HOLY FOOKIN SHEET I'M NOT JUST ALIVE I'M EARLY TO THE PARTY.

So, uh, yeah, I wasn't feckin kidding around when I said I knew what I was doing now! Uhh… I don't really have much else to say, so, here ya go!

Enjoy!


Chapter 57: Mining Madness

"Cameron, are you SURE you feel okay?"

"This is the second day in a row we found you awake before us… you look like death itself. You really should sleep before we need to go tonight."

"N… no. I-I promise… I-I'm fine."

"Cameron, please, you're slurring and you're barely keeping your eyes open. Just go to sleep for a while. Please?"

"I-I promise! I-I'll be fine, I just… I just wanna get out of this city now, and then I'll sleep once we're safely home again. Okay?"

I was back in Paige's apartment. The rest of the night, after my trip to Reginald's house, was nothing more than a blur. I honestly don't even remember much. All I remember was staring down at the body of the man who had given me so much to think about, seeing his final moments, and then the next moment, I was sitting on Paige's couch, basically all but drowning in tiredness.

And yet, even as I fought against my aching eyes and exhausted mind, I knew I would be simply unable to pass out even if I tried. Despite everything, I still had no ability to fall asleep.

I simply had too much to worry about to fall asleep.

Either way, after I managed to regain some energy over breakfast and a shower, discussion of my condition was eventually dropped, though I could still see some of the others glancing at me every other moment, wondering if I was actually going to be fine.

Once the breakfast conversation died down a bit, we were all left waiting. We knew what we had to do, but Quinn wouldn't be here for at least a few hours more, and we planned to leave around then to go take care of Zach, so until then, we were basically left sitting around restlessly, going over our plan one last time.

I excused myself so that I could take a breather before Quinn arrived. However… I really just wanted a moment to myself.

Once I was safely in the solitude and comfort of the bedroom, I collapsed heavily onto the bed, feeling the tiredness coursing through my veins. I briefly considered just trying to roll over and pass out, but I just knew it wouldn't work no matter how hard I tried.

'Reginald…' I whispered to myself, letting out a shaky breath. 'You… what did you mean by all of this…?'

The conversation I had had with Reginald last night, followed by his… well, his passing, were still weighing heavily on my mind. Many, many times that day, I had thought about bringing up what Reginald had revealed to me, but even now, I still thought it would be impossible to do. There was no way I could when everyone was already worried about a million other things.

"I did not want to burden your friends… not until you were ready to share this burden."

Those words kept repeating in my mind over and over every time I considered talking to the others about what I knew. I desperately needed to talk to them about this… but right now, with the escape plans so near, it would cause too much confusion, too much stress.

I laid back there in the bedroom for a long, long time. So long, in fact, that I didn't even notice the door opening and a certain green haired slime entering.

"Cameron…?" Susie's voice suddenly rang out.

I snapped up, and looked over. Susie was standing over me, a hand on my shoulder, looking at me with a very worried expression.

"O-oh… Susie." I breathed, immediately relaxing and sitting up properly. "S-sorry, I didn't hear you come in…"

Susie didn't say anything at first. Instead, she simply sat down next to me, continuing to gaze warily at me while rubbing my shoulder.

"Cameron… you know I worry about you, right?" Susie insisted, staring deep into my tired eyes. "So when I see you like this, tired and barely functioning, and on such an important day… it makes me extremely worried. What's going on?"

I tensed up for a moment. Eventually, though, I relaxed, and let out a long, heavy sigh.

"Susie, I… you know I don't like keeping secrets from you." I admitted, unable to meet her gaze. "But… right now, all I want to focus on is getting out of this city. If I promise you that I'll tell you everything that's bothering once we get home… will that make you feel a little better?"

"So there is something going on?" Susie asked, her voice rising a little in alarm.

"I… I don't know yet." I responded, staring at my hands. "I still don't really… understand what's going on yet. I've just had a lot going on the past two nights, and…"

I didn't finish my sentence. Susie hesitated for ten seconds, before gently squeezing my arm. "Cameron, please… I know you don't want to stress me out, especially since I'm already stressed enough as it is, but…"

Suddenly, she reached over, and pulled my face towards her, so I had no choice but to look at her. "I want to help. Whatever it is… surely you know keeping it inside of you is just going to make everything a thousand times harder."

I hesitated. I hated having to lie to Susie like this. I so badly just wanted to tell her.

And yet…

"I… I'm sorry, Susie." I apologized, gently squeezing her soft hand. "Please. Just give me one more day. I promise… once we're back home, and we're with the others… I promise you I'll explain everything. But if I'm going to tell you… I want to tell everyone."

Susie gave me a long, hard stare. I met it with my own tired gaze.

"I promise." I insisted. "Whatever you need me to convince you I will… I promise I'll explain. Just… not today."

My slime friend gave it a full fifteen seconds of quiet. I started getting worried that I was making her angry.

However, eventually, she sighed, and rested her forehead against my chest. "Notch damn it, Cameron… I hope you mean that promise."

I felt my entire body relax. I immediately held Susie close to me. "Of course I do. I wouldn't lie about something like this, Susie. Thank you."

For a long while, me and Susie just sat there, quietly holding each other as we both struggled to decide what to do next. I hated having to keep Susie in the dark, but… in a way, I did feel better. Now, Susie did know there was something bothering me, but she was also aware I wasn't ready to discuss it. Soon, but not now. That made me feel a lot better, even if I hadn't told her anything.

Finally, Susie shuffled away a little, swinging her legs back over the edge of the bed. "Well… you should probably come back out to the main. We'll need you as soon as Quinn is ready so we can go take care of Zach, and get the final stages of our plan set up…"

I nodded. "You got it."

Susie stood up slowly, me right behind her. She had her eyes closed, and seemed to be deep in thought.

"I know you don't like me hiding things…" I whispered, quietly slipping my hand into hers. "But trust me… I will explain it once we get home. I promise."

Susie glanced up at me, and for the first time, she managed to have a half-joking smile on her face. "If you're lying to be again, you realize you're sleeping on the floor for a month."

The sudden joking threat caught me so off guard, I actually let out a snort. Nevertheless, I gave her my own smirk, saying, "Woooow, been a long time since you've actively threatened me to give you information."

Susie let out a small giggle. "Sometimes, you give me no choice."

"Notch, I love you so much…" I whispered.

That got a proper laugh out of Susie, and she gave me a soft smooch on the cheek.

With the mood a lot lighter than it had been, we exited the bedroom together, rejoining the others in the living room.

And for the first time… I finally felt like I had a bit more clarity of mind.

I was ready.

We were ready.

It was time for us to get the hell out of this city.


An hour later, at 2:00 PM, Quinn knocked on our door, and put on a bit of a show about thanking us for agreeing to babysit his daughter on such short notice. We played along, just to keep up pretenses that we were doing this as a favor, and Quinn told us he would be at the mines all day starting at ten, so just hold onto her until the morning tomorrow.

Once he was gone, Luka immediately grew a little tense, seeing as she was in an unfamiliar area. She had already been briefed about the plan, and how we were going to leave the city via the mines tonight, but she still seemed very nervous about it. She mainly kept close to me and my leg, not really hiding but mainly just trying to stay close to someone she seemed to trust.

Once she was in our care, the group of us headed off to Zach's shop, each in smaller groups to avoid attracting too much attention from a massive group leaving the apartment all at once. Diana, Paige, and Luka went first, with me, Susie (all dolled up in her disguise), and Andr leaving a few minutes later.

Soon enough, we were all at Zach's shop, and after a brief moment of Blake being confused (seeing as how she somewhat forgot about us bringing a small girl along with us on the plan), we eventually reconvened and focused on the bigger fish: Zach.

Zach's condition was growing worse. His entire top half, from his head to about where his belly button would be, was completely gray. His clothes were becoming more and more visibly tattered, and it looked like he had a few new burns, cuts, and calluses than before. Nevertheless, he still had his nose to the anvil, hammering out more iron for what looked like pieces of a crossbow. Vivianna in particular seemed somewhat alarmed about his condition, as that meant the curse was spreading much more rapidly than usual, and that we only had a few days, if that, to get him out of the city and cured.

I hesitated, before saying, "Well, it's concerning, but we still have time, and with any luck, we'll be at our house by sunrise tomorrow. Let's just focus on getting him tied up now, so he can't cause us any problems.

Despite his rapid deterioration, Zach still put up a fight with us getting anywhere close to him. This time, however, we had strength in numbers, and after a solid hour of teasing the rope around him, we finally managed to trap his arms in such a way so that he could no longer flail them around and hurt us like he had been.

Zach kept straining on the rope despite how clear it was he couldn't move. "I-I thought you said he'd stop fighting us as soon as we'd tied him up!" Blake cried out, holding the rope taunt to keep his movements as controlled as possible.

"W-well, at least he can't hurt us now." I insisted. "Still, I was sure this would work…"

Suddenly, Susie clapped her hands together. "Oh! Cameron, toss me your pickaxe!"

"Eh?" I asked, confused.

"I just had a thought: when me and Snowy were dealing with you and this whole Living Death thing, you were mainly just sitting there doing nothing, right? And that's why all it took was us getting you standing for you to stop fighting us." Susie explained, dashing over to me and grabbing my iron pick, before holding it out to Andr.

"Okay, you two, pull him as far back as you can! Just so that he's nowhere near that anvil." Susie instructed.

Suddenly, I understood what Susie was trying to do. Me and Blake nodded (Blake still seeming a bit lost), and we both heaved on the ends of our ropes, pulling Zach as hard as we could.

Slowly, Zach was yanked away until he was a full five blocks away from his anvil. He was putting up a massive struggle in trying to return to it, but he wasn't attempting to do anything other than dash straight for the anvil, so we kept him held tightly while Andr teleported in front of him with my pickaxe.

In a matter of moments, Andr had mined the anvil into a more manageable form, and quickly teleported away as soon as it was gone.

As if by magic, Zach almost instantly stopped putting up a fight as soon as the anvil was gone. Carefully, me and Blake let the rope go slack, and I experimentally gave my graying friend an experimental push. He did not resist or strain against his bonds.

Blake looked astounded. "How did you know that would work?"

"I noticed that he was almost always working on that anvil," Susie explained, appearing quite proud that her solution had actually worked. She continued, "His 'task', as it were, was to build tools and the like for the armory, and to do so he needed that anvil. Since he could clearly see the anvil still there, he still was trying to do his task, so all it took was removing the ability for him to do said task, and he's now easier to handle."

I gave Zach a tug on the rope, and found he would walk along with me pulling quite easily. "Well, that takes care of that problem then."

Paige was looking nervously excited. "I think we're about to get the fuck outta this city, ladies and brother."

A collection of nervous, yet also excited, agreements followed.

"It's too dangerous to take him out into the city right now, he'd attract far too much attention." I decided. "So, once we're ready to sneak into the mines tonight, we'll meet up here first. Be ready, Blake, and only grab everything you absolutely need. Get stuff for Zach as well, cause it's likely we won't be coming back."

Blake nodded feverishly, immediately running towards the ladder that led to the bedroom upstairs. I took a deep breath.

The plan was almost ready. Now it would only be a matter of time, until nightfall, and then…

It would be time.


At eight in the evening, two hours before our plan would begin, we all converged back at Paige's apartment for one last briefing on the plan and what each of us would be doing.

Me, Diana, Andr, and Blake would be in charge of mining. Paige and Susie would be keeping close track of how far we've traveled, so that we would be ready to turn at a moment's notice, as well as keeping Zach on his leash. They would also be working to turn some of the cobblestone back into normal stone, so that we could plug the way we came in back up, at least a little, as well as keeping the hallway we'd be making lit up.

Luka would be staying back with Paige and Susie, just doing her best to follow along and not cause trouble. We also agreed that our roles could be swapped around as needed (within reason) so that we can keep our energy levels up as much as possible.

Blake and Diana already had loaded up the giant collection of iron pickaxes Zach had made into several extra leather bags, so it would be easy to grab another should one break.

We were all nervous, going over our plans one more time, trying to make sure any last minute dangers were accounted for.

We all shared, what we all hoped, would be one last dinner in Paige's apartment before we were out of the city. I honestly was too tense to even register what it was.

Finally, at nine-thirty, Blake left, to go make sure she had everything they would need to move on. We bid Blake goodbye, and we'd be back at her shop soon.

Curfew would be enacted not long after ten, so we would need to be quick to get to the shop so we could avoid being seen in a large group so late.

At nine-forty five, we had packed up everything in regards to our plans, Paige had loaded up on all the items she wanted to take with her (I almost forgot that she also wanted an out too, but she already had everything she couldn't bear to be apart from packed away in a travel bag), and we were running final checks to make sure all our equipment was ready.

Me, Susie, and Diana left first, with the others saying they'd be following us soon.

We walked quickly but quietly, keeping an eye out for any guards in the rapidly darkening city. There were a few groups of townspeople still out, but they were all heading towards home.

Thankfully, we encountered no resistance as we eased our way into GI Tools, and hastily made our way to the back. Blake was already there, dressed up in her darkest clothes and having sorted everything she and Zach would need in a large backpack slung over her shoulder. Zach was also here, still gray and standing around doing nothing.

Andr, Luka, and Paige arrived ten minutes later, panting and pale faced but otherwise still determined. "We got held up a bit by a guard patrol walking, had to let them pass so they wouldn't check our bags. They were heading away from the mines though, so if any time was the right time to leave, it's now."

Blake nodded. Hefting her backpack one more time, she headed for the backdoor. The rest of us followed, me and Paige making up the rear so we could lug Zach along.

Blake lead us down some backroads and shadowed alleyways, trying as hard as she could to avoid large open areas. Once or twice, we all had to pause and stop moving so we could let some guards pass. Susie's disguise was long since gone (we decided it would be pointless if we were going to just be sneaking through the mines all night), so we were all pretty on edge when this happened.

Finally, we were almost there, with the mines in sight. Quinn was in the guard station, and he carefully had left the mine's entrance just barely propped open enough for us to squeeze in past his guard shack.

Blake dashed through first, only stopping once she was safely through the gate and in the darkness of the mine. Diana and Paige followed, with Luka and Susie quickly following suit. As for me and Andr, she risked teleporting us over since lugging Zach would slow us down too much.

As soon as we were all safely within the darkness of the mine, Quinn casually wandered over, 'noticed' the gate wasn't locked, and swiftly locked it, heading back to the guard station and giving us a surreptitious wink.

"Alright… the hard part's done." I whispered. "Let's go."

Paige took over from here. She slowly guided us down, holding a torch alight. Since there should be no guards here, we figured it was better to do that than trying to relight the torches already in the mine.

Soon enough, we were down the side branch Paige and I had explored earlier in the week, and we gave it a moment to rest as soon as we were here.

"Okay… remember, we're going three hundred blocks due south, and then turning left and going another several hundred east." Paige recounted, pulling out a scale map of Blockington and the surrounding range of the watchtowers. "At least a thousand, to be safe."

I popped my neck, getting ready to be mining a lot (despite being still rather exhausted), before… we began.


*tktk tktk tktk tock!*

*tktk tktk tktk tock!*

*grunt* *pant* *pant*

"Whew…"

"How… how far are we now…?"

"A hundred blocks past the turn."

"Notch above… this is taking way too long…"

We had been mining almost non-stop ever since we reached the mines.

As much as I wish I could say we were still excited about leaving, most of our excitement left pretty quickly when we learned just how far we were still going to need to go. Despite making pretty good time all things considered (making it over four hundred blocks, give or take, after only two hours), we were starting to grow exhausted.

Susie and Paige were keeping a close eye on the map, making sure they knew how many blocks we had traveled. They had already made sure to plug up the hole where we started at with re-smelted stone so that no one would be any wiser as to us taking this route, but still, even with Paige coming by every now and then to take up some mining, progress was gradually slowing down as we were simply running out of energy, even after we switched miners.

It didn't help that our tunnel was fairly narrow. We realized pretty early on we wouldn't be able to afford the luxury of making our tunnel two blocks wide, as it would've taken us twice as long and simply been far too much effort to do. However, this meant mining was going very slow, since we were pretty much all bunched on top of each other.

Andr also kept making this difficult, though not on purpose. Since she needed to mine a third block out to accommodate for her taller build, she focused mainly on mining the third block while everyone else focused on a normal two-block tall path. However, while she was growing tired just the same as us, she was much stronger due to being half ender, and frequently kept catching up to us without her knowing, leading to her accidentally dropping stone on our heads every now and again.

Still, we kept holding onto hope. Progress was being made. With any luck, we'd be out of range of the watch towers in a few more hours, and would be coming up just as the sun was beginning to rise.

I had to stop after a while. I simply was draining too much of my already limited energy mining so much, and I needed to rest for just a moment.

Diana took my pick from me, nodding as we squeezed past each other.

I carefully maneuvered to the back of the pack, taking a moment to collapse gratefully into the stone floor of our makeshift tunnel. I was physically drained. I simply was running out of energy to focus effectively, and the amount of physical strain on my body was taking a very hefty toll.

Nevertheless… I still tried to stay positive. It was one in the morning, and we were already a third of the way there. Surely we'd reach our destination soon enough, as long as we-

"Cameron! Q-quick!" Susie's voice suddenly yelled out in alarm.

I jolted out of my thoughts, looking towards the group, who had suddenly stopped and appeared to be looking at something.

I hastily stood up and half-ran over, confused. "W-what? What's wrong?"

"We, um… have a bit of a problem." Paige admitted.

Carefully, she, Diana, and Andr quickly mined a small area wide enough for me to easily squeeze past and take a look.

At a massive, sprawling cave we had just broken into. It was incredibly deep. However, that wasn't the main concern.

Even if the cave wasn't that deep, it didn't matter too much, considering that there was a massive pool of lava far, far below us, just waiting for us to make one little slip. It was easily the largest pool of lava I had ever seen in my life, just sitting here.

I could feel nervous sweat breaking out over my forehead, but I stayed calm. "Well… we should've expected something like this sooner or later…"

I looked carefully to the sides of the cave we had broken into. We were pretty close to the top, with the other side of the cavern being a cool fifty blocks away. It wouldn't be difficult to make a safe bridge over, but considering how big a party we had, it would be very time consuming to make it completely safe…

"Okay. You guys, take five. I'll go ahead and start using some of the cobble we have to put together as a bridge." I instructed, carefully grabbing a handful of cobblestone.

"Be careful, Cameron." Paige begged.

"Relax… it's just gonna take a little bit of time." I replied, carefully laying down some cobble.

Diana was a bit further away from everything, taking deep, calming breaths. The massive cave we were in must've been triggering some of her aversion to heights. Andr and Susie quickly moved to comfort her, while Blake, Paige, and Luka retreated a bit more, Zach in tow, to look over the map again and make sure we were still on the right track.

It took a long, long time. Far longer than probably needed, but I was aching in exhaustion. Nevertheless, I didn't want to risk someone else getting hurt. Plus, tired as I was, I still could fly if I needed to save myself.

Finally, after what had to have been half an hour of slowly placing cobble and making sure it was sturdily in place, I finally reconvened with the group. "Oh… okay… bridge has been… created. Hopefully that should… be enough."

"Just the same, let's wait a little longer so you can rest, and then we'll send a small group ahead to keep mining." Paige instructed, quickly gesturing for me to sit down. I didn't even try to argue, I simply just collapsed to the ground, feeling my poor muscles ache and my eyes barely able to keep open…

I was only vaguely aware of Blake and Andr moving forward, fresh iron picks in hand, ready to keep the tunnel moving.

Susie found her way to me, and was holding me tightly, whispering to me about how I looked exhausted, and that I should probably hold off on mining for a long while so that I could recover.

However, before I could think of a response to that, suddenly, I heard a loud shriek.

I sat upright and scrambled up towards the exit with our bridge. Andr and Blake were sprinting back across the bridge very, very fast.

And the reason why became clear almost immediately.

Silverfish.

I cursed, grabbing at my sword, but there were simply too many. We must've stumbled right into a giant nest of the little fuckers, and they only kept coming as more burst from the stone.

Luka screamed at the sight of the gross bugs, and almost immediately began high-tailing it back down the tunnel.

"L-Luka!" Susie shouted, giving chase.

"Stay back!" I yelled, slashing in a wide arc at the silverfish, hoping to intimidate them.

It didn't work. They just kept coming. By now, a small army of at LEAST twenty were scuttling across my bridge, and it still seemed like more were waking up.

Diana yanked me by the arm. "We gotta run! Those pesky bastards won't stop until either they kill us or we kill all of them, and who knows how many are coming!"

I swore loudly, but realized she was probably right.

Quickly, we gathered ourselves and dashed back down our tunnel. The silverfish still gave chase, but now that we were actively running away, they were far too slow to catch up to us.


*gasp!* *gasp!*

*wheeze* *pant*

"T-that… that was the most disgusting thing…"

"I-I never even knew… that many silverfish could live in the same area…"

We managed to finally catch up with Susie and Luka, who had somehow managed to run all the way back to the other end of the damn tunnel.

I swore loudly. "All that fucking progress… and now there's a Notch damn horde of silverfish waiting for us back there…"

"Do you think… they're still coming…?" Andr asked, clutching a stitch in her side from running so hard.

"Doubtful… once we got out of range, they likely will have burrowed back into the stone for another nap… but suffice it to say, there's really no way to know what blocks they would choose… the whole damn tunnel now is likely a giant danger zone…" Diana responded sourly.

We all let that sink in for a moment. Our plan… it was now dead in the water. Even assuming that the silverfish miraculously were gone and wouldn't bother us again, we were all the way on the other end of the tunnel, and it would take another half an hour at least to get back. And not to mention, everyone just looked completely drained of all energy.

"I… I think we're gonna have to toss in the towel, guys…" I admitted, angrily tossing my almost broken pick on the ground. "I hate to give up after trying so hard… but there's no fucking way we're going to make it another hundred blocks in our state, nevermind another thousand. And that's not even counting what would happen if we found another silverfish nest…"

Luka let out a scared noise. "I-I d-don't wanna go back there! Please!"

The group didn't like it, but we eventually realized it just wasn't going to happen. There was too much, and we were all too drained to keep going any further or deal with any other random problems that appeared.

With difficulty, we went back towards the wall we had previously blocked in and, sourly, broke through back into the main mines.

Once we were all back in and the tunnel was resealed, we begrudgingly trudged our way up towards the mine entrance.

It was now two-thirty in the morning, and Quinn was still in the guard shack, appearing to be taking a mid-shift nap. As much as I hated to wake him up, I carefully woke him up and gave him a fast run-down of why we were back, and how everything just went wrong.

"Damn… alright, well, we're still on for tomorrow, yeah?" Quinn asked, nervous.

I nodded. "We're gonna go back to Paige's apartment, rest up tonight, and then prepare for Plan B tomorrow. It should be a lot less labor intensive, so hopefully that will work better…"

Quinn feverishly nodded. He told us to give him Luka, since he could finish his shift early tonight and make an excuse that she begged him to come home early, before unlocking the door in the fence of the mines after making sure no other guards were nearby.

Somehow, we managed to sneak back to Zach's shop, bid Blake good night and tell her we'd be back first thing tomorrow morning to go over our back-up plan. She nodded, too tired to even think properly, and simply climbed back up the ladder to her room, where I have no doubt she simply passed out the minute she got up to her bed.

Even more luckily, despite how tired we all were, we managed to somehow sneak our way back to Paige's apartment with almost no difficulties.

We all collapsed onto chairs and the couch as soon as we were there, all of us still pretty upset about how the mining operation had failed.

"I… I was so sure it would work…" Diana whispered, seemingly more scared than anything (probably because she now realized tomorrow, we'd be trying the flying machine).

"It… it's my fault…" Andr mused, unable to look anyone in the eyes. "I kept slowing us down… and dropping things on you guys so I could fit in the tunnel… I'm sorry, everyone…"

"It's not your fault, Andr…" Paige insisted, though she looked pretty sad too. "It's those damn silverfish's fault. I was starting to think we'd actually get there by sunrise if we kept going, but then that lava cavern and the silverfish nest threw everything all to hell…"

No one had anything really to say. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and I wandered back to the bedroom, mumbling something about how I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer…


'Please… please, just lemme sleep…'

'...'

'Please, dear Notch above… I'm so tired…'

'...'

And, yet… even after all that had happened tonight, and taking into account how exhausted I was…

An hour later, and I simply could not lay still for long enough to sleep. Laying down felt heavenly, closing my eyes was bliss, but I couldn't sleep. I only could focus on tiny little things, like a little bit of my hair tickling my ear, the sounds of Susie gently breathing in her sleep, the moon shining right into my face, and a bunch of other completely innate things that, somehow, all were making it impossible for me to sleep.

Finally, two hours after I had initially attempted to go to bed and achieving nothing for it, I gave up. I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling of the guest bedroom, so tired and miserable I simply wanted to start crying.

Roughly, I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and stood up. The floor creaked softly under me, but I almost didn't care… why shouldn't I be loud, after all, if I wasn't able to sleep, then how could everyone else sleep so easily… why should they, even…

I shook my head slightly. I was so tired, it was affecting my reasoning and rationale. Even if I was exhausted and miserable… I can't take it out on the others.

'Any… any luck, guys? Anything at all…?' I pleaded, for the millionth time.

"N… no…" Vivianna whispered, sounding tired and exhausted just the same. "We… we've tried everything we can think of… but nothing is working…"

"I… I'm so t… t… tired…" Aira whispered, sounding miserably tired. "I… I've never felt so… so tired before…"

'There's gotta… gotta be something I can do…' I gently thought, quietly slipping out of the bedroom.

It was five in the morning. Diana and Andr were, as usual, passed out like logs in the living room. Both of them looked so relieved to be asleep…

'I… I'm sorry, Cameron… I really w-wish I could help… but it's getting so hard to fight through this tired feeling…' Vivianna apologized, sounding like she was close to breaking down in misery.

'It's… not your fault… I trust you, and-' I started to agree.

"Cameron?" a voice directly behind me whispered.

Startled, I whirled around and instinctively reached for my sword, but stopped as soon as I realized it was Susie (and I didn't even have my sword on me, it was still in the bedroom after all).

She looked oddly awake (though still sleepy), even though she passed out almost immediately when she first entered the bedroom after me.

"What… what are you doing…? You should be sleeping, you need to sleep…"

I hesitated, but I was simply too tired to lie. "I… I'm sorry, Susie… I-I tried, and I tried, but… I just can't. I…"

I almost collapsed to the ground, but Susie caught me, and gently, she pulled me back into the bedroom, closing the door behind us.

She sat me down on the bed, as I was just about to break down from being so exhausted. She quietly sat down next to me, and quietly hugged me.

"Shhhh… it's okay… it's okay…" Susie whispered, patting my back. She kept whispering to me in soft, comforting tones. Slowly, I felt less terrible as I listened to her.

Finally, after a few minutes, Susie pivoted towards me and gently took both of my hands. "So… you've been unable to sleep? Like, at all?"

I nodded, unable to meet her eyes.

"And this started… right after the night you had your meeting with Reginald, didn't it…?" Susie asked, squeezing my hands.

I tensed up a little at Reginald's name, but said nothing. I didn't trust myself to speak right now.

"When you were there…" Susie asked, leaning a little closer. "Did you… I don't know, eat or drink anything strange…?"

I started to shake my head… but then…

"Can never have enough snacks…"

"Everything alright, dear boy? You look dead on your feet. Here, ah, have some of this…"

"The… the cookie…" I whispered.

Susie shot up slightly in alarm. "What cookie?"

"I-I… I ate a cookie while I was there… b-because I was nervous, and when he offered, eating usually helps me… relax, but…" I stammered.

Had… had I been drugged?

Did Reginald put something in those cookies that was making it impossible for me to sleep?

Surely not, he hadn't done anything to me! B-but…

'But there's no other explanation, especially since… it all started after that night…'

I was shaking slightly. Susie looked highly alarmed, though she once again checked over me just to be sure.

After a moment, she seemed to relax again. "Well… it seems like you're not sick otherwise… he might've had those cookies laced with a bit of a stimulant that's preventing you from sleeping, kinda the opposite of that potion that induces sleep I make…"

Susie looked up into my eyes once more, and stared very hard at them. "Look to the side. As far as you can. If it was a stimulant, then I can tell…"

As best as I could, I glanced leftwards, still disbelieving that Reginald had drugged me.

Susie took a sharp breath. "Yes… yes, that looks exactly like I thought… there's an unusual color in the sides of your eyes… though, looking at this, I'd say the stimulant is almost out of your system already, and it'll be gone… tomorrow.

I was beginning to panic. Does… does this mean I couldn't trust Reginald? But he was so trustworthy otherwise! And he gave me tools to escape! Why would he do that, but then also drug me and make escaping a thousand times harder…?

It just didn't make any sense…

"Woah, woah! Easy there, Cameron, calm down…" Susie quietly instructed, gently pressing against me.

I was so disoriented and confused, I didn't even realize Susie was pinning me down to the bed until I managed to shake the dizzy feeling away. "Cameron, please, focus. Panicking isn't going to help, more likely it's just gonna make things worse."

Slowly, I took deep, calming breaths, and managed to stop shaking so bad, though my mind was still reeling. There was just too much…

Susie slowly released me, and left the bedroom without me knowing. By the time I even realized she had gone, she was back, a warm glass of milk in her hands.

"Here… something to calm you down." Susie instructed, gently placing the glass in my hands. "It's best to just relax as best you can…"

I gently sipped the warm beverage, the warmth helping to keep me calm and wash away some of the fear and confusion.

When the glass was empty, and I had set it down, Susie was sitting next to me again, a blanket wrapped around her, and she wasted no time in hugging me again.

For a while, we just sat there, with Susie softly hugging me and trying to make me as comfortable as possible.

"Susie… shouldn't you be sleeping…?" I softly asked, glancing over. "I-I know I'm having trouble sleeping, but that's no reason you shouldn't sleep…"

Susie shook her head. "Nope. I'm not gonna sit here and let you be miserable alone. If you're unable to sleep, I'll stay up too. I can stay up. We'll be home tomorrow, and we can both go to bed then and sleep the entire day away."

I was so tired, I didn't really have it in me to argue. "I… I still think you should sleep, but I guess if… if you insist…"

Susie nodded, pulling herself closer to me. "Of course I do."

And for the rest of the night, we stayed like that. Susie sat with me, hugging and kissing me, every now and then going out to give me another drink. I started feeling better (in a relative sense) as she did so, but even as I insisted she get at least a little more sleep so that she would still be rested for the plan tomorrow, she refused.

Soon enough, the sun was beginning to rise. Knowing how tired we all were from the mining operation, I doubted if the others would wake up until noon at least…

"You're okay… I'm here for you, Cameron…" Susie whispered. At some point, she had ended up sitting on my lap so she could hug me better, and was leaning softly into me as she did so, her warmth and weight feeling wonderfully familiar and comforting.

"Notch above, you are so stubborn sometimes…" I whispered back, sleepily.

Susie only hugged me tighter in response.

I let out a soft sigh as I glanced out the window.

The sun was rising. One way or another… today would be the last day we would spend in Blockington.

One way or another… we would make it out of this city.


After another tense day of waiting, making sure everyone was prepared to leave, our secondary plan for escaping the city began.

Just like yesterday, Luka was handed off to us with the cover of us being her new babysitters, and we quickly went over the plan one final time. Quinn assured us he'd give us as much space as he possibly could for our machine to work.

Despite still being just as tired as ever, I was a lot cheerier this day than I had been yesterday. Even Susie looked happy, despite not having slept much last night. It actually took the others a moment to wonder if I actually got any sleep last night, and when they asked if I was tired, I was able to satisfy them by saying, "Yes, but… I think I'll be okay. Susie helped me a lot last night."

Soon enough, we had packed up everything we wanted, Paige grabbed her bag of supplies, and we set off, this time closer to midnight so we'd have as much cover from darkness as possible.

As we walked through the dark streets, we paused only once to allow a guard patrol to pass. Otherwise, we managed to make it to Zach's shop with no issue, and after picking up Blake and Zach (who was turning grayer by the hour, so we needed to hurry up and get him out of the city pronto), we stealthily headed our way out of the shop.

As luck would have it, the building that Paige had decided would be our target was not far from Zach's shop, and was even accessible quite easily by simply taking some backroads.

Getting up the building was a little more stressful, but not nearly like how the mines were, since Andr was able to teleport us in small groups quite efficiently once we made it up the building enough.

Once we were all here, I glanced up at the wall. Quinn was already there, casually looking around and purposefully ignoring the large group gathering up on the building. He silently made a few gestures, first five fingers and then a zero, followed by pointing right, then three more and another zero, pointing left.

"Guards are fifty blocks away on the right, and thirty on the left… not ideal, but probably the best we're gonna get." Paige responded, understanding the code we had all agreed on earlier that day. "Just gimme a few minutes, I'll have this set up. Do what you all gotta do."

We nodded, and retreated downstairs, to be less visible from the roof. Diana looked quite panicked, and was breathing very, very hard. We already knew that Diana's fear of heights was going to cause many, many problems, so we had already agreed that we'd blindfold her until we were safely out of range and back at the ground. Diana didn't seem particularly happy either way, but at least this would (hopefully) negate as much of the fear response as possible.

Within minutes, Paige ran over and told us to head up.

I made it up first, and I was honestly impressed with what I was looking at. Paige had set up a massive collection of redstone blocks, slime blocks, boats, sticky pistons, and Notch knows what else, into a large, impressive looking machine. Under normal circumstances, I might've been tempted to look at it myself, but right now we had more important things to worry about.

Carefully, we loaded everyone into the flying machine, two people per boat. Blake and Zach, Susie and Luka, Andr and Diana (who already had nervously tied her blindfold around her head in preparation), and finally, me. Paige was the only one left, since she said she needed to be standing.

"Okay… get ready, the start is always the rough part…" she warned, holding a flint and steel and looking towards a block that, oddly, looked like it had a face on it.

She lit the block in front of it, and suddenly, everything started moving. Pistons started pushing blocks around, slime was moving, and the boats all gave a short, but firm, lurch. Diana let out a slight panic scream, but recovered and just tried her best to keep her mind clear, gripping the boat so hard her knuckles were turning white…

And suddenly… we were rising. Ten blocks. Twenty blocks. Thirty. Fifty.

We were moving more and more and more. Quinn gave us an amazed look as we passed and kept going, before quickly moving to make sure none of his other guards were looking our way.

Paige was standing next to me, her feet firmly lodged onto one of the slime blocks to keep her still. I was watching the whole thing with increasing interest as I watched parts continue to move and react even as we kept going up. "Amazing… how on earth does this work…?"

"Only thing I know is that it relies on that baby there." Paige responded, pointing towards the block with a face. "It's an observer, and it's a fairly new invention. It relies on a special crystal substance called quartz, and as far as I know, only some select people even know where to get it. It's so rare, it's seen as a good omen when found in the mines."

"And your friend, he just… gave this stuff to you?" I asked.

"Not… uh, not exactly, but… well, I may or may not have stolen this stuff from him…" Paige awkwardly responded, looking guilty. "B-but, well, what choice did I have?! I would've never been able to gather this stuff up otherwise."

I shook my head. "I sincerely hope this works as you intend it to…"

We kept rising. We were now a hundred blocks in the air, and Paige kept us going up. "We wanna be a little higher… just so we're above the cloud line and can stay easily hidden…"

Compared to mining, this whole machine was actually a lot safer than I initially pegged it as. The boats didn't jostle around too much thanks to the slime. The cool, open air felt wonderful when compared to the dank, musty cave we had slowly been carving out.

Even Diana seemed a lot more relaxed than before, though she resolutely refused to take the blindfold off. "I-if I take this off, and I look at all down, you're never gonna hear me say anything but screaming to get us down until we're done. J-just lemme keep it on…"

The others, meanwhile, seemed amazed by the lovely view. "Wow… this is so cool…" Luka whispered, leaning carefully over the boat (with Susie carefully holding her).

For the first time… I managed to relax. It felt like we had actually done it. We were, by all means, out of the city, without a hitch. Even if they did notice us at this point, what hope did they have of hitting us?

I leaned back into my boat, letting out a grateful sigh of relief. Surely… surely we were almost there…?

"Okay, aaaaand… stop!" Paige shouted, suddenly slapping a trapdoor a few times.

Slowly, the flying machine ceased operation, and we were left suspended many, many blocks in the air.

"Are… are we done…?" Diana asked.

"Nope, I just gotta move a few things, and then we'll start moving east. Just a little more." Paige responded, deftly moving, seemingly unafraid of the sheer drop we were now at if she slipped…

Diana let out a deep breath, before nodding. "Oh… okay…"

Paige started working, carefully breaking a piston here, a slime block there, twisting an observer here…

When all of a sudden, she stopped. "Did… did anyone hear that…?"

I opened my eyes, confused. "Eh…?"

We all paused…

*huuuu…*

A noise I hadn't heard before suddenly sounded out… almost like someone breathing, or sighing, but higher pitched…?

And suddenly, Paige and Blake both turned milk white. "Oh no. No no no… I-I forgot about these fuckers!"

"Wha…" I began to ask, but all of a sudden, I heard it.

The flap of a wing.

Suddenly, I remembered a story Mom used to tell me when I was very young… about a boy who tried to stay awake as long as he could, and was one day carried away by flying ghosts…

I paled, and looked up.

There, circling around us, in a large group of four, were the stalkers of the night…

Phantoms.


HOLY SHIT, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT.

I ACTUALLY MANAGED TO GET A CHAPTER OUT IN RECORD TIME!

I genuinely did not believe I'd be able to get this chapter finished so soon, but like I said last time, I've suddenly got a solid grasp of where the rest of this arc is going to go. This just proves my point that I'm finally learning!

Even so, I do hope that the 'flying machine' portion hasn't felt too short… for the life of me, I didn't think I could improve it any other way, and trying to stretch out the beginning of the day simply felt like I would be re-hashing the same stuff that happened during the mining day. Nevertheless, I do hope you're ready, because the next chapter, whenever that comes out, is going to be the final chapter of the 'trapped in Blockington' arc (or whatever you wanna call it, surely someone can think of a snappier name for it, lol).

As always, I do hope you guys enjoyed it, and until next time, dear readers…

Stay awesome! =D