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Clack. Clack. Clack.
Avery’s iron boots repeated this pattern as he walked, leaving prints in the dirt that smeared the metal on his feet. He was exploring the woods, or the Oasis as he came to call it, trying to map out every chunk. Though his task proved difficult thanks to his new… Ability.
Every time he glanced at something living, he witnessed their birth, their life, their death, and the decay of their corpse. He saw horrible fates, such as a tree being struck by lightning and catching flame from a storm nearly a month away, and the fish in the water dying from illness just days from now. He saw pigs being slaughtered by his own hand. He saw the cows choking on grass. Even the map in his hands, he could see the image being displayed upon it withering away into nothingness as the paper dissolved.
Avery shook his head violently to brush away the visions. He hated this new ability. Seeing the future sucked buns. Avery hated that he felt sympathy for the animals he needed to kill to survive, hated the guilt he felt when he had to chop trees, hated the despair he felt drowning a cattle, knowing full well he could’ve let it live its life and become a mother.
Avery screamed, throwing his map to the floor and slamming his slimy head against a tree. There were sickening squelches of pain, paired with his frustrated grunts as he pounded his head over and over before he stopped, falling back into the grass with a half-caved forehead. The slime that had splattered around him started to slip back into place like slugs. Avery groaned, barely catching that a shadow was passing over him.
“It is pointless to destroy yourself.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Avery grumbled, sitting up. “I can’t die. You’ve basically put me into Creative Mode without the vast expanse of items at my fingertips.”
“I can give you such expanses if you desire.”
“I don’t want your fucking gifts.” Avery snapped, squeezing his eyes shut as he poked his face with the stick of his axe. “I don’t want anything from you. You’ve ruined my life.”
“I did you a favor.”
“I didn’t want your fucking favor!!” Avery shouted, standing up and punching the tree in front of him. “I didn’t want any of this! I was just trying to play Minecraft with my best friend, and you just had to go and drag me down here!!”
“You came here of your own will. You have no right to complain over something you could’ve stopped by pressing a button.”
Avery fell silent, his fist curled against the tree bark as he stared down at the grass. Slowly, the shadow that loomed over him receded, leaving Avery alone under the forest bed with his hand braced against the tree. Avery sighed, slumping to his knees as he pressed his forehead against the trunk. He let out a shaky breath, followed by a wince as he wiped his eyes and stood up straight. He didn’t have time to cry. If he cried, the wolves around these strange woods would attack; Every mob seemed hostile in the Oasis.
Avery lifted his sack of wood over his shoulder and walked forward, following a stale-leafed path back to the pond at the center of the Oasis. As he met the strange light that came from the ceiling of the cave while he emerged from the forest. There was the foundation of a cottage close to the edge of the water, some of the trees cut down to make room for the square-ish looking house. Avery adjusted his grip on the sack as he approached it, climbing the small stairs to the cobblestone platform. He took out the wood he needed and started to place them along the edges of the foundation, making walls and leaving holes for windows. He felt comforted by windows, strangely enough.
The fire of the furnace crackled in the edge of the room. The glass for his windows was finishing up. He set down the final plank before walking to the furnace and pulling out the fresh glass, ignoring the melting of his hands as they touched the fire. He placed each pane into the gaps he left over from building the walls, concentrating on actually placing them instead of focusing on how they’d shatter a week from now thanks to a skeleton’s arrow.
The King’s influence did so many odd things. What was formerly still water in the wide pond now sloshed and rippled like real water. Stiff tree leaves now flew and fell in the wind. The rocks crumbled. The sand sifted. Everything felt like it was alive, no longer static and stiff like Avery was used to in a game.
And he hated it.
Avery placed the final pane of glass and stepped back, admiring his work. He turned his gaze up, staring at the cobblestone ceiling nearly 300 blocks above him.
He needed a roof. He would get the wood for that tomorrow.
Avery sighed, slumping as he stumbled to his bed and collapsed, the green slime of his body staining the white sheets. He hadn’t yet found anything reliable he could turn into green dye, and he couldn’t remember the recipe for it. Of course, now that he was trapped, he couldn’t look it up either. He groaned in annoyance.
His thoughts drifted around. They were painfully vivid. A skeleton shooting an arrow through his window and ruining his food in the furnace. Running out of cobblestone for his roof and having to go on another expedition to the edges of the cave to get more. Wolves swarming his house because they smelled the scent of a baby sheep Avery rescued.
D3rlord.
Avery’s eyes shot open, staring up at the plank he placed over his pillow so that he would avoid staring at the cave ceiling when he laid down. D3rlord was going to find him. He would somehow fix his controller and connect to him. They’d find each other by accident, swords drawn, but they’d recognize each other before any attack was done. D3rlord would start talking, but Avery would embrace him, too overwhelmed to speak. The King—
Avery felt like he had suddenly been stabbed with an arrow in the face. He screamed into his pillow, his feet kicking the edges of his bed until the pain finally subsided. His huffs of pain and exhaustion turned into whimpered sobs, his body curling into himself before he eventually just became a blob with clothes floating in his slime. His expression, drifting around his form, was defeated.
He needed to sleep. Ignoring the mob warning as he tucked himself into the sheets, Avery covered his eyes with a scrap piece of fabric from the wool leftover, and drifted off.