Chapter 3: Invasion

But how am I to escape now... now after all that happens when the guards get more and more strict, when they are watching us and for a while now they've started checking our cells... But the quartz portal prototype will be done soon, I might be able to destroy it and put a spike in their ribs... But once again... when? How? Under a ghast looking down at us, feeling sadness probably, we once again work at the smelter... but now... things didn't go quite as usual, about this time (As I have noticed by scratching lines in netherrack once when the lava flowing from the ceiling stopped and started again far in the distance) a batch of netherrack would come here... but where are the pigmen that would usually carry it? What happened... Maybe... something happened? But how could they not be here, was there a riot? Now that I actually noticed that, there are no guards here... guess this is my chance to try and get out... and if something asks, I went to find more netherrack... I head out and walk past the main hall... to the left is the cell area, so I keep going forward... the guard posts are empty... that's weird... Wait... what's... that?... In font, near the end of the hall there is a weird coloured square. It has the same shade of dark as the nether bricks, but it is lighter, and not so red (it's brown really), and as I go at it, not being sure what it is, I give it a light punch. Suddenly, the top half of the thing raises up, revealing a hollow inside... and a sword, white as the bones of the smaller skeletons... "Probably I'm just dreaming" was what was flowing in my mind... how could this thing appear here and what is this sword made of? I take a swing at a wall nearby and it doesn't scratch the nether brick... I guess it is not that big... I put the sword on my back using a piece of cloth from what's left of my clothes, and see that there is nothing else in the weird object. I take a left, and looking on my, obviously, left side through the fence gaps, I see that there are no pigmen in the cells... I wonder where everyone is, where are the guards... where is my family... and as I try to clear my head from all the questions, I move forward... Still no sight of anyone...

As I climb down the stairs I see that the nether wart that's put here for decoration is fully grown... there are usually people that take care of it and replant it... that's weird... I walk forward to the cross section and the small well of lava... I take a bit in my palms and wash my face, as the fiery liquid burns my skin, a sound can be heard and a small bit of smoke comes out of my face... We do not feel pain, and we can mostly resist lava, but it's not that great of a feeling to be boiled... and then I knew a pigman that stayed in lava for so long the skin and muscle on his legs fell off and he was unable to walk anymore... poor fellow...

From there I look in all directions and don't see signs of anyone, no movement... so I just take the right and walk out into the courtyard... there, in the distance, I see the quartz portal prototype... it's made of Obsidian and Quartz... the Quartz is supposed to melt and form onto the portal, giving it a stable form... but where is everyone... As I walk down the stairs into the courtyard, I hear sounds behind me.

Turning around it's... Notch? No it can't be him... his skin is not as white, he has blue clothes and doesn't have a beard... As I make a gesture towards him his facial expression changed, maybe to happiness... but just then, a black skeleton rises from the ground behind him, as he looks at me curiously he doesn't hear him, I let out a yell that probably didn't mean much for him, but he woke up to his reality and turned around and started fighting the black guard. From the stairs between us two more guards appear, they are looking at the weird man that seems to be of the same race as Notch, and don't notice him.

As they get closer to him, I take my sword and hit one of the guards, my sword entering his skull, the other one surprised turns around and strikes me, he tries to cut my hand off but it only scratches me a bit.

From the scratch black smoke appears and my skin starts to decay, if not for me having fast reflexes I could've lost it all. As the man in blue manages to defeat his enemy, he runs and stabs mine...

With a "happy to see you" look on my face I slowly head towards him, as his smile suddenly turned to a frown, and he strikes at me with his sword, but missing and striking his sword down in the netherrack.

I try to speak to him but he does not seem to understand my language, I take a look back try to find a way out... and the only way out seems to be the portal prototype...

But my family... my friends... what if I'll never be able to return... to see everyone I care about and hear the ghasts and...

Another strike, that I luckily managed to parry with my sword, returns me to my senses, as I take a run for the portal. I jump in it blindly, and after a while I feel weird things under my hooves, with blurry vision I manage to see something that resembles what I've heard from stories, a tree... I quickly take my sword and hit at the side of it, cutting through it's outside, I really hope it doesn't feel pain. I take another strike, and then another, and the tree falls on his side smashing the portal's fragile quartz parts...

Happy that I managed to escape the man that chased me, my ears fall down and a sad mood takes control of me... I look around myself, do not resemble anything, look above at something blue, stories said that it's called "sky", and the giant trees that surround me, with weird green plants growing on their sides.

I grab a hold of these plants and climb up, I don't want to be near the ground, and reaching on top, I make my way through the leaves... Looking around myself I see more great trees, there are hills everywhere and white things in the sky, more like ghasts but they all go in one direction, carried by the air probably as lava would throw up fire from time to time... and in the distance the sky turned orange, and a blinding square of white light is heading down...

On the opposite side a great white object rises, and the sky turns darker...

I am guessing the white light is the sun... and it is not getting dark, which means... there will be terrible creatures all around... I have to make it through the night, but how do I do that in this world that I barely know anything about...

The leaves under me suddenly fall, and I do as well following them. On the ground, and hardly being able to see... this must be the darkness, same that seemed to be around the fortresses, I see in a small plant with leaves on the floor, two white eyes that shine... and after a sound, something jumps on me and takes me down to the ground.