Chapter Text
The Earth was gone.
Everyone was gone.
Except for… how many people?
…
There was him. His name was gone, but he knew, at least, he counted among the last humans.
There was a tall man with an old-fashioned mustache.
There was a scruffy, plain-looking man.
There was an old man.
There was a woman in pink.
There was a woman in stripes.
There was a bearded man who looked like a scientist.
There was a scarred man.
There was a man who looked like a butcher.
There was a kind-looking bearded man.
And that was all of them.
...
He spoke up.
“Do… do any of you have names?” when the silence broke, it seemed to startle quite a few of them.
The man closest to him, with the mustache, glanced around nervously, shifting in his spot on the floor in the featureless white room they all sat in after they appeared there.
“…No. I don’t… remember my name.” he said.
“I don’t either.”
A pause.
“Well,” drawled the scruffy man in a southern accent, “we ought to have names. Things could get confusing, otherwise.”
“Maybe we should ask whoever, or whatever, took our names from us.” said the woman in stripes, threat buried shallowly in her words.
“We don’t really know what happened, right? I’d reserve judgment, at least.” said the kind-looking bearded man.
The butcher nodded along. His voice was higher than expected. “Innocent until proven guilty.” he paused. “So… we were either saved from our doomed planet, or it was… destroyed… and they, what, chose us randomly to not destroy?”
The mustached man shrugged. “Basically? That’s what I’ve surmised.”
“Who are ‘they’ though?” wondered the woman in pink.
“Aliens.” chorused a few of them.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Just then, a knock sounded at what they’d assumed was one of the walls. The man who looked like a scientist and the scarred man hopped to their feet and backpedaled from the source of the noise. Everyone stood and stared at the wall.
“Uh…Come in?” said the scarred man.
At that, the wall disappeared with popping noises, about a meter square each time. Behind the wall was what looked like a man, though he wore a mask over half his face and had unnaturally grey-white hair held away from his eyes (one of which appeared scarred and possibly non-functional, as it was a striking red) by a headband with a metal plate with what looked like a maple leaf on the forehead. The man (?) smiled.
“Hi, humans!” he said, cheerfully waving. “Man, I am so glad X let us take some of you with us! I’m honestly a huge fan of your, ahem, former planet. But listen, before you get mad about us, ya know, messing with everything… We’ll make improvements. You gotta know, we do this all the time. We’re pros at this kinda thing, and you will be too, with time.”
Everyone stared, not knowing what to say. Until the woman in stripes made to punch the man. Her fist went right through him while he chuckled nervously.
“Yeah…” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I get it. It’ll take some getting used to. Oh! We did erase your memories. That’s procedure, it helps with, uh, the big change. So… you all get to pick new names! Fun, right? You could go by anything!”
The woman in stripes, fuming, shouted, “False! Not fun! Terrible, even! Why can’t I punch you?”
“False, huh? That’s an interesting one…” The alien man shakily wrote it down on a hologram that materialized on his wrist.
The newly dubbed False said nothing and went to sit in a corner in a very angry fashion.
“Who’s next?” He said, scanning over the small crowd of humans.
They all stayed silent.
“…Maaaybe I’ll come back when you’ve had time to think?” The alien man said, apparently sensing the obvious hostility.
A white cube popped into existence in the man’s hand, and in seconds, each section of the wall that had disappeared was put back into place one by one.
After a moment, most everyone relaxed again and sat back down.
“Well. Looks like they’re proven guilty.” the old man said.
“Guess so. But… look on the bright side. We’re still here. We can… we have to make the best of what we got.” said the scarred man.
“Scar is right. We’re still alive, so… let’s live.” said the scientist.
“Scar?” questioned the scarred man.
“Dude, you have so many scars on your face,” he replied.
“Oh. Scar it is then.” Scar said.
“In that case, I’m going to go by Joe. Easy to remember,” said Joe.
“I’ll be Stress. Because I am stressed.” Stress said decisively.
“I’ll be… I don’t want to be, like, Brian, so… Grian.” he said, chiming in along with everyone else.
“I’m not so sure I want something like Joe, but I also don’t want some weird mumbo jumbo like-”
“That’s perfect!” interrupted Grian. “You can be Mumbo!”
“Ah, well. I mean… yeah? I guess that’s fine??” Grian was pretty sure Mumbo was fine with it.
With that, however, everyone else wasn’t so ready to suggest a name for themselves.
“That alien didn’t say we had to decide right away, did he?” asked the kind bearded man.
“I don’t think so.” said the butcher.
“I wonder if there are back-ups of our memories or something. If there are, we could just, you know, take them back. Keep our real names.” said the scientist.
“As nice as that would be, I doubt it. Why would they want to keep our memories?” said the old man.
“I don’t know… as bargaining chips, if we don’t comply?” the scientist replied.
“I guess it’s possible. At this point, who knows what they can do?” said the old man.
They all fell silent.
Just then, a voice came to life somewhere within the room.
“Hello all, and welcome to your new lives as part of our terraforming artistry crew,” the voice paused as if reading the next sentence in what he was going to say, “The Hermits. Known as Hermitcraft among the governing bodies of sector 18 of the… Milky Way? as called by the former denizens of Earth. You all are about to participate in the, yes, terraforming of the former Earth by way of the ‘Minecraft’ planetary reformation system first invented by an unknown entity, colloquially attributed to space. The Hermits are a multi-species group primarily of artists and engineers from all over the galaxy. You are our newest members chosen at random from the cache of humans. Those besides yourselves have since been recalibrated to exist as pseudo-entities within the Minecraft system. In a few moments, you and the rest of the crew will be transported to a predetermined location on the surface of the former Earth. From there, we begin our creative, collaborative, and above all, fantastic work. This has been your administrator, Xisuma. Enjoy!”
In a bright flash of light, one by one, the humans disappeared from the room. Each of them began to panic at the sudden displacement. Soon, it was only Grian. And then Grian was lying on some sand, listening to the chatter and the shouting of people he knew and didn’t know.
It had begun.