Ch.6 The Devil's Child

The mansion was fifty blocks long and thirty blocks wide made out of pine trees. Tall glass windows reflected the sun in the two main side rooms while small windows welcomed guests in the front entrance. I stared up at the dilapidating mansion seeing where it was weathered in some spots. How did I know about this place? I touched the door knob and pulled open the door of the front entrance.

I stopped in the middle of an elaborately stoned floor of the eleven by five entrance room. "Such craftsmanship."

I looked at the four pillars that were located at each corner of the room. The entrance room had a flour block high ceiling with a domed center to accommodate a glass dome. I looked up into some of the cracked and broken glass windows before I pulled open the main doors to enter the mansion. A hallway led me to different rooms of the mansion. Four or five small rooms were storage or closets while the five main rooms of the bottom floor consisted of a meeting room, a living room, a kitchen, and a crafting room.

To the right and to the left of the hallway there were two staircases that went to the second floor. Carefully climbing up I was met by three bedrooms, a kitchen, two bathrooms, and a media room. Heading up the stairs once more I came to the attic that contained many chests. I looked around in the dusty room and noticed footprints on the floor. Someone had been here recently. That confirmed it, I wasn't alone out here.

Descending to the second floor I decided to look around. There should've been a study somewhere in this house if I wasn't mistaken. Better yet, there was a basement to this house as well. Heading to the first floor I looked all over for the entrance to the basement but found nothing. "Odd. The stairs should've been in one of these closets."

I felt the wall of each closet to find some hidden button or a pressure plate but found nothing. Was there not a basement? Was this house not the one I had seen somewhere before? I sat on a couch in the living room at a loss. I could've been wrong about this mansion, maybe I've never seen it before.

My thoughts about it, the floor plans, the doors, the way it was built, all of this felt like I had seen it before. Everything about this place felt familiar. I stared at the red rug that went around the center of the floor. I cocked my head at a worn place in it that slightly resembled a deliberate tear. I slid to my knees and pressed on the area.

Nothing happened. Damn it. I pressed on the area around the torn rug. Still nothing. How can this be?

I grabbed the torn rug and lifted it up to find a trapdoor beneath. Had that been in the floor plans? For some odd reason I knew that this had been added. I opened that hatch of the trap door and slid down the ladder that went down thirty blocks before heading back. If my calculations were correct, the hallway went back towards a rear closet.

As I went along the dimly lit hallway I noticed cobblestone that was used to patch up what used to be the entrance of the tunnel. I looked up at the ceiling and looked back down the tunnel. I had been right, someone had changed the floor plans slightly for some reason. It was well hidden in the closet so why would someone make another entrance and block up the other? If anyone were to come into the mansion they would go snooping in closets, everyone knew they held clothes or chests. I went on down the hall as quietly as I could but my shoes made slight taps anyways that echoed ahead of me.

The tunnel suddenly opened up to a four high room that followed the same floor plans as the mansion above. In the middle was a fountain with a pine tree growing up towards the surface with fences around it and half stone slabs. In the room to the left of me was a furnace room with many furnaces along the wall. At the end of the hall to the left was a fountain that was illuminated by glow stone and torches with water cascading down the cobblestone. At the end of the hall to the right was another fountain.

The room to the right of the fountain was a crafting room with a large glass dome wall to a pitch black room on the other side. I wandered over to the glass wondering what was in the room when I heard a growl on the other side followed by many other cries. A face with tusks came face to face with me on the other side of the window. I screamed flinging myself away. The creatures were huge with green skin and large hands, towering four and a half blocks higher than I was.

It pounded on the glass and I suddenly heard a shattering sound that made my heart stop. Whatever this beast was there was more than one as I took in three more on either side of the first one. They had broken the glass and were trying to come through wanting to kill me. I grabbed my sword and bolted from the room. "What the hell, what the hell, what the hell? What are those?"

I stopped in the hallway, the monsters uninterested in the glass after I had left. They were pounding on the wall with such ferocity I felt the ground start to shake beneath me. I stared with bulging eyes around at the other rooms. My jaw dropped when I noticed that the glass from the room I had just left was continued in the next two rooms. "No. No, no, no! This can't be happening!"

More of those beasts were pounding on the glass. I turned to staircase that went down and bolted out of the hallway almost tripping down the stairs. I found myself in a study. The very same study that I had been looking for. The three computers on the far end of the room, a desk that wrapped around the left side of the room, a meeting room to the right, and a fountain in the middle.

I suddenly felt myself press a pressure plate and a hidden staircase opened up before me by the help of pistons. Heading down to another hallway I felt my stomach clench at what was ahead. "Please say it isn't a laboratory."

It was. I noticed another room to the right of it. Looking inside I could see buttons, pressure plates, and levers. "A control room. What does it all control?"

"The destruction of monsters and the creation of new ones."

I spun around at the voice that had spoken to see a teen about my age with spiral horns on his head, blue eyes, and red spikey hair. His clothes were similar to a travelers and a survivor. I stared at him taking a step back, his eyes looking over every inch of me that made me feel uneasy. "Who are you?"

He flipped a lever that turned on the lights over head in the entire place. "I was born and raised here. They called me Hel."

"Hel?" I said out loud. "Why would they call you that? What are you?"

He could tell that I was shaking slightly; he could smell the fear that came from me. I could see it in his eyes. This boy seemed to be a great secret along with this mansion. Why? He turned away and walked out of the control room. I followed behind slowly watching him head over to the computers. He opened a chest that was in the wall that I hadn't noticed before and suddenly saw that it was meant to be hidden from some people with the help of pistons. He removed papers from the chest and handed them to me. "Everything in this chest told of what would be awaiting me here. I find it interesting that it's all happening."

I stared at him perplexed by what he was saying. "What's all happening?" I asked taking the papers and looking down at them. They were journal papers. Some contained documents that consisted of mobs and how some were affected by dissection. Others mixed and matched.

"The devil's child."

I looked at him not understanding what he was talking about. "Pardon?"

He flipped a switch and crossed his arms as he leaned on the desk staring at me. "The devil's child. You have the blood of him. My creator. "

"Notch?" I asked. Now I was totally confused and lost. I didn't understand what he was talking about.

He closed his eyes and sighed as if impatient on where this was going. He turned to the computer and typed in some things. I suddenly saw my family on the screen. It was when I was five. My brothers on either side of my mom and dad while I was in the center, my mom and dad's hands on either of my shoulders.

"How is this on here? Why is a picture of my family on here?"

The boy didn't respond. His fingers typed in more things that the computer brought up. I saw picture after picture of myself and my family as we grew up. I saw every stage of my life being pulled up on the screen. I stared at the screen as my head swam with questions.

"This is your fate. The fate that I was told that would come about for a young girl named Sell. I was created as a body guard." Hel replied keeping his back to me. "You are a new heir to the kingdom. To the Devil's Throne that your father is the Master of. He is the ruler of all that live and is gaining power once more. The devil's daughter will walk the path he has lain out."

"Like hell I will!" I spat making him turn slightly towards me.

"Read the papers. They are important for your survival. This is no joke, Ma'am."

Ma'am? He just addressed me as ma'am? What the hell was going on? He was the same age as me! I pointed at his back glaring. "Why do you address me like that? I'm not the devil's daughter and I will not follow some path that some creep has laid out! I want to know why my picture and my family's pictures are on these computers! What the fuck is all of this?"

"I won't repeat myself again." Hel said icily. "I will be watching. Now leave before it becomes nightfall. I don't want you to be harmed by the evil that roams here."

I looked at the papers in my hand. I stared at them hardly focusing on the writing. "Is this why my father went to see the skeleton people? Will this explain why I can see my family and speak with my brothers when I want too?"

Hel strode past me without a sound. "Come. I shall return you to the surface."

I looked at the computer screen and saw my mom holding me up as we were playing. I turned away and followed after the young man, escorting me to the surface. He walked me to the entrance and closed the door behind me. "Leave. Hurry, you only have three minutes left. Don't be seen by the wild animals."

I turned to him and laughed. "What wild animals? There are no wild animals out here. Just wolves."

He turned and walked away from the door. I clenched my fists at his rudeness. "Hey! Don't turn your back on me! You know how rude that is?"

I watched his disappear into the house and go into one of the rooms. It felt like he was saying something to me by his actions. I could hardly grasp it though. I turned and made my way to my boat that I had left at the beach. Climbing into it I pushed off and floated back to my home as the sun was starting to set.

Off in the distance of the water it looked like a fin rose up from the water and went back down again beneath the surface. I blinked but nothing was there. Was I imagining things? Were Hel's words making me get jumpy? Looking back at the mansion an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach made me shudder. So many questions.

The boat bumped up against the shallows of the beach letting me jump onto shore. I headed off across the island as quick as I could to get home. Pulling open the door of my house and closing it behind me I went into my bedroom and sat on my bed. The papers in my hand still. This was some big joke.

It had to be. Dad wasn't some ruler. He was a simple farmer that had turned to the bad side of a Minecraftian. There was no devil lord or whatever. "God, that's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard. Devil's daughter. Hah!"

I picked up the papers and began reading them. All of this has got to be a lie somewhere. Surely Hel wasn't serious. None of it sounded serious, or was that just me? As I read I noticed that these papers were journal entries.

They dated back to when my dad had been on his adventure. As I read on through the night somewhere along the way I fell asleep and was cast into a world unbeknownst to me. A world that was just beginning and growing very slowly. Where the evils of the world made people smile and everywhere you looked there would only be faces of monsters. Monsters that helped one another to complete tasks when that was unheard of.

A place where I was created for a purpose that was hidden from the people around me, including the ones I loved.