11

A month ago, I was playing on a server- I won’t disclose its IP or name for the sake of safety. I had finally reached the End, but had given everyone else a head start to be nice. A vast ocean of void surrounded me. Equipped with full diamond equipment, a bow, and five stacks of arrows, I began to attack the dragon. After a while of uninteresting combat, I managed to defeat it. I collected the egg and returned home. The End Poem played, and I reappeared in the stronghold I had re-purposed as my fortress.
However, when I got there, the music playing was not Chirp like I had left it on, but rather 11. 11, if you don’t know, is a nightmare-inducing soundtrack at the center of many theories. Oddly, at the same time, a message popped up:
“11 has joined the game!”
I assumed that he must have put in the 11 music disk to mess with me, and that I hadn’t seen him join thanks to the End Poem. The End Poem is really long, so it wouldn’t have surprised me. I looked around the house to see if he had stolen anything. He hadn’t.
None of us had heard of this “11” before, but it didn’t use the new player message, so I suppose he must have joined while nobody else was on.
11: The world will fall.
Me: Well, isn’t that cheerful.
11: Chaos, order, the past, the future. To one of these, the world will fall.
Me: Are you one of those people who pretends Herobrine is real? I stopped believing in him maybe a year after I joined Minecraft.
11: Herobrine is a legend.
Me: Well, at least you admitted it.
11: I, however, am not.
Me: Well, legends can’t type on keybo-
Before I finished typing, 11 wrote a reply.
11: Do not mock me.
I sat there for a second, wondering how 11 did that. Was he simply self-aware enough to guess that I would make fun of him? That was the only reasonable explanation. I requested to teleport to him. I hadn’t seen him at my house, so I figured he must have used /home. He accepted.
I found myself in a mansion of quartz, a veritable cathedral. Huge spires of packed ice erupted from the ceiling.
Me: Did you build this? This is awesome!
11: You could say that. I appreciate the compliment.
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I decided to study his skin instead. It was pretty generic. A creeper hoodie, a diamond sword on his back, a checkerboard bandanna, oversize eyes, the whole thing. But the thing that struck me as odd was that his eyes were completely black. I assumed he just liked messing with people, seeing as how he was the one who put on 11 at my house.
11: 111 109 110 101 115 032 098 105 098 101 110 116
Me: /afk
I’m interested enough in the mysterious to know he was using ASCII, since ASCII is common in that context. I opened up Google Chrome and typed it into an ASCII-to-text translator and got back “omnes laudant.” Latin for “all praise.” (Yes, I speak Latin.) What did he mean?
I closed Chrome and resumed Minecraft. 11 was running around with a diamond sword, jumping up and down. In retrospect, i wondered how he even got that if none of us regulars had ever heard of him.
11: .- .-.. .-.. / .--. .-. .- .. ... . .-.-.-
I must admit, this was puzzling. I finally realized that it was Morse code, and opened Chrome to a translator.
“All praise.”
I went back to Minecraft. I decided to keep Chrome open in case he felt like spouting any more nonsense.
Me: “All praise?”
11: Indeed. You speak Latin? I am impressed.
At this point, I was getting freaked out. He knew that I spoke Latin? How? He said “all praise” in English the second time. The rational side of me argued that he could have simply guessed.
11 wrote my real name.
I have never shared my real name online.
== 11's Return ==
Since the first incident, I decided to leave the server. I was shaken by the episode, but managed to shrug it off. I now play on another server. I don't even remember what it was called.
I was playing on the server I was talking about. As the familiar message popped up, my stomach fell.
"11 has joined the game!"
I swore aloud, hit escape, and clicked "disconnect."
I decided I needed a break and opened up a survival singleplayer world. I wandered around a while, clearing out some old abandoned mineshafts I had found.
I heard a crackling sound behind me. I turned around.
"11 has joined the game!"
I slightly jumped out of my seat. I rationalized it to myself, thinking it was probably just the computer repeating an earlier message. 
I glanced around again and saw nothing too unusual. I continued to mine, and although I tried to forget, the memory stuck with me the whole time. After a while, the earlier experience seemed almost dreamlike. Did it even happen? Or was I just imagining it, shaken by my original encounter with 11?
As I broke away cobwebs, I heard the crackling again.
I saw the blocks in front of me turn to packed ice.
11: Why are you doing this?
I turned around. 11 was standing there. The ice behind him was slowly spreading. I noticed that it was making a pattern.
Smiling faces.
11: Water.
"What?" I wondered aloud.
11: I am water.
11: There is flame. There is shadow. There is light. There is air. There is earth.
11: I am water.
I quit the game. I was done.
I opened up Hyper Light Drifter. At least he couldn't find me there. I played for an hour, no problem.
Then a huge smiling face appeared out of the water. It was made of crystal.
A voice came out of my headphones. "Why are you trying to run? There is nowhere to go."
I tore them off my ears. 11's voice poured out of the speakers. "I am everywhere, insolent child." Terrified and exhausted, I shut down Hyper Light Drifter and the laptop. I went to bed.
That night, I dreamed of smiling faces of crystal shards.
Category:Supernatural
Category:Dramapasta
Category:Entities
Category:Short Pastas
Category:First Pastas