Ch.7 Dream and Darkness

I found myself in a world that seemed much older than the year I was born. Everything was old fashioned and not many things were as useful as it was during my time. I stood beneath an old oak that had branches splayed out every which way. The leaves of the tree let no light through. It was just a solid leafed tree that allowed plenty of shade from the sun.

I saw what appeared to be my dad when he was my age gathering the required things he needed to survive on. He had a full bag and was just finishing his gathering when the sun was going down. I watched him quickly run across the grass and leap into a house locking the door behind him. As the night fell on the home he sat in a corner building things. He began to dig up the wooden floor, placing ladders every other block to save some. Figuring that he was deep enough he began to build what appeared to be a mob grinder but this one was an older model.

You can tell it was an older model because it consisted of a lava blade. I watched him create another mob grinder and head back up to the surface, sealing it off. I hadn't noticed his other way down into the collection room. As I watched my dad build and tear down, making more things that were better I began to see how his life was changing. It was on the fourth year of his adventure when something happened.

I noticed that new mobs were starting to appear and father faced one of them while returning home in the dark. A Flame Wraith attacked, possessing him instantly. I saw how my father had become evil, building this absurd creations that worshipped this figure that resembled nothing to Notch or anything I had ever seen before. It was a skeleton with a robe around him that hooded his face and body, similar to the wraiths clothes. I knew this was a dream but I couldn't control myself when I became fearful of what my dad was turning into.

He was having a constant mental battle with the wraith within him. I watched him meditate morning and night but it would hardly help. Every night when he would meditate the wraith would take over his body and draw obscene things on the paper that dad would make during the day. Looking at the pictures that he drew I saw that none of them made much sense. There was going to be a trap that involved a lamb and a great fire would engulf it all.

A figure would emerge from the ashes holding onto the monsters that roamed Minecraft at night, the ones that haunted children's dreams and kept them in line. It hit me then that the trap would be for my dad. The wraith was going to use his body as a vessel for this person! I stared in horror at the papers and sank against a far wall and curled up not wanting to watch what was about to happen. Just like I had predicted it all came upon dad the next night.

His wails of pain and convulsions made me hide my face. The flames engulfing him. I began screaming from his pain. The sight of him writhing around in the flames as the skeletons were possessing him thanks to the wraith was just too much for me to handle. I couldn't stand it.

"I need to wake up! Wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake up! Why won't I wake up?" I cried biting my arm. "I'm tired of seeing this!"

The flames, the screaming, everything was over as soon as it had begun. I cried in my little ball with a bleeding arm where I had bitten it. I was suddenly flung through the years as my father worked building the mansion without eating or hardly drinking. I stared as the place was built in front of me and slowly stood. It all came to me then, where I had seen this mansion before. It had been carved into a log by my dad some time ago.

He was always carving the rooms of the mansion into bits of wood that he would find. The future years came to a stop making me stumble, the dream messing with my brain slightly. A woman had been adventuring and had come upon his mansion. He took a liking to her, getting her trust, showing her around the mansion. I watched as they planned their life together and soon my brothers came along. Of course I came a few years later but something was different.

I was different. I watched my dad take me to the lab below and had me tested. I was a new heir to the skeletal lord. I was a happy baby for the most part. When I was three I was introduced to Hel, a young toddler that was part werewolf part ogre.

We were playmates that turned out to be really good friends. It all changed when I met another skeletal lord that was from afar. He was a lesser lord but still had some power. Enough to kill me. It was then that I saw what Hel had been made for and saw that he wasn't telling me lies.

I watched as Hel saved me from the lords attack, his left arm ripped open and bleeding badly. We ran away to a passageway that he knew about and found ourselves in the house safely. After that we moved to a town far away, leaving Hel behind with the mansion. I didn't know this; my memories had been messed with by dad. I stared at my younger self watching me and my dad do things around the town.

We blended in to survive. Light shone in my eyes making me flinch and shield myself from it. It didn't help much. I found myself in my bed laying there, the papers scattered about. I sat up slowly as everything washed over me.

My memories that I thought had come from the town were all slightly a lie. 'How could he?' I thought to myself. 'How could dad do such a thing to his own children?'

I knew dad had some dark secrets within him but I didn't think it was this dark. This sort of darkness wasn't given to all Minecraftians. This darkness wasn't even in a Minecraftian and I realized then that I really didn't know myself at all. All of this that I had found out was heavy on my mind. I didn't realize that I had left the house and was gathering wood.

I was unaware of a lion that was stalking me until it was too late and I was looking into his jaws of death. My mouth screamed as my hands flung up to defend my face as I fell backwards. The male lion cried out in pain as it was harmed by something. I opened my eyes to see Hel crouching in front of me baring his teeth. The lion roared at him not standing down and charging.

Hel gave it a good punch, a round house kick, another punch and I saw the great cat fall out cold. I laid on the grass in shock. The boy's blue eyes turned to me and came face to face with mine.

"You ok?"

I stared into the blue eyes and slowly nodded. I felt myself yanked to my feet and standing a few blocks from the big cat. "You ever been told to look out for dangerous things?"

"Besides from Creepers, Zombies, and Skeletons. I never would've imagined coming face to face with a huge lion." I looked at Hel as I brushed myself off. "Why is there a zoo animal out here?"

He cocked his head at me. "Zoo animal?"

We stared at one another as if in confusion for a moment. It hit me that he had never seen the zoo. "You've never left this island have you?"

Hel shook his head. "I'm not allowed too. I was to guard the mansion. Didn't you read the papers?"

I sighed checking to see if my hair was ok and pulled out a few blades of grass. "Yeah. I had a dream to go along with it."

Hel suddenly grabbed my hand and pulled me behind him heading towards the mansion. "Good. I won't have to explain much. There's something for you that your dad left behind. I was to give it to you before I sent you off elsewhere. You aren't shielded here like you were back at home."

I followed after him awkwardly wondering what he was talking about. "What do you mean by shielded? What's there to shield me from?"

"Apparently you didn't read everything," he grumbled as we came to the edge of the island. He turned to me with his blue eyes, not letting go of my hand. "Since you're the heir of a skeletal lord other lords will be after you. They will kill you."

"Kill me?" I stared back at him with a slight gaping mouth. "I thought that all lords were on the same side?"

I was suddenly scooped up into his arms. He slowly went into a crouch staring at the other island. "Far from it. They all have certain things they all want. Some will even go as far as world domination."

"World domination?" I practically screamed that and suddenly felt myself pressed up against Hel's chest as he leapt the small channel that was between our islands and land on the beach.

"I am the only defense you have of surviving right now. Once you get the items that were left for you I am to take you somewhere else. Where the other lords won't be able to find you for a while. At least until your training is done." Hel explained things to me while he walked into the mansion and went down to the basement. I was very still in his arms listening to everything.

This adventure that I was meant to go on was all a lie. It was meant to separate the heirs of the lords, to be unprotected. The greatest threat for a young heir was to meet a lord that wasn't their own. Every lord was an enemy except the fathers themselves. I and my brothers were lucky to be alive today because our father had protected us through everything.

"Your father did in fact love his children and his family very much. That's something that the possession couldn't take away from him."

We sat in the basement staring at the computer screen. Hel pressed a button under the desk. A piston allowed a chest to be pressed up to the surface of the floor. He looked to me expectantly. I looked at the chest and went over to it with caution. Within were a medallion and a whip. I took each in each hand staring at them with curiosity.

"In time I will tell you what those items are used for. For now all I can tell you is that I am a dangerous creature." Hel turned away from me and left the room.

I gasped as I recalled something long ago. "Hel! Hel, come here!"

He returned looking annoyed rubbing the inside of his ear with a finger. "Why must you be so loud?"

I held up the medallion so that he would focus on it. "This was used to tame you back then. You've been running wild all these years."

He eyes rested on me as his mouth went taught. "Damn."

"I'm remembering it all now. You were made to protect me and the secrets. You are to protect those secrets, whatever they may be!" I took a step towards him. "You are to protect me whether you like it or not. You're my guard dog."

He growled. "Don't say it like that. Makes it sound like I'm a mob bosses dog."

"Father is sort of like a mob boss if you look at it like that." I grinned.

"You are no such thing." He turned and walked towards the door before stopping only briefly. "At least not yet."

I chuckled following after him. I went where ever he went in the house talking to Hel about many things that I couldn't talk with to dad. Hel didn't seem to mind. It seemed like he enjoyed my company since he had been alone for so long. I couldn't imagine what it felt like to be alone waiting not knowing how long it would be until my purpose of being alive finally came along.

I sat against the far wall of the observatory room while Hel repaired the broken glass. Luckily all the mobs had been on the far wall and unaware of our presence. He finally finished after an hour, after he misplaced half the glass and had to break it, we headed up to the kitchen to make lunch. Taking bread and pork chops we made sandwiches that we toasted in the oven. We sat in the kitchen at the island talking over things that would happen to me once I finished my training.

Like my transformation that I would undergo. I was a tad nervous about all of this. Questions would jump into my mind. How would it feel to be consumed by fire? Would it hurt? How would I react to it all? Would I panic?

Hel lifted his bowl of water to his lips and drank it all in one gulp as his eyes stared at me. Putting the cup down he crossed his arms on the counter and went quiet. I felt like he was expecting me to say something. Was he? I looked at him while eating my sandwich.

Awkwardness crept between us or maybe I felt awkward?

"Would you stop staring at me? I can't eat."

He grinned. "You dislike being studied?"

"When I'm eating." I turned away from him, giving him my back. In the corner of my eye I could've sworn I saw something move outside. Turning to the window there was nothing there. I went back to eating and saw movement again. "Hel?"

"Yeah?" he replied refilling his bowl at the sink. His body tensed at something unseen. I looked at his back to see him staring into the water in the sink. "Damn. I had hoped this wouldn't come for another few days but it seems not."

I wondered what he was talking about and heard a huge explosion across the channel between the islands. My house had gone up in smoke, my mob grinder spewing out many, many mobs. All bent on destroying me, who trapped them there and sent them to a drowning demise. "What the hell..?"

"Get down!" Hel ordered spinning around.

I was suddenly forced down onto the hard wood floor by him as the entrance hall was destroyed. A huge fire ogre growling in the rubble. He stepped towards us with smoke trailing from his mouth. "What do we have here? A humanoid helping an heir? How uncommon."

I stared up at the ogre that was talking to us. What was he talking about? I looked to Hel to see that his eyes had changed to red and menacing. He was a werewolf that had been taken from his pack and slightly altered to protect me. Yet I still got scared of his eyes. They showed his wild side, which was dangerous and strong.

"I smell something full of shit," Hel replied straightening up in front of me. "What do you want with us?"

"Stop being stupid, wolf. I can see what she is! Give her to me and your mansion won't get burnt down like that poor excuse for a house just was." The ogre puffed smoke thumbed to the burning carnage across the channel.

I leapt to my feet, hurt by that. "Hey! That was a good excuse for my first time to make a house! Jerk!"

The fire ogre erupted in a belly jiggling laugh at me. "My god! She doesn't know how to build a house but she finds pride in what she built out of dirt and stone? What are you? Stupid?"

"I'm fifteen!" I barked at him. "For your information I'm quite a smart heir!"

My hand whipped out the collar that was hooked to the back of my pants and slung it about Hel's neck. A click was heard as the lock within the collar shut tight. The fire ogre raised a brow as I snapped the whip. "Hel, get me out of here!"

I was grabbed suddenly by him and felt myself get carried out of the mansion through the living room window. The trees flying by us as Hel ran across the island in leaps and bounds. I gripped his shoulder, my nails digging into his shirt. Red eyes chased after us from all sides, bobbing up and down as they ran. My breath caught in my chest as I saw a tree in our faces. My eyes shut tight for the impact.

The force of gravity pushed down on me as I was forced upwards very quickly. I was suddenly not in the arms of Hel any longer. More like suspended in midair. Looking down I saw Hel transformed batting away the other werewolves. The fire ogre was coming upon him pounding the ground to bits causing a major catastrophe of destruction behind him. Fire blazed up brightly blinding me.

"Hel!" I screamed shielding my eyes. Fur brushed the outsides of my arms as if something leapt up to my call. I looked up to see a werewolf suspended in the air in front of me with a collar about its neck. "Hel?"

My body suddenly felt like it was being sucked to bits into a vacuum. All breath left my body. Looking around I saw Hel changing back to his human form in a painful howl. As his half clothed self-uncurled he stared at me surprised. The terrain below us was suddenly falling away block by block into a dark void that spun around and around sucking the blocks into a vast blue pool.

"Sell!" Hel barked. I looked up to see him fling out his arm for me. Our hands barely touched one another. I felt myself get sucked away with the terrain.

With the last of my breath I did manage to scream out. "Hel!"

My body being tugged into the black spiraling void. I reached out for him, my vision fading from the lack of air. "Save me!"

Hel was getting farther and farther away, fading away. My body couldn't fight the increasing suction that was being produced by the vast blue below me. The world blurred into nothing comprehendible. I felt the blackness suck me under, cutting me off from the light. My body being compressed and stretched in many different ways. I suddenly felt myself get flung out somewhere with the last of my senses before I faded away into unconsciousness.