When I first started playing Minecraft a few months back, I played with a rule: if I die, I have to delete the entire world. This is the second entry in the diary I kept of that experiment, the first is here .
Day 3 >
Day 3 >
World 2, Deaths 1
I have no idea what killed me in World 1. I guess waterfalls explode? There are landmines in the snow? I'm explosively allergic to the dark? It doesn't matter now, that gorgeous place is lost and I'm in a new one.
This one's made of water. The moment it pops into existence I'm staring out to sea, with shallow sandy islands ri out of it in the distance. Enticed, I dive in, sink, and start gurgling.
You can't swim, I deduce, as I find a sandy ridge to clamber up before I drown. Nevermind, I like the island I'm on anyway. In fact, I'm not going to start wrecking it randomly. I'm going to see how far I can get just by exploring.
Every time I look around I notice new cool things in the horizon. This time I notice a slanting mountain that seems to extend into a horizontal plateau at its peak, and instinctively head in that direction.
I'm clambering up a smaller peak on my way when it starts to get dark. Uh oh. I've heard of a lot of nasty things in Minecraft, but during the day all I've seen are cows and pigs. I don't know if bad things come out at night, but I don't want to be halfway up a mountain when I find out.
After about five seconds of punching solid rock, I realise that I probably can't wreck this particular bit of the world yet. In real life, I'm usually quicker at realising things like this.
I carry on up the cliff face, and by the time I reach softer ground it's already hard to see. Panicking, I pummel the earth like a stepchild's face and it crumbles - plunging me headfirst into a pitch black cave behind.
Oh Lord.
I stare into the cave for a while, still with fear, but I really can't see anything. Very, very carefully, I head back towards the dim moonlight and set down blocks of earth to wall the scary cave off, leaving me in a tiny shallow alcove. Once I'm totally sure it's sealed, I risk turning my back on it to peer carefully out at the world.
TWANG!
I jump out of my motherloving skin.
What the fuck was that? What the hell nearly hit my head? Is that a fucking arrow stuck in the wall? Did someone just shoot a fucking arrow at me? Jesus Christ! What is out there?
I cram myself back against the makeshift barrier I'd set up. My hole is just two squares: one next to the doorway shaped hole I came in through, and the one I'm standing in now - hidden from the outside world but gloomy and claustrophobic.
I quickly drop a block of earth at the doorway to make sure nothing can climb in, the one square hole remaining now my only source of dim moonlight. I try blocking it up, but the disorientation is terrifying: in the pitch black, the slightest mouse movement could let me lose track of which way is out, doomed to burrow into a mountain full of terrifying dark caves.
I break it open again.
Eventually I pluck up the courage to peer out of the hole, scanning frantically for an archer or something. I see cows still, pigs, and- fuck, is that something humanoid in the water down there? I'm edging closer to the mouth of my hole to get a better look when there's a horrific squelchy growl inches from my ear, and I jump out of my motherloving skin.
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