying I mean this world and not the cottage.
"Oh, oh," Stormy jumps up and down waving her arms, "This void appea..." Stormy starts to shout excitedly, but Ender interrupts her.
"Stormy brought you here." he says. Stormy looks at him, confused.
"Why?" They exchange looks as soon as I ask.
"We'll get to that later." Stormy says, actually serious this time.
"Fine," I say, suspicious, but I'm willing to let it go. "Why doesn't this wor...universe have a name here?"
"We've never had a reason to give it one." Ender answers.
"'We'" I repeat, "there are others here?" I ask. Stormy shoots me a "that's obvious" look.
"There are, but think about that later. Your arm's hurt. I need to replace your bandages." he says, waiting for a response.
I relax a bit when I realize neither Ender nor Stormy want to hurt me, though Stormy could be up to something. Her smirk quickly disappears when she sees me looking at her. I glance over at the bandages on the table. They're really trying to help me, but for some reason that scares me as much as the idea of them wanting to kill me or something. When I was younger it was fine if some one helped me out, but now I prefer to avoid people. It's more than that though. It makes me uncomfortable when people are nice to me. It's strange.
"I can take care of myself." I say, taking the old bandages off my arm.
Ender looks at me for a second before nodding his head and going back to the kitchen. He drags Stormy with him and she complains. I sit back down on the couch to check my wound. It looks... bad, and it hurts. The cut runs along the outside of my forearm. I re-bandage it with the new cloth, wondering how I got the wound. I think back to the other day, my memory slowly coming back, as well as the conversation I had with Stormy. She was wasn't as hyper yesterday. I smell the fish again, and suddenly I feel very hungry. I get up and walk into the kitchen to find stormy trying to steal a fish while Ender cooks.
"Stormy." Ender says in the same soft voice he was using before, only a little louder.
Stormy takes her hand away from the fish and pouts. It reminds me of the way my younger brother pouted when he found out Stormy wasn't a boy. I smile, just a little. Stormy goes to sit at the table but catches me out of the corner of her eye. She notices me smiling.
"Well look who decided to join us." She teases, "Ms. I'm-too-grumpy-to-not-be-serious." I can't help but smirk at that.
"That's got to be the worst joke I've ever heard." I say, leaning against the wall.
"It wasn't a joke," she corrects me, "it's a fact."
"Yeah, well it sounds more like an opinion to me." I contradict, copying the sound of her voice. She smirks.
"Is that a challenge?" she asks mischievously. What's she up to?
"Yes," I say before adding, "in your opinion." She gives me a look that I'm guessing means "oh, it's on", but before she can say anything Ender puts two plates of fish on the table. Stormy suddenly forgets about the challenge and dives into her food. Literally. I almost laugh at her, but I don't want to interrupt her meal. Wondering what time it is, I look out the window in front of the table to see that it's dusk, so this is diner. I look back at the table to see Ender watching me. He must have sat down while I was looking at the sky. I sit down in the only empty chair.
I poke at my food for a while with my fork, which was next to the plate. I feel so strange, sitting here with these people I don't even know. Besides, it occurs to me, how was I able to talk to Stormy so easily before? I feel so out of character, but is that a bad thing? I know it would be better for me to relax a bit, but if I do I might relax too much. Then when I get back home I'll be back in the suburb where I can't be all bubbly and happy because my parents would notice, and I'd have to stay home then because I wouldn't want to wander around the town any more. Then I'd be stuck with a dumb free loader. I take a deep breath, completely aware of how often I do that to calm down. I've already decided to forgive him. There's no point in thinking about it, but just because I forgive him doesn't mean I have to accept him as a... family member. Someday, I'll be able to admit it to myself though.
I glance at the people in front of me. Ender is looking at me, and hasn't even started eating yet, but Stormy is almost finished. These people aren't my family. I may not see my family again, or even get back. Briefly, I wonder what it is I want to go back to, but I quickly put the thought out of my mind. I have a responsibility, as the oldest child, to take care of Archie and Xia. Even though I hate responsibility. I have to find a way back. For now though, I need to focus on the things I can learn here. It's amazing. I've never really seen the ocean before, there are so many trees, the sea, the clear water, the clean air, and even the sky seems clearer. I haven't been around nature for a long time. I also need to find out how I got here, and why I'm here, I remind myself. My mind is easily distracted when I let my guard down.
"Is something wrong, Willow?" Ender asks, noticing I haven't eaten my food yet. I shake my head and taste some of the fish.
"Thanks," I say quietly, swinging my legs back and forth slightly, "for helping me." I don't understand why it's so hard just to say 'thank you'.
We're silent for a while. Even Stormy stopped eating. Surprisingly, she was the one who spoke first.
"Don't worry about it. We'll always be there for you." she says, not realizing how cheesy that sounded. I want to say something back but I don't know what to say, so I ask Ender something.
"How did you know my name?" I ask him.
"Stormy told me." he says before eating the rest of his fish.
We don't say much for the rest of the night until Stormy starts talking about tomorrow's plan.
"So tomorrow we'll get up at the break of dawn..." she starts to say. By now I'm half asleep, and her words blend together when I don't focus on them. Ender sees me and tells me I can sleep on the couch again. I'm too tired to say anything so I walk over to the couch and collapse. Soon enough I fall asleep, and I can't even hear the sounds of their voices.
Ender watched as the girl, Willow, began to fall asleep at the table. She looked tired enough to fall over.
"Willow," Ender said, getting Willow's attention, "You can sleep on the couch again, if you're tired." Willow nodded sleepily and walked out of the room. Ender stood and gathered the plates. He washed and put them away while Stormy continued to describe the schedule, though Ender wasn't listening. It seemed that, despite her attitude the day before, Stormy hadn't changed as much as Ender had thought, if at all. Oddly enough, Ender found himself feeling glad she was back despite that. He realized it was because he actually enjoyed having more people around, for he often got lonely being alone all the time.
"How did you manage to get back?" Ender asked Stormy in his usual quiet voice when she had stopped talking. Stormy didn't seem to have heard him at first, but then she turned around to face him. During her speech she had been walking about, and had stopped to think. At that point she was facing away from him.
"I don't know, but it was weird. Suddenly the void appeared beneath us, and I was going to ask Willow about that." she said, frustrated at the last part. She had completely forgotten to do that. She sighed, disappointed and suddenly tired. Ender watched as she began to sway back and forth, and was about to tell her where she could sleep when she fell over. He hesitated, considering his options. He was tempted to just leave her there. Being an enderman, he didn't like being too close to people. He walked over to her, picked her up, teleported over to the couch in the living room, and dropped her onto it. He teleported away again to return with blankets, and after covering both guests with one he left to visit a nearby plains biome.