As Erik and Josh continued to whisper the lyrics to highway to the danger zone to each other, we turned away from the mobs to avoid coming in contact with them. We could see some lights in the distance, signifying that we were getting close to the town.

Jamie yawned, looking at the lights. "Man, I'm tired."

"I'm pretty sure we all are." I replied, as Jamie turned to look towards Erik and Josh having a great time.

"No, I'm pretty sure it's just us." She replied, pointing to them. "Those two are wide awake."

"Guys, keep it down…" I stated. "Don't want to draw attention from those mobs."

"Ugh, Fine." Erik replied.

As we continued walking towards the light, the cobblestone wall of the village came into view.

"Wait." Jamie said. "Remember what Walter said?"

"What?"

"About the pumpkins. We have to ditch them." Jamie replied. "They aren't going to let us back in the town if we have them in our inventories."

"Guess we need to hide them somewhere." I said, looking towards the forest. "Perhaps we can hide them in a chest somewhere here instead of throwing them out."

"Great thinking." Erik replied. "Let's go do that real quick before we get any closer."

"Lets head there now." I suggested, turning towards the forest, my diamond sword in hand. "Anybody have wood?"

"I do, but not enough to craft a chest." Jamie replied.

"We don't." Erik said.

"We'll just punch a tree then." I said, as Jamie pulled out an axe. "I'm already on it."

As we walked into the forest, Jamie began hitting a nearby tree with her axe, cracks forming around the blocks.

"Let's make this quick, Walter probably thinks we're dead by now." I stated.

"I'm surprised he hasn't went out to look for us." I mentioned. Just then, some weird notification icon levitated in front of me.

"What the…"

"What?" Jamie said, looking towards me.

"I see… some notification icon or something in front of me."

"Well, tap it." Jamie said. "Probably some feature of the virtual reality stuff."

As I tried tapping the icon, it exploded into a chat box.

"Yo, it's Walter, where the fuck are you guys?" I read the first bubble.

"A chat box?" Erik said. "Nobody told us we get chat boxes…"

"I think that was a feature in development." Jamie responded, breaking more blocks of wood. "They only rolled it out to a few players, and I guess Mike just became one of them."

"How do I use it?" Mike asked.

"Pfft, your guess is as good as mine." Jamie replied.

As I raised my blocky hand towards the holographic screen, a keyboard appeared under it. I began typing.

"Had a little mishap. We'll be arriving soon. Are the villagers safe?"

"Yea."

"Hey guys, good news, all the villagers made it home safe." I mentioned it to the others.

"Great." Jamie replied, placing a crafting table down. "I'll hide it underneath the grass and plant a sapling on top of it. Cool?"

"Yeah, whatever." I said as another message came in.

"What happened?"

"We came across some chick's redstone base on the way, but she was friendly."

"Did you get her name?"

"Kat."

Just then Miles started barking at something in the distance, wagging it's tail.

"I gotta go. See you soon." I typed, swiping my hand across the message to close it.

"What's he barking at?" Erik asked me.

"I don't know."

Miles started slowly walking deeper into the forest.

"Miles, stay." I demanded. The dog kept walking.

"Chest crafted." Jamie said, "Give me all your pumpkins, I'll drop them in the chest then we can see what Miles is barking at."

As we passed all the pumpkins to Jamie, she dug out the grass and placed the chest in the ground where the tree once stood. Just then, Miles bolted away.

"Shit…" I said, running towards Miles.

"Hey! Wait up!" I heard Erik yell in the distance as Miles kept running.

"Son of a- slow down you fuck!" I yelled, continuing to chase my dog. As he continued running and barking, I could see something in the distance, it appeared to be…

A ruined nether portal.

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed, running a bit ahead of Miles to get a closer look. As I approached the portal, Miles came up next to me, sitting down and wagging its tail. I pet him.

"Good dog!" I said, approaching the broken portal. Almost all of the top part was broken off, with two blocks scattered across the small section of netherack and magma blocks. A chest sat in front of the portal. As I opened it, the others rushed over.

"So—" Erik was catching his breath as he ran towards me with Josh and Jamie. "That's what the dog was barking at…"

"What the hell was that?" Jamie yelled, catching up.

I closed the chest and turned around. "What?"

"Why the hell did you leave us like that all of a sudden?" she followed up.

"Well, look at what Miles led us to." I said, pointing to the portal.

"I don't care if Miles led us to a giant chunk of diamonds, you don't do that!" Jamie yelled, approaching me. "When people split up, somebody dies."

"We're all intact." I said, turning towards Erik and Josh. "Plus, it paid off. We found a portal."

"If there's nothing good in that chest, I'm going to bitch slap you all the way back to server spawn." Jamie intimidated, approaching the chest. As she opened it, she took the stuff out of the chest and threw it behind her. Two blocks of obsidian, a gold block, 3 gold ingots, and an enchanted golden chestplate.

"Just what I thought, it's all shit…" Jamie said, slowly approaching me.

"W-Wait!" I said, picking up the two obsidian blocks as Jamie raised her right hand.

"What now?"

I approached the portal and placed the two obsidian blocks on either side of the broken portal and gave it a look.

"We only need three more, and we have two of those on the ground." I stated, pointing to the two blocks of obsidian embedded in the netherack.

"Well, what about the rest of the stuff, huh?" Jamie asked. "Gold armor is about as useless as an anti theft system for a Kia Soul."

"Actually, it's very useful in the nether." Josh pointed out.

"Huh?"

"If you're wearing gold armor, piglins won't attack you." Josh explained. "That gold is enough to craft each of us a pair of boots, after all, you only need one section of your armor to be gold to fool them."

Jamie looked at me, anger in her eyes. "You're lucky."

As she went to collect the gold, she took a look at the portal. "Well, we better start heading back for the village. The more sleep we all get, the better."

The rest of our trip to the village was completely silent, other than Miles constant howling.

As we reached the gate, the big door opened instead of the side door.

"Welcome back Mike!" the gatekeeper said.

"Ooh, we get to go through the big gate this time!" Erik said, as we walked through. Nearby, Walter was standing next to a building waiting for us.

"Glad you made it back in one piece." Walter said, joining our group as we continued walking for his house.

"Oh, we also found something in the forest." I replied. "We, actually no… Miles…" I pointed towards my dog, "found us a ruined portal, and the chest loot wasn't that bad."

"Well, that's great!" Walter replied. "What kind of loot?"

"A shit ton of gold, and this." I said, pulling out the enchanted golden chestplate.

"What's the enchantment?" Walter asked. I took a look at its info in my inventory.

"Uhhhh… looks like blast protection." I said.

"Well, anyways, I got the villagers situated in a nearby building, and the headman wanted to know what was going on with all of them coming here all of a sudden."

"Okay, and what did you tell him?" I asked Walter.

"He wanted to speak with you." Walter replied, startling me a bit. "I told him you'll be able to see him first thing tomorrow morning."

"Is he in trouble?" Jamie asked.

"Oh, not at all. He said he just wants to have a quick chat with Mike, that's all." Walter replied.

"About what?" Erik asked.

"The resistance." Walter replied.

"Resistance?" I asked.

"Well, it's pretty clear that you are the leader, right?"

"U-uh… I guess so…" I replied.

"Great, then you should have no problem with talking to this guy tomorrow then. Now, let's get some sleep."

As we came up to Walter's house, he opened the door for us, closing it as we all walked in.

"How long have you been waiting for us?" I asked.

"Oh, just a little while. I don't mind." Walter replied. "I'm off to bed now, so good night."

Walter walked up the stairs, with me and Jamie following behind towards our room.

"Ayo Mike!" I heard Erik say.

"What?"

"We're going to head over to the bar and grab some of those fire resistance potions." Erik replied.

"At this time? Really?" I said, as Jamie went ahead of me.

"Yeah, those potions were some good shit." Erik said.

"Well, Imma say this right now, if you don't wake up early tomorrow we're going to have some problems."

"What are you, my dad?" Erik replied.

"No, I was planning on bringing yall with me when I go to talk to the headmaster tomorrow."

"I thought he only wanted to talk to you though." Erik replied.

"Well, all of you guys are helping me out too, I figured he may want to see you guys as well."

"Tell you what…" Erik started, as he opened the door. "You go to him alone tomorrow, and if he wants to see any of us, just come back and wake our asses up then."

"Well, alright." I replied. "But if I can't wake you up normally, you ain't gonna like my plan B."

"Noted. Good night." Erik said, walking out with Josh. I walked the rest of the way into the room, and noticed that Jamie was at the corner of the room, looking out the window.

"Coming to bed?"

"Soon." I replied, approaching the chest next to the door.

As I unloaded my stuff into the chest, Miles walked into the room and went to the corner as Jamie approached me.

"Don't do that again."

"Do what?"

"Don't separate from us."

"It was only for a few seconds."

"Even though it was only for a few seconds!"

"Jamie, I'm sorry, okay? The dog ran off."

"That's a really crappy excuse."

"It wasn't an excuse!" I said, coming closer to the bed, Jamie following me.

"How would YOU feel if I ran off randomly? Huh?" She asked, coming closer to my face. I didn't respond.

"And what if I never came back?"

"I–"

"Exactly." Jamie replied. "So, how do you think I felt when you disappeared into the forest in the dead of night back there?"

"I had a sword Jamie, there would've just been mobs, if anything."

"And what if there was something else, huh?!"

"Well, there was nothing else."

"Yeah, but what if there was?" Jamie replied, grabbing onto my hoodie. "That's why I was so worried!"

"Jamie?"

"Mike, we are barely even a few days into our relationship and you're already running out there headfirst, when who knows god fucking what is out there. You can't just do this shit because you "have a diamond sword"! YOU AREN'T FUCKING INVINCIBLE!

"I- I'm sorry" I apologized to her.

"Better fucking be, because if I want anyone to make it back to the real world with me, I want, no. NEED it to be you, because if you don't return to the real world too, I don't see a point."

Jamie backed off from me, then walked around to the other side of the bed, laying down and facing the wall. I approached Miles and sat him down, feeding him some beef, then returned to the bed. Laying down, I pulled the covers over me.

"Are you mad at me?" I asked.

"No." Jamie responded.

"Should I go sleep downstairs or something?"

"You're fine where you are." Jamie sighed.

I looked at the ceiling, closing my eyes. I heard Jamie shift around.

"Asleep already?"

"No…" I said, opening my eyes. "Why?"

Jamie turned my head, and pulled me in for a kiss.

"Wh–"

"I don't want us to fall asleep mad at each other."

"I'm not mad."

Jamie sighed. "You're not helping."

"Ah, I see."

I pulled her closer and kissed her back, wrapping my arms around her as she did the same for me.

"Am I helping now?" I asked, as Jamie opened her eyes a bit.

(I can't put in the rest of this chapter, but the rest of it is available on my Wattpad (on my profile)