Disclaimer: I do not own Minecraft, nor any of the game mods mentioned in this work of fiction.

(Bunkie General High, Louisiana, U.S.A.)

Viron winced, reaching up to his head and gently rubbing his temple as he walked through the hallway of his high school. This wasn't the first time he had suddenly experienced a migraine, and it certainly wouldn't be the last, but that did nothing to alleviate the throbbing pain in his head. The constant clamor of the school around him as students rushed to leave, combined with the ringing bell, didn't help either. He only had a short walk home though, and had some ibuprofen at home he could take.

With a low sigh, he straightened up his stance and shouldered his bag, leaving from the back gate of the school to head home. He wasn't going to let this ruin his weekend. He would get home, take two of the painkillers, and pack the bottle along with the rest of his stuff to go camping alone for the weekend. As his shoes repetitively thudded against the pavement while passing house after house in his small town, he quickly thought over his mental checklist of everything he had packed.

Alright, so I've got my machete, some jerky, peanut butter and bread, some water bottles, my lifestraw- though I still don't know if it works as well as it says it does, and a small solar charger for my phone. My truck definitely has enough gas to make it there and back, too. All my regular equipment, like my tent, pots, and stuff should still be at the site since it's on Beaux's land. Still glad he lets me camp on his land, can't thank him enough for that.

With a tired sigh, Viron smiled slightly as he saw the gravel road to his house. Unlike most of the other houses in his town, the one his family lived at was set back about two hundred feet from the road, in a small patch of trees that his dad was cutting back more and more every year since they owned the land. The house itself was nothing special, an old but still sturdy trailer sitting in the yard, with a porch his dad built years ago out front. The yard was decorated with various random things his family had brought home over time, from an old, non-functional cannon, to an orange tree that was due to be harvested soon. An old, red, and beat up pickup truck sat in the front yard. Usually joined by another, smaller one and a maroon car, today it was alone, signaling his parents had already left for their anniversary trip to the casino.

Coming to the porch, he grabbed the hidden key and unlocked the door before returning it to its place, then went in. Immediately, he beelined for his room and took two painkillers before changing out of his uniform and getting dressed. A short twenty minutes later and Viron was seriously tempted to just stay home for the weekend. Despite taking the medicine, his headache had only progressed to a sharp, pulsating pain that seemed to throb in time with his heartbeat, almost enough to make him stumble. Besides, if he didn't go camping, he could start that new modpack in Minecraft instead- once his headache died down.

"No." Viron said resolutely, though speaking didn't help the pain at all. He'd just take the painkillers with him like he first planned and just take some every four hours until the pain was gone. Heading out of his house, he made sure to shut the old door firmly and lock it, then made his way to his truck. He tossed his bag into the passenger seat of his truck before hopping into the driver's side, cranking it. It took a couple tries, the thing was twenty-eight years old, eight years older than him, and had spent half that time in a family friend's yard, aging in the sun and rain. Though, it still ran fine even if it had some issues.

Finally, fifteen minutes shy of an hour, Viron eventually pulled out of his driveway, heading off towards his campsite some forty-five minutes away. And yet, Viron slowly felt his nerves getting to him combined with the throbbing pain. With every passing mile, it seemed to burn worse and pulse faster, and he swore he could make out the barest hint of whispering. Finally, Viron pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and turned his hazards on, planning to sit there and wait for his painkillers to kick in before just going home for the weekend. But his own body had other plans, as he found himself growing drowsy as the sun shined through his windows. A nap wouldn't hurt, his tank was full so his truck wouldn't die, and he'd wake up feeling better and might even continue on to the site. With those thoughts, Viron closed his eyes and rested his head back against the headrest, slowly dozing off. Right before his mind went blank, he could have sworn he heard someone speak from his passenger seat.

"He'll do just fine."

(Unknown Location, Unknown Time)

When Viron awoke, things were very different. First, he was sitting on the ground, not in his truck. That alone was enough to shock him into being wide awake, taking stock of his surroundings. Second, he was not on the side of a highway. In fact, he didn't seem to be anywhere near a road or town. Thirdly, and the most obvious, the world didn't look right. It looked, well, square. He was in a small clearing, but the trees were square, the grass was square, the clouds were square, and the sun, high above him and shining down, was square. Looking down at his hands, he couldn't help what he said, "Thank God, I'm not square."

It wasn't a surprise when, seeing the square world around him, Viron first thought of Minecraft. How could he not? From the textures of the trees, to the shape of everything, it was clearly Minecraft, though some things were off. The trees were clearly oak, but the leaves were shades of red and yellow, not green. Above him, a black and white striped beehive sat hanging from the red leaves. He seemed to be on the side of a hill, and above him he could see a red-dotted bush that he didn't recognize from the game. Finally, he heard low clucking from off to his right, spotting a black rooster a couple "blocks" higher than him.

This… there's no way I'm in Minecraft, right? This is ridiculous, I can't be inside of a fake world. I must be hallucinating, or a vivid dream from whatever fever gave me my headache which is suspiciously gone. You can't feel pain in a dream right? Putting that thought to the test, Viron reached down to his leg but stopped before he could pinch himself. Now that he was looking at something close to him, he could see a couple things that nearly made him faint then and there. First, a small black outline highlighted the "block" he was looking at. Second, a small information panel, for lack of a better word, appeared in the top left corner of his vision. The word "Grass Block" and at the bottom, a green check with "Shovel" next to it filled the blue square. He recognized it. Well, not the square exactly, but something similar to it, belonging to the mod What Am I Looking At and others of its design.

Modded Minecraft? It was the only thing that made sense. The outline, of course, was just like the game, but the info panel was clearly from a mod. Finally, he reached down and pinched his leg, twitching slightly from the quick pain from it. He coughed once, feeling panic rising, before forcing it down. If this really was Minecraft, real or not, he needed to be safe before night or he wouldn't last long. Reaching toward his shoulder, his hand bumped into his shirt as he realized he had no backpack. Quickly reaching into his pocket, he felt that his phone was missing as well and groaned in annoyance. Finally, he rose to his feet and immediately fell back onto his face as two more things appeared in his vision. One, at the top right, was a circular minimap. He seemed to be near a coast, but could also see a- hopefully freshwater- pond a short distance from him. In addition to that, he had a hotbar at the bottom of his sight, filled with five items. A copper-looking axe that was enchanted if the purple shimmer was to be believed, a closed book with a red ribbon, a burger with the number four next to it, a white bag, and a yellowish potion bottle.

If I have a hotbar, do I have an inventory? Almost in reaction to his thought, a familiar floating box appeared in his sight. It took him a few seconds to realize that it wasn't in his vision like the rest, actually, but physically in front of him. He had two more things, some kind of book with an infinity symbol on it, and four apples. Experimenting, he reached out and tapped on the potion in his hotbar, and saw words appear.

Vial of Shielding (2)

Absorption IV (1:30)

Tapping on an empty inventory space, he watched it move quickly. Doing the same thing with his now-identified quest book and leafy chicken sandwiches, he knew he needed to get some wood, and this axe enchanted with Venom I, would do perfectly for that without risking him breaking his hands. He'd make his way toward that pond as he did, too. He didn't see a water bar above his hunger bar, but figured he'd still need to drink like a living being anyway. Approaching the first tree, he swung his axe at the tree and confusion overtook him, the wood gaining a crack in it as his axe hit rather than splintering. That only supported the idea that, one way or another, this was Minecraft, whether he truly believed it or not. After the first log was broken, Viron sighed in relief as the rest of the tree remained floating. That would make house building easier, he was not an architect and had no clue what it took to keep a building structurally sound. After collecting five logs, he watched in interest as all of the leaves connected to the tree quickly decayed, though they didn't drop any saplings. That would make clearing forests easier, if he was stuck here in the long term.

Traveling toward the pond, it didn't take him long to acquire a half stack of logs, as well as some wildberry bushes he recognized from his short playthrough of Rebirth of the Night, a very difficult modpack. They wouldn't do much, only restoring half a shank each, but would be food. Farms were a priority, starvation wouldn't be fun if, like the game, it couldn't kill him but would instead keep him on the brink of death. He also discovered that the red-dotted bush he had found, a "small bush," only dropped sticks and the occasional bush berry when broken, and he now had three. Finally arriving at the pond, his minimap told him that the time was 3:34. Glancing at the sun, he estimated it was about nine, so he assumed "day" started at six in the morning, and that it was three and a half hours after that. He was no further from the coast than before, the only thing separating his water source from the ocean was about four blocks of sand and grass. Kneeling at the edge of the pond, Viron took a moment to look into the water. His reflection wasn't visible, instead he could see straight through the water just fine, to the dirt and sand underneath. Sighing in annoyance that he couldn't check to see if he looked any different, he cupped his hands and filled them with water, taking a taste of the pond. Freshwater, alright. Let's keep it that way.

Moving to the edge of the shore, he looked out. Guessing he could see somewhere around eight chunks away, he could see two small islands in the water, and what looked like a shipwreck next to one of them. Seeing that, he assumed that he was in what was essentially a later version of the game and was left wondering if the new Deep Dark was present, and if he had to be wary of a warden. Turning his attention back to the shore, he spotted two crabs scurrying across the beach. Finally, he saw a wolf off to the north, making note of that in case he found any bones. With a low sigh, he decided to get started on clearing some land and building a small, simple house, and hopefully get some stone tools. Hopefully, everything worked like it did in Minecraft.

(Forest Edge, 10:50 Sunset)

Things were different. They weren't terribly different, but he could tell it wouldn't be as easy as he had hoped. Firstly, crafting his logs into planks had been easy. The 2x2 crafting grid in his inventory made that a breeze. No, the issue was that the conversions were halved. A log was two planks, not four. Two planks were two sticks, not four. He guessed he'd need some kind of saw or machine to do it at a better rate. That hurt his plans for the house, as by six, he had two stacks of logs already and cleared out a sizable area around the pond. He also learned what the Venom enchantment did, after a crab pinched his leg when it walked up to him. It poisoned the crab, of course, and now he had some crab legs, as well as almost a dozen apples and a bunch of saplings. Punching out the grass inside his basic, cube house had given him a couple seeds as well, which he'd check out later. He had just gotten two doors down on each side of the 7x7 square when the sun started to set. Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to acquire stone for any other tools, but had learned that crafting was the same.

With the sun down, and with him not feeling tired yet, he decided to check out his two books. The first was the quest book he had seen earlier, and the second was called Akashic Tome. Opening the second, he was confused when it seemed to be just a single page, containing the image of several other books, one of which he recognized as the Tinkers' Construct guide. Trying to turn the pages did nothing, as despite appearing several hundred pages thick, it seemed the others were stuck together. Idly, he reached down and rubbed his finger against the Tinkers' Construct book's image, then dropped the book in shock. In a flash of blue light, it had changed. The first page, still, was the list of all the books, though the Construct's guide was replaced by an image of the Tome. Now, though, the rest of the book seemed to be the guide. Experimenting, he tapped the Tome symbol, and again the blue light flashed as it changed back.

Setting it down for now, he looked at the quest book instead. Opening it, he was met by a series of tabs, most of which were gray. The only one that wasn't was called Tier 0 - Main Questline. Tapping his finger on it, the now-expected blue light covered the book, quickly turning the pages. When it faded, he was now looking at a complicated web of boxes, each with a red line leading from it to others. Finally, eight larger boxes were on the far right side, apparently representing the end of that line. One of these boxes was a question mark, slowly pulsing with a dark red light. Pressing it, the page changed again, much quicker this time.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Minecraft! Yes, that Minecraft, though it isn't the same as you know! You'll have to explore and find the differences, but every newcomer to this strange land is given one of these super useful Quest Books! You'll find that it'll guide you through this world, and help you advance your technology and magic to survive against the dangers of the night, and of the people here. Try to stay alive, we'd be sorely disappointed if you died!

Hint: Try thinking of JeI when your inventory is open.

On the right side, a small pulsing checkbox waited above a, he guessed, button that said Detect/Submit. Tapping the box, then the button, he soon heard the familiar sound of leveling up- though checking above his hotbar showed he was barely a tenth of the way to level one, so he assumed it was just a sound. The short passage from the book was confusing, it seemed to be written by someone who knew that Minecraft wasn't actually real, but this world was. What did it mean by "every newcomer" and "we'd be sorely disappointed." Who was "we"? Were there others? What did it mean by the dangers of the people? Pushing the thoughts down for the time being, he turned the page back to the start, seeing the question mark was now green, and two more boxes were pulsing. One was a log, and the other was another question mark. Tapping the second, the pages spun again before settling on a new page with text.

In your inventory, you'll find a book called "Akashic Tome." It can be combined with other documentation books, and store as many as you can fit in there. To combine books, simply hold them together. To morph from one book to another, simply select the book you want from the front page. Following the same process of marking the checkbox, then submit, then going back to the main page, he saw it was also green now. At least this world was nice enough to give him a guide. Deciding to test out the Tome, he grabbed it and the Quest Book, bringing them together. Blue light pulsed around the two before it brightened drastically, blinding him for a moment before quickly fading, leaving him holding only the Tome. Opening to the first page, he saw the Quest Book was now present in the list too, and tapped on it to change the book. Opening it, he went to the only quest available. It was a retrieval quest, telling him to get five logs and two sticks. He already had the sticks, from destroying bushes, but had turned all his logs into planks. Glancing at the time, he saw that it was 19:43 Sunrise. He had been apparently sitting down, figuring this out for almost nine hours, and still wasn't tired. That was… mildly concerning.

Finally putting the book back into his hotbar by bringing up the inventory box, then pressing the book against the spot that represented his hotbar, he rose to his feet and stretched lightly. He needed more wood, some stone, and to hopefully find some sheep for a bed. He had work to do.

Author's Notes

Back at it again with a new story, or more specifically, a rewrite of an existing one. The original SotF will remain available to view, but expect little to nothing to carry over. Feel free to leave a review on your thoughts of the first chapter, and how the world works. Finally, see if you can identify the modpack this world is based off of.