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Chapter Ten: Lost

(Steve)

My arm hurts where a skeleton hit it. My leg hurts where a zombie kicked me. The moldy bread from last night is gone, and I'm hungry.

Mobs walk past the door to my cell, but I'm so weak, crying out for food is impossible. Besides, if I even try to talk to these mobs, I know they'll just beat me. I shut my eyes slowly and try to fall asleep.

A piece of broken glass presses into my cheek and I try to ignore it, squeezing my eyes tighter. Oh, Notch, I hope Alex is alright.

०००

(Alex)

I turn a corner and almost fall down a ravine. Still gasping from the mini heart-attack, I pull a stack of wood from my inventory and begin carefully building across. After building across, I sprint down the next corridor and realize I'm doing this wrong.

I'm heading deeper into the mountain, rather than heading up to the surface. I sigh and my shoulders slump, but at the next turn, I head up a corridor sloping somewhat uphill.

I turn a corner and run into a group of zombies.

"Grr?" One of them asks, and a different one of them grins. If you've ever seen a jack-o-lantern after it's been left out for a month, trust me, this is uglier.

The zombies growl, and all of them begin to advance. Thinking quickly, I build a cobblestone tower and stand on top of it.

The zombies snarl with annoyance, and claw the base of the tower. Standing at the top, I can easily take them out with sword, one by one. A shriek catches my attention, and I look up to see Entity 303 battling zombies with Herobrine's enchanted sword.

She's surrounded. Odd. I though she could control mobs.

"HELP!" She cries out, and a part of me wants to help her. It's what Steve would do. Besides, maybe I can change her opinion and get her to take me to Steve.

I kill a zombie and vault off my tower, propelling myself using another zombie's head and another's shoulders before finally landing next to 303.

"What are you doing?!" She asks angrily and confused.

"Trying to help," I answer with a grumble.

"Oh, how sweet," 303 says with a maniacal grin. "... foolish child." She turns to the zombies. "Get her!"

The zombies all attack me at once, tearing my shirt and forcing me against the wall. One of them hands her something… the map!

"Oh, what's this?" 303 says with a laugh.

"Give it back," I snarl, struggling against the zombies that are holding me down.

"My map," 303 grins. "I was wondering where this went. It'd be a shame if… oops," She smiles and tears the corner a little bit.

"Don't you dare," I growl. "I need that."

"Oh, that's so inconvenient," Entity 303 smiles. "That an entirely unique map is in my hands, I can be quite… clumsy," She rips a corner off.

"STOP!" I shout, kicking a skeleton. "Leave it alone!"

"Whoops," 303 smiles and tears another huge chunk out of the map. "What a klutz I am, I'm really making a fool of myself, aren't I."

A lump begins to rise in my throat. My only connection to Steve is being torn apart right in front of me. A tear trickles down my cheek and I can't even reach up to wipe it away.

Finally, when the map is nothing more than a pile of paper shreds on the floor, Entity 303 glances up at me with a laugh.

"Oh, sweetie, I'm not finished," She grins, pulling out a flint and steel.

"NO!" I scream, shoving the zombies off me and leaping forward to try and save the map as she lights it on fire.

I grab the paper but immediately let go as it burns my hands. "No…"

303 kicks me in the side as if I'm nothing more than a disobedient dog. "Idiot," I hear her mutter, as she turns around and disappears into the caves.

I sit crying, cradling my burned hands against my chest and staring at the dying fire in front of me. The cavern is silent, and apparently even the zombies have the decency to not attack me immediately.

My map. My only connection to Steve. It's gone. Burned to a pile of ashes.

A zombie approaches me with a confused growl, and I leap up and stab it with my sword until it's nothing more than acrid white smoke. Another zombie approaches and I put an arrow through it's skull easily.

More zombies begin stumbling towards me. I whip out my sword and stab another through the chest. Avoiding their sharp claws, I leap past them and sprint through the caves, darting upwards, downwards, sometimes running in circles in order to confuse them.

The zombies can't run, but come after me anyway. I leap across a crevasse in the floor easily, landing on the other side without as much as a stumble. I turn down that corridor, and sprint towards some nearby light.

I skid to a stop just in time to avoid falling off a cliff into a ravine.

A snarl behind me alerts me to the presence of zombies, and I turn around in shock. One of the zombies growls, and the others all answer with a snarl.

I take a step back, and a small chunk of the stone beneath my feet crumbles off and falls a long way down before landing with a splash.

Wait - A splash?

I glance over my shoulder to see a small pool of water, being fed from a spring somewhere inside the mountain.

I glance back at the approaching zombies. Even if I jump, the pool of water is only barely big enough for me to land in. Well, it's preferable to being ripped apart by zombies.

I turn around, back to the zombies, focus on the water, and leap off the edge.

Review Replies:

ScarOfHerobrine: Yes! Someone noticed Notch! He's sort of the divine being of the Minecraft world, and I wanted to include him as a way to get closer to the climax.

Moatazabou4: EXACTLY! I feel like Alex wanted to lose 303 in the caves, but got lost herself.

JimmyPenguin421: Ah, yes, Notch. Notch is kind of the all knowing deity of this world, but also kind of not really. He doesn't do anything by appear a few times to scold the characters, but a fun easter egg nonetheless.