Chapter XXVIII: Light At the End of the Tunnel

Tell me this: if you were talking to someone you didn't know who had a picture of you as a child, how would you freaking react? Would you respond by simply asking "How the hell did you get that?" or "What do you want with me?" or something? I had no idea how to react. I was sitting down, standing up, sitting down again, walking around the goddamn house, lying down, and sitting in my chair again. This was creepier than the goddamn home movie. This creepy dude had a picture of me. This was the same dude who was trying to help me. I felt scared. Was this guy trying to get to know me? Was he a pedophile or something?

No, I didn't think that. I knew how to respond. I stopped shaking and replied:

You're me?

What else was I supposed to freaking say? I didn't even make it formally. I just freaking opened the stupid "Reply" box and typed up the things that were on my mind. To be honest, I didn't initially expect something so, well, contrived. If you were being emailed by someone random, you wouldn't think of them as being you, you'd think of them as a troll or something. Hell, the real question was how he was me. First I needed to wait for him to respond before getting down to the business of figuring out what the hell was going on.

A few minutes later he answered:

Wes,

More so, you are me.

Anon.

And this made everything worse. So Anon was really me? Well, how did that freaking work? I was sitting there, putting together things that made no sense beforehand. He said he was me and kept telling me to not fear the future. It was a freaking stupid thought, but it was the one that stuck with me the most.

Was Anon me from the future?

No, there is no freaking way. There was no goddamn way that this was actually happening. I shut down my computer and tried to get my mind off the whole thing. I mean, seriously, if you were emailed by someone claiming to be you from the future, would you freaking believe them? No, you wouldn't. You'd think it was a troll or something. Goddamn, I was freaking out now. Really, Anon was either me or a troll who had access to my privacy. Both of these were messed up and needed to be stopped, if that makes sense. I waited until later that night to turn my computer back on.

When I opened my email back up, he had replied four times. Each email contained only one word:

Wes,

Xanadu.

Anon.

The second one:

Wes,

Grief.

Anon.

The third one:

Wes,

Rapture.

Anon.

The fourth one:

Wes,

Aeon.

Anon.

That was it.

Now what was I supposed to reply with? He, or I, was being cryptic at this point. Not really helping the situation or anything. These names didn't matter to me anymore. They were just names, that's all. What mattered to me was understanding the situation. I wanted to figure out how the hell Anon was supposedly me because that made no sense whatsoever. I continued to think, taking up most of my night, before opening up the first email he had sent me. The email only contained the word "Xanadu" and nothing else.

I already knew Xanadu either referred to the person (NPC? I dunno anymore) or server. If that were true, then the other names had to have some sort of correlation. That makes sense, right? So Grief, Rapture, and Aeon were either the next servers or, possibly, NPCs like Xanadu? Goddamn it, why couldn't it just end? If it were people then I'd go insane. Xanadu left me with some emotional scars. Having to watch all of that go down was chaotic. I didn't want this anymore. Nonetheless, the information I gathered seem important. I would need to tell Blackfield about it at the meeting. Until then, though, I had more freaking time to waste doing nothing but trying to reconcile the friendships that I let fall apart. Stupid, stupid me.

On Tuesday I walked home with Conner. He said he was feeling better after what happened and cared more for how I was handling the situation. He was nice for looking into me like that. Well, not literally into me, but I guess you already figured that. He didn't seem like that developed of a guy on the outside, but once you get to know him, he's one hell of a guy. I was beginning to prefer him over Garth and Ed, but that was a difficult decision to make. I had known Garth and Ed for years while Conner and I only met a year prior or so.

While we walked, Conner actually told me something I didn't know. His grandfather was apparently a small town writer. He wrote short stories and articles for a newspaper, although I can't remember what goddamn town it was. This seemed pointless until he mentioned that some of the things that his grandfather wrote about was death and what lies beyond, which seemed relevant to what we were enduring. Instead of me heading home, I instead went to Conner's house to see these stories. The first one I read, called "The Wild's Tear", was about a boy who was forced to hunt in order to save his father's land from predators. The entire time he feels like he won't be able to succeed, but sees a vision of his father at night and begins to search for his father. The boy actually thought that his father was somewhere out there. Once he realized he may or may not be alone, he took down the predators and continued to live alone.

The story was interesting. It was very well written, but the symbolism and all that was complex. It reminded me heavily of The Catcher in the Rye in that everything related to one theme and it all was freaking convoluted. Nothing was really out in the open for you to see. All that could be understood had to be research and stuff. Conner's grandfather lived around the time of J.D Salinger, so he might've been inspired or something, but that's what it seemed like to me.

One I was done reading the short stories, I decided it would be wise to tell Conner about Anon.

"Who's Anon?" Conner was sorting the stories back into a box, "Like, Anonymous?"

"Just Anon, but whatever. He has been talking to me since this whole Ancient Minecraft stuff started and..." I tried to find the right words to get the whole 'Anon is me' thing across clearly, "He keeps saying that he is me."

Conner put the box of stories on a shelf, "Anon is you? How does that work?"

"That's why I was asking you. I have no idea," I was getting ready to leave, "he also sent me a bunch of words. I think it was 'Grief', 'Rupture' or something, and 'Ion' or whatever. The first of them was Xanadu, though. Like, he sent four emails, and the first was Xanadu."

"Xanadu? As in the server or the person?" Conner and I were on the front porch of his house.

"Beats me."

"If it's the server, then that leads nowhere. However," Conner sounded like he was having a revelation or something, "if it was the person, then could the other names be people as well?"

"That's what I was sort of thinking."

Conner seemed like he was really understanding it all, "The duplication program must've been doing this."

"The program? Are you sure?"

"Just think about it. Xanadu turned out to be Blackfield and Anon is supposedly you. That would make sense, right?"

Hell yeah, it really did make sense. Like, my god, it made sense. Conner was a freaking genius. The duplication program must've been doing this sort of thing all along. It must've cloned me and Blackfield and turned us into Anon and Xanadu. What would that mean for the other names? Like, Aeon, Rapture, and Grief? Were they the others? That was a horrible thought. Conner made perfect sense. We had to tell Blackfield. We were onto something. We had taken the first big steps in quite a few days.

The next day I was pretty damn excited. I was wide awake during school, which was definitely uncommon. I just wanted to go to The Place and tell Blackfield and Solstice about all that Conner and I figured out. It would be perfect. When I got home, I waited half an hour before getting on. Sure enough, everyone was in The Place, standing around. Hopefully Conner hadn't told them anything yet. I wanted to be the one to tell them.

Conner turned to me, "Howie! We've been waiting for you. You had something you wanted to tell us, right?"

Goddamn, I think Conner was my best friend now.

"Blackfield, I think there is confirmation that the duplication program made Xanadu into you. I've been contacted by someone calling themself Anon who said that they were me. They also listed various names that I assume to be the clones of others." I said. It didn't go as well as I hoped, but oh well. At least I had gotten it out in the open.

Blackfield just stood there, taking in the information, I guess, "I see. Whether or not that is true matters not right now. We can't look more into this unless we get into contact with another server. Otherwise, we're stuck in this goddamn mountain."

Right, the goddamn mountain.

I looked over to the tunnel and walked over to it, "There was something else Anon told me."

"What?" Solstice remarked. It was the first time she had spoken all day, I guess.

"He spoke of a light at the end of the tunnel," I said, really beginning to think about it then, "at first it sounded like he was referring to death, but he later said that he meant this tunnel. In a way, the light at the end of the tunnel represents heaven, or a new life or beginning."

They understood where I was going. Finishing this tunnel would be the next step. It would be a new beginning.

We all began digging our way through walls of dirt and stone. It was incredible just how goddamn productive we were. We didn't say a single goddamn word to each other. We were just freaking digging. Digging and digging, waiting for that light to appear. Many things ran through my head while we tried to finish this tunnel. I kept wondering what would be outside. I kept wondering where we'd go from there. I even wondered whether one of us would die next. If so, who? I was scared to think. If it were Conner, I wouldn't be too sad since I know him in real life, but if it were Blackfield or Solstice, then... I dunno what I'd do other than go freaking insane.

We kept digging.

And digging.

Until I saw it.

I saw the goddamn light.

I had broken a single block, but saw it. We broke the rest of the wall and faced the light. We kept walking. We were standing on cobblestone now. It wasn't dirt, just cobblestone. Beyond was just water. A bunch of water, too. Water as far as the eye could see. We stepped out to the edge of the cobblestone and looked up at the massive mountain we had been meeting in for quite some time. Beside us, to our left, were stairs leading up the side of the mountain. All four of us walked up these stairs to the top of the mountain where we stopped in shock at what stood before us.

They were simply there. No one had built them. They were just sort of freaking there. They were on top of this grassy mountain top that no one had been to.

They were the last three Forbidden Machines.

Disconnected.


Howard Answers:

AkatsukiLivesForever: Thank you.

Avaister: Sounds intense, man. You should write about it, though. This goes for anyone with strange experiences in Minecraft. You should write about it for other people to see.

Fantasmic: Yeah, it's not necessarily me from the future, it's just a clone of me because of the goddamn duplication program. And damn, I guess FMP forgot to put those two in a couple chapters ago. Blame him for ignoring that freaking mistake!

FMP Response: I didn't do nothin'.

Chalkolatedragun: I'm glad you're enjoying it. I've been getting decent practice with writing from this even though my specialty is in art.

manaphymajic1999: I feel sorry for you, man. Remember that there are plenty of people to talk to on this community.

Blocker11: There might've been a few, but I was too busy to pay attention. Actually, I think there were. I dunno, I can't remember.