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He should have expected this, the shock that came from leaving his five year old hardcore world. Having spent five years in isolation he should have realized that it would take time for him to adjust being around actual people again. And the promise of respawn too, he doesn't even want to think about that. He knows that if he dies he’ll respawn, but after going so long with only one life who could blame him for being a bit uneasy.
Here he is, Philza Minecraft, the famed Angel of Death, who has spent five years of his life in a hardcore world, who has killed the terrifying Enderdragon twenty times. He’s used to his life in the hardcore world, it was dangerous there, but he at least had a routine. He had projects, underwater buildings, mob farms, and resources to collect. Now he just has nothing to do. For the past three weeks people have patted him on the back, and admired his large silky black wings, they’ve congratulated him on his bravery and said he deserves a long rest. Yet he doesn't want to rest, he hasn't rested in five years for god's sake! It disgusts him how the same people who ridiculed him long ago now plaster fake smiles on their faces as they tell him pretty lies. They never liked him before, yet they act like they’ve been friends for years. So as he lays on his bed, blankly staring up at his cabin's ceiling, he thinks of things to do.
Philza finally pulls himself out of bed and rubs his eyes. Pulling himself from his bed he looks around his old room. He shouldnt be surprised everytime he wakes up and doesnt see his old room in his hardcore world, yet seeing the dusty room with an old worn rug, and old maps of ruins on his walls shock him again and again, telling him how different his life is now. Rubbing the tired from his eyes Philza stumbles into his kitchen to make himself some tea and toast. Yet as he searches through the various dusty cabinets for bread he sighs, not finding any, in fact he barely has any food at all in there. He shakes off the stray thought of how he always had plenty of food in his old hardcore world, and plops himself down on his dusty and unused couch.
There's definitely something wrong with him, or is there? No one has lived in a hardcore world for five years before, so maybe he’s not overreacting. Doesn't stop him from scolding himself for being foolish though. He wants to go back, back to his world that made sense. To his hardcore world where it was just him, some stray villagers, and mobs. To a place where he had stacks and stacks of food and resources. To a place where he could fly freely without people staring at him, and acting like he was part of a circus. This worn cabin in the woods, this isn't his home. His home is in a hardcore world thats he’s lived in for five bloody years! This house he’s in is like a stranger to him, or an old forgotten memory from long ago.
He needs to do something, he has to do something. He feels like he’ll go crazy if he doesn’t. His therapist, gods look at him he has a fucking therapist, tells him to take small steps. That he should do things even if they aren't part of some big project. She tells him that doing simpler things will ease him back into everyday life, whatever the hell that means. He can't imagine himself having an everyday, average life, not anymore. Perhaps he could have had something like that five years ago, but now, he feels like such a thing is impossible, and unwanted.
His stomach growls, he’s hungry. With a sigh he pulls himself up from the couch and walks to his old bedroom. Passing by a mirror he catches a glimpse of himself. Gods he looks awful. Once shiny and smooth golden hair now lays greasy and unkempt. His eyes that once looked like a calm lagoon now look like a dreary sky in a fog. His once healthy tan skin is now pale, and he has bags under his eyes from restless nights because he has both too much and not enough energy. Things were better in his hardcore world, he thinks bitterly. He was happy there, now he feels like a husk that a cicada has shed and left behind.
The only thing about him that looks semi normal are his wings, his pride and joy. Go ahead and call him egotistical, but gods his wings are the best. Beautiful shiny black feathers that appear to have a light layer of purple shimmer, so that when he flys in the moonlight his wings appear to have small glimmering stars on them. When he killed the Enderdragon the first time, the gods were so impressed with his skill that they made the wings that he already had even larger, and each time he would kill the Enderdragon he felt like they grew more and more beautiful. Every morning he would preen his feathers, it was one of the first things he would always do. Yet today he just...doesn't feel like it. He has to go to town for some food, and his wings make that difficult. It’s not that they stop him from going into stores, or that he cant fly to town, but having wings basically acts like a sign that says, ‘look at me!’ and he really doesnt want that extra attention right now. So he pulls open one of the cabinets beside his bed and pulls out some rope. He doesn't want to bind his wings, but if it’ll take some of the attention off him then he’ll do it.
Binding wings is incredibly uncomfortable. The rope pushes all of the feathers around it, and makes his already unorganized feathers look worse. The texture of the rope is awful too, it's too rough on the delicate skin of his wings, and Philza just knows that it’ll cause a rash. He almost just said to hell with it, but his empty stomach loudly encouraged him to get it over with so he could get some food. Pulling out his old robe, that he owned before he had wings, he puts it on and fits his green stripe bucket hat onto his head. As he heads off to the town his last thought was, please let this just be another boring day. Ha, wishful thinking. Yet even he, who has spent years planning and preparing for surprise attacks or emergencies in his hardcore world, couldnt imagine just how much his life would change on this day.