A/N: I realise it's been ages since the last update, but I've had this wonderful problem of being only Past Tense again. So... now we're past tense. I'm going to go through the previous chapters and edit and convert them to past tense too. Ah well, I'm evolving as a writer, right? This chapter has Minecraft and Alan Wake, which I've played a lot of recently and is honestly one of the most psychologically terrifying games ever.
The door lead them into the middle of nowhere and Claudia looked around trying to get an idea of what game they were in as quickly as possible. Nothing about the place felt right, in fact it felt very wrong. Everything was square and pixels and... 8bit.
"Minecraft."
Pete looked at Claudia and blinked. "You mean that weird game you play where you're just running around building things?"
"Yep," said Claudia. It was the middle of the day, something she was exceedingly grateful for, and she started walking, Pete trotting along behind her. "I bet this isn't creative mode though."
"Creative mode?" Pete asked.
"Yeah, it has three modes: Creative, Survival and Hardcore," she said.
"There is only one of those I like the sound of," he said.
She sighed. "Yeah... Creative means there's no monsters and stuff gets destroyed instantly. Survival, there are monsters. Hardcore there are really hard monsters and if you die you stay dead."
"Bet this is hardcore," said Pete.
"Yeah," she said. She'd moved across to a hillside with some trees. "We need to punch trees. I hope the game mechanics work the same for us as they would if we were players."
"Punch... trees...?" Pete was stuck on.
"Punch trees," she confirmed. "If you punch trees you can get wood and make tools and a crafting bench and stuff."
Pete stared at her. "By... punching trees?"
"Just go with it, Pete," Claudia begged. "I'm just telling you how you play the game."
He sighed. "Okay, you start, I'll... follow you."
She nodded, approached a tree and started punching it. He watched her, torn between thinking she'd lost her mind and being amused by her, and then the middle chunk of the tree fell out and she picked up the smallest cube of wood ever.
"Oh," said Pete.
Another nod. "Start punching," she said and started piling up the cubes of wood.
A few minutes later they had enough – according to Claudia – to build a crafting table, so she stacked the cubes of wood up and stared at them.
"Um?" said Pete.
"I'm trying to work out how to make them into planks," she admitted.
"I'm assuming you don't chop them up?" he said.
"No." She placed her hand on the top of the wood and pushed. The wood duplicated into four and turned into wooden planks. "Yes!" She punched the air. "Donovan one, mincraft zero!"
Pete stared at her some more as she grouped four planks into a block, pressed down and it became a crafting table.
"This game is insane," Pete informed her.
"Yeah," she said, "I never really thought about it before, but... yeah." She grouped the items together in other ways and a couple of moments later handed him a wooden axe and a wooden pickaxe. "Hey, you're Pickaxe Pete," she said and he laughed and started chopping more wood.
He looked up after a moment to see she'd climbed up the hill and was using the shovel to carve out large chunks of soil. "What're you doing?"
"I'm making us a shelter," she said. "We need to be safe before nightfall."
"Why?" he asked. "What happens at nightfall?"
"The monsters come out," she replied. "We have enough wood. Come over here and carve out a hole big enough to take shelter in while I try and find food and sheep and water."
He nodded. "All right," he said and hurried over to help her.
Claudia returned just before nightfall with arms full of wool and meat. Pete had placed the crafting table in the corner of the shelter and there was a large amount of stone saved up as well.
"Looking good," said Claudia. Something growled, making Pete jump, and she slipped down inside the shelter. She used the crafting table to create some torches and placed one in the corner of the room to illuminate it, then started covering the opening with stone.
"Hey, Claud?" said Pete. "How likely are we to get eaten?"
"We're safe in here," she said and grinned at him. "Don't worry!" She moved down towards the bottom of the shelter and dug a little deeper until she revealed a pool.
"Water!" Pete exclaimed and rushed down, dipping his hands in it and drinking deep.
"You act like you haven't drunk in days," said Claudia. "Why didn't you grab some Nord m—" She broke off.
"Yeah," said Pete. "No one had any water, just mead."
"I am so sorry," said Claudia weakly, sitting down nearby and putting a gentle hand between his shoulder blades. "If I'd known I would've asked where there was a river or something. We could've found you something to drink. Pete..."
"It's fine, Claud." He smiled at her and drank some more. "Now I have weird 8bit water to drink instead."
She found herself laughing, even though she felt bad, and dropped down to sit a little closer to him, against the stone wall by the water. "I punched some cows and got some meat," she said, "we can cook it up in a furnace, so we can hold out here for a few days."
"That's good," said Pete and sat next to her. "I don't think I ever realised how scary video games were before."
"I know, right?!" said Claudia. "Agh!" She did a strangling gesture at thin air and then leant back again.
"What do we do if we're still stuck in here when we run out of food?" asked Pete.
"Go back out and kill more cows I guess," said Claudia. "Maybe explore a little, I don't know..."
"I really don't want to spend the rest of my life in a video game," Pete decided. "I want to try and find a way out of here."
"We could tunnel our way back to the real world," suggested Claudia.
"Really?!"
"No."
Pete scowled at her and crossed his arms to sulk for a while. Claudia sighed, stood up and went across to the crafting table, where she created two beds. She placed both and then moved back to Pete.
"If I could get us out of this I would," said Claudia. "But I have to have somewhere to start and I don't have anywhere to start. I think we just need to wait for the others."
"And in the meantime?" said Pete.
Claudia sighed. "We just keep surviving."
When Claudia and Pete didn't get back the next day, Artie got concerned. He tried to contact them via Farnsworth to no avail and then he sent Myka and Helena to track them down. Three days had passed by the time they got to Maggie Wilson's house.
"Missus Wilson?" said Myka when she opened the front door. "Have you seen our friends?"
"Your friends?" Maggie said, frowning. "They fixed Kyle's computer and went home we thought."
"They haven't been in contact," said Myka, voice quiet. "We thought maybe they were still here."
"Nope," said Maggie. "Not here. You can come and check if you want?"
"Yes please," said Myka and walked inside, Helena trailing behind her and being observant.
They checked Kyle's bedroom – the computer functioning but the screen turned off – and had a poke around to see if anything was out of place or wrong, but they couldn't find anything implying something bad had happened to Pete and Claudia.
"Perhaps they're on their way home," said Helena. "Or in a Farnsworth black spot sleeping..."
Myka frowned. "No, there's something wrong here," she said. "Claudia's practically bonded to the warehouse. She wouldn't stay away any longer than she had to."
"We should investigate further," said Helena. "Walk around, see if there's anything to indicate what's happened to them."
Myka nodded and on a whim held her hand out. Helena smiled softly and took it and Myka lead her back out of the house.
What was the worst that could happen in three days?
Claudia shrieked as she fell and scrambled down cliff side into a forest, Pete hot on her heels. She skidded to a halt when a large man with an axe emerged from the trees in front of her.
Claudia wasn't one for screaming, but at that moment she was screaming.
"Pete!" she shouted and he tossed her a flashlight. She aimed the beam at the axe murderer and he faltered, giving Pete ample time to raise his revolver and fire three shots into the murderer.
The murderer staggered back. Another shot and he fell down, disappearing and fading away. Pete grabbed Claudia's hand and they started running again, down through the trees and the forest and into the bright light of a lamp over a cabin.
"I can't keep doing this, Pete," said Claudia, bending double and leaning on her knees. "I can't. Three months. Three months. Why haven't they come for us yet?"
"I don't know," said Pete, basking in the light, the only safe area they'd found for a long time. "We need to get to the cabin. We'll be safe there."
"And if we're not?" said Claudia. "We're in Alan Wake. What's next? Call of Duty? I don't want to be shot in the face and teabagged!"
"Claud!" Pete squeezed the hand he'd not yet let go of. "We'll be okay. We've survived this long."
Claudia took a breath and nodded. "I'm just..."
"I know," he said gently. "I know, Claud. Three months is a long time to wait for rescue, but we'll be okay. We will. What's the worst that can happen?"
She looked at him. "No, don't ever say that," she said in time for the light to change. The doorway of the cabin behind them lit up and she looked at it. "Do we want to go through there?"
"Anywhere has to be better than here," said Pete, "right?"
She swallowed. "Right. Right, yeah." She let go of his hand and he found himself mourning the loss as they moved into the light and stepped through the doorway into the next game.