As I dived below the surface again, I made an immediate beeline for Josh, who was still sinking. I could see him grabbing onto his chest, I knew if I didn't reach him in time, he would drown. As I swam down, I was finally able to grab onto his hand, but looking back up, I had swam almost halfway back down. I wasn't going to be able to hold my breath for long, and having to pull up Josh along with me was going to be a pain in the ass. As I began to swim near the surface, the pain in my chest was worsening, and so was my stamina. At this rate, we'd both drown. Josh's player began to glow red.

"Oh come on… not now…" I said, kicking my legs faster. I could feel my lungs caving in as I tried to hold my breath the best I could. I made it to the surface just in time, as I pulled Josh above, I took a huge breath. Josh's player was no longer glowing red, but he was still unconscious, so I dragged him with me to the shore with the others. As I passed Josh to Erik and Jamie, they pulled him up, while I grabbed onto the edge to give myself a moment to breathe.

"You good?" Erik asked.

"Is Josh good?" I replied.

"Well… he's still alive, that's a start."

Pulling myself back up, I looked around the area. I didn't recognize any of it, and the fact that it was dark out didn't help.

"Did anyone bring a map?" I asked. Jamie and Erik checked their inventories.

"Nope." They both said.

"Well shit…" I replied. "We're actually lost this time."

Jamie looked around the landscape. "Well, there's only one thing we can do now…"

"And what is that..?"

Jamie went up to a tree and started punching it.

"We start over." She stated. I sat down on the grass, so did Erik.

"Well?" Jamie asked.

"Jamie, I just witnessed someone's potential death, almost died myself, and this dude here almost drowned. I need a minute." I pleaded.

"Wait…" Erik paused. "What about we look for Walter?"

"Walter White?" I asked.

"Yea, all we need to do is find a desert biome. It shouldn't be too far."

"Dude, we're in the middle of a plains biome. I don't see a single block of sand at all. You think we'll even be able to find a desert biome, let alone his exact temple?" I argued.

"Well, we won't know until we try…" Erik answered. Getting up, he started wandering off towards Jamie.

"What happened…" Josh said, waking up.

"You almost drowned my guy…" I said.

"Oh sick…" Josh replied. Picking myself up, I began to follow Erik, with Josh and Jamie following behind.

"You think Walter would let us stay at his place?" Jamie asked.

"Who knows." Erik said. "One thing for sure, it would be nice to be nearby."

"I guess you have a point." Erik said. As we trekked across the terrain, Jamie approached me.

"You good?" Jamie said. "You look dead."

"I suppose so…" I answered. "I still feel really bad from the sword wound…"

"Do you need food?" Jamie asked, pulling out some bread. Taking it, I took a bit out of it, which helped the pain to reside a little bit.

"Thank you…" I said.

As we traveled further into the plains biome, the landscape became less and less populated with trees, and we could see the moon a bit more clearly.

"Who's Walter?" Josh asked. "And why are we looking for him?"

"First of all, he's Walter White." I began to explain. "Second of all, we're looking for him because maybe he can help us."

"Is he your friend or something?" Josh asked.

"We came across him on our way home from–"

Jamie and Erik looked at me.

"From the mine." I corrected myself.

"What do you think is going to happen to the other village people?" Josh asked.

"It would probably be better if you didn't know. Just be happy you're with us now." Jamie answered.

"I mean… we have to go back…"

We all stopped.

"What?" I said, confused. "Why the hell would you have to go back?"

"My friends are still there." Josh said.

"Josh, as much as it pains me to say this, your friends are probably already dead by now." I replied.

"You don't know that for sure though, have an ounce of hope!" Josh argued.

"We can't go back." I said, continuing to walk forward.

"Why not?" Josh said. I turned around to look him directly in the eye.

"Use your BRAIN dumbass!" I lashed out. "Four of us, barely equipped with weapons, except for me, against a whole army! How in the FUCK would we be able to get your friend out of there, if we even bothered to try?"

Josh looked to the ground.

"Dude…" He started. "He's my closest friend, and he doesn't even know that I'm still alive. I want to–"

"Well, it's NOT happening." I said. Erik went over to Josh, while Jamie approached me.

"Mike, what the hell has gotten into you?" Jamie asked me, as we both stopped walking again.

"Look… I thought that battle was going to be simple, sword fighting n shit, it would've been an easy win. But the second those players fired that first shot out of that tnt cannon thing…"

"I tried to warn you about it…" Jamie explained.

"No, you don't understand… that's NOT normal… that cannon was powered by… command blocks." I said. "Look, I know I'm being a little too harsh to the guy, but what I said was right, we can't go back."

"What happened to "We ain't pussies?" huh?" Jamie recalled.

"Oh don't pull that shit on me…" I argued.

"Okay, then what are you then?"

"I'm SCARED!" I yelled. Jamie jumped a little bit, Erik and Josh looking at me wide eyed.

"I know I said that, but I don't want to DIE… I wasn't expecting them to go command block warfare on our asses…"

"Hey… take a chill pill man…" Erik commented.

"Chill pill? How the FUCK am I supposed to chill after this? We all just witnessed death! Don't you two feel anything? In fact, if anything, you should be thankful I found that ravine under us…"

Erik looked at me in disgust.

"Well hey, if not for that, we would still be stuck in that house, waiting for probably our upcoming deaths." Jamie argued, looking at Erik. "You know what, let's just shut up and keep walking."

As we walked across the plains biome, sure enough we eventually came across a desert biome, again. The group seemed to be a bit more calmed down now, but I still had the pain in my chest, and despite filling my stamina up, the pain still hadn't gone away fully. Jamie took a glance at me as I clenched my chest for probably the 5th time in 5 minutes. I was surprised we hadn't encountered any mobs yet. We spotted Walter White's desert temple in the distance, and everyone's hopes seemed to have gone up. As we approached the temple, I knocked on the door. Walter White opened the piston door and greeted me.

"Oh, hey Mike!" He said.

"Hey, uh, our village was just invaded and we need a place to stay." I requested.

"Invaded? By who?" Walter asked.

"Incursion members." Jamie answered for me.

"Oh shit…" Walter replied. "That means they will probably hit up this base soon as well… Please, come in." He said, moving aside. As we entered the temple, Walter shut the piston door behind us.

"So, who's your new friend?" He asked, looking at Josh.

"He was thrown into our house just as we were discussing an escape route." I explained.

"I guess you can say he won the lottery…" Walter joked. We all shared a quick laugh.

"Well, you guys can all stay the night here, but tomorrow we need to leave this base."

"Wait… we?" I questioned.

"If the Pumpkin Heads are leading an incursion on the spawn of the server, that cannot be good." Walter explained. "Their primary focus is farther out where their main base is rumored to be."

"Hmm, why would they move all the way to spawn if their base is so far out…" Erik asked.

"I'm not saying this is the reality, but it's plausible that they have already taken over all of the further out region of this server, and spawn is their last target."

"Already?" Jamie replied, concerned. "This server has only been around for like… 2 months!"

"The issue is nobody is standing up to these people." Walter explained. "There is no resistance."

He walked up the stairs.

"Listen, it's really late right now, so let's talk about this tomorrow while we are vacating to another safer location. There's two bedrooms now, one upstairs and one down. Good night."

And with that, Walter resided in his bedroom.

"I call downstairs." Erik said. "It's gonna be so great not sleeping on the floor."

"I'll call it too…" Josh replied, laughing. "Good night you two."

"Night…" I replied.

As we went upstairs, I went into the bedroom first. Opening a chest, I dumped my inventory into it, Jamie followed. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I looked out the window again. This time, there were less skeletons.

"Great…" I thought to myself. "I may actually sleep well."

I undid the covers and laid down, staring at the ceiling. As Jamie approached the bed, she laid down next to me, also looking blankly into the ceiling. I felt empty.

"How do you feel?" Jamie asked.

"I feel like I just went through all the stages of grief in 2 hours." I replied sarcastically.

"Does your chest still hurt?" She followed up.

"A little…" I answered. We both laid in silence for a few seconds.

"Do you have any ideas for Josh?"

"What do you mean…" I answered.

"His friend… and everyone else."

"Jamie… I…"

"What?"

"Jamie, I'm not Kirito from Sword Art Online. I can't just scream "hacks mode on" and magically win the battle."

"I understand that, but what if we…"

"No Jamie, you don't get it…"

"What?"

"Jamie, I'm scared right now, and I'm stressed. The last thing I want to be talking about is going back to that village. Right now, I just want to calm myself down, and have a decent night's sleep."

Jamie turned her body towards me.

"Do you want me to see if Walter has something that can help with your chest pain?"

"That would be great, actually. Thank you."

Jamie got up and left the room. I just couldn't get my mind off of how that herobrine player, without any regard, killed Miles. I also couldn't help but think…

"What if we did try to go back…" I thought. Just then, Jamie came back into the room with a healing potion.

"Here, drink this…" she said, getting back in bed and handing it to me. Popping the cap off, I took a sip and sure enough, the pain started to recede slightly. Jamie was looking back at the ceiling.

"What the hell are we going to do…" I asked myself out loud. "We already got one guy dead, lost a whole village, and…"

"Aren't you overthinking this a little bit?"

"Jamie, I want to get out of this game alive, and I want all of you guys too as well." I explained.

I sighed. Rolling over to my side, I was now staring at the wall.

"You're stressed, right?" She asked.

"Very." I answered. Hearing Jamie scoot over, I took a glance at her, she was now right beside me.

"Can't sleep?"

"No, I'm wide awake." I said. "I can't clear my mind enough to sleep."

Jamie wrapped her arms around me.

"W-what are you doing?" I asked.

"Providing stress relief, idiot…" She answered.

"This relieve stress?" I asked. Jamie sighed.

"How dense do you gotta be… '' Jamie commented. "Physical interaction like this helps with stress, and it also helps you get a good night's sleep."

"So you're a healthcare professional now…" I commented.

"Just shut up and close your eyes." Jamie replied, tightening her grip a little bit.

Continuing to look at the wall, my mind decided to just shift focus on her. Her warming sensation did actually calm me down a bit. I felt my eyes begin to get heavy.

"You calming down yet?" Jamie asked, getting a little sleepy herself.

"Yeah…" I replied, letting out a quick yawn.

"Good." She replied.

Eventually, I let my eyes fall shut.

"Thank you Jamie…" I said, as I drifted off to sleep.