–Plains Biome (Mike POV)-

"You see him anywhere?" I hollered out to Jamie.

"No, we better find your dog soon Mike, it's getting late."

"Yeah, I second that." I agreed. "I'm not ready to be caught in a zombie horde."

"Me neither." Jamie replied. "Or caught by whoever did this to the trees."

Looking at the trees, there were none within my view that still had leaves on them.

"You know where we are?" Jamie asked me.

"No, but I'm sure we can retrace our steps once we find Miles." I Answered.

Noticing that the sun was already starting to head towards the horizon, I checked my inventory for torches. Unfortunately, I didn't come as prepared as I would've wanted to.

"You have any torches?" I asked.

"No, I didn't think we'd be out this late." Jamie replied, looking through her inventory.

"MILES!" I hollered once more.

As I paused to look at the trees, Jamie stopped and walked back towards me. As she approached me, she interlocked her hand with mine.

"We already lost the dog, let's not lose each other." She said,

"Good point." I replied.

As Jamie paused to look at the leafless tree as well, she couldn't help but wonder as well.

"What the hell could this person possibly want all these leaves for?" She thought out loud.

"I think this was the doing of way more than one person." I replied.

"Still doesn't answer the question though… why…" Jamie asked again.

"Who knows." I replied. "Could be something as simple as decorating a treehouse."

"Speaking of which…" Jamie replied. "That isn't that bad of an idea."

"What do you mean?" I asked, completely oblivious to what she was implying.

"We should build a treehouse…" Jamie suggested.

"Oh…" I replied. "You know what, shit, that doesn't sound that bad of an idea."

"Where would we build it though…?" Jamie wondered. "There's no big trees in this area"

"Have you taken into consideration the fact that we could technically just build the tree as well…" I mentioned.

"Shit, you right…" Jamie replied.

As the sun started to set, our visibility was reduced to almost zero, and I pulled out my iron sword, Jamie pulling out the netherite sword.

"I think it's time we switch." I said, handing her my iron sword. Taking it, she handed me the netherite sword.

"By the way, to activate the flame on that thing, you gotta grab it with both hands. Learned that on the battlefield." I mentioned.

"Hmm, I didn't know that was a game mechanic here." Jamie said, trying it out.

"Alright, now, back to the treehouse…" I started. "You want this to be basic or…"

"Far from basic." Jamie replied. "I want this baby to be a tree mansion."

"Tree MANSION, huh?" I hollered. "Why not a tree space ship?"

We both shared a good laugh, as the sun set the rest of the way, but at this point, we were both just chilling in the pure black darkness.

Just then, I heard some barking in the distance behind us.

"Miles?" I said, turning around. Sure enough, Miles was running towards me, and I knelt down and held my arms out, putting away my sword for a moment, as he jumped onto my chest, knocking me over into a couple of flowers before licking my face several times.

"I think we should build a separate treehouse for Miles." Jamie said.

"We can call his the tree castle." I joked.

As we wandered across the darkness, surprisingly, there were no mobs to be seen yet. The only source of light was the moon and stars. It was pretty peaceful.

"Man, I'm hungry." Jamie said.

"Me too." I replied. "Say, why don't we hit up the other restaurant when we get back? I meant to treat you to something there last time but you know… they were closed."

"That would be great." Jamie replied. "Assuming we can find our way back."

"You can say that again." I said, looking around. I didn't recognize the terrain at all, and the leaves returning on the trees ahead weren't helping at all as they were obscuring my view even further.

As me and Jamie turned back in the direction of where we came, Miles followed with us.

"Hopefully we can retrace our steps in time." I said. "I wasn't kidding when I said I was gonna take you to that restaurant."

Jamie laughed. "I'll hold you to that."

Walking past the leafless trees, I heard some zombies up ahead. Miles growled at the creatures in the distance, ready to attack.

"Let's try and just sneak past em if we can." I said. "It's pitch black out here so there's no way of telling how many are there "

"Sounds like a plan." Jamie agreed.

We continued to walk through the darkness, keeping our eyes peeled for any zombies. We made it about halfway through the area, when suddenly, a zombie appeared from the shadows.

"I got this." I said, charging the zombie with my netherite sword. As I approached, I noticed the zombie was equipped with a sword of its own, its dull wooden blade on the verge of breaking. The zombie didn't even get a chance to raise its blade before I dug my sword deep into its chest, knocking it back into the darkness, as a couple more emerged. Some weren't armed at all, some were fully suited up with armor and iron swords, but one of them shook me.

"Oh shit…" I yelled out loud. "That's a fuckin baby zombie."

As I began fighting off the fully grown ones, the baby zombie dashed quickly towards me, managing to bite me in the leg. As I stood back a bit, I tried to attack it as Miles charged the other zombies, sinking his teeth into the legs of one of them and causing it to drop its iron sword.

Jamie came to assist me, delivering a blow to the baby zombie, knocking it back significantly. I decided it would be best to take this opportunity to flee.

"MILES, COME! I yelled, as I bolted away from the incoming horde with Jamie.

"But Mike, we need to fight them!" Jamie yelled after me.

"Not this time." I replied. "We gotta go. There's too many of them and too poor visibility to deal with em."

As Miles finished chewing through one of the zombies, he rushed to us, and I picked him up, holding him as we rushed through the leafless trees. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, we came across the same pond we were fishing at this morning.

"Alright, I think I have an idea of where we are now." I said, pointing out to the pond. "We need to go this way to get back to the village."

As we walked back towards the village, Miles started whining, squirming to break free of my grip.

"Miles, calm down." I said. "It's ok."

"I think he's trying to signal that there's more monsters nearby." Jamie said. Looking at Miles' tail, it was a little lower than usual. Taking out some of the fish I caught, I fed it to him.

"He must've got beat up hard by those zombies." I said, as Miles calmed down a bit.

"I think he's still recovering." Jamie said. "But, I'm sure he'll be fine."

"Yeah, I think so too." I replied.

After feeding Miles, we headed back towards the village, keeping an eye out for any more zombies.

As we approached the village gate, the gatekeeper was not there to open it for us.

"Where the hell is he?" I thought out loud, looking for the gatekeeper.

"It isn't even that late…" Jamie mentioned. "He should be there…"

Just then, I saw Walter in the distance, approaching the door.

"Gatekeeper called it a night a while ago," he hollered. "I'll let you guys in."

As he manually opened up the gate, Jamie and I stepped into the village, and I put Miles down, pointing over to walter. Hte walked over to him and wagged his tail, as Walter kneeled down to pet him.

"Mind taking him home for us?" I asked. "We're gonna go hit up the bar, and I don't think they'd like it if I brought him with us."

Walter nodded. "I'll take care of him." He said, picking up Miles and carrying him back towards the house.

As I and Jamie headed towards the tavern, I looked around at the village. It was dark, but I could make out the outline of buildings, and the streets were lit up by torches.

"This place is really quiet." I said.

"Well, half the village people are probably asleep by now." Jamie replied. "Hopefully that diner is open."

"I think it is." I said, pointing to the place, still lit up.

As we approached the entrance, I could hear music coming from inside.

"Welp, looks like they are open." I said, opening the door to the establishment. There weren't too many others inside, but there was a group of four people playing a game of cards, and I recognized one of them as the gatekeeper as we locked eyes, he had confusion in his face.

"How did you…"

"Oh… Walter let us through the gate." I replied. "What are you doing here?"

"Game night with the boys." He replied.

"Ah." I waved, as one of the waiters approached us. "Have fun."

As the waiter led us to a table, we both sat down across from each other and ordered some drinks.

"So, you have any fun today?" I asked.

"Out of all the days i've been stuck in this minecraft server…" Jamie started, looking me in the eyes. "This is the best."

I couldn't help but smile. "Yeah. Same here. Well, minus Miles getting lost."

"Well, we got to spend some time alone at night, that was fun…" Jamie stated.

"Yeah, I agree." I said, laughing. "It was amazing."

"You mean it?" Jamie asked. "You actually enjoyed yourself?"

"Hell yeah." I replied. "I had so much fun."

"Good." Jamie said, smiling.

The drinks arrived, and we clinked glasses together.

"To having a good time." Jamie said.

"To having a good time." I replied.

We took a sip of our drinks, and then we both leaned back in our chairs.

As I looked out the window, I could see the full moon in the sky, illuminating the restaurant alongside the dull redstone lamps in a checkerboard pattern in the ceiling.

"This place is really nice." I said.

"Yeah." Jamie agreed. "It's better when it's not crowded like this."

A couple minutes later, the group of people playing cards got up and proceeded towards the exit of the restaurant.

"Guess we got the place all to ourselves." I commented.

"Ready to order?" The same waiter asked, approaching us with a welcoming smile.

"Surprise us." I intrigued.

"You bet." The waiter replied, heading back into the kitchen.

We continued to chat as the waiter returned with our food, along with a shulker box full of extra drinks for us.

"I figured I better give you two our best steak we have." The waiter said. "You two enjoy!"

"Enjoy it we will!" I replied, as the waiter headed back to the counter.

We continued to talk as we ate, enjoying the food. As we finished eating, we got out another round of drinks.

"I feel like we should be tipsy by now." Jamie said, raising her glass.

"I know, right?" I replied, raising my glass as well.

We clinked our glasses together once again, and we took yet another drink.

"I can't wait to get back to the house and plop on that comfy ass bed." I said.

Jamie yawned. "Me too."

"Well, why don't we wrap it up here and head back now?" I asked.

"Sure." Jamie replied.

As we got up, I left some diamonds on the table plus a tip for the waiter, and we both walked out of the restaurant and set course back to Walter's place. As we walked around, the lights illuminated the streets enough to rule out the chances for zombies spawning nearby, so we were in no rush. When we approached the house, there was a message pasted to the door, and trying the handle, it was locked. I read the note.

"Went out fishin. Had to lock up to make sure nobody… you know… stole anything… sorry. There's a nice hotel nearby you two should be able to get a room at. -Walter."

"Well then… guess we're getting a room." Jamie said, winking. We both laughed at the subtle joke.

"Well, I guess it couldn't hurt to give the hotel a try." I said, looking at the tall building in the distance. As we approached the front doors, we were greeted by a large man who appeared to be the manager.

"Hello." I said, as we approached him. "I'm Mike."

"Hi." The manager replied. "I'm Victor."

"Nice to meet you, Vic." I said. "Is the hotel open?"

"Yes, sir." He replied. "Room 7 is available."

"Ok." I said, Victor handing me the key card. "Thanks."

As we headed up the stairs to the room, we opened the door to a welcoming surprise, a giant bed, great view, and most of all…

"Holy shit!" Jamie exclaimed, rushing to the bathroom. "THE SHOWER IS SO NICE!"

As the door closed behind me, I turned around to look at the luxurious-looking shower, and I couldn't help but smile.

"We definitely made the right choice." I said.

"You know what, I think i'm going to take a shower before bed." Jamie said.

"Alright." I replied.

As I walked to the window, I heard the water start running. As Jamie got in, she started humming a melody. I could feel myself starting to relax.

*The rest of this chapter has been cut out for uh... reasons*

it is available on my wattpad though (username in my profile)