Chapter Text
He woke up with a gasp, desperately crying a name, disoriented.
Panic flooded his mind, something… bad… had happened…?, and he… couldn't do… anything? But what…?
He abruptly sat up, groaning a little at the painful protest of his muscles, looked around, looked over himself, mind somewhat blank.
Two calloused and scarred hands, in the color of the dark oak wood, dirty with some black goop , and feeling stiff from being in one position for too long.
A comfortable shirt, hard-wearing pants, leather ankle boots, sturdy and shod with metal nails.
He was sitting on a weird, black and yellow slab, somewhere in the woods. Around, on the small clearing, there were more of them, but empty and looking old . The name he shouted before slipped from his memory, he noted with an unexplainable twinge of sadness.
Who he was again?
Steve.
The name sounded familiar and well worn on his tongue. It was his name, that’s for sure.
But where was he? And what happened? The last thing he could remember…
There wasn’t any. Weird. Like he just appeared out of the Void.
The sun had just risen, the first rays of sunshine filtering in the morning fog, casting weird shadows around. It was pretty, but he could feel the creeps crawling up his spine at the sight.
There was something weird going on.
His stomach growled, and his head felt fuzzy from hunger, he duly noted.
He needed something to eat, or else he would pass out. Again.
Again? I think so… But I don’t know.
There was a sense of wrongness in the air. Steve couldn’t pinpoint it, but he was growing more and more convinced that there should be someone with him. He shakily got up, his legs apparently even more stiff than his hands. The weird thing under his shoes wasn’t grass, it was something sticky and moldy, and wrong.
There was something bad going on.
But he needed to eat first.
Apples growing on a tree, just around the edge of this goop. Here you go.
Coaxing his absolutely sluggish muscles to move, he stumbled off of the sticky not-grass onto the normal grass.
Fortunately the tree wasn’t high, and the apples hung pretty low on its branches. Steve gathered as many of them as he could reach, eating three and saving the rest for later.
He needed to go as far from this place as his legs permitted him. There was death hanging low in these woods.
********
This was three years ago. Three long years, filled with loneliness. This world was big, and empty, and different. He didn’t know what was different, but something was.
There were a lot of monsters here; detonating plants that hissed and ran after you, weird, black creatures that were content to just snach a block from nearby and teleport away if you didn’t look them in the eyes, but still…. There wasn’t anyone like him here. No one that he could talk to, no one that wanted to talk to him.
Maybe he just couldn’t find them… Maybe…
Or…
Well…
No. He was just delusional and he knew that.
He found them.
They just weren’t like him anymore. They were half-rotten, or just bare bones, monsters that maybe once were like him.
The first time he needed to kill one of these creatures, he felt filthy, like he just murdered someone, but that didn’t make sense.
These things were already dead, for a long time too. And even if, he only tried to protect himself.
But they looked a bit like him, and when he killed them, he always gained some sort of their memories, like shutter-snaps of the lives that they once led. These images lasted only seconds, but he could discern the smiling faces of other people like him, hear their voices…
There were some very, very dark months when he went on a killing spree, only to see and hear someone, even in a blurry and half-rotten memory of some animated carcass.
But then, after a particularly life-threatening stunt, he stumbled onto a village.
And there were people.
Different from him, sure. Weird, androgynous people, whose language was compleately different than his.
But they were sapient people.
In a bout of absolute panic, that he wouldn’t be able to find this place again, that he would get lost if he went too far, he started building a house on the mountain nearby.
A small, cozy house, just for him. Made of oak and birch wood, with windows of glassed sand from the river that ran near the roots of the mountain.
He settled here. Never went further than a thousand steps. Steve had everything here, he didn't need to go far.
His days slowly filled with mining, farming, domesticating animals, discovering new uses of the minerals he mined… He even got himself a cat, and called it “Pot”, from its red fur. It was a sweet being, gracious and ferocious when needed, but really playful.
And the Detonating-pickles started avoiding his home after that, so this was something.
Additional wards and walls kept the more nefarious monsters outside, even if the Dirt-thieves still could teleport in. But well. They weren't immediately aggressive if you didn't look them in the eyes, and he could respect this. And they sometimes tried to talk to him! But Steve couldn't discern any words amongst their screeching, so he was just content that they tried.
Steve’s life became peaceful. Monotone even. When he felt like it, he mined, or went to the village to talk. See someone that could understand him. trade, or maybe built something from the surplus of cobblestone he got from the mines. Some days he went fishing, maybe monster hunting, or simply stayed at home, succumbing to the sadness that filled him.
The only thing he had in abundance was time, and his tasks helped to kill it.
He wasn’t aging, he discovered, maybe after two years had passed, and this deeply unsettled him.
He was meant to age, everyone was.
But he wasn’t. He felt oddly sad when he thought about that.
Steve never wanted to die from an accident, and now…well, now he wasn’t willing to kill himself so readily as he might have when he wandered completely alone. He always wanted a family, but there wasn’t anyone apart from him now. The only death he could have ever wanted was to die fulfilled, old and wrinkly.
Now this wasn’t even an option.
And even fighting for survival wasn't his purpose anymore.
He tried to not think of this.
Every day was roughly the same. The same villagers in the village, the same wooden walls that he carved with his own hands, the same well-worn paths in the mine.
********
-Pot! Get here you taditor! That’s my piece of pork!- Steve annoyedly tossed a pebble at the cat.
The red tabby just mewled from the roof of the stall, looking smug, and resumed mauling the piece of meat that was meant to be Steve’s dinner.
Little shit. I just gave her a whole chicken, and she still decided to go and rob me.
- I will toss you into the mine next time!- he faux-threatened, grabbing his favorite iron pickaxe and another piece of meat to eat.
Today was mining day, and he was in a good mood, having found two diamonds already, enough to make himself a better sword, even if it wasn't necessary.
Looking around, Steve cheved the grilled pork, and admired his little fortress. His house was nestled into a natural cave, and four meters tall walls of cobblestone protected the rest of his valley from the outside world, but still leaving enough space for a corral full of cows and sheep, and a work hall, big enough to fit whole trees into. He made this place with sweat and tears, and sometimes blood, but it was his, and it was beautiful.
- Eh, it’s time to return to the hole, you old hag…- he huffed, slowly descending the ladder that led to his mines. - So, today is the day I finally start working on the west tunnel, isn’t it? Well, let’s go…- Steve assessed, looking critically at the smooth stone, and dug his pickaxe into the only still intact wall of the “division chamber”, where all of his corridors that led deep, deep into the bowels of the earth had started. The familiar motion somewhat lulled his senses, when more and more rocks broke under his firm hand guiding the tool.
One, two, one step ahead, one, two, one step ahead, one, two, place a torch, one step ahead…
After maybe an hour he felt the hair on his neck rise at a weird change of pressure in the tunnel.
There was a loud explosion and masses of gravel came crashing down behind him.
Instinctively, he curled into a tight ball, hoping that his helmet would protect him from any stray pebbles falling.
With a twhump of compressed air all torches went out, and all sounds stopped.
Steve slowly uncurled, coughing harshly at the dust that filled the air. The darkness was complete, and he couldn’t hear anything outside of the noises he made.
SHIT .
SHIT…Shit…SHIT…. FUCK.
Desperately searching for some light source, he discovered with terror that the stash of torches that he always carried in his bag was gone, and he forgot his flint on the table at home.
-Really?! Universe, why do you hate me?! Which way is up?!- Steve groaned, turning around on his heel to bonk his head on a wall.
Steve! You idiot! Now you can’t even deduce where you were going before! Stop it, stop.
FUCK. I’m an idiot.
Yes, yes, you are. Now dig.
Sighing, he stumbled around to find his pickaxe, and picked a direction at random. Wherever he would dig, he still would pop out of the mountain somewhere, at this altitude it wasn’t really thick.
I just hope to not find any monsters… Maybe I will be lucky for once…Hueh…
******
The rocks started to get more and more wet and mellow. He was approaching the surface.
Hunger started slowly gnawing at his stomach, but well. He was near the end of this work. He could manage. He survived far worse.
There…There was some noise outside. A weirdly familiar sound….
A voice?!
Between the regular hits of the worn pickaxe against the stone, his labored breath, and the occasional small stones that chipped away from the wall Steve didn’t pick it up immediately, but just outside of the wall, maybe six or ten pickaxe hits away there was someone talking.
Who the fuck is here?!
He stopped mining for a moment, listening.
This wasn’t a Villager. This for sure wasn’t a Villager.
He felt his heart pick up its pace.
A woman's voice, smooth and light, echoed in his tunnel, laughing. It sounded like a mountain river bubbling around some pebbles, like an old oak tree shaking lightly in the wind. It sounded nearly foregin after so long.
A girl’s voice was talking outside.
And Steve could understand the words.
- Phantom! You rascal! Come here, or you won’t get your bone! Hey! Buddy, what did you find so interesting, that you won’t stop digging here? Don’t you wag your tail at me, you know that we need to get some sleep tonight! -
Someone was here.
Someone was talking.
Someone alive.
He wasn't alone.
He wasn't alone anymore.