Mermaid Pirate Dispatch

Everything was dark. I heard my dad’s voice. He sounded dazed. “What happened?” he asked, woozy.

I tried to open my eyes. Slowly I found the right muscles and a flood of sunlight assaulted me. My eyes eventually recovered and I could see my dad standing nearby, rubbing his head and breathing heavily through his nose. He looked around and his eyes got wide. “Where’s your mother?” he asked, panicking.

I looked around but couldn’t see her. Just trees as far as the eye could see. Then we heard her groan and some branches rustled. “I’m up here,” she moaned.

We looked up and saw her standing in one of the trees. It took my brain a moment to realize that there was something wrong. Everything made sense, right? That was my dad’s voice, so it was my dad. But as I looked at him my gut began to churn. Something in my mind said everything was just as it should be, but there was something way off about what I was seeing.

Suddenly it all made sense. His blocky head, the blocky trees, the leaves my mom could stand on… I had probably spent more of my waking hours in this world than I had at school in the last five years. Of course my brain was so willing to accept it.

My fingers twitched trying to activate the menu. Nothing. My hands weren’t on a keyboard and mouse. I looked at them, stubs at the ends of stiff, blocky arms, and I felt lightheaded. I wasn’t playing the game, I was in the game, and my parents were with me!

Then a wave of terror washed over me and I stumbled. “Mom!” I yelled. “You need to get out of that tree, we need to start getting ready for the night, NOW!”

Mom looked up at the sun, which was still rising toward noon. “Bennie, it’s not even noon yet. We’ve got hours before nighttime!”

“No! Mom! You have to listen! The days are faster here. We only have…” I did some fast math. “I don’t know, maybe fifteen minutes before nightfall!”

“So? Why do you sound so worried son?” my father asked.

“Dad, monsters come out at night.” Could they not see that their blocky bodies weren’t right? Did they have any idea they were in a video game?

“Well how do I get down from here?” my mom asked, wandering around the top of the tree.

“You just fall mom, you’ll be fine.”

She looked down at me blankly. “Fall?”

“Yes mom, just step off the edge and let yourself drop to the ground. Trust me.”

“I don’t know son,” dad said. “Looks like a pretty bad fall. She could break a leg or something.”

“Ugh!” I cried. “We’re running out of time!” I turned to my dad. “Go start collecting wood. Punch that tree over there until it breaks.”

My dad scratched his head, or… waved his arm around his head in a motion that looked like head-scratching. “What?”

“Like this!” I said. I walked to the tree mom was in and started breaking the block at eye level. Soon, it popped free and I collected it. “See?” I asked, turning to my dad.

He stared, shocked. “How is that tree just… floating there?”

“Dad! Focus! We really are running out of time! If we’re going to survive this first night we have a lot to do!”

I collected the rest of the wood blocks from the tree my mom stood on until the leaves began disappearing. I helped the process along by breaking some of the leaf blocks from the ground. Soon the block under her gave way and she dropped safely to the ground without even taking a half heart of damage.

She looked a bit stunned, but eventually just said, “Oh, just like you said. Drop from the tree.”

“That’s right mom. You guys are going to have to listen to me if we have any hopes for surviving, got it?”

She nodded. I looked to my dad. He had collected one block of wood and was staring at the floating tree. “Dad!” I called. “You got that? You’re going to have to trust me and do exactly as I say!”

He nodded slowly.

“Good!” I said. “Then keep collecting wood. We’re going to need a lot of it.”

“What about me?” mom asked.

“Do you think you can wander around a little without getting lost?” I asked.

“I uh… I think so.”

“Good, I need you to look for some sheep. If you find some, come get me and show me where they are.”

I chopped down another couple trees and got to work. I made a crafting bench and a wooden pickaxe. I went to a nearby hill and dug straight in until I hit stone. Once I had a few blocks of cobblestone I made a stone pickaxe. I got enough stone for a furnace and I started making charcoal.

By the time my mom returned I had a decent little space hollowed out of the hill with room for beds, but we needed wool.

“Did you find any sheep?” I asked eagerly.

“I… think so?” she said, unsure.

“Show me!” I urged, checking the sun’s position. Five minutes, I estimated.

She led me along a winding path through the trees until we reached a flower-filled meadow. Indeed, at the edge of the meadow there was a small flock of sheep. Hoping for the best, I pulled out my stone sword and slaughtered them, my mom gasping as each one fell, beating pathetically as it died. I counted the wool blocks. Just enough for our three beds.

We raced to the makeshift shelter and I quickly built the beds, placing them along the walls of our starter home.

I was just in time. I hurried my parents through the door and closed it just as the first hostile mobs were spawning in the distance. “Quick!” I said, “Get in the beds!”

As I watched the world fade to black my mind was filled with thoughts. We might actually survive this. But I was gripped with the horrifying reality that we might never make it out of this alive. How long would we need to survive in order to leave? My best guess was that we’d have to defeat the end dragon. Accomplishing that with these… well, they didn’t know what they were doing. Surely they’d die. But… Not if I prepared them first.

Training starts tomorrow, I thought to myself.

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