Survivor

NPCArchsenatorGarmany based this fanfiction on his The Book of Notch.



Chapter One: Welcome to Life
I wake up. I can't remember anything, but somehow I understand what I must do. An image forms in my mind of my target: a man, someone tall and young-looking. He wears long, flowing robes and a crown, and he wields a scepter in one hand and a long, dark sword in another. He looks furious, as if he will destroy all that stands in his way of...what? But his most fearsome characteristic is his eyes: they glow. Not like a torch, warm and low. Instead, his glowing eyes are harsh, the light piercing through my body and soul. Then I open my eyes to se a wide expanse of grass. I suddenly think plains. How do I come up with these words. I certianly have never seen anything like it. In fact, I have not experienced anything before my waking up here. But I still think plains, and my mind thinks of the man again, and I say...

"Herobrine..."

It doesn't sound like a real word. It sounds weird and unnatural and like a bundle of sounds slapped together. But I still think of this word, Herobrine, and I know it is this man's name. What is the importance of this man or his name? Why am I here? What is going on?

Then I see a tree and, before my mind catches up with my instincts, I am tearing it down, block by block. I find that each block disappears into my body once it comes close to me, but I sense that it still exists, as some sort of energy. I finally give up on being confused about the nature of this world and my instincts rush over my mind.

Turns out that I do pretty well when I just go with my gut. By midday (I use the sun's position to decide how long the day will last) I have collected enough wood to build a small shack. When I want to use the wood, I suddenly imagine a grid in which my wood takes up one tile. I see another, smaller grid in the top-right of my vision and I I set myself to building the shack, laying down logs, block by block. I leave a small opening in one side in order to get in at night. I then will some of the wood to enter a tile in this small grid. Suddenly, a small pile of planks appear in my hands. I see that these planks are more useful for building a house than logs, and continue to will logs into the grid until I have enough planks to build a satisfactory shack.

I build four walls and a roof, but I can't say that it looks pretty. I don't even figure out how to make a door for several more days, during which I have to seal off the entrance at night and wait until morning to come out. After my first night, I find myself hungry, but I continue to look for resources. After some hours of experimenting, I finally craft an abomination of wood in the shape of a pick. I use it to mine some stone, but it falls apart quickly. However, I have stone and I manage to build a better pickaxe, and I venture out to find more stone. I enter a promising cave and I start to mine. I find stone as well as some black rocks embedded within some of the stone. Coal, I think. I begin to get used to the fact that I know what everything is without having any memories.

Then I see it. It is green and wears torn clothes, but otherwise looks like me. I look closely at its face and see that its eyes are dark. As if something has snuffed out the fire of life. It looks at me, and it comes at me. I am puzzled, but as it approaches me, horrible images flash before my mind: of creatures, much like me, dying before a sea of these green...monsters. I see the creature foaming at the mouth and moving faster as it approaches me, and, out of instinct, I swing my axe forward into its skull. It stops. I stare into its eyes and it stares into mine. Then the creature becomes heavy and collapses in front of me. I stagger backwards and press my back against the cold rock wall. I become hysterical and I lose my composure. I collapse next to the cave wall in tears, slowly descending into darkness...

I wake up. The corpse of the green creature is still there, although it looks paler. My pick has fallen out of its head, and I quickly grab the pick and run back to my house.

It is nighttime. For some reason, this makes me nervous. I have nothing to fear from the night, but the images of monsters...no...zombies, I call them, continue to dance through my mind. I run as fast as I can despite my growing hunger. My vision becomes blurry and time slows down as I try to cross the 50-meter gap between me and my shack. I feel weak, and my shack and everything around it appear to move farther away from me. I stumble along, but eventually I just drop my pick and everything goes dark.

Chapter Two: The People
Good Lord this hurts, I think, as I wake up. I think it is daytime. There is certianly enough light around me for it to be daytime. Everything is blurry in the intense white light. I sense the prescence of some creature, but I am too weak to worry about it. The blurry figure moves around me, and I begin to make out other shapes: a dark cube here, a light square there. My vision adjusts to the daylight and I see that I am in some sort of building.

It is much larger than my house, and has several windows and a door. Its...comfortable. I am sitting on a wooden chair. Then I look at the figure in the room. It looks exactly like those creatures that the...I struggle to accept the word "zombies"...devoured in my visions. It makes noises, but my hearing continues to be blurry. The creature picks up a roundish object and comes over to me. It makes the noises again, but even though my hearing gets better I still don't understand the noises. I think it is trying to communicate with me, but despite my best efforts I cannot decipher its elaborite system of sounds.

Finally, it points to the object in its hand and then to its mouth. Then it points to me and motions for me to eat it. I assume that it wants me to eat. I feared the zombie, but this creature is different. I think that it may have saved me. In any case, I am too hungry to refuse the food and I grab it, almost eating it whole.

The creature stares at me, walks over to a...table, and grabs another piece of food. It brings the...no, I can't think of any word to describe this item...the food thing over to me and I eat it, more slowly than the last time. The creature gives me a satisfied look and walks away, disappearing behind a wall. It returns with a pickaxe, and my mind floods itself with images: of a band of these creatures, huddling around a fire in the snow, of them building houses in the forests and deserts, of them exploring the world and establishing new settlements, of them conquering the world and utilizing its resources for their benefit.

I see death too. Death to an invisible force that captures its victim and causes a slow, painful death. Death in battle, in which these creatures kill each other in a desperate struggle for power. Sudden death, in which the lives of the creatures end abruptly: mining accidents, fires, floods.

I see death again, but it is not unhappy. I see one of the creatures on a...bed, murmuring its sounds to other creatures of its kind. Some of the creatures are small, and they cry, anticipating the death of the creature on the bed. But the creature smiles, tries to comfort the others with its sounds, assuring them that this is the best way to leave this world.

"Humans..." I say aloud, and the creature looks at me, puzzled, but then shrugs and walks out the door with its pick.

"Humans..." I say again. I think of the creature's sounds and realize that this word uses the same sounds. I am speaking their...language.

Humans, I think. I remember the zombie in the cave, how I killed it because I saw its kind destroying masses of humans. I think hard, and finally decide that this must be my purpose: to protect the humans and destroy their enemies.

I think of the man in my first vision, and although he looks like me, I want to destroy him too. I connect him with the zombies, hating him for...for what? Why do I hate him? Why do I connect him with the monster? Why do I protect the humans and destroy the zombies?

I want to answer these questions but I am still hungry and tired, and I fall into a restless sleep, dreaming about humans and zombies and...Herobrine...

Chapter Three: The Village
I wake back up. It is early morning. I am still sitting down in the chair, facing the door. I get up, feeling stronger than before, and I walk around the house. Inside, it is mostly a rectangular shape about 5 meters wide and 9 meters long. There are many objects on the floor and walls. I turn around and see my pickaxe next to the chair. I pick it up and shuffle over to the door. The outside light blinds me, and I squint until the light subsides and I see that I am in some sort of settlement. There are numerous buildings, all similar to the house I was in in style, but their sizes vary very much. I see humans passing between buildings, greeting each other, engaging in conversation.

Then I look beyond the settlement. I see that a high wall of cobblestone surrounds the entire settlement. There are several humans on top of the wall, staring down both beyond the wall and at the settlement.

I step outside, nearly dragging my stone pick behind me. I am still very hungry, and my strength has not all come back to me. But I have the strength to wander around the settlement, walking down paths with buildings on both sides. I don't see any humans for a few minutes, as they seem to congregate around a large building near the center of the village. However, I walk around the corner of a building onto another street and come face-to-face with a small human, a child. I nod at it and proceed to walk past it, but then I see that it is absorbed with fear. I stare at it, puzzled. Why would the human be afraid of me?

Then it screams and runs away. I am too tired, hungry, and confused in order to find out what is going on, but as soon as the child runs around the next street corner, a stick suddenly embeds itself into the earth. I look up and behind me, from where the arrow came, and I see a human on the wall carrying a strange object. Then it launches another stick at me and I instinctively dodge out of its way. The stick passes right through the space my head occupied just a couple seconds ago. Suddenly I am back among the humans in my visions as zombies storm over them. I see humans carrying various objects. The humans stick these tools into the zombies or launch the sticks that I saw earlier at the monsters. Upon contact with these objects, I see many of the zombies fall down. They do not get up. Weapons, I think, and I remember the visions of other battles I saw.

My vision ends and I realize what the human on the wall is doing. It is trying to kill me. I run away from the wall, back towards the building I came from. As I approach it, the human that tended to me bursts out of the door with a nervous look in its eyes. It sees me and runs over to me. It grabs me, shouting its sounds at me, but I cannot understand it. It groans in exasperation and pulls me into his building. It pushes me into the chair and shouts more noises, motioning for me to stay in the chair. Confused, I comply, and the human leaves, running towards the wall where the human shot at me.

I stare at the door for what feels like all day, but the human eventually comes back, looking tired and defeated. It closes its eyes and sighs, releasing a few more sounds as it does so. I catch on one...Notch, and I expect for visions to once again bombard my mind. But they don't. Instead, I feel like my hearing suddenly becomes clearer, even though nothing I hear seems to change.

Then the human makes more sounds, and I understand it. I make the connection. These sounds are words. Thoughts. It can communicate with me and I think I can communicate with it. It says:

"What am I going to do with you?"

Chapter Four: The Sounds of Humans
I sit there, speechless, as I take in this recent development. I understand it! I want to ask it so much, but I can't think of what to ask first. Instead, I weakly say, "What do you mean?"

The human opens its eyes and snaps its head at me. It stares carefully and says, "Say that again."

A long silence fills the room and I say, "What do you mean?"

Another pause in our conversation. "What do I mean when I say, 'What am I going to do with you?'" it says.

I nod my head. It places its hands firmly at its waist and sighs. "You didn't start off so well.  I was going to tell everyone about you at the town meeting today.  You see...nobody in this settlement has seen someone like you since the start of the war.  Everyone thought that Indevians either fought for Herobrine or hid in the capital.  So when I found you...I had no idea what to think.  That kid you scared thought..." He pauses. "He thought that you were a zombie.  You certianly look like one.  You're the same size as one and your clothes are torn.  You're sick too, and so your skin looks a little green.  Then that guard shot at you, thinking you were a zombie too.  It's a wonder you're still alive..."

The war? Indevians? The capital? What is it talking about?

I say, "I don't understand.  What war?  What is going on?"

"You don't know?  How don't you know about the war?  The last broadcasts were about the war!"

Still puzzled, I say, "I can't remember anything since before I woke up a couple days ago out in the plains."

It ponders over the subject and opens its mouth to speak, but then it closes it and continues to think, as if it is wondering whether it should speak or remain silent. It speaks, "I shouldn't tell you about it, but I can take you to the Elder.  He knows best whether you should learn of what has transpired...or if we should just kill you..."

This worries me. Why would they kill me? I want to protect humans! I think of making a break for it to the wall, where I saw an opening through which some humans occassionally passed, but before I know it, I am in front of the large, central building in the settlement. There is an elaborate image of several humans on the front of the building...no, they are not humans. They look just like me. They don't have large heads and noses like the humans, but instead have square heads and appear much taller compared to some humans depicted in the image. I ask the human with me about this image and the people in it.

"You really don't know anything, do you?" is his only response.

I shrug, and we walk through the archway into the building and pass through two large, wooden doors.

Inside the building is a single, massive room. There are rows of seats on each side that end near the middle in order to provide a walkway up to the end of the room. There are windows high up on the walls, letting in a gloomy shade of light. These windows have images on them similar to that on the front of the building. I look down at the end of the room and see that the floor rises at the end and that three columns of stone rise about 2 meters from this elevated area.

The human guides me to the platform at the far end of the building and I see that another human is sitting in front of one of the pillars with its eyes closed. It looks calm and greets us warmly when we stop in front of it, even though it does not see us.

"Good afternoon, Joseph" the first human says.

"Hello, Alex" the sitting human, Joseph, replies. It does not open its eyes.

"I have...a visitor, Joseph."

Joseph opens its eyes and looks up at me. It remains calm and says, "You are not human."

I feel uncomfortable now. I hear an undertone of detestment in his voice, as if my not being human is a crime against nature. The first human, Alex, breaks the silence in the large room. "It doesn't seem to remember anything.  I found it while I was outside hunting the monsters.  It nearly died from starvation." Alex stops talking, but decides to add in another comment. "I don't think it serves...you know...him."

Joseph closes its eyes and thinks. It then opens its eyes and says, "If you think so, I believe you.  You have always known how to judge a good person from a bad one.  I just...I just wish that we knew what this creature is.  It looks like an Indevian, obviously.  The shape of its body is identical.  But it is shorter than most Indevians...perhaps it is a child?"

Silence once again fills the room as Alex thinks this over. "That would explain its stupidity."

Anger fills my mind as I take in this insult. The two humans seem to realize this and they back away.

"I'm only being honest!" Alex nervously implores.

"Shut up!" Joseph shouts.

I calm down and they realize that I have no intention on attacking them. "Sorry," Alex murmurs.

"No...I understand," I say. "But why do you take me for an idiot?  I don't understand what is going on, but I can't say that I have been doing horribly in the past few days.  I built a house in the wilderness all by myself on my first day!"

Joseph speaks. "Yes, but you don't know what is going on around you...you don't remember anything.  Without a memory, I'm afraid you are at a disadvantage."

I think about this. "Then why don't you tell me what is happening?"

The humans look at each other, nervously. Joseph turns back to me and says grimly, "You won't like what I have to say..."

Chapter Five: The Book
Joseph and Alex take me outside and into another building. It is higher than Alex's house, but much smaller than the large building that I met Joseph in, the one with the window pictures. I have a feeling that this is Joseph's house, and as we enter another human warmly embraces Joseph.

"Glad to see you again," the new human says. It is slightly shorter than Joseph and has hair, like me.

"You too, Honey," Joseph says.

Eager to make friends, I say, "Hello, Honey."

Honey looks at me strangely. So do Joseph and Alex. "Excuse me?" Honey says.

"Well, that is your name, isn't it?" I respond.

A silence fills the room. I do not enjoy these silences. They always make me feel awkward.

"He really is out of the loop, isn't he?" Alex says, to which Joseph nods. Joseph than gently pulls Honey into another room and starts to whisper to her.

"Her name isn't Honey," Alex says. "She is Jennifer, Joseph's wife."

I understand this just as I understand everything: like some dumb creature noding as it takes in information but doesn't really apply it to anything.

"Oh well, I guess I'll take you to the study," Alex says.

We weave through hallways until we come to an inconspicuous room. Alex opens the door, enters, and beckons to me to come inside. As I step inside, I see that the far wall is covered with...books. Once again, I have no idea where this word comes from, nor how I think of it, but by now I have given up on wondering what is going on with my mind. Visions flash through my mind as I think of these books. I see humans pressing sticks against the insides of these books, leaving marks. I see others looking at these marks intently. I see humans gathering books into massive collections, similar to this group but much larger. A library, I think.

Alex pulls a massive book from the center of this wall and heaves it onto the table in the middle of the room. I sit down in a chair, and Alex spins the book so that it faces me. On the surface of the book, golden markings, similar to those in my visions, stare at me. As with my sudden understanding of the language of the humans, I suddenly learn how to read. I stare at this book, at its elegant binding and its smooth leather surface. The golden markings are etched into the surface of the leather and I stare at them intently, just like the human in my vision. I read the title.

It reads, The Book of Notch.

Chapter Six: Invasion
Crap. Here come the visions again. I thought that I had them under control, that I could let them trickle into my mind instead of flood it. But as I read the title of this book, I see millions of years of history rush in and out of my mind. Too much information pumps into my mind for me to remember it all, but I can assure you that I think that I will experience this one vision for years before I return to the real world.

However, the visions diminish and the study surrounds me, with Alex still getting sitting down into his chair.

"So," he says, "this is the Book."

I stare at it, in awe of the plethora of visions it brought to me. I remember that Alex is talking to me, and I understand that he is looking for a response. I try to think of something meaningful to say, but it just comes out as, "Uh-huh."

He continues. "This book is a comprehensive history of the entire universe from the eyes of Notch.  I hope that you know who that is."

I think of the name: Notch. Simple. Commanding, even. It sounds of power, of authority beyond that of any other being. "Is it important?  It sounds important."

Alex hits his head on the table in exasperation. "Are you kidding me!" he shouts. "Can't you know a single thing about anything?  Why can't you help me out here and stop being such an idiot?!"

He sighs heavily and stops talking. Joseph steps in and looks at both of us, puzzled. After careful consideration, he says, "He doesn't understand, does he?"

Alex shakes his head across the table in response.

"Well we can't worry about that right now" he says. "We have another horde coming at us and I don't think that the gate will stop them.  We need to send out the soldiers."

Alex lifts his head, excited. "I'm in!" he says cheerfully. He bolts out of the room and towards the entrance of the house. Joseph looks back at me and smiles nervously. "He's a little...eager to kill some monsters."

I think of the zombie and ask him, "Do you think you can stop them?  The monsters, I mean."

"Maybe.  Obviously, we have every single time before.  Otherwise we wouldn't be here." He shudders. "Well, I have to go help them.  We'll need everyone we can get in order to fend off the zombies."

I remember the zombie in  the cave again and I decide that I must help the humans, even if they are unsure that they can beat back the zombies. "Hey!" I shout just as Joseph is walking out the door. "Can I join you?"

He thinks, but only for a moment. "Sure.  Now let's get you suited up."

Chapter Seven: Fistfight
We run through the village. The sun is setting quickly. Terrified humans run around the village, looking for shelter from the zombies. Apparently some do not have faith in the soldiers that I see marching towards the opening in the wall. We continue to wind through streets and alleys until we come to a large, ugly building situated right next to the wall. Joseph tells me that this building is the armory and I understand him perfectly. Shut up about how stupid it is that I understand some things perfectly and others not at all.

We burst into the armory, where we find dozens of humans putting on armor, grabbing swords, testing things that Joseph calls bows. I realize that this is a weapon and that the human on the wall used this against me in that encounter earlier today. How long has it been since I first woke up in the wilderness? Three days? Five days? Ten? I do not know, but none of that matters anymore. I only care about protecting the humans.

Joseph shows me how to wield a sword. Although it is a little heavy, it feels natural, as if I was meant to be a warrior. He gives me a bow as well and some arrows, but tells me to use it sparingly. "You're going to run out of arrows before you know it.  If you are in close combat, just use your sword.  Only use this against zombies that are too far away to go up against but still threaten the village."

He gives me a helmet and chestplate and we are off towards the hole in the wall, which I have guessed is this "gate" that Joseph keeps talking about. I look over to Joseph and see that he carries a strange stick. It is long and has metal pieces on it, but I don't see how he can fight zombies with it. Why doesn't he have a bow, either?

We reach the gate. About a dozen soldiers fight zombies outside of it, but they are getting pushed closer to the gate. When one of the soldiers falls and zombies overtake him, another soldier shouts, "Open the gate!  Let us in!"

For a while nothing happens, and I worry that the wall soldiers will not open the gate. But soon I hear a deep thud from inside the wall, and the iron portcullis rises slowly with a loud clink-clink-clink-clink-clink!  Soldiers around me rush forwards to help the others and soon I am on top of a zombie, wresting a sword from its skull. I pull it out and a zombie pushes me to the ground.

Visions again. The old one. The one with hordes of zombies, just like this one, mowing down humans as they fight. I remember the humans in the front, the ones that fell onto the ground...the ones that didn't get up. I then remember the soldier that fell down, and how his comrades desperately sought support.  I'm going to die, I think. ''I'm going to die and so are all of the other humans. The zombies will get into the village and kill everyone. I can't do this...''

Then, my visions stop and I am back in battle. The zombie isn't there. In fact, I barely see any zombies. That is, zombies that are still alive. The remaining monsters are stumbling away, retreating into the forest surrounding the wall. I smile confidently and turn to look behind me.

Then I see it. The ground is littered with dead zombies. Some lay on top of others. I then see that there are other, living zombies on the other side of the battle. The few soldiers that are still on this side of the gate are staring at me in fear. Even Joseph stares at me, but not so much with fear as with wonder. I ask them what is wrong.

"You...you did that," Joseph gasps. He points to the layers of zombies between us. "All of that!"

We win the battle. I join the soldiers on the right side of the gate. I don't have any visions. I kill zombies, that is for sure, but I don't crush them to bits like I did the others. As we walk back into the village, I realize that some soldiers are carrying bodies. Human bodies. They take them to the center of the village, where they shoot an arrow into each corpse's head. Then they take the arrows out and disperse.

Nobody is happy. Even though we won the battle, nobody feels like celebrating. Instead, they just go around, saying things like "rough fight" or "five gone." I understand. I head over to Alex's house and sit down in the chair. I slowly drift off into a restless sleep.

Chapter Eight: Village Life
I wake up. I'm in my shack. The one I made on my first day. I sit up, panicked, and run out of the shack and onto the wide plains.

The village is gone. Alex must have brought me here after the incident outside of the gate. I stand outside in the wilderness, alone, without anything to protect me but the shack.

Thoughts flood my mind. ''I don't even have a pickaxe. I can't do anything. What should I do? Look for the village? Stay here? Wait to die? Oh, lord, I'm going to die. I don't want to die. I don't deserve to die. Not now, not after protecting those villagers!''

I wake up in a cold sweat. I am in a small building, but it is not my shack. This is my hut, my home in the village. I look out of a window and I breathe a sigh of relief as I confirm that I am still in the village. It is around midnight. I have spent around two weeks in the village, but the nightmares continue to haunt me. I know that the villagers do not like me. Most soldiers have not spoken to me since the battle. I don't know why, but they seem afraid of me, as if I am a bomb waiting to go off.

A couple days after the battle, Joseph took me into his study, where he explained The Book of Notch and the history of the world. All of the information, the horrors, the glories of this world's history overcame my mind and I think I passed out some time into Joseph's explanation. Luckily, I have accepted this information and it has made me stronger. I understand so much now. The only thing that The Book of Notch did not explain was what was happening now? I could not understand how such great civilizations such as that of Arabus could simply vanish, nor why there would be no written record of such a collapse. I implored Joseph to tell me about recent developments outside of the village, but he refused, telling me that I could not handle such information. I plan to go to his house again today in order to demand, once again, that he explain what has happened in recent years.

I step out of my little hut around the outskirts of the village. Two days after the battle, the village assigned to me this dewellling so that I did not have to live with Alex. I think that they mostly wanted to get me as far away from the village center as possible.

I look down the street, and see only one villager on the gravel path: a soldier on patrol. I am tired and want to go back to sleep, but some unknown force compells me to equip my iron pickaxe and sword, and it pulls me down the path towards Joseph's house. As I pass by the soldier, he gives me a suspicious glance, but decides to ignore me. I am not a threat, at least in his opinion. I continue walking down the path until I enter the market.

I see a small group of children playing a game around the market with a small block. They throw it around and kick it, but I don't see what the objective of the game is. Overhead, I hear a raven's sharp report. I walk through the thick darkness, across the market to Joseph's house. I can see his home emerging from the darkness when I hear a scream from behind me. From in the market.

Instinctively, I grab my sword and pull it from its scabbard. I carry it in my left hand–I find that I can use my left hand better than my right–and I break through the dull fog and into the market square. I don't see the children, but I can sense a presense ahead of me, just outside of the fog. I walk forwards stealthily, taking care to not make a sound, until I stumble over an object on the road and fall to the ground. I pull myself back up and look down at the object. It is the ball. I hear another scream, off to my right and closer than the first. "Help!" I hear a child shout, and before I know it three children appear out of the fog, with expressions of absolute terror plastered on their faces.

"What's going on?" I ask urgently. However, the children seem to be afraid of me as well, and they don't respond. I proceed to ask again, but then something else emerges from the fog. A zombie. Without even thinking of it, I kick the zombie back into the fog and run over to it. As it gets back up, I run my sword deep into the monster's chest. What little light I see in the creature's dark, dim eyes fades away and it falls back to the ground.

Then another monster rushes out of the darkness ahead of me. It knocks me down but I push it off of me and stab my sword into its skull. I look around for more zombies, but none appear.

I turn around, adrenaline rushing through me, and see that Joseph has joined the children. He stares at me, but not with fear or resentment or suspicion. He simply looks at me and nods. I catch a flicker of a smile as he leads the children out of the marketplace and escorts them to their homes.

As the sun rises and people wake up, I am told that a small group of monsters had blown a hole into the wall and attacked the villagers inside. Soldiers had killed many monsters, but missed some that had already entered the heart of the village. We lost six people in the attack, including two children. But the village warms up to me. I have proved my loyalty. I have defended the village's children against the monsters.

In the next few days I become a hunter. I am responsible for gathering meat for the village population and for attacking any monsters that I come across. I am surprised to find that most monsters don't fight in hordes. Many are alone, and therefore are fairly easy to kill. Apparently, battles like that at the gate are very uncommon.

I enjoy hunting. Such activity serves the village well by both providing meat and by picking off stray monsters. Joseph warns me that even one monster can cause a crisis if it passes into the village. On the hunts, I learn that zombies are not the only monsters. In fact, zombies turn out to be the least of my problems. For example, there are skeletons that can wield weapons and there are green, armless creatures that explode if one comes too close to it. The soldiers call these creepers, and defeating these monsters is a notable achievement in the village.

These soldiers also advise me in how to fight specific monsters under certian conditions. They tell me to attack without inhibition against lone zombies or small groups of zombies. They suggest that I focus on dodging skeletons' attacks until I am close enough to take them down. They advise me to rush up against creepers and deal a minor blow before running far enough away that they do not explode, and to repeat this process until I have taken the monster down.

The hunts feel natural to me. I feel right when I am fighting these monsters, as if it is my main purpose in life. I quickly become well known in the village for my skills in hunting, and I earn the personal respect of several hunters for my saving their lives.

One day, Joseph asks me to come to his house for dinner after the hunt. I agree, and before sundown I have returned from beyond the wall and Joseph's family greets me warmly.

"Hello Joseph, hello Jennifer." By now I am friends with her and have stopped calling her "Honey."

"Thank you for coming, Hungrig" she replies. For lack of a real name, most villagers have nicknamed me Jäger, or "hunter," but Alex, Joseph, and Jennifer jokingly call me Hungrig, or "hungry."

The dinner is excellent and we enjoy the night, recalling comical village events and hunting tales. But as I put on my coat to head back to my hut, Joseph stops me. "We need to talk...in the study."

We walk over to the study, still lined with books, and Joseph proceeds to pull out a book. I assume it is The Book of Notch, which is the only book I have ever read in the village, but he pulls out a smaller, thinner book, one that is more like my hunting journal.

He puts it down on the table and sighs, "I didn't want to show you this, as the information in this book is probably too shocking for you to know.  But you have proved yourself so dedecated to this village that I cannot deny you the truth anymore."

He slides the book across the desk and I grab it, flipping it over so that the title is right-side up. Only one word, written in drab, black ink, sits on the cover, as if reluctant to admit to its contents.

The title reads Loss, and as I try to understand this, Joseph says, "So much has happened, my friend.  We have endured so many horrors that I am surprised that we still have the courage to fight back.  But it is a matter of survival, and if we give up then he will drive us into the ground until we are all dead.  Until our civilizations are destroyed.  Until he has wiped out all evidence of human existence on the planet." And I think of the man...my target.

"Herobrine..."

Chapter Nine: Revelation
I stare at this book, horrified, as Joseph explains current events. Several years ago, in the year 1984 RN, the ancient enemy of Notch (who I now know is the protector of the humans) was reincarnated. This enemy was Herobrine. I had learned of Herobrine while reading The Book of Notch, but this version of Herobrine was even more dangerous than that of the ancient times.

This new manifestation of Herobrine is handsome, cunning, and even more furious than the last. He is an expert in military strategy and in diplomacy, and has used all of these traits to his advantage in order to conquer the world and then eradicate anyone who he finds disloyal to him.

The continent of Arabus fought valiantly against Herobrine, but to no avail. His dark armies stormed into the sacred territory of New Sweden and dissolved the Arabian Confederation. Then, he proceeded to destroy, one by one, any state that remained up in arms against him. In the year 1993, all communication across state borders was impossible, and any surviving states were desperately scrambling to survive against the near infinite armies of the Dark Lord.

I try to calmly take in this information, but I cannot. Words cannot describe how this knowledge overwhelms me, how it entirely revolutionizes how I think about the world. I cannot understand how so many grand civilizations could simply crumble to evil, how Herobrine, whom the villagers only refer to as the Dark Lord or Him (in the rare event that they speak of him at all), could possibly convince so many humans to join him. But I don't have to experience this horrible sense of bewilderment for long, because soon I pass out from stress and enter a deep, peaceful sleep.

I wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread, one of the villagers' favorite foods. I remember yesterday...I assume that I have only been asleep for a day...but by now the information does not overwhelm me so much as it disturbs me. Instead of rushing into my mind and swirling around in it, the knowledge has found a channel that allows it to flow gently out of my chaotic head.

Joseph is sitting in a chair next to my bed. I turn my head over to look at him and I see that he wears a nervous face. "So you blacked out again, huh?"

I look around and confirm that I am in my hut. I nod my head to his question and he slowly eases himself up to a standing position.

"You really have to stop doing that.  The people around here are starting to think you are batty or something."

I chuckle and I pull myself up from the bed. I have a dull throbbing in my forehead but otherwise I feel fine. We return to Joseph's house where he tells me more information, keeping to his promise of revealing all of his knowledge of current events.

Then we look through Loss. It is nothing like The Book of Notch. Instead of elegant, refined text describing in detail the ancient history of the universe, I read broken newspaper articles, military records, contradictory statements laid side-by-side in a jumbled pile of scripts. I realize that the old Historical Tribunal, which Joseph told me used to produce new chapters of The Book of Notch in order to provide an account of more recent events, was not able to record this recent period as it did others. The fall of human civilization included the fall of the Tribunal.

I then think of how we have received no communications from beyond the wall at all. I know that this war has brought down international communications and that it has probably gone further, reducing the spread of information to within settlements like ours. But what if there are no other settlements to talk with? What if we are the only ones left?

I deny this as possible, I insist that there must be others, but my confidence is weak. I have seen visions much more horrible than any battle experienced here at the village. Such death. Such suffering. Such defeat. I search my soul for hope but only find worry.

Evening slides over the sky as I head back to my house to eat a meager dinner. I crawl awkwardly into my bed as I contemplate the horrible possibilities of this morbid present. I close my eyes and spend hours trying to go to sleep.

Chapter Ten: Into the Labyrinth
Some days later, I join the hunting party to rescue one of our people.

The night before, a small band of hunters had been ambushed by a group of zombies and creepers. Most of the hunters escaped back to the village, but one never returned. None of the hunters saw him die and so they held onto hope that he had survived the attack. As the village population was slight already, the entire village, including me, decided that we should send a party out to both rescue the lost hunter and to exterminate the monsters.

We encounter a couple zombies as we approach the scene of the ambush, but otherwise everything is quiet. The wind has died down and the birds have ceased to chirp, allowing us to hear the slightest sound with relative ease. Nothing surprises us and we reach the ambush sight intact.

As we expected, no one was there. Only broken twigs and jagged valleys of leaves show any trace of last night's struggle. We decide to fan out in a circle from the ambush site and within minutes one of our hunters calls to us. We congregate around him, curious as to what he has found. He crouches down, and points to a soft imprint in the leaves on the ground. It is faint, but as hunters we can tell what it is: a footprint. We examine the area around it and find more footprints. From the spacing and depth of the prints, we can tell that it must be a human. Zombies could not run as fast as the creature that made these tracks. We follow the trail to a cave, where we stop. I look around and I can see that the hunters with me are hesitant to enter the earthen mouth of the cave. I feel likewise, recalling my incident with the cave zombie so long ago. But I push this thought into the back of my mind and light a torch, proceeding to enter the cave. I cannot allow my fears to jeapordize a fellow hunter's life.

The hunters follow me into the cave, made more confident by my show of bravery. The darkness of the earth envelops us as we go deeper into the cavern. We continue in this state until we find a fork in the cave. We groan as we realize that there are now two caves to search. Without the telltale footprints that we could so easily see in the forest, we must search every crevice of the cave system until we find our comrade.

As the caves split into more caves, we begin to lose hope of finding our friend and begin to fear that we may lose ourselves in the ever-expanding labyrinth. We have determined that certian caves are empty, but more appear out of the inky dark than we can confirm do not shelter the lone hunter. By now, we only have two hunters searching each cave, rather than the strong group that we had

"We should go back," the hunter beside me says. "Jackson would never have gone this far into a cave.  He hates caves.  He would rather be bitten by a corpse than be chewed by this monster of a cavern."

I shoot him an angry look. "No hunter's life is worth more than another's!"

"Yea, but what if he is dead?  I mean, who could possibly survive down here?  We were ambushed by zombies.  That's enough to suspect that he is dead.  Even if he managed to escape the monsters' bites and fled into this cave, he has been without food for a day.  The chance that he is alive..." He looks at me and decides to shut his mouth. He turns his face to the cave floor and stops walking. "Look, Jäger.  I want to find Jackson too.  He was my friend, almost my brother.  But we need to think of ourselves, and our families.  Do you really want to risk your life only to find his murdered corpse?  I don't value such dim prospects over my life." He starts walking again.

I think over this and am about to respond with some clever statement when I trip over something. As I lift myself from the damp cave floor, I see that a sword lies on the ground, illuminated by my companion's dim torch. I crawl over to the sword and examine the hilt. Sure enough, I see the name Jackson printed in messy black ink on the leather handle. Without thinking, I run forward with the sword into the cave until I realize that I can't see anything. The other hunter, Gregory, is still standing over where the sword was.

Embarrassed, I walk back over to the light and we decide to alert the others. Luckily, the cave system carries our voices very well and within minutes we have all gathered around the sword site. However, our long trek through the cave has made us tired and hungry, and one of us judges that it is already past midday and that we will have to spend the night in the cave in order to make any progress.

"All right then," says the group's leader, Arnold. "I agree.  But we should send someone back to the village in order to let them know we are all right.  Otherwise they will think that we have gone missing as well."

We all agree to this and we decide that four of our twelve hunters, Larry, James, Susan, and Jack, should return to the settlement. The rest of us push further into the cave until we meet the next fork, where we make camp and establish barriers at each of the cave mouths in order to keep monsters out.

I pull my wool mat from my hunting pack and lay it on the cold, hard ground. I don't have watch tonight, so I feel well rested when I wake up. We take down the barriers after we all wake up and we proceed further into the caves. I go down the left shaft, which we soon find connects back with caves that we have already explored. Luckily, we decided to put markers of dirt down in explored caves and we avoid backtracking.

About an hour into today's search, a call from one of our hunters brings us all into a small cave. We crouch around the hunter, who points to specks of red on the cave floor.

"Blood," he says. "Human blood.  From the colour and thickness, I would say it is about a day old.  Chances are he is down this cave."

We all nod silently and proceed further into the empty darkness ahead. I think of how far we have gone into this cave system, and how long it will take to get back to the village. I then realize that we don't even know what time it is. As we have been awake for only a short while, we assume that it is early morning, but none of us know for sure how long we have been down here.

We keep walking forward, occassionally finding red specks here and there, making our search easier. We walk faster, knowing that a path leads us to our lost hunter. But when a wall of rock stops us in our tracks, we have no idea what to think.

"I don't understand," one hunter says. "We followed the blood, but this is a dead end."

"What if he decided to backtrack and go down another cave?" another one asks.

"Then we would have seen blood in those other caves," a third cries.

"What if he stopped up his wound?"

"What if this isn't his blood?"

"Are we lost?  I hope we aren't lost."

"Shut it!" shouts Arnold. Everyone stops their chattering.

"Look." He points to the rocks. "Look closely at this wall.  Does it look natural?"

Indeed, when we look closer at the cave wall, we realize that, unlike the smooth, wet walls of the rest of the cave, this wall has many broken, jagged, coarse rocks. I look closely at the rocks, holding my torch up to them, and I notice that there are some dark marks on the sides of the stones. They are blast marks. Something blew up in this cave and collapsed part of it here.

We begin to mine the rocks away from the wall, but it is hard and exhausting work. We spend about an hour picking, then slaming agains the barrier, hoping to find our friend on the other side. But we cannot get through. Eventually some hunters stop, their picks nearly useless after hard mining. "It's no use.  This wall could go on for countless meters."

I want to object to them, but they are right. Besides, our lost friend has been in this cave for nearly three days. He could certainly be dead by now. I have tried to deny it, but I have lost hope in saving our fellow hunter. I turn around to begin the long trek back to the surface when I hear a sound come from the wall. I stop and turn towards the rocks. Sure enough, I hear a steady ''clink! clink! clink! ''coming from the wall. The sound of a pickaxe. I shout for my comrades to pick at the stones as strongly and quickly as possible. In less than a minute, we see a rock fall from the wall and the end of a pickaxe take its place from the other side. We then hear someone shoving against the wall from the other end and we stop picking. We step away just before the wall crumbles and a shape falls into our cave among the debris.

The figure pulls itself out of the rubble, grunting as rocks fall off of its back. Then it lifts its head and I look into its eyes.

Chapter Eleven: The Creature
We wander the caves for countless hours, but we finally make our way out. When we see light streaming in from the cave mouth, most of us cry with joy and run into the sun's warm rays. We reach the village before sundown, where nearly every hunter embraces their family members. Happiness fills the air upon our arrival, as dozens of people find relief in the survival of their children, parents, siblings, and spouses.

But I am not happy. All I can do is walk back to my shack and collapse on my bed. We failed,  I think. ''He's dead. We could have saved him but we were too late''. Despite my wild mind, in which ideas and thoughts collide against each other with enormous ferocity, I drift off as my exhaustion overcomes me.

I see the figure in the village, establishing itself as another survivor. But it is not our hunter. Our hunter died in the cave. This creature killed him, and although I know that our hunter was infected when this creature thrust its sword into his chest, I cannot forgive it.

And upon my sentiments of anger, sadness, and guilt, I feel confusion whenever I look at this creature.

Because it looks just like me.

There is no denying it: we are identical. It sounds like me, acts like me, and probably thinks like me. This is particularly unsettling, as this reminds me that this creature is somehow related to me. I don't want it to be. I wish that it was some monster that I would have no hesitation in slaying. But it is just like me, and I cannot bring myself to destroy it.

It turns out that not only does this creature look like me, but it has similar memories. Several days ago, it woke up in the forest with no memory, yet it understood many aspects of this world, as I had. Instinctively, it began to build a shelter. It soon became hungry and had to leave its shelter in order to hunt. Eventually, it became lost in a cave after chasing a cow inside. In this cave, it met a zombie. But this zombie was not like the many that I had killed. This zombie was a human. Our lost hunter. He had been bitten and died, only to rise as a member of the Dead. This creature had to kill him, but I cannot get over it. The loss of one of our people to a creature that now wanders safely among us haunts me.

I find myself following this creature in the day and watching at it at night. It has been given a hut next to mine as quarters, and so I can, and do, watch through my window every night into the creature's abode, monitoring its sleeping patterns. I refuse to believe that I am obsessed even when Joseph finds out about this. He tells me that I have to stop, but I sense that this creature threatens the village, and so I watch it into the dead of night until I fall on the floor from exhaustion and sleep deprivation.

One day, Joseph asks me to come to his house. I agree and walk to his house late in the afternoon as the sun sits right above the trees on the far hills. I open the door and say hello to Joseph, only to notice the creature standing next to my friend.

I freeze. I have no idea how to behave. My instincts tell me to attack the creature and protect Joseph, but my rational mind tells me that the creature poses no threat to my friend.

"My friend," Joseph says to me, "you must accept that this creature is a friend and not an enemy.  You cannot insist on stalking it.  I understand that you despise it for killing our fellow hunter in the caverns, but you know that he had already died and risen from death.  He was too far gone to save.  You need to set aside your instinctive hatred of this creature and allow it to join our village."

Stunned, I turn from Joseph to the creature. It displays barely any emotion. I sense that it is uncomfortable, but it stands still, saying nothing.

My logic tells me not only to accept this but to realize that I should have behaved rationally in the first place, but my emotions obscure my vision and I struggle over the morality and even the safety of allowing this creature to reisde in our village and fight alongside our warriors. But I look at the creature again, I stare intently into its violet eyes, and I suddenly see its memories. I do not know if I simply am envisioning this or if the creature has somehow communicated its thoughts to me, but I see myself as this creature. My viewpoint meges with him. I see myself in the caverns, desperate, hungry, frightened. I hear the moans and groans, the rasping sounds of a zombie, and suddenly our fellow hunter appears through the perpetual darkness surrounding me and my dying torch. My heart jumps out of my body and I panic. I know what this zombie, however human it appears, will do to me, how it will tear apart my flesh ravenously until I either have been reduced to bones or have risen as a comrade to this undead demon. I instinctively pull out my spear and thrust it into the zombie's chest. I push on the zombie with my foot, freeing my spear and knocking the monster to the ground. As it rises to its feet again, I run at it, spear in hand, and thrust again, continuing my charge so that I run the creature through and through, pinning him to the cave wall. I force the zombie to the ground and pull out my knife. I look at the creature once more as it continues to grab at the air in front of me, continuing its efforts to give me one scratch, one bite, and infect me. I look in its eyes, searching for the villager whose spirit once infested this creature, but there is only a mindless beast. I sigh and plunge the knife into the hideous monster's soft skull. The groaning and rasping suddenly stops. The cave is silent. My knife pulls out smoothly, and I collapse on the ground as my grief for this human overwhelms me. I lie on the stone floor for what feels like an eternity until I hear sounds coming from a wall of broken rock over at the other end of the cave. I can only imagine help, as my hunger and weakness overpower my fear of the unknown. I push desperately at the stones to force the stone wall over.

The wall collapses, and I see myself among the other villagers. We have found our lost hunter.

The vision ends, and I understand. I reach my hand out to the creature and I can no longer imagine having any difficulty in saying "welcome to our village, fellow survivor."

Chapter Twelve: Comrades
I pull my pickaxe back over my shoulder as I prepare to swing at the rock wall before me. For weeks there have been no attacks on the village and so we have decided to put most of our defense forces towards increasing our stockpiles of food and building material.

Working in the mines brings me to peace. I feel at home here. My pickaxe is an extension of my body, and I could mine forever if it would not wear down. I could stay here, following my instinct to keep digging, picking, breaking stones and refusing to give up against the endless mass of rock that confronts me.

The creature mines alongside me, swinging its pick with similar intent. It has adopted the name Jordan, the name of our lost hunter. This does not bother me; I have accepted the creature as a member of the village and have even ventured to forge a friendship between us. Jordan was timid and apprehensive at first to the concept of befriending me, but we have grown to at least know each other and understand the other's feelings.

A resource cart rolls up to our station from the rail center. Our work day is over. We dump the rock and mineral we have collected into the cart and push it back down the rails. We walk up the mineshaft towards the soft light of sundown. At the surface we collect our rations and pay before heading home.

The villagers are celebrating another successful hunt with a feast in the town square. Jordan and I decide to head over and join in the festivities. All is well as we eat roast chicken and freshly baked bread, of which the smell comforts me and allows me to forget how much the monsters threaten the happiness of our village. Then a villager rides into the town square with a horse-drawn cart carrying large wooden barrels. The villagers all cheer and gather around the cart, drawing a dull yellow liquid from the barrels and passing mugs full of it among the crowd. One villager hands a mug to me and motions for me to drink it. He is too happy about the success of the village to speak, and so forgoes telling me what the liquid actually is. Seconds after downing the strange-tasting substance, my memories blur and eventually disappear. I wake up with an exceptional headache but a sense that last night was the best time of my life.

When I go to visit Joseph, he looks at me in a puzzled manner. "Are you all right?" he asks. I respond that I am fine, dismissing the headache as minor even though it is too painful for me to focus on Joseph's words for very long. He looks at me more intensely, as if examining me and looking beyond my eyes into my mind to find the truth.

"Were you at the celebration last night?" he asks. I nod. "Were you the one who tried to steal Patricia's lucky leathers?" Suddenly, the memory appears in my mind and I say that I was, but that I cannot imagine why I did it.

My friend sighs. "I was hoping that it was Jordan, to be truthful.  I suppose you indulged yourself in the liquor."

I do not understand this, but before I ask him what he is talking about he elaborates, "the liquid from the barrels?" This I understand, and from what I have read in the village library I make the connection.

"Oh," I say, frustrated with myself. "I didn't know.  Sorry." My face grows red as I realize how much liquid I drank and how many other memories I have probably forgotten. Even after all this time with the humans, I still am unfamiliar with many of their customs.

I dedicate myself to working in the mines, and together Jordan and I reveal a fresh vein of iron that the village leaders believe will contribute in making up for our lack of sturdy weapons. I want to continue my subterranean existence at least until we clear out the vein of all useful mineral and metal, but by the end of the week zombie attacks have become more common closer to the town, and we have had several close calls with zombie bites and scratches. The doctor here is talented, but after too long the infection is irreversible and there is no alternative other than to put an end to the victim.