Book 1: The Mob Invasion
Chapter 13: Clues

Days Since the Mob Invasion: 752

Daren attempted to rub the mounting stress out of his forehead.

"Hunter's dead. Rinoa has his redstone compass and is most likely making her way over here as we speak to try and kill us all for banishing her, and that's assuming Jericho's army doesn't return to kill us all first," Daren muttered. "We've already lost Sofie and William... then banished Rinoa... and now Hunter's gone... We're losing people, Frederick." Daren looked up. "I think it's past time we consider moving on. We do not have the people to defend Hunter's Watch anymore."

In Frederick's office, four of the remaining six citizens of Hunter's Watch held an urgent meeting. Daren's eyes were locked across the room with Frederick's. Daren, Zeke, and George were all standing around Frederick's desk, with Frederick sitting across from them smoking thoughtfully on his pipe, the smoke catching in the rays of sunset that trickled in from the office window.

"He's right," George spoke up. "We already used all of our stockpiled TNT fending off the last attack, and Rinoa was the only one of us who knew how to make the stuff," he pointed out. "These walls don't just defend us: they draw attention. I know we've been able to fend off small griefer attacks in the past, but things are different now. Even if Jericho or Rinoa don't show up, we still won't have the manpower required to defend us from any other possible threats. Undead or otherwise..." George finished his sentence while trying not to shudder at the mental image of an army of zombies and creepers overrunning their now near-defenseless community.

Zeke, who was standing right next to George, let out a large sigh and scratched his beard. It sounded more like a sigh of defeat than him just being tired.

"Unfortunately... I have to agree with them," Zeke solemnly admitted. "I have no doubt I could cleave any one of those puny 'soldiers' in Jericho's army in two... but if they all attacked at once... well..." Zeke's voice trailed off before he could finish, the large Southern man not wanting to admit out loud that he could be bested in a fight even if it was a fight against a small army.

Frederick sat there silently as he listened to the men, puffing from his pipe as he did so. Leaving Hunter's Watch was certainly not a welcome thought, especially with how much they had there. And what about the outside world? Where would they go? Where could they go? All major cities were, to Frederick's knowledge, overrun. They'd be without walls. They'd be without shelter. Exposed to the elements. Exposed to the mobs and griefers. Could they even survive that? Jericho's army seemed to be able to. Maybe there were more communities like theirs that would actually take them in. But, even so, how could Frederick trust them? How could he trust any of them?

Frederick's eyes narrowed. He looked around the room, making note of the two absences.

"Where's Lana?" Frederick asked. "She should be here to discuss this with us."

"She went to go check on Alan." George replied. "He's um... he still hasn't come out of his house."

Frederick frowned before nodding slowly. Alan was there with Hunter when he died. He was the one who had to stop Hunter from turning after he succumbed to his zombie bite. Frederick had been watching Alan's house from his window the past few days looking to see if Alan would ever come out, but he never did. Not that Frederick could blame him, though. Although he never saw eye-to-eye with Hunter on many things, Frederick still understood the gravity of what Alan was forced to do, and the weight of Hunter's death as it hung over their community was like a shroud.

Frederick hoped Lana could help him.

Lana walked down the path to Alan's house carrying a small basket of bread in her hands. She knew Alan hadn't come out of his house in days, and she was worried that he was starving himself to death. She frowned as she stared down at the ground. Alan was taking Hunter's death hard, and she couldn't blame him. Not only that, but Lana remembered Alan telling her that the creeper explosion that had injured him had blown his left ear completely off, half-deafening him. Lana could still vividly recall the sight of Alan's face that fateful night as he shambled back into Hunter's Watch. The missing ear and bits of scarred flesh were one thing, but what bothered Lana the most was the blank, empty stare in Alan's eyes staring off into the distance as he retold the story of what had happened to Hunter. They seemed... soulless. Hollow. Dead.

Alan had lost a piece of himself that night, in more ways than one.

Lana and Hunter were particularly close. Hunter went out of his way to make sure Rinoa was banished and not executed for William's murder, something Lana knew she would never be able to repay him for. Lana's eyes began to tear up again as she remembered how the last time she saw Hunter she was screaming at him about how he could have let Rinoa steal his compass. And then slapping him. There was almost nothing Lana wouldn't give to undo that slap and unspeak those words. But it was far too late for that now. Lana wiped away her tears as she approached Alan's door.

The guilt and regret was just something she was going to have to live with in atonement for what she had done. And Lana was prepared for that.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

"Alan?" Lana called out, rapping her own knuckles against the wooden door of Alan's home. "Alan, it's me. I brought you some bread. Are you hungry?"

Silence.

Lana waited for several seconds, squirming uncomfortably in place as she stood there. She always just thought there was something so awkward about knocking on somebody's door. So intrusive. And then being forced to stand there like a fool for a minute while you wait for somebody to answer... if they answer.

A small 'bump' could be heard come from within Alan's home, but further silence immediately followed afterwards.

Well, he's definitely in there, Lana thought to herself. She stood there wondering what to do. Should she knock again? Leave the bread in front of the door and leave? No, she should at least check on him, right?

As Lana debated her next move, she was startled by a sound coming from the other side of Alan's door, closer this time than the previous noise. It sounded like wood scraping against wood, and Lana realized that Alan was moving the wooden beam that blocked his door. Alan was about to come out. Straightening up, Lana composed herself and put on a neighborly smile to greet her newly formed friend.

The door cracked open.

Alan's face could barely be seen hiding behind the door as his right eye peered between the gap of the door and the wall. Lana couldn't see much of his face from that angle, but she could tell he didn't exactly look chipper to see her.

"H-hey, Alan," she started with a smile and friendly tone. "I made you some bread. I know you've gotta be hungry by now." Lana took a step closer towards the door, hoping Alan would open it. "Do you mind if I come in?" she asked.

Alan stared back at her through the door for an uncomfortably long amount of time. Lana's face muscles were starting to cramp up from holding her 'neighborly smile' for too long, but she was too worried that any change in demeanor could scare Alan back into his shell. So she just stood there with her basket of bread in hand as she patiently waited for Alan to do – or at the very least say – something.

Alan turned his back towards her as he walked into the darkness of his house, leaving the door open for her as he did.

"Alright," Alan's voice came out in a low whisper. "Come in then."

Lana let out a mental sight of relief as she wiped a bead of sweat from her brow and headed inside. That was progress, at least.

Alan's home was a modest one. Sparsely furnished, and decorated even less than that. But it was practical, warm, and had no signs of wood rot. It also just so happened to be Rinoa and Sofie's home in Hunter's Watch before... everything happened. Lana couldn't help but feel a sense of melancholy as she laid the bread basket on the small dining table in the living room. It was the same dining table that the three sisters had played countless board games on during the quiet hours to kill boredom. But now... it was just another dusty table. She left the bread in the middle of the table, covered by a small, warm blanket.

Lana turned back around and saw Alan sitting at the far side of the room in a chair. The room was dimly lit, but a few rays of sunlight were cascading in from in between the shutters of the windows, so Lana didn't feel like she was stumbling in the dark. The minimal light was also enough for Lana to get a good look of Alan's face, but when she did, her heart sank.

Alan looked as if he had aged several years in the span of a few short days. The missing left ear was an obvious change, but just as obvious were the bags under his eyes, dark and prominent. His face looked sunken in, and he seemed pale. Lana wondered if he had even gotten any sleep at all since the night Hunter died. From the looks of it, she doubted it.

Lana took a seat in the chair across from Alan. She very much hoped that he would be in the mood to talk to her, even just a little. If Lana had to be completely honest, it was more than just 'neighborly concern', she knew what Alan was going through. The context of their situation was not lost on her: they were deep within the mob invasion by this point. More and more twisted things were happening every day, and they were far removed from any memory of "laws" or the "imperial justice" of the old days living under Notch's Empire. And it didn't matter how tough you were: that kind of thing gets to you. As much as Lana didn't want it to be true, she believed the way of the world was starting to get to Alan. Everyone has their limit.

"What're the others up to?" Alan spoke first and spoke suddenly, surprising Lana.

"They're having a meeting," Lana sighed. "They're beginning to think we should just pack up camp and leave... but I don't really know about the logistics of all that," she shrugged.

Alan stared past Lana as she talked. He seemed as if he was only vaguely processing the information Lana was telling him.

"Yeah... maybe we should..." Alan half-heartedly agreed, his tone wistful. Lana frowned at this.

"But where will we go? What other place could possibly still be standing that would take in as many people as us?" she asked, knowing fully well nobody could possibly know the answer. "And once we're outside of the wall, we're practically defenseless! What if we run into griefers? Or a pack of zombies?" Lana's voice began to heighten as she felt a small rush of fear wash over her. Lana instinctively grabbed her arms, gripping hard as flashbacks of the first night of the mob invasion played out in her mind all over again, torturing her psyche. "What if we run into creepers?" she whispered, quiet terror clinging to her voice.

It took a few seconds for Lana to compose herself. When she did, she looked up and realized that Alan had become visibly tense from the conversation.

"Aw, shit, I'm sorry, Alan," Lana grimaced in guilt as she mentally slapped herself for being so careless as to mention creepers in front of Alan right now, "I didn't mean to bring up... y-you know... all that." Lana stumbled out awkwardly.

Alan seemed to ease up a little bit after her apology.

"It's alright..." he whispered, his shoulders visibly relaxing.

Silence hummed in the air between the two for a minute as Lana planned her next words carefully.

"Alan," Lana began. "You need to know... what happened to Hunter? Nobody here blames you. That wasn't y-"

"Let me guess," Alan abruptly cut her off as his eyes staring intently into hers. "It 'wasn't my fault,' right?" Alan leaned forward, his face hardening like a rock as his entire demeanor became a lot more stern. "Then who the hell's fault was it then, Lana?" Alan hissed.

Lana's eyes were wide in shock. She had clearly said something to upset him, but she genuinely was only trying to console her friend.

"Alan, I-"

"You know what?" Alan cut her off again as he leaned back in his seat, shaking his head. "I became an alchemist to save people, you know. To save lives. Use the powers of the potions to help mankind... but the more I look back on it," Alan let out a dry, almost sarcastic chuckle. "I haven't been able to save a damn soul..."

"That's not true," Lana spoke up firmly, almost cutting off Alan herself this time. Now it was Alan's turn to be surprised. "You patched up Hunter after he returned back from the Nether. You treated George's redstone poisoning, and you helped us defend the community from Jericho and his army, and then patched us all up after that. I know you may think you're useless right now, but you're not." Lana leaned in forward and Alan could see the fire in her eyes. "People are going to die, Alan... sometimes, we all need to be reminded that we can't save all of them. Not even you." Lana smiled. It was a tiny, fragile smile, but it was heartfelt, and Alan knew those were hard to come by these days.

Alan sat there for a few seconds as he gave himself time to digest what Lana was saying. He wanted to pretend that her visit today didn't make him feel any better. Or maybe he just didn't want to feel better? Maybe he felt like he didn't deserve it? And yet, try as he might, he couldn't stop his spirits from raising slightly from listing to Lana speak. Was it truly that easy? Did he really just need to talk things out with a friend to begin feeling better? The concept sounded so obvious, but Alan realized that the last time that he probably truly confided in a friend like that was before the mob invasion.

He had forgotten over the years what genuine friendship felt like, and he hadn't even truly realized it until now.

They may have gotten off on the wrong foot initially, but Alan was very thankful that his and Lana's friendship had become more stable. Which was a good thing, because it was going to need to be for what Alan was about to show her. He sighed.

Another thing that had been weighing heavily on Alan's mind since the other night was that damn vision he had about Sofie after the creeper explosion. Was that really Sofie? It couldn't be, right? Sofie was dead. And yet, in the vision, she came to his rescue. She even said he would have died from his wounds if not for her... and then she told him to go back to her secret room under the house and finish reading her diary.

'All of the answers you need are in there, they will help you. I wasn't able to stop this nightmare... but maybe with my help, you can!"

Sofie's words echoed in Alan's head. The more he tried to remember them, the more distant they seemed. Could the entire experience truly have all just been a dream?

"Alan, what's wrong?" Lana cocked her head to the side, confused. Alan seemed entirely lost in thought about something. This seemed to wake Alan up from his daydream, and he looked up at her.

"I need to show you something."

Alan led Lana down the hall to the basement of his home where his alchemy lab was. Lana was persistent in her pestering for an answer on what Alan was supposed to be showing her, but Alan refused to elaborate further as they walked towards their destination. Finally, they reached Alan's alchemy lab, and Lana watched curiously as Alan reached for something behind a chest marked "Poison."

What is he doing? Lana thought.

Suddenly, the entire stone wall to the left of Lana 'whooshed' open.

"AH! SHIT!" Lana nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden noise as she clutched her chest right above her heart. "By the gods, Alan, are you trying to give me a-..." Lana's voice – and anger - dissipated as she noticed that where there was once wall, there was now a hidden hallway. "What the hell?" Lana muttered to herself in astonishment.

"Hidden lever behind the chest opens it. It leads to a secret room," Alan explained, standing next to Lana as they both looked down the hall. "Sofie's secret room."

Lana's eyes shot open wide as her head jerked to make eye contact with Alan.

"What?!" she exclaimed incredulously. Alan simply nodded.

"I found it on my first night here. Sofie had it built to run some... I guess, 'experiments' in," Alan explained. "I think... I think she was trying to find a cure for zombism or something. She has a diary back there that she kept, that's how I figured out. I didn't read too much of it, though." Alan shrugged, not entirely sure what to make of the few pages of Sofie's diary that he did read.

Lana stared back at him in complete disbelief.

"So, let me get this straight..." Lana slowly started, the wheel in her head beginning to turn. "You found this secret tunnel to a secret room, in my dead sister's house, with her journal that talks about secret experiments she was doing... and you're just now telling me?" Lana's lips tightened as she felt the heat in her voice begin to rise.

Alan met her look of scorn with a frown of his own as he scoffed.

"Oh, I'm sorry. What would have been a convenient time for me to tell you? Before, or after you stabbed me in the hand and voted 'no' on accepting me into the community? Or maybe I should have told you in the middle of us fighting Jericho's men?"

Alan's retort was firm but fair, and Lana knew it. Lana felt the heat inside her begin to die down as she remembered just how poorly she treated Alan initially, and just how hectic the past few days had truly been for all of them. Alan had a fair point; it wasn't fair of her to criticize him for not telling her sooner, and she felt a little ashamed for even initially having that mindset.

"Oh... right," she admitted, meekly. "Sorry about that," she apologized. Alan just waved it aside, not wishing to dwell on it.

"Don't worry about it."

"Well," Lana started, excitement beginning to fill her voice and replace the embarrassment. "What're we waiting for? Let me see!" Lana began to walk forward down the hallway, only to get stopped by Alan's hand gently grabbing her by the shoulder.

"Wait!" Alan warned, his voice slightly frantic.

"Whaaat?!" Lana responded impatiently as she turned back around to face Alan.

"There's one more thing I need to tell you before we go in there, but you have to promise not to freak out," he explained. Lana just rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, what is it? This is kind of important, Alan," she goaded, trying to get him to hurry up. Alan hesitated for a few seconds, not entirely sure how to word it. Finally, he decided the easiest method would be to just rip the bandage off. Here goes nothing...:

"Sofie had a caged zombie down here. He's still 'alive.'"

Red.

The entire room was lit dimly by several redstone torches that hung on the walls. The room felt... sinister. Dark. Unnatural. Lana felt the sweat form on her brow as she hovered over Sofie's desk in the secret room reading Sofie's diary.

CLANG!

Lana jumped again as she heard the sound of the zombie in the corner of the room swipe at the bars of his metal cage. She wasn't sure which was worse: the clanging, or the pitiful wails that spat through the peeled back lips of the green, rotting abomination.

"J-just make sure you keep an eye on that thing!" Lana called out to Alan, who had pulled up a chair and was sitting several feet away from the zombie cage staring intently at every move the zombie made.

Lana refused to enter the room unless Alan promised her he would keep an eye on the zombie at all times, just in case he escaped his chains and cage.

"I'll make sure he doesn't escape, Lana," Alan responded, understanding of Lana's trepidation, but still slightly annoyed by being asked to keep an eye on it every 5 minutes. This answer seemed to (temporarily) please Lana as she went back to her readings of Sofie's diary.

They had been in the room for about an hour now, and a good majority of that had been Lana silently reading over Sofie's diary for the first time. Some of the things Lana was reading were just... incredible, in the literal sense of the word. A cure for zombism? Why would Sofie even be researching such a thing, as if it would even exist? And some of the things she was talking about in the book... it didn't even sound like the same sister Lana had known.

By the gods, Sofie... what were you getting yourself into? Lana thought to herself as she delved deeper into her dead sister's diary. Something isn't right here...

Alan sat silently as he watched the flailing zombie. It seemed a bit ironic to him. A caged zombie, unable to escape no matter how hard he tried. Alan let out a dry chuckle.

"Maybe now you know how we feel for once..." he whispered to himself. Lana's talk with him began to run through his mind again.

'People are going to die, Alan, we can't save all of them.'

Then what's the point? Alan thought.

At the end of the day, how much longer do any of them even really have? Another year? Another month? Another day? Alan wondered when the last person to die from 'old-age' was. Growing old, a thought that had once filled him with dread, now seemed like an impossible dream that he will never get a chance to fulfill. He would die young, either at the end of a griefer's sword, or eaten alive by a horde of zombies, or burst into literal chunks of meat by an exploding creeper. And that's assuming he doesn't run out of food, or water, or die from sickness first.

It's hopeless then, Alan thought. What's the point? Live to die? Is there no other option, no other choice? Alan knew there wasn't, but as he stared into the decayed eyes of the zombie, he began to wonder... maybe it's meant to be this way... Maybe this was it... Maybe this had truly become their fate...

"Holy hell!" Lana shouted out from behind Alan, jolting him from his daydream. He turned around to see Lana holding the diary mere inches from her face as she studied the pages. Something major had caught her attention. Alan raised an eyebrow.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Alan, how-... how much of this did you read before you put it down?" Lana nearly tripped over herself as she rushed over to Alan's side.

"Just a few pages at the beginning," Alan admitted. "Why?"

Lana stood next to him for a few seconds as she read, re-read, and then triple-read the page in the diary, as if she wanted to be absolutely sure she was reading it correctly.

"I-I'm towards the end of the diary and I-..." Lana stopped herself. Could it really be true?

"Lana..." Alan was beginning to lose his patience. "What is it?"

Lana stared back at the diary, then back to Alan. Then back at the diary. Finally, she slowly passed the book over to Alan, pointing to the top of the page in question. Alan took the book, looking up at Lana suspiciously, before turning his gaze towards the contents of the diary in front of him. Alan felt his entire body freeze as he read the next words on top of the page:

"Days Since the Mob Invasion: 725

I've done it. It's a small step, and nowhere near the end goal, but it's a start: I've finally found a cure for a zombie's bite."

Next Chapter: Starving

(A/N: I deleted the prologue of this story, "Chapter 0: How We Got Here." I didn't like having a huge info dump right at the start of the story, and thought it might be much more appropriate to start straight off with the action. So, if you're a previous reader who's wondering 'hey, wasn't there a whole 'nother chapter?' that's why. I would also like to take this moment to personally thank users "TheUnlost" and "DemonicCat666" for their reviews last chapter. I just got over a very, very long and nasty case of writer's block, so reading your guys' reviews really meant a lot to me.

Thanks everyone for reading.)