The Island – Castaway

Chapter One: The Island

It’s almost like not existing, deep darkness, nothingness, absence of mind. I’m not really sure how to put this into words but this is what it feels like when I fall asleep. Ever since I woke up in this cube world, I have been able to sleep deeply, without effort. There’s no trick to it, I just let myself drop on my bed, I close my eyes and I forget about everything for a couple of hours.

I don’t really remember what life was like in my other world, I’ve been here too long. When I arrived here I tried to count days by using a stick to make a mark on the wall in my house, well I really shouldn’t call it a house, it’s just a simple shelter that I build using some of those sand-blocks, it’s nothing special, but it keeps the water out when it rains and keeps me cool when the weather is especially hot.

Well, to get back to my story, I was making markings on the wall, then I ran out of space one day, then I just stopped counting. Last time I counted the markings, there were almost eleven-thousand of them, that’s a little bit more than thirty years, I have been here on this island for over thirty years! Last time I saw my reflection in the water I noticed that I haven’t aged a day, I look exactly the same today as I did when I arrived here, I guess that’s one of the only perks of being in this world. I wouldn’t call this an island, It’s a huge island with dozens if not hundreds of tiny little islands around it.

I managed to carve out a map on one of my wooden tables I have around my house. I know just about everything there is to know about these islands, I know which ones with the most trees, which ones have edible fruits and which ones have animals in them. There is also a huge mountain in the middle of the main island, I really think it’s an inactive volcano, but that’s just my opinion, I haven’t really climbed up there and checked. I have tried to get off this island many times.

A couple of years ago I managed to craft a boat that actually stayed afloat, I would take the boat out into the ocean for weeks at a time but I could never find any land so I turned right back to the island in defeat. It’s so lonely here, I haven’t seen anyone–ever! I have not talked to another soul for a loooooooong time. I got used to being alone here anyways, I guess that’s a good thing. The island is peaceful, there is no danger here ever, that has been the case for me at least. I always keep myself busy, this makes the time go by fast.

Even though there is no cold season here I always make sure to be prepared for anything, I always keep plenty of food around my house. It never gets cold, but it does get rainy, it gets really rainy. There is a time of the year when it rains, it rains for at least a month straight. Did I mention it rains? Well, during that time that it rains I’m not able to go outside. The winds get too overwhelming and the small islands get flooded, luckily the small island that I’ve made my home doesn’t flood. I built my shelter above ground just in case the water levels get too high.

A couple of years back when I was mining in the mountain, I discovered some silky looking string, I’m not really sure how it got there, it doesn’t look like it just grows out of the ground, I’m pretty sure it was made by someone or something, but I really don’t care, what matters is that I was able to use the string to craft myself a fishing-pole. This pole has come in very handy, I have been able to catch fish…tons of fish! I have a whole chest full of them, they keep me fed almost the whole year long. Sometimes I get tired of eating fish, so I eat something else instead. When I get tired of fish I eat apples.

When I get tired of apples, I eat chicken. When I get tired of chicken, then I eat pumpkins and so on. After all these years I have decided to build me a new house, I want my new house to be huge. I want to add a balcony that has glass windows that overlooks the ocean so that I can see the sunset. I also want to build a room to place my chests.

I will need to collect tons of wood for this, I will also need to have tons of coal to cook the sand and make it into glass-blocks. I have plenty of sand already; I do live in an island after all. I will collect all the necessary materials in the morning, for now I’m going right to sleep.

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Chapter Two: The Tunnel

I woke up today with sunlight coming through my window, it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful sunny day. Today I will be going to the local mountain to mine some iron ore. I will be using it to craft myself some sturdy iron pick-axes. To build my new house I will need to have at least a thousand cobblestone blocks.

Also I need to get that coal to cook up that glass, I’m so excited about this new house! The walk over there shouldn’t take long, it’s only a couple of minutes away. I finally arrived at the cave entrance below the mountain, even though it’s dark I know it’s safe, I’ve never been attacked here—never. Since I’ve been mining here for over thirty years, I have made huge caves below the mountain, I’ve made many of them.

There are tunnels all over the place, last time I counted over a hundred of them! Since I’ve been coming here for years I have already memorized and mapped most of the tunnels. I know which ones have the most iron and I know the ones that are duds. I even have a tunnel here that is a couple of miles long, it’s so deep underground that it’s under the sea. This is the tunnel that I will be mining today, the tunnels entrance is just north from the mountain cave, I even have it marked! A while ago I learned a cool trick that allows me to build signs using some sticks and some wooden planks.

Ever since then I’ve been making and placing thousands of them in the tunnels, they allow me to travel inside without having to worry about getting lost. Well, I guess it’s time to get to work. Let me just take out some of my torches and place them on the wall just like this. Having torches all around has many benefits, first: It allows me to see all around. Second: It makes me feel safer.

Even though I know there is no danger in these tunnels, I’m still afraid of the dark, I know it’s dumb, me being afraid of the dark! The third benefit is that the bats hate the light, as soon as I place the torches, the bats fly out of the tunnels by the thousands. I hate bats! They stink and they have a creepy looking face. The walk through the longest tunnel can take a while, that’s why I always run through it. It’s good to run, it keeps me healthy and helps me stop my fear.

Here it is! The end of the tunnel. Right now I’m going to set up all of my stuff on the corner. I will place my crafting table, furnace and I even brought a bed in case I decided to sleep here. Okay, to begin, I am going to start breaking away the blocks and make the tunnel longer. I don’t know, maybe one day I’ll dig it out long enough to get to a different land! That would be cool! I’ve never found anything special, I found some blue looking rocks and they are sitting in my chests, I have hundreds of them! I don’t even know what they are for.

I have been digging this tunnel for a couple of hours, I have found tons of coal already. I also have tons of cobblestone already I have about twenty stacks of them. I also found about ten of those useless blue rocks, for now I’ll just throw them to the side.

While I was digging through the tunnel I stumbled across this super secret looking room, it’s so big you could fit a whole mountain in it. I’ve never seen anything like this, I’m pretty sure something or someone built it. Upon further inspection I have found a couple of stones with some weird language written on them. One of the stones has a creepy looking face. Now I’m sure someone built this! These stones couldn’t have just formed like this naturally! So I’m really not alone in this place! Maybe, just maybe if I find who ever carved these out I could finally get off this island!

The stones look pretty cool too! I’m going to break these up and take them home! They are going to look super awesome as decorations for my front yard. Okay let me pick up my iron pick-axe and begin chopping down these blocks. As soon as I broke the first stone I heard a super loud noise, it sounded kind of like, “SSSSSSS,” I guess you can compare it to the sound a snake makes! Whoa! I felt the ground below beginning to shake! Maybe it has something to do with me breaking these stones with the faces on them. The cobblestone floor began collapsing down revealing a huge pool of lava! I decided to grab the special stone and ran out of there as fast as I could. That was really scary; I’ve never had anything like that happen to me, ever! Well, at least I got a cool stone out of this trip. I picked up all of my stuff and ran back home.

 

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Chapter Three: Home Sweet Home

I finally arrived home by nighttime. It feels so good to finally be home. I’m just going to put all my stuff away in the chests and begin cooking up the glass-blocks. I’m too excited to go to sleep right now, so I’m probably going to begin digging out a huge square around the land to set the cobblestone foundation for my new house. Since this is one of the main islands that don’t flood I will not be building my house above the ground. It’s going to be a huge house; I already have the plans written up on my wall over there. The foundation will be at least thirty by thirty blocks.

Okay now that I’ve finished digging out the square I will begin to set the foundation. Just for fun I will set my special stone that I found where the entrance to my house will be. Let me just dig it out of my inventory. There! Hmmmm, it looks awesome. It looks kinda creepy, that face will probably give me nightmares. Okay, now I will begin to set the wooden beams to build my huge deck. I am going to check my furnace in my old house to see if the glass-blocks are done cooking up. Yup, they are done!

Boom! What? What was that? It sounded like a huge explosion! I went back to the new house and saw that the beams for my deck have been blown up! What’s going on? How did it get blown up! All that work for nothing! This is the first time I’ve seen something like this. I’m beginning to think I’m not alone anymore. Let me just rebuild it, it’s no big deal.

As I began setting the blocks once again for the foundation I began getting the feeling that someone or something is watching me. I ignored it for a while but the feeling was just getting stronger. I heard a noise near some palm trees close to my house so I decided to go check it out. I walked down there and looked around, nothing, it’s nothing.

I turned back around to walk to my house and then I heard the same sound I heard when I was at the tunnel, “SSSSSSS,” It was coming from behind the trees! I peeked my head once again and there was a creature looking straight into my eyes. As soon as he saw me he began to light up and shaking like if he was going to blow up! BOOOOM! He blew up taking down a couple of trees around him. The explosion managed to hurt me too!

It took away about eighty percent of my health bar. I ran to my old home, shut the door and stayed there for the rest of the night. I tried to go to sleep but I couldn’t! I just kept imagining that creepy face just staring at me. Now I’m really scared to go out there, I keep thinking that creepy thing is going to be out there waiting for me!

I’m never going out there again! I have enough fish here to keep me fed for months, but what will happen when I run out of food! I am going to have to go out there eventually! Hmmm, let me think for a while. I know! I am going to build some armor! I have enough supplies here to build anything I could imagine! There was never a need to have armor before, but now what I’ve seen what’s out there I am going to have to be more careful. I am going to craft some iron armor and sword. I’ve never swung a sword before, so I’m going to have to practice before I go out there and face those creepy things.

Alright, now that I’ve finally crafted myself some armor and sword, I am going to stack three wooden planks and use that to practice my sword swinging skills. Alright, let me just lift up my sword using only my right arm. Wow, this is pretty heavy. I practiced hitting the wooden blocks for the whole day and I was finally ready to get some sleep.

 

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Chapter Four: A New Day

Alright, now that I kind of know how to use this sword, I now feel kind of better about going outside and facing those creepy things. Let me just open this door. As soon as I opened the door I saw that there was a huge boat approaching the shore, I squinted my eyes to see how many people there was, but all I could see was one man standing in the front of the ship. I lifted up my hand and began waving it so the man could see me.

I think he spotted me because he turned the boat around and began paddling towards my direction. When he finally got to shore I ran up to him to greet him. He greeted me with a bow pointing towards my face. “Hold it right there!” He yelled, I put my sword on the ground. “Now, put your hands behind your head!” I obliged and put my hands behind my head right away, “Please don’t hurt me!” I cried out.

“Who are you?” Said the man. “My name is Chris, please don’t hurt me I’m a good guy!” He loosened up and put his bow down. “Sorry for pointing the bow at you, I just heard that the people on these islands can be really aggressive. My name is John, I am a villager from a far away land,” He lifted his hand to give me a hand shake.

“You mean there are other lands?” I said with a tone of confusion. John put his bow away and said, “Yes, but they are far-far away, it took me about two months by boat to get here.” I picked up my sword and put it in my inventory, “Come on let’s go inside my house, you must be hungry. “Yes, Starving.” He walked behind me and into my house. Once we were inside I offered him a seat and I went to go get some fish from the food chest. I sat down in the table with him and handed him a couple of fish.

John: “It’s a nice little place you have here.”

Chris: “Yeah, it’s kinda small, I’m building a bigger house just around the corner from here.”

John: “Why do you look kind of nervous?”

Chris: “Sorry, I just haven’t seen anyone in over thirty years.”

John: “Thirty years! What?! That’s crazy.”

Chris: “Yep I’ve searched this island for people for a long time and I’ve never had any luck. This island is empty; at least I thought it was.”

John: “What do you mean?”

Chris: “Well, the other day I was mining in one of my tunnels and I found some man-made stones in a large room, I even brought one of the stones with me.”

John: “Where is the stone now?”

Chris: “I placed it in front of the new house that I’m building; do you want to see it?”

John: “sure let’s go see it.”

Chris: “Come this way.” I walk out of the house and begin walking towards the new house. “You see that stone over there? I point to the stone.

John: “Yeah I see it.” We both walk over to it.

Chris: “It has some kind of weird ancient writing, do you know what it says?”

John: “Actually, yeah I do. It says, ‘who ever awakens the king monster will suffer his wrath,’ whoa! That sounds pretty creepy”

Chris: “I think I woke that monster up. I saw a thing yesterday that looks just like the carving on this rock. It almost blew me up.”

John: “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Chris: “You mean you don’t have monsters in your land like this?”

John: “Yeah we have some that look like skeletons, but since we leave them alone they leave us alone too. So are you saying this monster attacked unprovoked?”

Chris: “Yeah I was just out there minding my own business and this thing tried to blow me up. We should head home, it’s getting dark out here. I am going to build you a room, you can stay with me as long as you want.”

John: “thank you.”

We both walked back to my old home. Once we were there I offered him more food and I sat down on the table to chat with him some more.

Chris: “So why did you take such a long trip over here?”

John: “Actually, I didn’t, I was on my way to a nearby island when I dropped my compass in the water, I was lost for months at sea and I ended up here.”

Chris: “Why were you going to that island?”

John: “Well, the land I’m living on is almost out of iron ore. It has almost all been mined. We need it to build swords and armor.”

Chris: “Why do you need weapons if you don’t get attacked?”

John: Well, I forgot to mention that our town gets attacked by a dragon that comes from another world. We desperately need iron to protect ourselves from it.”

Chris: “A dragon from another world?”

John: “Yes, It’s actually from another dimension called ‘The End.’ Years ago there was a villager who discovered a portal inside the local mines. Apparently he thought it was a good idea to go inside. When he was inside the dragon followed him back into our world, now he is living here and he likes to destroy anything in his path.”

Chris: “Well, the mines here have an abundance of iron ore; you are welcome to mine it.”

John: “thank you so much! Will you come with me?”

Chris: “Sure I’ll come with you; I could show you around the mines.”

John: “That would be awesome!”

Chris: “Well, we should probably get some sleep so we can be rested for the morning.”

John: “I would like that, I haven’t slept on a bed in months.”

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Chapter Five: The Search

I woke up today with the sound of heavy rain falling on the roof of my home. I went to check on John but it looks like he’s still asleep. He’s sleeping like a log, not a care in the world. I decided to go to the kitchen and cook a nice healthy breakfast.

I felt like having a nice roasted chicken breakfast. I took out the juiciest chicken I could find in the food chest and place it on the furnace. Then I went to wake John up, “Hey John,” I said as I poked him on the shoulder. He opened his eyes slowly and he stood up as fast as he could.

John: “I can’t wait to go mining!” Was the first thing out of his mouth.

Chris: “You must really like mining.”

John: “Yeah, well back where I’m from, mining means survival for us. If we don’t mine we won’t have any armor to protect ourselves from the evil dragon.”

Chris: “I’ve cooked up some breakfast for us to eat before we head out to the caves.”

John: “Cool, thanks!”

I put the roast chicken on the table and john cut a huge peace of it leaving me just a small piece. It’s okay I wasn’t that hungry anyways. I finished my piece of chicken and got up to get some supplies from my chest. I got a couple of iron pick-axes, some iron shovels, an iron sword and some armor for both of us.

Chris: “Are you ready to go?”

John: “Yeah, I’m done with breakfast.”

Chris: “Wow! You eat really fast!”

John: “Yeah! More time to mine. Let’s get out of here.”

Chris: “Here, you should take one of these.” I hand him some iron tools.

John: “Thanks, but I have my own tools.” He takes out some weird looking blue tools.

Chris: “Why are your tools blue?”

John: “Ha-ha because they’re made out of diamond. You’ve never seen diamond tools?”

Chris: “Actually, I haven’t. I don’t even know what diamonds look like.”

John: “Well, that’s a first! Ha-ha! These tools are crafted using diamonds, there are way stronger than iron tools, they don’t break easily. I use these to mine for iron ore. I take only one of them and they last for days.” He goes through his inventory and takes out a diamond, “Here, this is what a diamond looks like.” He hands it to me.

Chris: “Oh! These are diamonds! I have hundreds of these!”

John: “You’re lying!”

Chris: “No, really!” I walk over to one of my chests and open it, “Here, take a look.” John walks over and we he sees the chest full of diamonds his jaw drops almost to the ground.

John: “Wooooooooow! You know what this means?! You’re rich!”

Chris: “Really?!”

John: “Yes! If you sell them in my land you could be one of the richest people there!

Chris: “Wow! This is amazing!”

John: “Yes! We should get going to the mines.”

Chris: “Yes, of course.”

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Chapter Six: Mining!

Everything was going fine in the mines, we were both having a great time breaking down the blocks and finding iron ore. After a couple of hours we have managed to collect a bundle of sixty four iron-ore blocks. I set up a furnace on the corner and began cooking the blocks so we can collect the iron ingots from the ore.

John: “This is awesome! This mine has an abundance of iron ore!”

Chris: “Yup, told you so. From here you should be able to collect enough to craft armor for all your people.”

John: “Well for that I will need at least a thousand iron ingots. We only have about one-hundred soldiers guarding the town.”

Chris: “Do you think I could maybe come with you? I’m kind of tired of being alone here on this island.”

John: “Absolutely! You can help us keep the city safe. We are going to have to build you a boat so you can bring all your stuff. I almost forgot the most important tool.”

Chris: “What is it?”

John: “A compass! We need to get some red-stone to craft it.”

Chris: “No worries, I have some of that in my inventory right here.” I take some out and hand it to John.

John: “Thanks! Have you ever crafted a compass before?”

Chris: “No, I haven’t. I don’t even know what that is.”

John: “Well, A compass is a tool that points north all the time. You can use it to navigate the sea. If you don’t have one of these you’ll never find your destination. My land is about a thousand miles West of here, it will take us about three months to get there. To craft a compass all you need four iron ingots and some red-stone.” He walks to the crafting table and crafts the compass. “Here, this is what a compass looks like.” he hands it over to me.

Chris: “Awesome! So with this I can find my house?”

John: “Yep, If you follow the arrow it will lead you straight to your home.”

I remembered that we weren’t safe here in the mines anymore those monsters are out there, so I set up some shelter above ground. I set up four cobblestone beams, added a ladder, climbed to the top and made a small six by six safety shelter.

John: “Why are you building that, I thought these mines were safe?”

Chris: “I know, but that monster attack has me worried. These are the mines were I found that carved stone.”

John: “Really?”

Chris: “Yeah.”

John: “We should go check it out.”

Chris: “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

John: “Come on, it’ll be fun! We have armor and swords anyways.”

Chris: “Well, okay. It’s right this way.” We walked north for a couple of minutes and found the huge room where I found the stones. “Well, here it is.”

John: “Wow! This is beyond awesome! Look at all these statues! Is this the creepy thing that almost blew you up?” He points at a monster statue.

Chris: “Yes, that’s the one.”

John: “Wow! Do you know what these are?” He points to some blocks under the statues.”

Chris: “No, what are they? They look like regular blocks to me, they’re just kind of shiny.”

John: “well, they are shiny because they’re iron blocks! Each one of these blocks contains nine iron ingots! We’ve hit the jackpot!” He runs to the iron blocks and begins chopping them down.

Chris: “Wait! I don’t think breaking those is a good idea!”

John: “Nothing is going to happen, Chris!” He ignores me and continues to chop the iron blocks down.

As soon as the iron block breaks the lights go out in the room. Luckily I managed to bring some torches with me, I rummaged through my inventory and took one out. I placed it on the wall next to me, when it lit up it revealed an army of skeletons. They were all equipped with golden armor and golden swords.

Chris: “John?”

John: “Yeah?”

Chris: “Can you stop chopping away at those blocks and looks over here for a second?”

John: “Sure, but it better be good.” He looks over for a second and sees the skeletons, “Uh-oh!” He immediately equips his diamond sword. “You should do the same Chris!”

I immediately go into my inventory and equip my iron sword. From what I’ve seen so far, it looks like there are about a dozen skeletons. They are all in formation with their swords pointed on the ground. Someone walks to the front from behind the skeletons. It’s another skeleton but this one has diamond armor and sword. He looks at us for a second and says, “You have woken us now suffer our wrath!” The two of the skeletons step out of formation, lift up their swords and begin walking towards us.

I look over to John and give him a nod, he nods back. The skeleton that’s coming towards me takes out an ax and throws it directly at my head, luckily I’m able to block by swinging my sword. I pick the ax up from the floor and chuck it right back to him and I managed to hit him right on the ribs. It looks like he didn’t like that so he ran towards me and took a swing with his sword, he managed to get me pretty good on the stomach. Luckily I’m wearing this iron armor. I recovered from the attack fairly quickly. I stood up and swung my sword low chopping off the skeletons legs. “Did you see that John? Aim right for their legs!” John said, “Okay!” And swung his sword towards the skeletons legs. Now that two of the skeletons were down, the other ones got scared and decided to retreat.

After this happened we pick all our stuff up and ran back home. When we arrived home we packed all our things in the boats.

Chris: “So what’s the place we’re going to called?”

John: “It’s called dragons-death”

Chris: “Wow! That’s such a cool name. So we have everything we need right?”

John: “Yep, we have food, iron and tools, that’s all we need. Tell me something Chris, how do you handle sea sickness?”

Chris: “Uh, not so good.”

John: “Ha-ha thought so! Well we are going to have a ton of that during the next few months. Are you ready?”

Chris: “Yep.”

John: “Well, let’s not waste another minuet, let’s go.”

TO BE CONTINUED….