minecraft story 2012

	Chapter 1: Awakening

	I awaken, my vision fading in and out as I slowly drift into consciousness. I am on my back, eyes closed. I open them. The sky is blue above me, a far cry from the internal world of gray that I have, up until now, been lost in. Faded nightmares, strange visions, and memories that I can't quite grasp torture my mind. I remember very few things clearly. A bright red sun, a flash, the horrible feeling of being crushed in a mold like molten lead.  A roar like a million beasts at once.
	Now there is silence. I stare up at the clouds floating by, before realizing with terror that they have changed from their familiar wispy shape into rectangular white clouds of vapor. I sit up in surprise, feeling the blood rush through my body suddenly as I do so. I must have been lying here for a long time.
	I am laying on sand, but it is unlike any sand I have ever lain on before. It has the texture of a metal cube with sand glued on; my body makes no indent in it. Curiously, I prod it with my finger, before realizing my fingers are... gone. My hand ends in a rectangular stub. With a sickening sense of foreboding, I put my “hands” to my face. Nothing but a flat, smooth face. I still have a nose and mouth. I think about saying something, to make sure I can still talk, but I realize that I can still breathe, and that is enough. And who is there to talk to? Looking around me, I see that I see to be on a beach. Further up the slope, I see trees with square trunks, leaves in square blocks surrounding them. The entire landscape seems to have been built like a contour map on graph paper. But as those thoughts run through my head, I suddenly can't remember what a contour map is. Or graph paper. And the memories I'd had before... what were they? They're gone.
	I look for the sun, my eyes scanning the blue sky. I find it. Behind the glare, I can barely make out a square block of light, about the same size in the sky as the sun I remember. It feels oddly normal. I get to my feet.
	Unsure of where to go, surrounded only by the hills and trees, I begin to walk toward them. Turning around for the first time, I see an ocean of water, and, in the distance, another shoreline with more hills. Even from far away, it's not hard to make out that they are composed of the same strange cubes that the rest of the land is. Even the shoreline has squared edges.
	I begin to walk along the shoreline, going slowly at first to make sure I can walk on my rectangular legs. I notice my clothing for the first time as well, as if things are coming to my notice in an unusual order. Dark blue pants, light blue shirt. I have no feet, yet I appear to be wearing black “shoes.”
	I feel like my internal organs are still there, although most likely I have a cubical heart and stomach to go with my limbs, torso and head. My heartbeat is undetectable, but I feel a bit of hunger in my stomach as I follow the beach. The landscape rises and falls, and trees, both oak trees and what I guess are birch trees, dot the landscape. In the distance, across a plain of grass, I can see a mountain, rising from the landscape, formed from stone, soil, and grass. I keep my eyes trained on the grayish-brown slopes of the mountainside, until I am startled by a deep, low “moo” of a cow. Looking up, I see, as expected, a cow, formed from the same limited geometry as I am. The creature stares at me with blank, square eyes, and moos again plaintively. I stare back, and suddenly, reminded of the growing hunger in my stomach,, and the eerie, alien feeling of this world, see nothing but a source of food. I must kill it. I have no idea when I will find more food, and this unfortunate creature is likely better off dead anyway.
	I approach slowly. The cow, nearly my own size, will be a formidable opponent if angered. Finally, I strike quick, punching it in the side of the head. It's a primitive and brutal way of killing a creature, and certainly no humane, but I have no weapons but my fists. The cow bellows when I strike it. I backpedal quickly, afraid it will attack me. But instead it flees. Without a thought to its fear, or to mercy, I follow.
	After several more blows, the creature collapses, dead. I take meat and leather, hoping the latter might be useful for some sort of clothing, and move on. I head toward the mountains: the sun is growing lower on the horizon, and I want to be somewhere high up where I can take advantage of the moonlight.
	I am about halfway across the darkening field when it happens. A person who looks so much like me, but with dead black pits for eyes and greenish skin, climbs out of a depression in the ground that I hadn't noticed. Uncertain of what to do as it ambles toward me, I begin to walk backward cautiously, only to hear a second moan from behind me. I turn around. Another of these ponderous things is lumbering across the field. Instinctively, I leap out of the way, and begin to walk away from them. With gurgling roars, they pursue.
	I break into a sprint, hoping to find refuge in the mountains. Are those creatures others who were not as lucky to survive the perils of this world, and came back to life? Are they living beings themselves? Do they have a disease, and their apparently hostile actions were just pleas for help? I ponder these questions as I reach the base of the mountain, and began to scramble frantically up the slope, but I admit that, whether friendly or not, there is nothing I can do for them, and my life is not worth risking right now. I will deal with these creatures in the morning.
	Finally I reach the summit. Looking down on the field, I see dark forms moving through the grass. I cannot make out their appearances, only their silhouettes. Some are tall, some are short, others I cannot discern the shape of at all. All they do is convince me that I will not come down from this mountain until I have some way to deal with them.
	I lean against a tree trunk, watching the surreality of the square moon and pinpoint stars tracing their way across the sky. It's frightening. I can make out their movement if I wait long enough. In fact, it seems as though it has been mere minutes when I see a glow in what I assume is the eastern sky. The sun is rising again. Eagerly, I walk to the edge of the mountain, hoping to learn more about my fellow being in this world.
	Instead I am greeted with a terrible sight. The green men I'd observed the night before, as well as some skinny, bone-white humanoid creatures that I hadn't seen before, are alight, screeching in agony before falling to the ground and being entirely consumed by the flames. I can barely make out what might be corpses, or perhaps just the ashes of the burning creatures, but the fact that they were on fire is unsettling enough to keep me on top of my mountain.
	I have already eaten the meat I acquired from the dead cow, and yet my stomach is growling again. I cannot see any other source of food in sight. As the morning goes on, I begin to become more frustrated: afraid to leave my high ground, but slowly growing hungrier as I do so. Suddenly, it becomes overwhelming; the lost memories, the strangeness of this place, the fear that I will be lost here forever. Overcome, I slam my fist into the tree trunk I'd spent the night leaning on, hoping to vent my frustration.
	A few chips of bark, little squares of brown, flutter to the ground. I turn back to the tree. Can I chop it down? I start to punch the trunk, again and again, the wood somehow yielding to my fists. Then, it breaks away from the rest of the tree. I have a block of wood, removed from the tree, free of constriction, here in my hands.
	A strange sort of relief floods through me, even though I have no idea where to go from here. But the fact that I have somehow exerted power on this landscape feels like a first step. A new hope flutters in my chest. Maybe I am not going to die. Maybe, just maybe, I can figure out how I got here, and find a way out.
	Chapter 2: Shelter

	After a few minutes, I have a stack of wood that I have knocked from the tree. The leaves finally fall to the ground as I break the final trunk section, collecting a fifth cube of wood. As I'm stacking it amongst the others, something round and heavy falls and bounces off the back of my leg. I turn around. I can't believe my eyes. Somehow, an apple has fallen from the tree. Not bothering to question its solitary existence, or my good fortune in finding it, I pick it up and take a bite. It is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted, especially after the hungry night and morning. Driven by my empty stomach, I polish it off quickly, then turn back to my woodpile.
	A shelter seems like the most logical thing to build, to create a place for myself here, somewhere I can hide from the strange creatures I saw. Still unsure of their intentions, but thinking it unlikely that they are friendly ones, I decide to avoid them all costs until I can learn more about them. I turn to my woodpile. Perhaps I can make tools. Even a stick would be a better weapon than bare fists, and if I come into combat with these creature, it would be best not to have to actually touch them. I begin to split the wood.
	By the next evening, I have created a crude workbench, and split off eight or so sticks from one of the blocks of wood. I keep one near me at all times, in case one of the green creatures I'd seen catches me unawares. The other sticks, I experiment with. Dividing the other wood blocks into smaller pieces, I eventually create a wooden pick, for digging. Somehow, an underground shelter feels like the best option, at least for now. I try to use the pick to dig through the topsoil, tearing away grass and striking deep into the soil. Eventually, I have a small pile of dirt, oddly cube-shaped, despite my random tossing of the removed dirt. Soon, the soft noises of digging are punctuated by a sharp thud. Looking down, I see a glimpse of gray. I clear away the rest of the dirt, and begin to strike the rock. Somehow, I cleared a perfect square hole in the dirt, and the rock broke the same way.
	I began to pile the stone I'd broken, and, piece by piece, I cleared out a small hole in the ground. I looked down at it, smiled, and kept digging.
	By the time the sun was directly overhead, I had cleared out a rectangular hole, about three blocks deep, and five wide and tall. I looked at my pile of stone fragments that I'd

makes sword
makes house
makes door
makes shovel
makes chest
gets flint from gravel
builds furnace, uses wood to cook meat.
discovers inventory “pouch” on his belt.

	A bleating noise behind me gave me pause. I turned to see a sheep plodding across the top of the mountain. How had it gotten up here? I watched it for a moment as it slowly meandered around, occasionally sniffing the grass. Then I had an idea.
	Sneaking up carefully, sword in hand, I waited until I was right behind it, then ran my sword through its side. Wounded and startled, it bellowed and began to stumble away. I stopped it with a second blow, and it fell on its side. The meat would be tasteless, but the wool would be useful. I pulled away as much as I could, until I had an arm-sized bundle. Glancing around, I saw another sheep further along the ridge. I needed more wool, and until I found a more humane way of harvesting it, I would do what I had to. I jumped over blocks and around trees until I was about ten feet behind the second sheep, which grazed on the grass at the base of a tree. Trying to keep the tree between me and the sheep until I was very close, I crept closer and closer. Then I pounced.
	The sheep ran as soon as the first sword blow landed, but a second later I realized it was not alone. A second one, in blind terror, barreled into my chest, nearly knocking me over. I responded with two quick swipes, which sent it sprawling, then stood up to catch the other one.
	It had run about fifteen feet away, but was now peacefully munching grass as if nothing had happened. I found its lack of memory puzzling. Could it be that everything in this world had the same amnesia I had? I couldn't remember anything from the day before, nor could I really detect the passage of time. All there was was sunrise and sunset, the slow motion of the square sun or square moon or square stars. Maybe this creature was the same. If so, I thought to myself, it's going to a better place. I killed it quickly, collected the wool from both sheep, then hurried back to my camp.
	On my workbench, I laid out the three bales of wool, and three pieces of wood. Maybe, just maybe, I could get some sleep tonight, if I could make a bed. I had a fairly strong shelter, and with something comfortable to lay on I might manage to nod off and find some refuge from this strange world in my dreams. Of course, I wondered ironically as I began to affix each piece of wool to a piece of wood, then fit the three together, more likely than not my dreams would contain nothing but blocks anyway. It would figure.
	Once I had finished my bed, I moved it from the workbench onto the floor, then dragged it across the floor until I had it set perpendicular to the wall. As I stood up to admire my handiwork, I felt the glare of the setting sun through the small window on the side of my face. Checking once more that my door was shut, I sat down on the edge of the bed, looking around at my chest and workbench, my only tools to combat this new world. Tomorrow I would work more on the mystery of how I'd gotten here. With that reassuring thought, I lay down and drifted off.
	Sleep seemed to last only a few minutes, and for all I knew it had. My dreams, far from my sardonic expectations, were compelling indeed, and as I lay on my back in the first few minutes after having awoken I tried to recollect all of them. There was a tall black man, a rock colored with visceral purples and reds, another the color of pale dead flesh, and huge black creature in the distant mist. Then there was a blinding swarm of purple sparks, and I awoke.
	Trying to remember every important detail without having to think about how disturbing it was, I set about looking for a morning meal. Picking up my sword and pickaxe, I headed outside to see if any cows had been unlucky enough to wander into my vicinity. Instead, I discovered I shared this world with a new creature, standing about thirty feet away from my house. It was tall, green, and with two large black pits for eyes, almost like a skull. Its shape was almost like that of an owl sitting on a branch, with tiny feet that seemed to almost scrub the ground as it walked. Except its step was silent. I held my sword ready in front of me. I didn't trust it in the least.
	“Hello?” I said, wondering if perhaps it was a horribly scarred survivor of whatever event had brought me here, or if it was just a strange creature in a foreign world. Whether one or the other, it continued its march toward me, the black eyes and gaping mouth growing larger and larger in my vision. Finally, when I could wait no longer, I lashed out, slashing the monster across the face, jerking its head to the side. It began to shake and swell, as though it was about to …. burst? I backpedaled quickly, trying to get out of the way of whatever this creature was about to do. As I did, the swelling subsided, and, as if nothing had happened, it continued to plod after me. I struck again, knocking it back. It just stared at me and kept coming. Starting to become unsure of how vulnerable this creature was to my sword, I held my ground, waited for it to come at me again, and I swung my heavy sword against the creature's midsection, hoping that this would be the killing blow. The thing began to swell again. I tried to get out of the way, but only succeeded in stumbling backward.
	A strange sound, like that of a burst sac of fluid mixed with that of a bomb going off, signaled the death of the creature as it blew itself to smithereens. I flew backwards, slammed into the wall of my shelter, then fell to the ground. I finally landed on my hands an knees, marveling at my apparent intactness, and trying to shake off the shock of being a survivor of a suicide bombing. I got to my feet in time to see the last wisps of smoke dissipating. A huge crater, easily twenty feet wide and ten deep, is strewn with bits of dirt and stone. As I stare into the pit, I make a mental note to avoid these things in the future at any cost. A dizziness I didn't realize I had begins to wear off, and I feel more steady on my feel. My mind surfaces from the sea of instinctual reaction to a single idea, borne of the odd inspiration of a hole in the ground. Maybe the secret to my presence here doesn't lie on the surface. Maybe it lies below.
	Chapter Three: Descent

	By noon I had gotten together four more pickaxes, two each of wood and stone, my sword, a few slabs of meat, and a few sticks and pieces of wood in case I found any new creating opportunities underground. I set out from my house, and, after a few steps, begin digging at a slant downward, hoping to create a staircase so that I can go up and down easily. I make it two blocks wide, and try to keep the height of the passage about four blocks high. Twelve feet. Since my height is around six feet, and I am barely shorter than two blocks, I made the estimation that each one is a three foot cube. But for some reason, I still don't want to measure my distances in block numbers. It feels too much like giving in.
	I've dug down about five block layers – fifteen feet – when I come across a strange new thing I've never seen before in the wall of my stairway. Stone interspersed with black splotches. Curious, I dig it out. The result are some black rocks that look strangely familiar. I pick them up, then suddenly recognize what they are. Coal. I put them into my belt pouch. Looking back at the wall of stone, I see that there are more. I decide to leave them for now; the prospect of finding clues fills me with a strange sort of eagerness, mixed with fear of what I might find. I keep digging.
	Another ten layers (by now I am about forty-five feet under) and I come across yet another new material embedded in the rock. By now the top of the staircase is just a rectangle of blue light in the distance, and the light is dim. I can barely make out the color of what I am collecting, but I pull what I'm guessing is some sort of mineral or ore into my pouch, then continuing downward. Another five layers, however, and I can no longer see what I'm doing. Then, suddenly, I am swinging my pickaxe at empty air. I have run into a cave. I peer over the edge, trying to catch a glimpse of what lies below. Suddenly, I hear a high-pitched screech. I need no further incentive. I dash back up the stairs, stopping only when I am nearly blinded by the brightness of midday. Panting, I stand there for a few minutes before deciding that my next goal should be acquiring some sort of light source. Fire would be best. Perhaps I can light the coal I found somehow.
	Inside, I dump the contents of my pouch onto the floor. The strange rocks I found, besides the coal, are also intriguing. It seems like some sort of metal is mixed into the rock. Curious, I put one of the blocks into my furnace, and light it. While I wait, I unload some of my stone into my chest. By the time I get back to it, the rock is gone, and in its place is a lump of … iron? I pick it up, and nearly drop it because it is so hot to the touch. I tap it against the side of the furnace, and hear a metallic ringing. Excited, I unload the rest of the ore into the furnace, and light it.
	By sundown, I have enough iron to build a sword and a better pickaxe. Leaving the task of lighting the cavern for tomorrow, I climb into bed and fall asleep to the warm glow of the sunset.

	The next morning, when I awaken,
	Chapter X: Into Fire

	I stared into the undulating purple membrane before me with a mixture of shock and wonder. It appeared to be some sort of portal. Could this lead to another world, a different one, a safer one?