DAY EIGHT : PART ONE: In which Matheson makes himself a girlfriend.

When he awoke, it wasn’t even day yet, though the sun wasn’t far off.

He yawned, almost went outside, and then remembered that he was in some kind of haunted, purgatorial hell, sighed and fried up a quick breakfast.

He’d gotten over yesterdays depressive funk, though, and as he thought about all that he’d found yesterday he started to get really excited.

His first thought was simply to march back downstairs and mine all day…but honestly, that bored him. He knew he’d found a good spot, he was sure he’d find other things. For now, he just wanted to relax and enjoy the day.

I’ll go for a nice little walk, he thought. Today will be easy, simple, safe, and fun. Absolutely nothing bad will happen.

He made himself a little picnic, gathered some torches and some wood, and, after some deliberation, and with a heavy heart, grabbed three of his diamonds.

I’m sorry, he thought. You’re beautiful, all of you. Really you are. But I’m going to need to string you together and bash you into things repeatedly, until you break.

He fashioned the diamond pickaxe without even looking, like he was doing something horrible, perhaps performing exploratory surgery on a pet hamster without a medical license or an animal-appropriate anesthetic.

But when it all came together, when he held it in his hands, felt the weight and ease with which it moved through the air, he was in love. It was the single most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He wept as he cradled it, like it was his newborn baby and he’d just squatted over a bucket and given birth, after being knocked up in the porta-porty outside a hardware store in the dead of night, somewhere in rural America, in a town where the dream of two cars in every garage had somehow mutated into five cars on every lawn, none of which should work.

Bethany, he said. I shall call you Bethany. Bethany Valentine Clement. We shall go everywhere together. You will be my right hand, and I, your arm, with which you will be connected to my body. I will never lose you, and should someone take you from me, I shall attack them mercilessly, and beat them into so bloody a pulp they’ll have to get a blood transfusion with concentrated orange juice.

He kissed her, nicely first, and then with increasing passion, his tongue working its way around the handle.

“Ow!” He said, drawing back sharply. “You cut me! You naughty, naughty girl. Bad Bethany, bad.” He feigned a scowl, but started laughing, even as the blood dripped down his face.

“I can’t stay mad at you!.”

If the walls had eyes, they would be staring at him with horror, but they didn’t, and so he gathered up his things, left behind what he wouldn’t need, and set off.

DAY SEVEN : All that glitters, and so on.

Matheson decided he was going to give this mining thing one last, really good go. Yeah, he’d found iron, but that had taken days, and though it was shiny, it didn’t seem to be that great an improvement over his caveman-style stone tools.

But he wasn’t about to admit defeat. With the full weight of his stubbornness brought to bear, he pushed on, placing stairs as he went to save time and to make sure he was digging things spaced out as much as he ought to.

A few times, he thought he saw a strange glow in the seams between the rocks, but whenever he pursued them, they lead to nothing, so after a while he stopping caring.

Down and down and down he dug, stopping once to gnaw on a raw pork chop (for old times’ sake) and then continuing.

He was just about to call it day, when glitters of green light shot from the rock before him. He rubbed his eyes, thinking it was a trick- but no, this was real.

He fell to his knees. DIAMONDS!

Tons of diamonds! The rock was literally bursting with the diamonds. Cautiously, he pried a few of them off, and held the glittering objects in his hands.

I was right all along, he thought. What luck! He looked back up his impossibly long staircase. He couldn’t even make out the basement of his house from this depth. To think, he’d been on a straight course for diamonds all this time!

He pocketed them carefully, after cradling them for a few minutes and talking to them in an embarrassingly affectionate tone.

He pulled a full six diamonds from the stone, and had hardly put the last one down when he noticed another faint glow below him- this one red, and sinister.

He got down on his hands and inspected it. It was a red…diamond? No. It was just a stone. But it glowed with the oddest kind of energy. He tried to pry it off, but it was wedged fast, and it took several good whacks before he had one in his hands.

He had no idea what it was. It was heavy, and smelt oily and thick, like the smokestack of a train, or a well greased engine. He gathered all of it that he could, with some difficulty, and then set to work clearing the area out, fatigue replaced by excitement and elation.

He found countless things in those depths, further deposits of iron, tons of that curious red stone, and a heavy, unmovable layer of rock that, try as he might, he could simply not get past. It had a certain etched, worn quality to it, though, that made him think lava had perhaps coursed over it a great many years ago, and he wasn't sure if it was just the sleep deprivation, but it definitely felt warm. He’d leave it alone for now.

He turned to go back, but stopped, and decided to give the wall one good hit before he left, just to see if anything turned up.

He struck the wall, and golden light filled the chamber, dazzling his eyes.

Gold!

Picture merely for illustrative purposes.

Greedily and hungrily he set to work, striking this way and that, uncovering a thick seam of gold that ran for almost ten feet. He didn’t even stop to harvest it, instead sending the chucks flying around him in a brilliant shower.

When at last the floor was littered with the last chunks, he lay on the floor and did a snow angel in the golden flakes, laughing deliriously, visions of mansions and wealth and supermodels making him fruit smoothies in deliciously form-fitting business pantsuits.

Slowly, the dream turned to ashes in his mouth. With no one to sell the gold to, with no one anywhere at all, in fact, the gold meant absolutely nothing. The diamonds too! He could gather all the wealth of the world here, in this cave, but it was all meaningless.

He sighed, gathered up the gold, and started the long trek back to the surface.

It was the garden that drew the bulk of his dejected fury when he returned. The plants just were not growing at all, and he couldn’t tolerate so obvious and constant a reminder of his folly.

 He waded in, pulling plants out left and right, throwing them on the fire, trampling them to little pieces. He didn’t even let the dirt off easy, shoveling it up and out, and replacing it with smooth stone.

When it was done, there was not a sign nor trace that there’d ever even been a garden there, and thus satisfied, he slunk down in the corner, and dozed fitfully, his dreams invaded by skeletal hands snatching him from his boat every time he neared the land.

To the next post, in which Matheson makes himself a girlfriend 

DAY SIX (Night) : Remove the head, destroy the brain.

His outdoor plants had grown admirably, which was nice. His indoor plants..not so much. I’ll give them a bit longer, he thought. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll wake up and they’ll all be touching the ceiling.

He peered down into his mine, which seemed to stretch down into infinity. I’ve probably gone exactly the worst way, he thought. He had visions of his tunnel just missing everything important and interesting thing on the way down, probably beelining for some nest of spiders that would swarm up and paralyze him before he could get away, feeding on him in a gangbang of horror that would last for weeks until mercifuclly, he would run out of blood.

He debated taking his mine in a new direction, but he was a completitionist, and having started going this way, he figured he’d damn well go until he couldn’t go anymore.

But he’d hardly been mining for ten minutes when he came across the tell-tale silvery shimmer of something special. He execavated it, and pried it from the rock. Iron!

A flurry of digging resumed and by the end he’d gotten himself a nice little haul, six or seven little ores in his hand. He bounced up the stairs, whistling, carefree, and tried to think about what, exactly, he was going to do with this stuff.

I really out to make some armor, he thought. Something to keep a creeper from blowing me to bits, or stop an arrow embedding itself in my stomach. Something that could let him go out and night and make the creatures fear him, and not the other way around.

But he listened to a few seconds to the noises around his house, the moaning and scratching and veiled hisses. he didn’t really want to go out. It wasn’t worth it. Nope, he was perfectly content to stay here and play around in his little stone sandbox.

Instead, he made himself some shiny new tools, had some dinner, and went straight back down and kept digging.

Hours later and he stumbled back up. He hadn’t found shit, just a lump of coal here and there and some flint in the gravel pit he’d carefully stumbled through.

It was near sun up, and figuring it was probably safe, he popped outside and boldly strode around the corner to get a look at his plants. Two were done!

With a whoop he raced forward, and cut them down, greedily picking through them to see what they’d give him. From one he got a bushel of wheat, and from the other…more seeds.

Yay.

Well, that was disappointing. Even as he stood there, he watched a sheep come bounding down the hill, and as if he wasn’t there, it started jumping up and down on the plants, killing them.

He watched it for a while, in disbelief, then looked over his wheat bushel. Man, how much work do I gotta do to make you grow? He’d have to put in a proper garden somewhere, with high walls…maybe one down by the water. Maybe he could irrigate it somehow? He wasn’t sure, but he’d figure it in the morning. He gave the sheep a hard knock on the face, driving it away, and forcing it’s wool to explode off of it, leaving it tantalizingly naked. He stared at it, mouth agape, and then turned right around and headed inside.

He almost made it, when freakishly strong, clawed hands dug into his shoulder, breaking the skin. He yelped and twisted around, freeing himself and jumping back.

There was a man here, attacking him! Matheson backed away, hands up entreatingly, as the man let out a low, horrible moan that he recognized all too well.

“ Look, I don’t want to fight!’ He said. “I’ve heard you out here, what do you want? What are you doing?”

The man stopped, and raised his hand, pointing at Matheson. A cloud moved, and moonlight illuminated him for the first time. His flesh was green and sunken, covered with wounds and lesions that should have been bleeding, but long since dried out. His clothes were filthy, when they weren't ripped to shreds, and his fingernails had grown long and sharp, caked with much. That wounds probably infected, he thought, glancing at his shoulder.

‘Brrraaaaaaaainsssssss.” Said the creature, and then resumed shuffling toward him, arms forward, grasping.

You've obviously got no depth perception, Matheson thought, I’m like ten feet away.

But it didn’t matter, the creature still advancing and groping at the air like it’d get him any moment.

Matheson drew his new iron sword, feeling a surge of pride as the blade glinted in the moonlight, and then lunged and drove it straight into the creatures chest.

If the zombie felt it, it didn’t make a noise or stop, or do anything, just kept reaching for him and stumbling forward. He tried to draw the sword out, but it was stuck fast in the zombie’s rotted guts, and he had to abandon it for a few seconds lest he let the thing get a hold of him again.

The zombie stopped, and without taking his eyes off of Matheson’s, reached down, grabbed the sword, and yanked it out. Think green fluids and chunks of organs leaked out of the hole, forming a pile on the ground at the zombies feet.

The zombie raised the sword up, like it was going to advance on Matheson and try and cut him down. Great, he thought, I’m going to get killed by my own sword. But the zombie, after pausing for a second, simply threw the sword to the side and resumed slowly walking forward, arms outstretched.

You’re not so bad at all. This is like keeping a candy bar from a sleepwalking binge-eater. He let the zombie come to him for a bit, then dodged sideways, retrieved his sword, and readied it calmly.

First he sliced off it’s hands, which didn’t phase the zombie one bit. Then he got the left leg, which flew to the side, leaking entrails and filling the air the a sickly, egg-salad like stench. Yet, it continued to hop after him.

H figured this had gone on long enough, and with a roll of his eyes sliced off it’s head, which rolled to the ground and glared at him, jaw working overtime as it tried to move along the ground by opening it’s mouth really fast.

Matheson took a few steps back. The zombie was still coming for him, in pieces, really ineffectually, and the motions were kind of funny (in a pitiful way) but it was also kind of unsettling. What, do I have to burn you, too?

But as he watched, one by one the pieces stopped moving, and turned a dark grey colour, even unhealthier looking then they’d looked before. Then, they poofed out of existence. The head was the last to go, not giving up it’s absurd quest until the last, attempt to growl at Matheson, though it’s lack of vocal chords could only manage a pitiful, painful hiss.

When it vanished, he looked around to make sure nothing else was coming for him, and went inside, in high spirits, but a little shaken.

Continue to the next post.

DAY SIX : In which Matheson leaves behind a bloody trail of bloody pig guts all over the bloody place

Matheson peered down at the beach. He actually really didn’t feel like going anywhere, come to think of it.

Part of him wanted to go mine, part of him wanted to sit and admire the sunrise, and part of wanted to him wanted to crawl into a tiny hole and sob for hours, cradling himself until he drowned in his own salty, bitter tears.

But there were pigs down there. In fact, everywhere Matheson looked, there was a pig; Eating grass, defecating, jumping up and down like a lottery winner with Parkinson’s getting tazered in a bouncy house.

He almost just went back inside and let them live. He didn’t want to even think about eating pork chops anymore, much less taste or smell one.

But then he realized that yeah, this was a really good opportunity, and he should take advantage of it, and blah blah blah, so he gripped his axe and walked from pig to pig, crushing and splitting their skulls with grim efficiency and pocketing whatever parts of them survived the mysterious whisking away that happened after death.

He’d never really thought of it before, as he watched corpse after corpse poof away, but could whatever brought him back to life, and placed him on the beach, be doing the same for these pigs? And everything that he killed, actually. They all vanished in the same way, the skeletons, the spiders, those few creepers he managed to kill before they exploded, these pigs, and probably he himself, too. Did they all just come back to life on the beach, same as before? Was he killing the same things over and over and over again?

He peered up at the sky. The sun was high above him, sending rays of light down through the clouds. What animated this place? What spirit had brought him here, watched over him, and why?

He went back to killing. Perhaps I should make a temple, he thought, as blood sprayed into the air, staining the soil, and nearby trees, and his clothes. I should make a giant monument. I could make a great altar out of bone, and perform blood sacrifices. Like the Aztecs! They knew what was up. Those guys were crazy, but they had their shit together.

He’d killed countless pigs so far, but every time he looked off in the distance, he saw more, and just kept following the trail. His cabin was far behind, but he didn’t care, lost in the mindless letting of blood and spiritual contemplation.

The ocean went on forever this way. There were a great many islands far off, and at some point the beach seemed to bizzarely and illogically gives way to a desert that stretched on into infinity.

There didn’t seem to be much out there, so he figured it was probably as good a time as any to go back. His pockets were bulging with pounds and pounds of pig meat, the juices staining his pants and dripping down to the ground with every step he took. He was momentarily disoriented, but had only to follow the bloodstained footsteps on the ground, and he was able to find his way home.

There was a heaviness in him, as he climbed the hill back up to his cabin, just as the sun climbed down out of the sky. He wasn’t sure what the weight was, but he figured maybe, just maybe, it was his soul.

Porkchops all the way down.

Continue to the next post.

DAY FIVE : Mining Alllll Night Loonnnnng

Lives left : One.

He stumbled home just before dark, fried himself up a pork chop, and woofed it down before he even realized what he was doing.

I really need to get some other kind of food going here, he thought. He couldn’t see himself, but he bet a week of nothing but sand, blood, and pork hadn’t exactly been great for his complexion.

He snuck a peek at his garden, was again disappointed by the lack of change. They were growing, for sure, but definitely not at the rate which he’d hoped. He figured he should probably water them, and spent a little while trying to fashion some kind of bucket, but it just didn’t work.

He threw his tools down dejectedly and looked around. He’d walked and run and stabbed things all day, but he was still feeling restless. He couldn’t go outside…but maybe he could do something productive in here?

He started sizing up the walls of his basement, thinking about possible projects. I ought to start mining, he thought. I’ve seen strange stones in some of those caves, I’ve found coal just digging around in here…I bet if I start going at it, something good will happen.

He whipped together some pickaxes, chose a wall, and started digging down.

I'll just dig until I can't dig anymore.

Down and down he went, stone flying this way and that. He must have gone down twenty feet, in a jagged line, but encountered nothing.

Aw shit, he thought, as he started hitting dirt. This was going nowhere...but once started, he couldn't stop.

He was so frustrated he stopped putting torches down, digging in the dark and going purely by sound. This seemed like a good idea, until he struck the stone above him, and started to hear a rumbling sound. He dove back, as a mass of gravel covered the space he’d been standing in not seconds before.

He coughed as the dust filled his lungs. That was close! No more of that. He bet not even the mysterious beach-entity could save him from that.

He cleared away the rubble, and kept going for a few minutes, but he was so paranoid of cave-ins now, he’d really lost the fire for it.

That’s enough of that for today, he thought, and he gathered his tools and scrambled back up with some difficulty. I’ll have to put in some proper stairs, especially if I go much farther. I’ll get hungry at the bottom here, and die of starvation before I reach the top.

At last he stumbled back into his house, and collapsed on the floor. He was shocked to see it was still night, and for a second wondered if he had dug all through the day; but then tell-tale rays of purple and blue began to show through, and he knew the sun was just rising.

Some good timing, he thought. He still had some time before it was safe to go out…why not put the stairs in now? He should be worn out, he knew, but actually, with a few minutes to catch his breath, he didn’t feel tired at all. Must be some strange effect of this world…he didn’t even feel the need to sleep!

Or maybe it was just the insanity, setting in.

His strangely limitless pockets were bursting with heaping mountains of stone from all his digging, and he fashioned them into crude slabs for a stairway, and then headed over to the mine to make the whole thing a little more user friendly.

But, blast it! He’d made it too small, and the stairs wouldn’t fit unless he hunched over. Not exactly the most comforting prospect. He gritted his teeth and grabbed his pickaxe. At least the hard work was over, now all he had to do was knock out a bit of the ceiling, place the stairs, and he'd be ready to go.

Away he went, knocking out this part here, and smoothing out this part there, making it all symmetrical and even like a coke head with OCD. He’d gone through like a wild man before, but now he was picking and choosing his targets, and he had to admit, it was kind of meditative and peaceful. He felt downright zen, at one with the world.

He knocked out a stone above him and got ready to place the stairs down, when he heard that familiar rumble.

He didn’t even have time to move, he barely even had time to raise his hands to protect him when BAM, a huge weight crushed him to the floor. Gravel filled his lungs, he couldn’t breathe, and he squirmed and wriggled and then somehow, someway he was free. He fell facefirst, hitting his head on the stone and giving himself an instant headache.

He slowly sat up and looked around – HE WAS TRAPPED. Panic gripped him for a few seconds, but then passed when he remembered how easy it was to dig things out in the world. Seriously, was this stone made of cardboard, or what? He shoveled the gravel away, and in a few minutes everything was back to normal, except of course, for the gaping dark hole above him. He peered up into for a while. He didn’t think anything else was up there, but he wasn’t sure, so he walled it in.

No use leaving anything to chance.

He finished the stairs, extremely cautiously, and then headed back to the surface, chiding himself for almost getting buried alive twice in the space of ten minutes.

He looked at his garden as he mounted the top step. The plants had hardly changed. In fact, they seem to have almost gotten worse.

As Matheson looked at them, and the army of torches surrounding them, he flared up with rage. He knocked the torches down, burning himself a few times in the process and accidently flinging one on the garden, which lit up a few of the plants in seconds.

It’s too dry down here, he thought. Ugh. He really had been hoping that would work. All he had left was one pork chop, which he fried up and ate mechanically, the several day old, gamey taste, bringing him only the very basic satisfaction.

Slowly, he became aware of a very strange noise outside. A kind of constant, unending, random tapping. His brow furrowed and he strode up into the main floor.

“What now?”

But as he looked out the door, he realized it was just rain. Rain! He threw open the door and ran outside, staring straight up to the heavens. It was raining all over, a thick, heavy, beautiful rain. He hadn’t even realized that he’d missed it so much, but he had.

He let it wash over for a while and looked around. There were some scuff marks and overturned rocks, here and there a little puddle of something or other, but the monsters were behaving themselves. Perhaps they’d given up?

He thought back to his garden inside. Should he bring those plants up, make a garden up here? Not a bad idea, he thought, but then his mind flashed angrily. No, let them starve, if they won’t grow for me, they don’t grow at all. I’ve got enough seeds, I’ll just plant a new one.

And so he did, hoeing out a nice section right behind his house and planting out ten of fifteen feet of dirt.

“Maybe you’ll perform a little better,” he said, and patted the dirt reassuringly.

The rain stopped almost immediately, as if to spite him. He stared straight up for several seconds, uncomprehending. Maybe he was tired? Or going crazy? Once second it had been there, and then it was gone?

Ah well. Seemed as good a time as any to go exploring.

Continue to the next post.

DAY FIVE : The birth of a nemesis.

Start from the beginning.

Matheson awoke at the crack of dawn, on what he figured was his fifth day, or possibly sixth. He wasn’t really sure, things had gotten crazy for a while there, but now he felt confident and in control. Things were going to be different from here on out.

He gave a quick look at his plants as he prepared to head outside. They had grown in the night, but only a little. The ones closest to the torches had definitely sprouted up, but all in all they had hardly improved at all.

Well that sucks, he thought. He was almost out of food, and had really hoped these things would just take off.

“If its torches you want, it’s torches you get!” He shouted, temper flaring, pausing for a minute at how strange it was to hear his voice.

A little carbon dioxide never hurt anyone.

He covered the basement with torches, the smoke so think by the time he was done that he was worried he might pass out from the fumes. He’d see what had happened by the time he got back, but he was feeling impatient, he wanted these little bastards to grow grow grow as fast he could make them.

The house had weathered the night well, he was glad to find. There were a few rather creepy and ominous scratch marks here and there, and an arrow lodged in the door out of protest, but all in all things were fine. He started whistling a happy tune and set out.

Initially, he intended to stay well within range of his little hovel, should trouble arise, but his curiosity continually got the better of him, and he strayed this way and that.

His house was on the side of a massive hill, one of about three or four such cliff-dotted, geologically impossible mini-mountians that ringed the little valley.

He made his way down to the center, and immediately regretted it. Several times he almost stumbled into massive pits that came from nowhere. It felt like this whole area was built haphazardly over the remains of some great hole in the earth.

He came across several caves, some massive and seemingly endless, some narrow, twisted, and claustrophobic.

Bones littering the entrance is a good sign, right?

He wanted to explore them, but they had certain cold, ominous air that kept him cautious. Not to mention, he thought it was quite likely the monsters took shelter under the earth at night, and the last thing he wanted to do was wander into a nest of giant spiders without a better sword and a few hundred torches...and maybe a portable nuclear device.

Here and there he mined some coal that had been thrust up out of the earth. He gathered some seeds, killed a few chickens and took their useless feathers with sullen resentment, but mostly just marveled at the scenery. Far off in the distance he saw snow-capped mountains, rolling deserts, and mysterious islands, covered in massive redwoods.

But mostly this.

He’d taken it for granted that he was on an island, and though it seemed the ocean was everywhere he looked, he wasn’t so sure. Was this an island chain? Some sort of archipelago? Some kind of inhumane, godless mess of giant lakes, like Michigan?

He couldn't tell, and going out at night was such a terrifying prospect that he wasn’t sure if he’d ever really figure it out. Maybe one day, he could make a string of forts dotting the land, letting him range around at will, and retire to safety at night? He briefly envisioned himself as a roman legionary, building a great highway, fighting off Gallic barbarians, coming home to the love of beautiful Italian women who would bathe him and feed him grapes and stuffed SPIDER!

The spider lunged at him from its ambush spot a little above, but misjudged the distance and sailed over head.
“Oh, come on! It’s not even night yet!” He yelled, shaken from his daydream, but the possibility of being trussed up and served as leftovers drove him to quick action, and he had his sword out before the spider had even managed to properly turn around.

He wasn’t feeling particularly generous, and with a slice here and a slice there, he went ahead and severed several of the spider’s limbs.

“This’ll make you think twice before you run around when you’re not supposed to,” he said. He moved to cut off a few more, but the spider lunged at him, mouth gaping, fangs snapping, and it almost managed to sink it's fangs into his hand. This one was feisty! Matheson shrieked and drew back, slicing off one of the creatures fangs as he did so. Black blood shot out like a fountain.

It screamed a hideous scream, rearing up on what blood-soaked legs it had left, and Matheson heard other spiders take up the call in the distance. The spider and Matheson circled each other for a few seconds, like boxers, waiting for the right opening...but he began to hear the screams and yells of other spiders gathering around him, and saw their dark black shapes in the distance, coming closer.

“You win this round,” he said, and sprinted off. The spider tried to give chase, but with only four legs it couldn’t do much more then hobble.

We’ll meet again, flesh bag, it thought. We’ll meet again.

Matheson ran for ages, trying to put as much distance between himself and the spiders as he could. They kept calling to each other for some time, but the sounds were far off, and after a while, they stopped.

He stopped to catch his breath, and somewhat sheepishly realized he had no idea where he was. He’d been out for quite a while, and well the sun was still up in the sky, he knew it wouldn’t be for long, and when it wanted to go down, it would do so very fast.

There were so many god dam tree’s it was impossible to get a good view. He hated them.

“I’m going to make a chainsaw one day, and cut down the whole lot of you.”

He gave the tree’s a mean look, but felt stupid and so just left.

Movement up ahead- he threw himself against a tree for cover and peaked around.

MOOOOOO.

A cow! He watched it for a few seconds. There were a few, actually, milling around.

Some beef would be nice. And Milk! And Cheese! And Cake! And Ice cream! Man, he thought, moving out of cover and walking up to them, if I can get me a few cows, there’ll be no end to the food I can make.

When he’d gotten kind of close to the cows, however, they all turned to face him at exactly the same time, and and just stood there, unblinking.

Matheson stopped too. He looked from one cow, to the next, all their eyes burning into his. He felt uncomfortably exposed, held within their gaze, but everywhere he looked there was a cow, peering into his soul, stripping him naked, and not liking what it saw.

He backed away a few steps, and then stopped.

‘SCREW THIS! YOU ARE COWS. PREPARE TO DIE!”

And with that, he charged them with his sword, hacking and stabbing in a rage-fueled orgy of blood that Matheson Squareface Quiverbottom, Esq, so often found himself in when confronting defenseless woodland creatures. Perhaps it’s a symptom of living in a cruel, hostile environment, and only having power over these kinds of helpless animals. Perhaps he’s just a bloodthirsty monster. Perhaps something far worse, and far more sinister, is at work.

Either way, when the dust had cleared and the blood stopped spurting, the cow’s corpses poofed out of existence, and all that was left was their bloodstained skins.

“Oh, come on.” He said, to no one in particular, but gathered them up all the same.

“I could, uh, make some boots out of these, I guess.”

He wiped the blood of his face and looked around. Now it was getting dark for real, but through a clearing in the trees he saw the outcropping he’d dubbed ‘Capo Hill’, for its (not all that actual) resemble to a guitar capo. He cautiously picked his way home, muttering to himself that he really needed to make some sort of giant marker he could see from miles away, to stop these kind of things from happening.

Totally a capo.

Continue on to the next post.

DAY FOUR : In which Matheson develops a green thumb.

He woke with a start.

He’d slept for ages, he was certain, and though he initially hated missing the first light, as he got up he was glad he’d given his body the chance to heal. Last nights weariness was gone.

He popped upstairs, and the low position of the sun confirmed his suspicion.

Well, shit. He was down to his last porkchop, and had run plum out of coal. He’d do a little wandering, see what he could find, and come back before dark and put the night to good use.

He started up the hill, to get a good vantage point on what was going on, but thick masses of grass had grown up all over the placel. He started cutting it back, lest it get too big, and out popped seed after seed.

He picked them up, looked them over. He knew nothing about plants….or did he? As he stared, he got the distinct and sudden impression they were wheat seeds. A memory came to him, from far away, a young kid running his hand through fields of golden stalks, the smell of stew and rabbit, gruff voices, the rumble of heavy engines.

I ought to try and plant a garden, he thought. Man can’t live on pork chop alone. Well, maybe he could. If he couldn’t find an alternative source of food, he’d have to put that hypothesis to the test.

The sun was already beginning to disappear. Jesus, he thought. I was really laid out last night. He pocketed the seeds, and turned to head home, but stopped.

Screw it, he said. I’ve probably got a little bit of time. Let’s do this.

He dashed off, madly, honing in on every plant he could see and cutting it to pieces. He hardly even stopped to gather the seeds- instead he sent them flying into the air and trusted that at least some would make it into his pocket.

He was so focused he hardly even noticed the sun was abandoning him, but seeing a creeper glaring at him from atop another hill brought him back to reality.

Time to go home. That didn’t stop him from slashing down all the grass he saw on his way home, though at that point it was almost a reflex. He just did it with an eye open.

The first thing Matheson did when he got home was run into the basement, grab a hunk of pig from his underground ‘meat locker’ and start gnawwing away at it. But what he saw down there stopped him cold.

Those seeds were sprouting!

Just a little, but from where he’d thrown them, just a few hours before, they’d taken root in the earth and started to grow!

Maybe I could get a garden going down here, he thought? That’d be pretty nice. I’d never even have to leave!

That thought made him both happy, and depressed, at the same time.

He grabbed his pickaxe and set to work clearing a space for a garden, happily stumbling across some coal in the process. He mined out as much of the stone as he could, brought in some dirt from here and there, and after raking it a little and tilling with it a hoe, he was pretty proud of himself.

He delicately planted the seeds in rows, placed a few torches for light, and stood back to admire his handiwork.

The seeds were growing before his eyes!

He took a few steps back, actually, at first. It was kinda creepy. Why should they grow so fast?
He had visions of terrifying plant monsters springing up from the ground and devouring him in his sleep. But the seeds stopped pretty quick, and he relaxed, wondering how long it’d be before he could harvest.

Now it was time to eat! He wiped the sweat off his brow, picked up his wiggling raw porkchop, and prepared to bite down, then stopped.

I’m tired of this raw meat bullshit. I bet I could make a stove of some sort, he thought. I’ve got enough coal to get a pretty good fire going.

Sure enough, he made up a quick stone frame, put some wood scraps inside, lit it on fire, and in a few minutes his house was full of the smell and sound of crackling meat.

As he took his first heavenly bite, he thought, it almost drowned out the sounds of skeletal hands scratching at the walls and door, hungry for his flesh.

Continue to the next post.

DAY THREE: A quiet night in.

As Matheson sat in the basement, which unfortunately did not muffle the sound of the scuffling monsters above him hungry for his blood, he reflected on the day’s events.

I should be dead, he thought. I should be dead twice over. But here I am, nary a scratch. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He felt positively horrible, his arms and legs sore, his neck stiffer than a forty year old scotch.

But he was intact.

That fall should have snapped his bones in half. He’d felt his skin singeing right off in that creeper blast. And yet something, or someone, had dragged him to the beach, fixed him up, and left him there, unconscious, but somehow protected.

Or so he thought. He couldn’t be quite sure that it had just been pure luck nothing had attacked him while he had 'slept'. He had a terrifying vision of waking up, on the beach, at night, a spider crouched over him, wrapping him up, preparing to sink it’s fangs into his flesh.

Tomorrow, he said, I’ll put a shelter up there. Something to make any awakening there a little more comfortable.

But even as he thought that, he somehow felt, without being able to explain why, that from here on out, he was on his own. It was like he knew he’d used up his two chances, and any further injury would spell certain actual death.

He stretched and leaned back. He was a bit peckish, and dug through his pockets for a snack. He had a handful of seeds- he tried to split them open in his teeth, but they were too hard, and all he got was a throbbing pain in his teeth.

Perfect, he thought, and spit them to the side with disgust.

He also had two mushrooms, a grubby, brown looking one, and a more colorful, red one. He eyed them over, but he had no idea how to tell safe ones from poisonous ones, and didn’t feel like trying his luck just yet.

He patted his stomach consolingly, leaned back, and shut his eyes.

On to the next post!

DAY THREE: Take Two

He woke again, pain tremors rumbling through his body, but subsiding as he regained full consciousness. He was on his back, looking up at the bright sky.

Did my house vanish? The last thing he remembered was the creeper, exploding inches from his face, immolating him, searing his flesh.

But a quick look around told him he was back on the beach, in the sunken pit he’d dug to mark the spot where he'd first woken up here, what seemed like years ago.

He lept up, hoping to catch a glimpse of who, or what, had placed him here, but there was no-one and nothing to be seen, only a pile of bones that he guessed was the skeleton from earlier in the day.

Did somebody kill it, he wondered? Is that somebody my friend?

He wasn’t sure, but he knew he couldn’t waste any time trying to figure it out. He raced back home, and could tell as he climbed up that it had suffered another serious explosion. His basement lie exposed, and most of the house and overhanging cliff was nowhere to be seen.

He scanned the area for further creepers, and seeing none, set to work completing quick repairs. He didn’t want to be exposed when night fell, but he had to get a move on. He hadn’t eaten in god knows how long now, and he was feeling weak and nervous and jittery.

He found his sword embedded in the ground where it had been thrown, and drew it out. A few pockmarks, but it was largely undamaged. Confident that his house was secure once more, he turned started to trudge up the rest of the hill, to try and scope out some food before the sun vanished once more.

But lady luck, after abandoning him for so long, was finally on his side. He’d hardly taken his first step when he saw a pack of wild pigs, grunting happily and feeding on the grass just feet above his house.

He let out a wild whoop and charged them. They started at him blankly, even as he sliced them up, turning them into pocket sized servings of delicious bacon. He ate even as he killed, blood and other juices dripping of his chin, his stomach swelling and straining with the abundance of food after hours of famine.

He wasn’t even fully in control of himself for several minutes, shoveling the warm guts into his body. Some aspect of willpower and self perseverance kicked in after a while, and he forced himself to save a portion of the third pig, shoving it into his bottomless pockets. It was good he did, because even before he’d swallowed the last bite, his stomach began to ache again, this time from too much food, not too little.

He leaned against a tree and rubbed his stomach, regretting his stupidity, but grinningly happily. These were strange days, but he had food for a while, a secure house, and thought night was falling soon, he wouldn’t have to venture out again for days.

He walked slowly back home, carefully, hard steps sending his stomach into turmoil. He sat down on the overhang, legs dangling over the precicpe, and looked at the beauty of the land around him.

At times like this, it’s almost nice here, he thought. Or said outloud. He wasn’t too sure. He thought briefly about this isolation, what it was going to do to his sanity, but pushed the thought from his mind as the sky began to darken.

He rose, and looked over his house- ugly little thing, he thought. But right now, I love you.

Then he walked inside.

Last night was a disaster, he thought. I almost died twice. That can’t happen again. I need a plan.

Grabbing some torches from the box, he went downstairs, sat on a raised stone, and began to plot.

Continue to the next post.

(Authors note: Wow! Two of my three deaths in one day, just an hour or two in. I’m starting to re-think this whole ‘play your first game of minecraft on hard mode with a three death limit’ thing. I’d hate to lose this story before it even started, but I do like the challenge and intensity that comes from 

having a limited number of respawns.

I’ll guess I’ll just wait and see. If Mantheson dies in a suitably epic fashion, I’ll bring this to a close, 

but I’d really like to kick this around for a while.

Looks like I need to hit the wiki and figure some things out. I don’t want to learn too much about the game, but obviously I have very little idea what I’m doing!)

DAY THREE : In which Matheson discovers he does not have as many lives as a cat, and uses most of them.

Matheson’s eyes blinked open slowly. Harsh sunlight filled his vision. His mouth was full of sand...and iron? He spit, and the sand was stained red. Blood.

He sat up and stretched. His body was sore, but otherwise alright.

He was on the beach? That’s odd, he thought. He looked to the left and sure enough was the place he had first woken up here, with its cross-shaped mark in the ground.

All at once his memory fully returned- he’d fallen to his death!

He leapt to his feet.

Had he crawled here? Had he been carried? He had no idea. He didn’t see any tell-tale footprints in the sand. It was as if he had just whisked here, by some unseen force.

He had no possessions, his pockets were empty.

“What the devil,” he murmured, as he ran his hands along his body doing damage control, and straightened up, then froze.

Not twenty feet away was a skeleton, wading out into the surf, slowly. It hadn’t noticed him, by some miracle, and he watched it for several seconds as it jumped into the water, and then started backing away slowly.

So focused was he on the skeleton that he didn’t notice the creeper that hurled itself at him from the hill to his left, exploding in mid air.

He yelled as the blast threw him back and shook up his sense.

He struggled once more to his feet. The skeleton hadn’t moved, but its head slowly turned to the source of the noise, and it flashed a sinister grin as it spied him. Matheson turned tail and fled blindly, running for several minutes before realizing he was going the complete wrong way.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

He struggled up the hill, moving from tree to tree and cover to cover, until he started to recognize the terrain and knew his house was just above.

As it came into view, he drew a sharp breath. ANOTHER CREEPER!

 It was looking at him like it had been waiting for him, and they both stood motionless for a second, and then raced together. Matheson barely made it inside and shut the door before the creeper reached him. It hissed savagely, but once he regained his breathe and composure, Matheson flashed it a rather rude gesture and then looked over his house.

Everything was the same; no one had broken in during the night. That was some solace. Though the creature could probably blow the entire structure to pieces, it didn’t for some reason. Sure, you’re terrifying, Matheson thought, but you’re not very smart.

But he could tell from the suns position that it was already midday. He was still hungry, for one, and he had things he needed to get done. He couldn’t stay bottled up here forever, and who knew how long it would take this thing to leave.

He opened his storage box, relieved to find everything just as he had left it, and made himself another sword.
I’ve killed plenty of you, he thought, glaring at the creeper with one hand on the door handle. Well actually, like two, his brain told him. He told his brain to shut up.

He threw open the door and hit the creeper twice, in quick succession. It fell back, almost falling over the cliff, and then came at him again, its skin pulsing with energy. He swung at it again, too soon realizing his mistake, and it exploded.

He only had time to feel a surge of heat across his body and his face, searing his flesh, and then everything went black.

For those of you keeping score, that's my last re-spawn (one life left), and  the game has hardly even begun...

To the next post!

DAY TWO : Blood, Hunger, and Death (The Second Night)

Night fell, and with it came the now familiar sounds. With it, too, came a painful realization- he hadn’t eaten all day. Now, left to his own devices, with nothing to do but wait, he was wracked by horrible hunger pains. His stomach started convulsing, twisting in knots. He checked his inventory- he had nothing to eat.

Why can't you eat mushrooms? I've been able to do that in real life on several occasions.

It’s only been a day, he thought. Tough it out! You’re wounded as it is, going out now would be suicide. But his body refused to listen. With a muttered curse, he dragged himself over to the crafting table and began attempting to fashion himself some sort of crude armor out of all the wood and stone he had lying around. Nothing worked.

With the pains getting more and more intense, he abandoned armor for the time being, and made a new sword, out of stone. It’s heavier heft and more wicked edges reassured him. Maybe the creatures of the night would think twice before tumbling with this!

He wanted to travel light, and fast, so he consencrated all his worldly possessions to a hastily thrown together box, and, his sword never leaving his hand, walked up the door, listened for noises, and cautiously swung it open.

This probably won't end well.

The pain subsided, but the want and need were stronger than ever. He wondered if perhaps the raw meat had given him sort of infection? Either way all he wanted now was to consume, to feel the flesh of a living creature grind between his teeth, hot blood dripping down his throat. Pigs everywhere, beware.

He started climbing the hill, hoping to reach the top and get a good vantage point to see some prey.

Before he’d gone very far, a thick, lumpy black shape dropped out of a tree infront of him. He saw legs whirring in the darkness, and his blood ran cold. Eight red, merciless eyes turned to face him. Before he even had time to run or think, it hissed and jumped straight for him, fangs snapping in the moonlight. He swung his sword to meet it, knocking it back and shooting black blood out in an arterial spray. Again and again the monster jumped, and again and again he knocked it back, operating at a level far beyond fear.

Matheson had had no particular hate for spiders when they were small. He wasn’t fond of them, but he never went out of his way to kill them. They way they kill their victims, however, the slow paralysis, the poison, the helplessness, their ungodly appearance; now that he had to deal with life-size ones, he wasn’t to petrified to even allow himself to think about it, lest he crawl into a hole on the floor and open every vein he could find.

The beast lunched one final time, its eyes mashed and mangled, it’s left front leg hanging uselessly at its side. Matheson was getting the best of it, and as it jumped he plunged his sword into its mouth, killing the creature instantly as it let out one final gurgle. Unfortunately, it’s momentum kept going even as it’s life stopped, and it fell on Matheson, and pinned him briefly, it’s socketed and bristly face inches from his own, weeping blood into his.. He twisted, crawled, slithered and sprinted away, his hands shaking. He was thoroughly wigged out, and it took him several seconds to stop just running in circles and shaking.

Finally, he allowed himself to catch his breath. His face was drenched with the creatures black blood, and without thinking, he licked some of it off. It had a bitter, acidic taste, like rancid battery acid or what a raccoon must taste like if it died in a washing machine in a flood, and it’s body spent weeks slowly churning around in the fetid water. He spit several times, but the taste wouldn’t leave, though it had reactivated his hunger pangs.

I don’t have time to stop, he thought. If something else comes for me, I will split its fucking head open, and I will keep going.

He crested the hill, and looked around. The tree’s made it really hard to get a good 360 degree view, something he’d have to fix in the future. But a soft clucking noise made him stop in his tracks. He slowly turned his head, in disbelief, and standing on the edge of a cliff, looking at him with happy eyes, was a chicken. He blinked, and then raced toward the chicken, swinging his sword wildly and yelling.

Come here and let me kill you!

The chicken dodged this way and that, missing his sword just barely. It lost its tail feathers to a close swing, and another just nicked it’s head, cutting the hair off and making it look like a tonsured monk.

It was then that a creeper came out of the tree’s, hissing and lunging at Matheson. He screamed like a little girl but kept chasing the chicken, all the while trying to keep the creeper in vision and not letting it get too close.

The chicken skidded to a halt in front of him, looking up with pleading eyes. He couldn’t stop in time and nearly went sprawling over the edge of the cliff, to certain death on the beach far away below. But he caught himself, and up went the sword, and off went the chickens head. MEAT!

"There ought to be a law / against you coming rooooound..."

There was still the creeper to deal with, however. It was right behind him, but stuck on a tree, jumping up and down ineffectually. With the adrenaline coursing through Matheson’s veins, the scene was almost comical, and he left out a hearty laugh that sounded far more savage then he’d intended.

He really wasn’t sure what made these things explode, so he advanced cautiously, and gave it a good slice right along its midsection. It recoiled, hissing, and its skin flashed. He hadn’t killed it, but he had freed it from the tree, and now it was coming for him again. He gave it another good stab when its skin stopped flashed (something about that odd glow rubbing him the wrong way), and then waited and did so again.

It was now flashing rapidly, hissing increasing in intensity. Something told him to run, and he did, and had barely gotten out of range when the beast imploded and a shower of earth filled the sky.

Confused, but glad to be alive, he pushed himself up off the ground and brushed himself of off. He walked back to the chicken, which still intermittently spurting blood from the stump where its head used to be. He started salivating even before he got to it, hands ready to pry the flesh from its bones.

But there was none to be had. The corpse poofed out of existence, and all that was left was a single, solitary, feather.

He looked for a few seconds, uncomprehending, and then pounded his fists into the earth, partly out of rage, and partly out of the pain inside him.

SSSSSssssss.

He turned. Another creeper.

It's almost cute.

Oh, god damn it, he thought, and stood up once more. He danced up to it and hit it again and again. Make it fear him instead of the other way around. A good slice caught it on the neck, and it’s head fell back, hanging on by little shred of skin and a few blackened tendons. The creeper flailed it’s arms as some sort of fluids bubbled out of it’s neck hole and dribbled down it’s front, and then it fell over. Matheson leapt back and covered his ears, bracing for an explosion that never came.

He lifted his head. There was the creeper, dead, on the ground. Was that it….? He walked up, and the corpse vanished with a popping noise, startling him for a second.  All that was left was a pile of grey something- Guts? Rocks? Sand?

He bent down and ran his hands through it, bringing it up to his face.

GUNPOWDER! He started to grin like a mad man. These things drop gunpowder? I bet that means, at some point, I’ll be able to fashion some kind of gun! Or maybe a canon! I’ll make a god dam battleship air-fortress and blow every one of these motherfuckers off the face of the earth!

A chicken wandering into his view brought him out of his reverie.

“You better have more meat on your bones than that friend of yours,” he yelled as he sprang forward, “ or I’ll kill you!”

He didn’t pause to consider the fact that he was going to kill the chicken regardless, but he noted the contradiction in his mind.

There was no lengthy chase like the last time. In a few seconds, he had the chicken bisected in the middle, and was reaching down to scoop up its gut when it, too, poofed out of existence. He looked around him, but there was nothing. This time, there wasn’t even a feather.

He didn’t get mad. He didn’t stomp. He was so filled with rage, he was the perfect figure of calm. He couldn’t even think. He just smiled a bitter, terrifying smile, and walked over to the edge, peering across the darkened landscape.

At least tonight he could see much better than the last night. (My monitor was tilted up, making the night and sort-of dark places virtually black. With it turned the right way, I could actually see what I was doing a little bit, which was nice.)

There was a pig on the opposite mountain. It was bobbing back and forth, like a special-ed cheerleader waiting in line for a sandwich she was disproportionately excited to receive.

 He didn’t react right away, he didn’t bolt off. He just watched the pig for a few minutes with cold, calculating eyes, then looked down. It was almost a straight drop off below, and it was dark, but it wasn’t impossible.

He was feeling very weak. Tonights, and last night’s battles, had taken a lot out of him, and though he hadn’t thought he’d sustained very serious wounds, he was definitely worse for wear.

The shriek of a giant spider close behind him spurred him to action. He leapt down to the nearest landing, and starting picking his way down the mountain, his previous calm, detached rage giving way to an uncontrollable lust for blood and food.

He’d made good progress, leaping from rock to rock like a mountain goat, and was almost halfway down. But his options were starting to get pretty limited.

He heard the spider scuttling about above him- he looked up, and it was too dark to really make out, but he thought there were several up there, many pairs of red, clustered eyes watching his every move and waiting for just the right moment.

He was close to the ground, but he was stuck. With nowhere to go but down (and for some reason completely forgetting that the ground could be dug out) Matheson decided to jump. A nearby tree would catch him and break his fall; from there he might be able to just drop to the ground. He went flush against the wall, holstered his sword, and run forward and leapt.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

For a few seconds, it looked like he might almost make it. He fell in slow motion, arms flailing, as the tree neared, then rose up above him, and he knew he’d misjudged. He hardly had time to even curse as he hurtled toward the earth, face up to the cold, impartial stars.

He didn’t even hear or feel himself hitting the ground. Suddenly, he was simply dead.

After this, only one re-spawn left...

Continue to the next post....