I have always been this.
Never in my life have I been anything else. That's how it feels when I'm on the surface, in the Overworld, in this life I've built for myself.
I have never, for example, seen my fingers glow so brightly. I have never felt my heart pound and known it was from something real, a real threat, coming to hurt me and those around me.
That's how it feels right here, even though I know it's wrong.
The lava sizzles, screams. A couple of kids try to run, but only bump into each other, blinded by the sudden light, like an instant sunrise. Sol's pick clatters to the floor, and a drop of lava falls onto it, searing a black hole into the handle.
I don't think, don't plan. My hands move on their own. I reach down, my knees bending and jutting out into the throng of kids around me, and my hands brush the ground just in front of me. Then they glow, brighter and brighter, particles swirling out from Notch knows where. Then the stone is in my hands in a perfect cube, leaving an indent before me. I leap forward just as the lava is about to spill onto a wordless Solas and shove the block into the hole with strength I've never before felt in myself.
Reina is the first to talk, raising her voice over the fiery popping from beyond the wall. A crack of radiant orange light can be seen where the block touches the sides of the hole, but that's all, and Solas is safe.
"I think I can speak for all of us when I say, holy shit."
I let out a nervous laugh. Some other kids try to laugh, too, but they're staring at me in wide-eyed wonder. I try to brush it off like Reina's brushing off the dirt that landed on her when I pulled out the block. "Sorry," I mumble, moving back behind Solas, giving him back the front spot.
"No, Kaius." He shakes his head, grabs my wrist, doesn't let me go. His fingers are calloused but warm where they touch me. I'm suddenly conscious of how cold my skin must be. "Stay here. That was sick. We, you know, we might need that." He tips his chin up like so many of the human boys do when they're feeling heady and sure. I know he isn't, though. I can feel it, feel his lingering terror, with the particles of violet still swirling around me like dust motes. He must have been so scared. I clutch his hand back, try to let him know how much I understand what fear is.
I accepted this trip. I can do it again. "S-sure," I stammer. But all I can feel is the pressure of his hand on mine. Something blows open inside me, and I feel like I can do anything. Be anything. If he's there. Maybe his confidence is rubbing off on me?
His face breaks into a familiar cocky grin, lopsided and startling in the dim light. "Nice!" His voice isn't shaking so much anymore. "You guys, I know what we're going to do."
He turns away from me, breaking our hold, and for a moment a tiny wave of disappointment washes over me before I remember to listen. "First of all, that was definitely lava."
A few kids laugh, but most of them stare at him intently, myself included.
"You guys all took Naturals or Deep Earth, right?"
"We didn't get to finish the semester," says a kid uneasily. When I turn, I see it's Sol's old shadow, and feel a twinge of jealousy. A few more particles appear in the dank air, but no one seems to notice. Sol's intensity, fueled by his near miss with the lava, is captivating.
"Doesn't matter." He gestures widely with his arms, grinning again. "We all learned it at the beginning. We're all eighteen. When lava meets water, there's . . . "
"Obsidian!" cries a middle-of-the-group girl I've never seen before, and can't quite see in the dark.
"Exactly!" Sol crows, and we shift where we're standing, full of anticipation. "So all we need is - "
"Water." I say it before I know I've said it. He claps me on the shoulder, a warm touch that jolts me awake.
"That's it!" He punches the air. "Let's spread out and look for it!"
Most of the group starts to dissipate, energized by Sol's shout, but not me. I stay near him, listening carefully to the wall. The lava's creating a lot of noise pollution, though, and it's hard to hear. Sol reaches for my arm again, and that I notice, every bit of it.
"Kaius," he begins, "do you know what happened back there?"
"I - " I stammer, wanting to let him know, but I can't put words to it. My human mom never told me anything about what it meant to be an Enderman. She raised me as her son, as she'd raise her human son. I don't know if she ever expected this, or if . . . if she'll ever know. I push that thought out of my mind with great effort, breathing in rhythm like Reina taught me, and shake my head. "I don't know." The confession hangs in the air for a moment.
"I'm . . . a combats major, you know," he goes, and I swallow, hoping not to be reminded of the creeper he killed and kicked away on the way to this cave. But he doesn't stop there. "And I've seen a lot of monsters.
"Not suggesting that you're one!" His eyes widen, reflecting the faint glow that I and the lava give off. "But I've seen a lot of Endermen, too, just walking around, in the nighttime. And they do that. Pick up blocks, I mean. The Naturals class isn't that great for mobs. They only really teach hostiles in full when you're in Combats." He wipes his brow, listening to the wall for a second, before returning his attention back to me. "And I've seen your kind. I've seen them . . . pick up blocks like that, and move them, but never to save anyone." He just looks at me for a second, just us, alone in the particles and the dust. "Thanks, by the way. I totally owe you."
I shrug, nervous. "It's fine. I didn't even mean to do it. But - " I pause, my heart racing. "I would! I'd do it again, if I could, and there was lava, and . . . "
Sol starts laughing, a deep belly laugh, brash but innocent somehow. He grabs me by the shoulders and I shut my mouth, feeling ridiculous. I hope I haven't made a fool of myself. I blush deeply, the warm flushing sensation that I'm used to, a good thing. "Calm your shit. It's fine. I'm glad you did it, too."
I laugh too, not daring to move before he does. He takes his hands away like they mean nothing and starts to listen again, kneeling to retrieve his pick from the ground, feeling around with open palms. I can feel the vibrations of it under my feet. When he picks it up, the blade scraping the rocky ground, I feel that too.
"Hey," he says, in the middle of getting up, "did you hear that, too?"
I shake my head, hyper-attuned to the world where he interacts with it. Then I shake off that feeling too, wanting to help as best I can, but it's hard. "Not really. What was it?"
"Someone's yelling." He turns around and starts to make his quick, unafraid way down the cavern, deftly navigating. My long legs, longer than his even, help me catch up in no time, though I have to take more care because of how it's strewn with stalagmites and cave rocks. "In a good way," he calls back to me, his face outlined in profile against the absolute blackness of the beyond, "they're yelling in a good way!"
"We need your pick," says the boy who spoke to me about bioluminescence.
"Did you find it?" says Sol as he hands it over, although he hangs onto it a little, wanting to hold his creation.
The boy nods. "Water sounds. Right behind there." He slams the pick into the rock, and after a few minutes, a stream of water seeps out. Some of the other kids line up to drink some - they exclaim when they do, shouting about how cold and fresh it is - but I stay back, not wanting to get burned. I stay close to Sol instead, who just licks his lips. "Find anything else, Elan?" he asks, and the boy nods again. "Some coal. Got a flint and steel?"
"Got 'em." Sol lights the makeshift torch Elan's made. "Where'd you get the stick?"
"They were all over the floor," Elan mumbles confusedly. "Why, is that not a thing?"
"Not in caves," says Sol, but the torch suddenly bursts into flame and throws the faces of everyone around me into sharp relief. A collective whoaaahhh goes up from the group, and Sol leaps into the forefront of it.
"Up there! There's extra light. Maybe it'll lead us to above the lava. Let's go spill some water!"
Everyone follows him, clamoring for his attention, but I see something different. Even when we get to the overhang above the lava lake, I don't flinch back from it. And when we break the wall so that the water spreads out over its boiling surface, hardening it almost instantly, I ignore the vestiges of strength still remaining in my skinny arms. The steam curls and floats into shapes on the ceiling of the cavern before it disappears, evaporating into the air, humidifying it. Sol wipes his brow over and over so effortlessly, using the shoulder of his fitted shirt. I watch Sol as he pulls the obsidian out from over the lava with the help of four other strong-willed kids. He tries to enlist me, but I shake my head, not knowing how to do what I did again, or even understand it.
I want to talk to him, though. He's seen other Endermen? He's never told me that before. I want to know them, their customs, who I am inside. But I also want to know him. Paralyzed by indecision, I stand by until they've constructed a rectangle of obsidian chunks in the cavern wall, lit only by the faithful torch that Elan holds just as loyally. I wonder if Elan has ever felt the way I do now. But that feeling is wiped away the moment Sol tells me to use his flint and steel to light the obsidian, even though I remember from Deep Earth class that it doesn't burn. He looks so hopeful, so I indulge him, my elongated fingers fudging the movements needed to make sparks. When I finally succeed after six or seven times, the darkness is cut through with a violet glow, a glow that for once isn't my own. Sol stands back, gasping for breath, heat and satisfaction radiating off him. He claps me on the back, and I gasp, but he doesn't notice - it's washed away by the odd soundwaves coming through the rectangle Sol's built. "They told me," he breathes, "that one day I could get to be the first to build one of these."
"You did," I smile. "But . . . you told me to light it."
"Yeah." He stretches his back, stretches the muscles in his arms, stretches his whole body, taking up space. His hands keep bumping into my chin and my jawline, even in the low light. "Our town's very first Nether portal."
"Didn't you . . . didn't you want to be the first? They told you . . . " I can't get the words out right, not with the portal's noises vibrating in the air all around us.
"You deserve it." He steps up in front of me, looking over his shoulder, his profile illuminated by a line of purple that lights up his eyes, making them flash with excitement. "For saving my life."
The yawning, violet opening of the portal groans in an otherworldly way, then lets out a long sigh. Particles like mine fly out of it, a whole flurry of them. The swirling surface ripples and undulates, distorting Sol's features where he stands inside it, and when I blink once, he's disappeared.
I am the first to follow him, before even Elan or any of the other, stronger kids who normally flank Sol. Right now I am ready for anything. The flint and steel have lit something in me, too, I think, something bright and burning. My hands, shining violet, mix with the violet of the portal. I close my eyes before it takes me, buoyed by Sol's words, by the power and the strength of them, and something else, too.
I deserve it.
For saving his life.