Messages and Mineshafts

== PART 1 ==
Minecraft used to be my favorite game. In like 2015, it was my number 1 activity if I was ever bored. I stopped playing it a few years ago. I don't remember why I stopped. At least, I didn't. The memories are coming back, slowly, but they are coming back.
So this all began when my grandmother died. She died in December. It was March of 2020 when I finally returned to her house. I used to go over to her house almost every day. It was the best over there. I never felt left out, or sad, or down. She had an ipad that I used to play minecraft on. Then one day, it was gone. I never saw it again. She never explained why, but my parents said it was for the best.
It was really hard for my family when she died. My father had killed himself the same year the ipad disappeared. He had become more and more wrapped up in his work over the course of a year. I think he just couldn't take the stress.
At least, that's what they tell me. See, I can't remember anything before my father died. I'm told I was there when it happened, but I can't be sure. Apparently the trauma of that caused brain damage. Not sure how that works to be honest but I've accepted it .But it's always terrifying knowing that anyone can lie to you about anything and get away with it.
For the last 3 years, I have been working with a therapist. Trying to get my memories back. His name is Dr. Bill. I hate him. He always says we're "making progress." But we never really are. So far, I have recovered no memories at all. Over three years. Yeah, so much progress.
Oh, and there's somebody else I forgot to introduce. Me! My name is Jackson. I'm 16. I think I've explained everything you really need to know about me. I mean, I know it's not a lot, but I had to work with much less.
So when my grandmother died, she left me a few things. Nothing really important to the story. She liked traveling the world, and going on vacations everywhere with grandpa. I went into her room, I think just to see if I could remember anything. 
When I went in, I looked around. Eventually, I got to her closet. When I opened it, I was surprised to see that there were no clothes in there. Just a large box on the floor.
My assumption was that my parents had taken the clothes out of there. I thought about opening the box, but I wasn't sure whether I wanted to. It looked heavy, and besides, it was grandma's personal property. But I wanted to see. She wasn't around anymore, did that make it morally safe to open it? Eventually my curiosity got the better of me.
I pulled the top off, and I saw a burnt case. I picked it up. It was still a little hot, like it had been burned recently. I opened it. Inside, there was an ipad. It was, like the suitcase, a little burnt, but not hot. Singed, I guess you could say.
The moment I picked it up, something strange happened. Something unexpected. A wave of memories flooding back. Except not. It was as if I could see these memories, just out of reach. But, there was one thing I could reach. The next rung on the ladder, you could say.
I saw a player. A minecraft player. Standing on a hill, with their skin as a glitchy combination of black and white. They almost looked like a yin yang symbol. I didn't know why, but I had a feeling that whoever this was could be the key to my hidden memories.
PART 2
Something happened to me then. When I saw him. All of a sudden, I was on the floor, lying on my back. I saw my mother and my grandfather standing over me, in shock. Then, I saw my mother, carrying the ipad out of the room. 
I pushed myself off the ground to look at my grandfather. He stared at me with his light green eyes. He looked me up and down, then stared directly at my face. "How much do you remember?" he asked.
"I remembered something about that Ipad. I don't know exactly what, but I want to see more."
It was a little bit of a strange outburst from me. I almost felt angry, like there was a grudge from my past I hadn't resolved yet. And grandpa was not having it. 
"Listen to me very closely. I understand things are hard for you right now. But there are places where you can go digging for memories and places you can't. Because if you dig in the wrong places, people get hurt."
The inexplicable anger inside of me built up even more. My grandpa was a nice man, a reasonable person. But this just didn't make sense. All I wanted was to see who I was before. Why would that hurt anybody? 
I pushed him aside and sprinted out of the room, and down a corridor. Then, I stopped. I heard a noise coming from one of the bedrooms. I looked into a bedroom, and the noise stopped. I saw my mother, sitting on the bed.
"What's going on?" I asked angrily. My mother calmy held up her hand. 
"Oh, honey, I'm sorry. I know this must be a lot for you. Getting back a memory. We'll get you right home, ok?"
For a moment, I believed her. I had gone through quite a bit, and sleep felt like a good idea. I needed rest. But then something occurred to me.
"How did you know I got a memory back? And how did grandpa know?"
She looked a little surprised for a moment. Perhaps she was caught off guard. Or maybe, she knew she had been caught lying. But, the moment passed as quickly as it came, and she was right back in her element.
"You were talking about it while you were passed out."
Such a simple phrase, such a huge lie. I could tell by the way she paused. That's her tell. I wanted to call her out on it, I really did. But I realized something, something big. She had no idea that I knew something was up. And she didn't have to know.
It's funny how much information the brain can register in a very small amount of time. Or maybe it's just me. But what I know is, in the space of two and a half seconds, I had devised a plan. A plan to figure out who I was. It was time to lay the foundation.
"I remembered myself playing minecraft. And having fun. Making all kinds of things. I want to play it again. I think it'll help me remember more."
I didn't expect my mother to react too well to this. I thought she would politely decline or maybe even just say no. But I couldn't predict what actually happened. No one could. 
"Do you want to know the truth about why you can't do that?"
"Yes. Yes, I would."
"I can't tell you all of it. Some secrets just need to be kept, or bad things happen. But I will tell you one thing."
"What?"
She breathed in deeply for a moment. 
"What you did, what you saw, it made your father kill himself."
PART 3
I don't all the way remember what happened after. It was really a blur of emotions, like almost everything else that day was. All I know is that when I got home, I instantly plopped down on the couch and fell asleep. 
My house isn't a very big house. I live in a suburb, in New Jersey. So it's kind of hard to avoid somebody who lives with you. Especially if it's your mom. 
When I woke up that morning, I was still in my clothes from the day before. It was early, like 5:30 I think, and my mom wasn't awake yet. So I got up and changed. I was trying as hard as I could not to think about what she said. But after a little while it broke through.
Was she saying I killed my father? That I drove him into his depression? That couldn't be possible. For all my life, I had been told that he overworked himself and didn't have time for happiness. It was almost a cautionary tale in my family. And now, it's suddenly all a lie?
And what did minecraft have to do with this? Why should my mom care about that at all? It's not like a game can force you to bully somebody to the point of death.
Something just didn't add up here. She was lying. She had to be lying. There was no other explanation. But what reason did she have to lie?
As all these thoughts were careening through my brain, I saw one underlying theme beneath it all. This had to have something to do with my memory. My new memory. 
With a million questions in my head, I slowly opened the beige door to my room. From the faint sound of snoring, I could tell my mother was asleep. The hallway I stared down was beige as well. The same as it had always been. Boring beige.
I stepped down the hallway quietly, so as to not wake my mother. I sneaked over to the kitchen, where the fluorescent light flickered calmly. I pulled out a bowl and poured cereal and milk into it. The milk splashed a bit onto the counter. I moved over to the other side of the kitchen to get a paper towel.
As I looked at the reflective counter glistening with the milk, I was reminded of something. It took me a moment to realize what it was. But in a moment, the idea popped into my head. The bright counter against the shining lights looked like the reflective case of an ipad.
Something specific from the incident the day before came to me. My mom had taken the ipad. What if, just maybe, it was still in the house? It wouldn't be completely out of the question. And it was better than nothing. 
So, leaving my uneaten cereal on the counter, I crept once again down the hallway. This time, towards my parents' room.
I call it my parents room, because there are so many mementos of my dad in there. Framed photos, some of his clothes, even a recording of him speaking to me. It never felt like in was just for my mom, Mary, it was like his spirit resided there too.
As well as having my father in it, the room was different in another way, too. Instead of carpeted floors, like my room had, the floors were made of a light brown wood. While my room had posters, theirs had paintings. It was a stark contrast for two rooms in the same household.
Silently, I entered the room, wishing to see an ipad. My mother's snores got quieter, and for a moment, I was afraid that she was awake. But she went back to a normal pace, and it felt safe for me to look around. 
There, on a desk the same color as the floor, was the ipad. It was just barely out of my reach, but I was afraid that if I stepped closer, the floorboards would creak and awaken her. 
When I finally did muster up the needed courage, I began to move my foot over. I set it down as carefully as I could. Even so, a creak that sounded like an earthquake came from the boards. I froze in place, trying to stay as still as I could.
From what I remember, my mother didn't move around that much. But it was enough for me to stop in my tracks for the next 3 minutes in absolute terror. Those 3 minutes were agony. I thought about every terrible thing my mom would do to me. That being said, most of the time was spent preparing to run like my life depended on it. When I finally realized it was safe, I got out of there as quickly as possible.
Back in the kitchen, I opened up the ipad. The wallpaper was a generic floral pattern. I pressed the home button and it opened up without a password. "Strange," I thought to myself. 
But what was even stranger was the contents of the ipad. The only app it had was the notes app. In that app, there was one note. Here's what it said:
"Hello, Mary. If you're reading this, you've been tricked. And so has your mother. You've all been tricked. I'm still here. I'm afraid you've got the wrong Ipad. Unfortunately, I won't be able to see your reaction when you see this, but be assured that I would if I could. Tell Jackson that he's going to pay for what he's done to me. Love, Your Best Friend."
The Ipad was a fake.
PART 4
For a moment or two, I was in complete confusion. The one thing I did know, was that this couldn't be good. Not only because of the obvious reasons, but because of my mom. If she found out about me taking the IPad, I would be in so much trouble. I was fine with being in trouble, but if she stopped me from going anywhere, I wouldn't be able to find any new memories.
Then I had an idea. If I were able to put it back, and she could find it again, then maybe, I could get away with it. Mom would see the message, we'd deal with it then, and she'd never know it was gone. Problem solved.
Surprisingly, I didn't really think about any of the possible flaws of this plan. All the things that could go wrong. And did go wrong.
So I began to sneak back to my mom's room. Remembering the creaky floorboard, I went around the dresser to place the red IPad on top of it. After successfully placing it, I snuck back out to the beige door. I turned around one last time to glance at my mom. She was fast asleep. 
When I got back to my own room, I layed down on my bed. I was hoping to sleep in, but with what I had seen just minutes ago, I knew that would be very unlikely. To stop the bleeding questions coming from my mind, I bandaged it by telling myself that my mom would know what to do. And, I hoped, what it was. It did take a while, but eventually I did sleep.
I woke back up to my mother violently opening my bedroom door and shouting at me. My first thought was that I was in trouble. I got up from my bed, prepared to flee the house. But when I listened to what she was saying, I was reassured. 
"Hurry up! We've got to go! You're late!"
I realized something. Today was a thursday. I had an appointment with Dr. Bill! Phew. I was safe.
My mom left the room and I put my clothes on. It took a moment, because I was very tired, but in a minute and a half, I was outside. We got in the car, a Nissan, and my mom drove away from the house. 
The drive there was mostly in silence. I was trying to figure out how what my mom had said and what the note said fit together. Why was my grandma tricked? Maybe whatever this is killed her? 
Right as we were about to get to Dr. Bill's office, I glanced up at my mom. The words I wanted to say suddenly just flew out of my mouth. 
"How did Grandma die?" 
Mom didn't stop to think about what she was going to say. In fact, she smiled a little and her eyes glistened as she said it.
"She died of a heart attack. Not a strong one, but enough. I like to think she died peacefully."
By now, I knew enough to expect a strange answer. But one like that, well, it was stranger than anything she could've said. Peacefully? Really? That contradicted everything the note had said. 
Then I had a thought, a nice thought for once. Whatever wrote the note, it had failed. Maybe this was all over. Maybe there was no danger at all to getting my memories. 
But before I could ponder this for any longer, we were there. At Dr. Bill's office.
My mom stayed in the car, like she always did, while I went into the building. The carpets in there were dingy, like they hadn't been cleaned in a little while. Doors to the left and right of me housed offices for lawyers and CEOs. But at the end of the hallway, was the door I dreaded most. 
Dr. Bill's office. 
PART 5
I placed my hand on Dr. Bill's door. The handle was cold metal, so I pulled my hand back. It made me jump a little bit, but I quickly got over it and pushed my hand up to the door again. It didn't feel so cold this time, so I pulled the door open.
Dr. Bill stood up to greet me. 
"Hey, Jackson! It's so great to see you!"
"Hi, Dr. Bill."
Even though it was the beginning of fall, his office was as cold as the door handle. Or maybe I was the one who was cold inside. Either way, I made sure not to take off my jacket. 
Plaques and certificates decorated his walls. I'd read all of them by now, and they all said the same thing. About how he was a great therapist, how he fixed everybody's problems, and how no one left his office disappointed. They were all wrong.
Dr. Bill truly wanted me to regain my memories. That much is true. But he wasn't very good at it. Even though he was always talking about new techniques and ideas, not one had ever gotten anywhere. Then this random IPad with some Minecraft stalker on it shows up, and boom, I get memories back. It really showed how things were going there.
He sat me down on his couch and pulled out his notepad. 
"So, Jackson, I heard you got some of your memories back? How'd that happen?
I began to tell him the story. Obviously, I left out some parts. The parts about having a hacker, or maybe a ghost player, that I knew before show up. But I told him about feeling memories just out of reach. And I told him I had memories of Minecraft. 
He seemed to be listening intently as I said this. Looking at every little thing I did, every movement, to see if I was telling the truth. And it seemed, as far as he could tell, I was. 
I finished my little speech by saying, "And my mom doesn't want me to go looking for the truth. I think she's just being overprotective."
It was merely a shot in the dark, but I was hoping with all my heart that it would work. And I think Dr. Bill knew this. He was writing in his little notepad for what I think was a minute and a half, torturing me. Eventually he looked up and stared me right in the eyes, almost into my soul. 
"Jackson, can you go get your mother, please?"
It was a strange question for him to ask. He almost never asked for my mother to come in unless it was something directly related to her. Still, I wasn't sure if he was going to tell her to let me look for memories. In fact, from the look in his eyes, it could've been the exact opposite. Even with that look, though, he still had a huge grin plastered on his face.
I went out to the car to get my mother. She seemed just as surprised as I was. It really was a special occasion when this happened. Usually in a bad way.
We went inside. My mom kept her jacket on, too, as we went down the hallway to Dr. Bill's door. On the way down the hallway, I saw a man in an office wearing a short-sleeve shirt with a fan on. I wondered how he could stand it. 
My mom entered the office, but Dr. Bill asked me to wait outside. The moment he closed the door, I pressed my ear up to it to see if I could hear what he was saying. Turns out I could. This is what I heard:
Mom: Hello, Dr. Bill.
Dr. Bill: Hello, Mary. Nice to see you again. I wanted to ask you about something Jackson said.
Mom: What did he say?
Dr. Bill: He said you didn't want him finding some memories. Some specific ones.
Mom: What? No, I want him to find his memories. That's just not true.
Dr. Bill: Maybe you want him to, but you can't bring yourself to tell him something.
Mom: There are things he's not ready to hear.
Dr. Bill: Like what?
Mom: That's personal information.
Dr. Bill: Mary, the kid's 16. He's old enough to hear whatever you don't want him to.
Mom: I don't care. I'm not telling him.
Dr. Bill: This is a serious matter. Do you want me to get Child Services involved?
Mom: I think we're done here.
As soon as I heard that, I moved away from the door. Just in time, it seems, as my Mom stormed out of there seconds later. Normally, after something like this, I would be sad, and a little distressed. But this time I was happy. Whether she liked it or not, I was going to find out what happened to my father.
PART 6
After we left Dr. Bill's office, my mom drove me to my grandpa's house. She said that she had to go "get some work done." That either meant that she was going to either go look at the IPad, or she was going to try and stop him. Either way, it gave me some much-needed peace.
My mom pulled up our car in front of grandpa's house. I opened the door and ran to the path in his front yard. His house was two stories tall, with a luscious garden in the yard. As I went up the path, I ran my hands up against the tomato and lettuce plants. 
When I got to the door, I opened it, hoping for the warm feeling of a greeting from a close relative. Instead, the greeting I got was total silence, except for the noise of the dark blue door hitting the doorstop. I stepped inside the house, and took a quick look around. 
After a moment or two of exploring, I found him in the kitchen, making some lasagna. He was putting it in the micro wave as I walked into the room. 
"Hey there, Jackson! How's it going!"
I was put off a bit by this. Not a whole lot, it was just a little strange. He usually greeted me with a boring phrase like "hi Jackson!" And he almost never asked me how I was doing. Normally, this wouldn't be so weird, but with all the strange events happening, I believe I had a right to be a little paranoid.
"H-hey Grandpa!"
I tried to reassure myself that my fear was random and irrational. Like most of my fears normally are. But there was an overwhelming sense of terror. My brain was telling me everything was fine, but my gut was telling me to run for my life. 
"Can I go upstairs please?"
This was a weird thing to say, and probably a dead giveaway that I was suspicious. But I was on the spot, and had no idea what to say. But my grandpa just smiled at me. Somehow, this was even scarier than if he had been suspicious of me. It made me want to hide somewhere.
"Of course!"
In seconds, I was going up the stairs. I ran straight into the first room I could see, which happened to be my grandma's old room. I sat down on the box, the box where it all began. It wasn't nearly as hot as it was when I had last touched it. 
As I breathed more and more, I began to realize how stupid I'd been. It was just silly. My Grandpa was not being weird. He was grieving! It almost felt like I was being insensitive. I sighed, and stood up.
But as I stood up, the box slid out from under me. It bumped into some of the clothes around the closet. Underneath it, I could see some wooden floor that contrasted with the carpet around it.
I moved the box to the side, and searched the floor for some kind of opening. It took a minute or two, but I did find a small handle. I pulled on it, and the floor moved up towards me. I peered inside.
Inside, was a small room a little bigger than the trapdoor I opened, and only about 3 feet high. I didn't want to go inside, but I could see a shape surrounding an IPad. I think it might have been a pentagram, I don't really remember. 
I reached inside to pick up the IPad. I could tell it was identical to the one that was in the box. When my hand brushed it, I felt a small shock. 
I pulled my hands back from the 
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IPad. For a moment, I was surprised by the shock, and couldn't move. But I quickly had to regain my senses. As loud footsteps moved up the stairs, and the shadow of a knife moved into my vision.
PART 7
It doesn't matter whether you're watching a horror movie, or seeing it in real life, no matter how much you've seen it before, a man carrying a knife is always scary. In that moment, whether it was my grandpa or not, I was in total terror.
And I think that's how I was able to recover from the shock so quickly. Adrenaline was rushing through my body, and no matter how much my hand hurt from that shock, I got up. I knew I had to run, but where could I run to?
The upstairs in my grandpa's house was comprised of a long hallway leading to a room my grandpa liked to call the bonus room. On both sides of the hallway were various bedrooms and bathrooms, all dead ends. Off the top of my head, I could think of three ways down. 
The most obvious one was the stairs, but those were clearly out of the question. But to the right of the stairs was a balcony, that was directly above the doorway out. There was a good 12 feet between the floor I was on and the first floor, but it was a serious option. 
That led to the last option. The bonus room. It was where my grandpa kept his trophies. He used to be a hunter when he was in his 20s. There was no way out of that room, but he had an old axe and an old rifle in there I might be able to use.
Of course, being a hunter, my grandpa was clearly much more skilled at combat. He always told this one story about how he fought a bear and lived. But, if I were to get to the room, I would have superior weaponry.
But first, I had to know if it was my grandpa. After all, it could be somebody trying to break into the house, or maybe even so 
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me serial killer who needed something to do. Know your enemy, I guess.
So I quickly moved out of grandma's room, and towards the top of the stairs. There, about a third of the way up, was my grandpa, holding a huge knife in his hand.
"Hello, Jackson. It's nice to finally see you again."
He began to walk a little faster, and held the knife a little further out. He was scaring me a little. And he wasn't making any sense. See me again? He had just seen me a few moments ago. It was so strange. And scary. 
I turned around, and headed down the hallway toward the bonus room. I turned around when I got to the bonus walking down the hallway behind me. He was barely a quarter of the way down, and he was walking very slowly as if to taunt me.
I pulled the axe off its little stand. It was heavier than I thought, but I could still carry it. I began to move towards my grandpa, with the axe at my shoulder.
"You'd really rather not do this, Jackson. It'll hurt more if you fight back."
He said this in a tone I'd never heard him use before. Not angry or even irritated, but complete calm. No emotion, except a tinge of joy. That's why I didn't feel bad about what I was about to do.
I dug the axe into his shoulder. Blood spurted all over the room, and onto my face. I pulled it out, and his arm almost fell out of his socket. I could see the bone inside was completely shattered. 
But the expression on his face was not one of pain. Instead, he seemed to think it was funny somehow. Then, all of a sudden, he pushed his knife into my forearm. It hurt more than anything I could remember. But I felt that it was nowhere near my bone. I could still move my arm. So I pulled up my arm and shoved the axe directly through his head.
His arms went limp and the expression on his face fell. He slumped to the ground. I fell backwards, onto a phone on a shelf. Feeling myself beginning to pass out from blood loss, I dialed 911 as fast as I could. But just as somebody answered the phone, it all went black.
PART 8
I awoke in a small room with curtains on both sides. I had a cast on my right arm, the one that had been stabbed. It had two signatures on it, Dr. Bill's and my mom's. They were both in the same ink, which I recognized came from a pen at the side of the bed.
I sat up and touched the cast. Surprisingly, it came off rather easily when I pulled on it. Underneath, I could see my wound. It had a bandage on it, but it was relatively clear and easy to see through. It actually didn't look too bad. 
I then saw something that grabbed my attention. The IPad was sitting on a nearby table. And not the fake one, either. I could tell it was real because the case wasn't burnt like the first one I found.
I placed my hand on its cover. It didn't shock me like before, so I clicked the home button. It automatically opened up. The only app installed was Minecraft. I clicked on it to open it, and got the Mojang loading screen.
Before it loaded all the way, a male doctor entered through the door in front of me. 
"Ah, Jackson, you're awake!"
Somehow, seeing another person triggered a couple of realizations inside of me. First of all, I was going to jail. For the murder of an old man. My grandpa. And there was no way to tell that it was self-defense. All they saw was me next to a dead body with an axe through its head.
Second, the sun was pretty bright outside. That meant I had probably slept through the night at the hospital. Which is more than enough time for police to find a body and do an autopsy. There really was no way out of it.
The doctor must have seen the terrified look on my face.
"Don't worry, you're safe now. He's gone."
"Am I in trouble?"
"Not at all. What you did saved people's lives."
What? What did I do? I'd saved my own life, but who else? The doctor seemed to sense my confusion, and laughed.
"Three days ago, we found that man at the site of an old murder that happened a few years ago. He killed three police officers, even after they shot him. When we saw that you had deep cuts on your arm and he was holding a knife, we knew you were just defending yourself."
This was amazing news! I was safe! No trial, no murder, it was all over! Everything had worked itself out!
Except, it hadn't. All this had raised more questions than it had answered. My grandpa was a murderer? That didn't tell me what happened to my father, or why my mother was so secretive. And it sure didn't tell me who the figure in my memory was. I had to keep looking. But now was not that time. Now was the time to rest.
"How long am I going to be here?"
"Well, the knife bruised your joint a little, but it'll heal pretty quickly. No surgery needed. You'll be out in a week, tops. Until then, just rest up. And feel free to play on that IPad as much as you like."
This was good. With my mom gone, I could mess around as much as I wanted with the IPad. Things were actually looking up for me.
But as I thought about that, another question came up in my mind. Where was my mom? And why was Dr. Bill here? It was probably nothing, but I was curious.
"When did my mom leave?"
"Well, um, she had to be escorted out. Kept asking for us to give you an MRI and wouldn't take no for an answer. But don't worry about it."
And I didn't. I had a voice in my head, telling me everything was fine.
Everything is fine. 
I am ok.
We are safe.
We are safe. 
We are safe. 
We are safe.
073 039 109 032 115 117 099 104 032 097 032 108 105 097 114 013 010
PART 9
After the doctor left, I got back on the IPad. It had shut off automatically by then, but I was able to load it back up. 
When it loaded all the way, I got the menu screen. My character was a very basic Steve skin, with no changes at all. The splash text read, ”12 herbs and spices!” The background was a dimension I hadn’t seen before. It looked like the Nether, but with new biomes.
I opened up the world selection menu. To my surprise, there was actually one world in there. The world title was, “jackson and friends.” My first thought was, what friends? I was never told I had any friends from before my father died. 
I clicked on the world, and it began loading. Now before I tell you what happened, you have to remember I stopped playing at 1.12. I had completely missed four updates and I had no idea what they were. So don’t judge me please.
The world loaded and I was sent to the inside of a house. It was made of birch wood planks, with a cobblestone floor. There were glass windows on both sides of me, and two beds behind me. Near the windows were a crafting table, a furnace, an anvil, and an enchanting table.
I looked around, and saw a ladder behind me. When I went up the ladder, I found myself on a second floor. It had nothing on it but a deck that overlooked the land. It was only now that I saw where I was.
It seemed I was on the edge of an extreme hills biome and a birch forest with very tall trees. I had farms below me, in the space between the two biomes, filled with cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens. Additionally, I could spot some wheat, sugar cane, carrot, and potato farms littering the landscape. 
All these wonders were connected by a cobblestone path below me. I went back down the ladder and out to the front of the house. I saw three signs, leading down different pathways. The first said, “Animal farms,” the second said “Plant farms,” and the third said “Mineshaft.”
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I went down the path that said, “Animal farms,” because my hunger was down three bars. I was hoping to get some mutton or maybe some steak. As I began down the little path, I noticed something. There was a second building right at the end of the path. I decided my plan would be to quickly get some food and then head that way. 
I came across a large pen with maybe 20 cows in it. At this point I realized that I had an enchanted diamond sword with sharpness 4 and fire aspect. I killed a cow, got some steak, ate it, then checked my inventory.
All my armor was diamond and enchanted with protection and unbreaking. I had a pickaxe with efficiency and unbreaking, too. How did I get all this good stuff? 
I discarded the question and headed closer to the house. It, like the house I spawned in, was birch wood wits a couple windows. As I got closer and closer, I began to see the house in more and more detail.
When I got there, I found something very unsettling. There were two signs outside the door. One said, “My friend’s house!” But that wasn’t the unsettling part. That was the other sign. It only had one word on it, repeated many times in a small font.
LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR
PART 10
I looked up from the monitor for a moment. I didn’t know why, but I felt this sense that something awful was about to happen. Like something was going to break through my window and attack me. I actually thought in that moment that I was going to die.
For about 10 minutes, I just sat there. Waiting to die I guess. After a little while, the feeling sort of went away. But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get the lingering feeling that something bad was happening out of my mind. It was just sitting there, bothering me.
Eventually, I glanced back down at the IPad. The screen was certainly darker but it hadn’t turned off. I could still vaguely see the sign, declaring its powerful statement. I tapped the screen with my finger, and it brightened back up. 
There was never really any question to me of whether I should stop. This was the only way of finding the truth. That was all I wanted. Not revenge or power, just the truth about my father. That was really all.
So I ignored the sign, at least for as long as I could, and entered the house. It was like some kind of haunted copy of the house I spawned in. Blocks were missing in the floor, walls, and ceiling, there were no crafting tables or furnaces, and the ladder up to the next floor was missing a rung.
I set down a crafting table I had in my inventory and crafted the missing piece. I got rid of the table with an enchanted diamond axe, and placed the ladder in the necessary spot. As I did, I felt eyes creeping on the back of my player’s neck.
I felt that strange sense of fear again. This time, I reacted. I spun around and took a screenshot as quickly as I could. The image popped up on my screen. I studied it very carefully. No demons. Calm rushed over me like waves on the sand.
I climbed up the ladder, and moved up to the second floor. It kept the same decayed look as the first floor. This time though, it was actually different than the other house. There was no deck, and instead of being all birch wood, one of the walls was built into the mountain.
There was nothing on that floor, so I headed back down to the first floor. I was prepared to leave the house. In fact, I was actually disappointed. I really thought there would be something up there that would help me.
But when I got back downstairs, a huge detail I’d missed smacked me in the face. Directly to the right of the door, was an oak trapdoor in the corner! How had I missed this? Was it not in the screenshot? Upon checking, I noticed that it was just out of frame. Weird.
Well, noticed or not, it was a literal trapdoor. Obviously it had to hold some kind of secret. I mean, I’ve never heard of a non-suspicious trapdoor. So I went over to it and opened it. 
Inside, there was yet another ladder. It seemed dark inside, but I could see a tiny light at the bottom. That had to mean there was a room or something down there. Excitedly, I jumped right onto the ladder.
It felt like it took a million years to get down to the light. Maybe it was the anticipation, but the ladder felt like it almost went past bedrock. When I did reach the room below, I found something pretty surprising.
In front of me there was a long 2x2 corridor. Like the kind all those Herobrine sightings had. As far as I could tell, there were torches every 11 blocks or so. There were no ores anywhere, just a long one-way tunnel.
For the next 3 minutes, I walked right down that tunnel. When I got to the opposite side, there was nothing. No clues, no signs, nothing. It had all been a big waste of my time. I was a little bit mad. 
I sighed, and headed back. It was only a waste of time, not anything big. There weren’t really any consequences for wasting ten minutes. Nothing I was doing was time-sensitive. 
As I was in the middle of walking back, I was shocked. Literally. The IPad buzzed like there was a notification, and I felt a small shock in my hands. It made my finger slip and move my player’s field of visions. 
When I turned around, I saw something for a second. A player, the one I saw in my vision. Its skin was half black and half white. Before I could do anything, it moved toward me quickly. I blindly tapp
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ed the screen, swinging my diamond sword at it. To my surprise, I hit it, and it took damage.
Before I could attack it, I was suddenly teleported up to the surface, just inside the house. The chat didn’t say what teleported me, just that I had been teleported. And, weirdest of all, the trapdoor was gone. 
But there was one thing that was intact. My screen recording. 
PART 11
I leaped out of bed eagerly. This was it, the end of it all. I had proof, tangible proof, of what had just happened. And witnesses, too! They could prove that there was no way to fake this. I was in an empty room, in a singleplayer world, with nothing on me. It was proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Now, anyone reading this, which I don't expect anyone to since for obvious reasons I can't contact anybody, might be confused about this. Let me explain. Before I began playing, I started a screen recording. Just in case I ran into anything supernatural. Which I clearly did.
And this was especially exciting for me. Not just because of the fact that I caught a supernatural entity on camera. See, before this, nothing had happened that couldn't be explained. But this, this was the final proof. That something was going on. Something big. Something that connected back to my father.
Before, I had doubt about what I was doing. Now, I knew what I had to do.
I contemplated alerting a doctor or trying to tell someone. I thought about it, but decided not to. There were people who might have a heart attack or something if I scared them too much. No, the place to share this discovery was the internet.
So I pulled up the first two sites I could think of: the minecraft supernatural subreddit, and the minecraft creepypasta wiki. They were both pretty reputable, and I was sure people there would believe me.
So first, I went to the subreddit. There were lots of stories similar to mine on the front page, but only a few had videos. I watched them, and they all looked clearly fake. It looked like mine was the only real one, or at least the only one with a video.
I clicked the button to upload the video. Just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, I did a quick rewatch of the whole thing. It started out exactly how I remembered, with me exploring the houses and getting some food. Everything was going to plan.
When I got to the part where I found the trapdoor, something caught my eye. Specifically, that there was no trapdoor. There was only cobblestone, like the rest of the house. I was confused. Had the video been altered or something? 
But what came next confused me even more. Instead of discovering the trapdoor, I watched myself dig down to the tunnel and place the trapdoor above me. What? I had never done that! This made no sense.
Then, instead of getting attacked by the entity, something else happened. The events did play out like I remembered, with my screen moving around. But there was no figure! It looked very strange, like I was fighting a ghost, or maybe somebody who could've been there.
And the weirdest part was the end. Instead of getting teleported, I watched myself calmly walk back up, destroy the trapdoor, and stand in the middle of the house for 40 seconds. Then it stopped. I was in complete shock. And I had that feeling again, that I was in danger.
I got up, and stumbled out of the room. It felt strange to stand up after such a long time sitting or lying down, but in my terror, I was able to get down the hallway, and alert the doctor who I had spoken to earlier. He helped me back to the room, and I sat down on my bed and began to explain.
I guess I was tired, because I told him the whole thing. Everything that had happened. I didn't leave out a single detail. After the story was over, he looked surprised. Maybe a little disbelieving, too.
"Wow. You've been through a lot. Look, I'm not a detective or anything, but I this is my guess on what happened. Your mom figured out that at some point, your grandpa killed your dad. She acted normal around him, but she needed proof. Then, a couple days ago, your grandpa realizes she figured it out. So he tries to kill you as a warning. But it doesn't work, and you end up here. Now, as for the thing you saw, I think it's the skin of a friend or something that you saw at some point. It's common that after a traumatic event, people will set up things for themselves to find and then believe it happened."
He set me back in the bed, told me to rest, and left. But the whole time, I was pondering his theory. Was it possible that my grandpa killed my dad? Yes. But was it likely? I didn't think so. In fact, my grandpa was actually on vacation when it happened. And grandma was with him, so he had proof.
And I knew what I saw. I had no doubt in my mind about what happened. I was going back. I was going to fight a demon. And I was going to win.
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PART 12 
I didn't go right back to playing minecraft, though. I was tired from a long day of investigation, and I think I deserved a good sleep. Besides, my arm needed a night to heal. It was feeling better already, but not quite feeling good yet. 
Incredibly, I actually got a good sleep. I thought I would have nightmares, but I actually didn't dream at all. Or at least, I didn't remember them. I heard somewhere that everyone dreams every night, but we sometimes don't remember what happened in them.
But my brain works in weird ways, like I said. With the amnesia and all that. Sometimes I'll forget something that happened a week or so ago, or maybe I'll forget where I put something. But that's just human forgetfulness, right? Probably, yes.
Except, when I woke up, I had completely forgotten about everything that happened yesterday. Looking back on it now, it seems like it was always there. But when I woke up, it was like the last day had never happened. I mean, I knew it had happened, but I didn't know exactly what happened.
In fact, I remembered so little, that I actually left my room to go ask the doctors what happened the day before. They were pretty confused, to say the least. They told me about everything that had happened yesterday. And just like that, it was back in my memory.
This probably should have tipped off to me that something was wrong. Very wrong. But I was tired, and I was in the mindset that I could forget things sometimes. That had been what I was doing for as long as I could remember. I had no memory of a time when I could do anything else.
I went back to my bed. But as I did, I heard people whispering outside my door. The doctors I had just spoken to. I dismissed it as nothing of interest, and picked up the IPad to turn it on. But then I heard them say my name. I moved over to the door so I could hear what they were saying.
"I gotta agree with you on that one. Still, maybe we should try what she said."
"Why? It's not exactly a treatment for an arm injury."
"That's the thing. We don't know that much about the kid. And he was acting kinda weird. Maybe a look into his brain wouldn't hurt."
"Fine. I'll give him an MRI. But if Mary comes back again, she's going to have to find a different hospital. Understand?"
"And the therapist?" 
"I don't have any problems with him. Never caused any trouble, and I think he just wants to talk to the kid."
"Ok."
And with that, the two doctors walked away. At least, that's what I heard, judging from the footsteps going in opposite directions and the lack of speaking. It was actually a good thing for me, as I was worried that they were open the door and find me. 
Besides, it was nothing I hadn't heard before. Yep, my mom wanted to give me an MRI.
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Yep, she had shown up at the hospital. Yep, Dr. Bill was here a couple days ago. No new things. Just old things that I now had to think about some more.
Why did my mom want to give me an MRI? I mean, I was willing to do it, and it probably wouldn't hurt me at all. But why? How did it help me at all? I personally had no idea. Maybe it had something to do with what I saw in minecraft? Mom seemed to be at least kind of aware of it. But what I was perplexed about was the connection.
The connection between Minecraft and real life. It was getting too strong for my tastes.
PART 13
After about an hour of silence, a doctor walked in. His loud footsteps echoed down the corridor, alerting me to his presence. I sat up from the bed when I heard his hand on the doorknob. 
"Hello? Jackson, can I come in?"
"Yes, come in."
The doctor opened the door. He was the same doctor I'd spoken to about my problems with. There was a look of worry in his eyes. Before he even spoke, I knew I was going to be getting some bad news. 
"Hello, Jackson! Are you enjoying your stay?"
Of course I wasn't. I was in a hospital. Even without everything that happened, this would never have been fun. But of course, I couldn't say no. If I did, then I'd probably end up fighting somebody about something. Sometimes it was just better to lie.
"Yes, it's going well."
"That's great! Um, so, we're going to have to do a quick MRI. Standard procedure. We just don't know all of your injuries, and we want to check it out."
They were lying. Right to my face. Did they really think I hadn't heard them talking right outside my door? It almost felt like a setup. Maybe it was my mom, trying to get what she wanted. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. It wasn't my place to decide.
"Ok, when is it?"
"Well, it's actually today. In 10 minutes. I'm just letting you know. We can head over there now, if you like." 
"Sure."
I stood up from my bed, and walked over to the door. The doctor opened it for me, and I stepped through. Outside, was a place I hadn't seen in a day or two. It felt different. Like there were less people, almost. One of the doctors looked at me with a confused face.
Not to be discouraged, I followed the doctor down the hallway. I assumed he was heading for the room where they do MRIs. I don't remember what it's called, but I thought it was where we were headed.
As we approached the room, I began to hear a whisper in the back of my mind. Not a metaphorical whisper, but a literal one. A voice. It wasn't speaking, but I could feel its presence. Its energy. It was an energy of fear. I was feeling someone else's fear.
I stopped in my tracks. The doctor turned around, and looked at me. For a moment, I could see into the mind of whatever was controlling me. It was scared of something that was about to happen. The MRI, probably. I tried to run towards it, but my legs didn't work.
It felt like I was possessed. Like I wasn't in control. 
I noticed the doctor looking at me. He almost looked fearful, maybe afraid of me. I could use that to my advantage. Using all the strength I had, I spoke to him.
"Get me to the MRI. Don't stop if I try to resist."
The doctor, who seemed pretty smart before, thought fast. He pulled a nearby stretcher towards me and set me on it. Then he began to push it forward, towards the MRI room. The other people nearby turned and stared at me. 
At first, I was surprised that I wasn't fighting or anything. I was just still, laying there on the stretcher. I couldn't move, but no one else was moving me. I still had some relative control over my mind. But that didn't last for a very long time. 
The moment I could see the MRI room, one of the nearby doctor's face began to twist and contort violently. Time seemed to slow down. Then, their face fell off of their head, revealing the face of the Minecraft character I saw underneath. I tried to scream, but something stopped me.
Suddenly, the hospital was gone. I was in a void of color, floating on an invisible stretcher. The only sign left of the hospital was the Minecraft skin I had seen. It lifted its hand, and I felt myself step off the stretcher. I began doing actions, things that I wasn't trying to do. Running, punching something, and dodging some invisible object.
I was terrified. I had no control over myself. It felt like an out-of-body experience. Then, I felt myself being dragged somewhere. The figure began to scream. It was the most horrible sound I've ever heard. And the red, colorful void around me began to dissipate. 
The player, reached out towards me, but its hand disappeared. Seconds after it, too, faded away, it spoke. In a language that I didn't know, and yet I could still understand. 
"It will never be that easy."
Then, I woke up. I was in the MRI machine. The doctors outside were watching me get scanned by a red light. I breathed a deep sigh of relief. It was over, at least for now.
PART 14
After some time, the red light over me disappeared. I think it was less than five minutes, but I was unsure. It's funny how time gets away from you like that. It felt eerie. But after what had happened, so did everything else. Nothing was safe from what I'd seen.
I'm usually not too scared of anything. Spiders don't bother me, neither do heights, and I'd watched my fair share of horror movies. I was kind of at the point in my life where I had become a bit desensitized to fear. It meant nothing to me anymore. It was just a word.
This was different. This was a completely new kind of fear. It was different than the dread I'd felt earlier in the hospital. That feeling was not my own. It was being forced upon me, pushed into my mind by something unseen. This feeling felt more....real. 
Obviously, it's been a while, and the feeling has gotten away from me, but I'll try to describe it as well as I can. You know when you're on a rollercoaster, and you feel your entire body falling for a moment as the car goes down a steep hill? Now imagine that, but elongated. Like you're falling upwards, up into the sky, and there's nothing to break your fall, and the feeling just kind of stays. 
It was something I hadn't felt in a long time. But I had felt it before. I had a bad case of Deja Vu. And when you have amnesia, Deja Vu is something to be taken very seriously. After all, it is kind of a memory.
As I got out of the machine, three doctors held my arms, as if they were prepared to try and subdue me. They had a shocked look on their faces when I didn't fight them back. Their faces all seemed to be asking a vague question, probably something like, "Have you given up or something?"
But I hadn't. It had. Maybe not given up, but certainly lost. And that was important. No matter how powerful this thing was, no matter what it could do to me, I still had the upper hand. And I knew its weakness.
To be honest, I wasn't all the way sure why this had happened. Why the MRI had hurt it so much. But it did. It had gotten that thing out of my head. Sure, I was happy it was gone, but I didn't have time to rest. I had to begin strategizing on how to use this to my advantage. 
Before I could get in any other thoughts, one of the doctors yelled out to me. I recognized him as the one who I was walking with right before I was possessed. 
"Jackson! Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm ok, I think."
"What happened?" 
"I'm not sure. Can we talk about this later?"
The doctor looked like he wasn't sure what to do. I don't think he was in a place to order his colleagues to leave or even take their hands off of me. After all, I had just tried to fight them. It might not be safe to let go of me. I couldn't blame them for keeping me restrained.
He paused. It seemed to me like he was squirming with his decision. It took a moment, but he spoke.
"Hey, uh guys, I think we can let this kid go."
A chorus of complaints erupted from the other three doctors. I can't remember exactly what they said, but I could tell they were annoyed at the other doctor. Once again, I fully understood why. If some random kid walked up to me and started attacking me, I wouldn't want to let him go either. But the situation was more complicated than they thought. So I had to let them know.
"I think I'd been possessed or something."
"No, no, that's silly. Possession isn't real. It's just something Hollywood makes up for their movies," said one of the doctors in a concerned tone.
"Well, I don't know what happened, then. But that wasn't me. It wasn't me doing all those things. It was somebody else."
The three doctors suddenly looked more interested. One of them whispered something to the other. They all seemed intrigued. Meanwhile, behind them, the doctor I had spoken to looked worried, and a little scared. He motioned for me to stop.
Before I could do anything, the doctors had their hands off of me. One of them walked out of the door and gestured for me to come with them. I glanced back towards the doctor behind me. I couldn't see him anymore, it seemed he had left. I sighed and glanced ahead. I didn't know where these doctors were taking me, but it couldn't be good.
TUNE IN SOON FOR PART 15!
Category:Creepypasta
Category:Entities
Category:Supernatural
Category:Requesting for comments
Category:Long Pastas