I woke up early this morning to find it was raining. From my little temporary house, looking outside, I could see monsters everywhere. And yet, I feel so calm and peaceful this morning. Maybe this is some strange sort of calm before a storm scenario. It might just be that I’m finally starting to gain hope that we can make it out of here. After all, our plan for at least the first phase of this expedition is pretty solid to my untrained mind. Things seem to work differently in this world, but Alexander seems to have a good grasp on that. I’d hope so, after three years here. I’m just glad I met him. I’m not sure I could handle this alone, if I’d even made it past my second day.
I think it’ll be a bit before Alexander wakes up, so for now I intend to just… Think about things, maybe write in here if I come up with anything important.
I miss my family. My mom’s probably worried sick about me. Today would’ve been my youngest sister’s dance recital, and an hour after that would be my youngest brother’s soccer game. The twins would likely have asked me for help with math again, and my friends and I would take everyone out for pizza. Mom would insist we didn’t have to buy dinner, and we’d just brush it off.
Things are rough at home, but not in a bad way. Mom’s just struggling to feed five hungry kids. She told me I didn’t have to, but I got a babysitting job to help out, and I tutor on the weekends. It helps pay the bills, and I save gas money by riding my bike around. The twins plan to get a job once they hit 15 in two weeks, and that should help out even more. My two best friends, Amy and Becky, help out too by helping us buy groceries. They don’t have to, but their families are well off and don’t need the extra cash. It’d all go to clothes or shoes or such otherwise, so they figure it’s a better investment.
Becky’s birthday is tomorrow, November 5th. Amy’s isn’t until January. I’ll feel bad about missing Becky’s, but I’m sure she’ll just be glad I’m home. I hope I’m home in time for the twins’ on the 20th, but I know they’ll understand if I’m not.
I should describe my siblings since I’ve brought them up. Nikki and Ryan are 14, born on November 20th. Nikki is into softball, and Ryan is into anything mechanical. They both get good grades in school, and help each other where they need it. The only thing they both suck at is math, but I help them out with that. Mikey is 10, and loves sports. He likes soccer the most and is the best player on his team. They haven’t lost a match yet this year, and Mikey is super proud of that. Trisha is 8 and wants to be a ballerina when she grows up. She started dance classes two years ago and has stuck with them ever since. It’s made her hate being sick- Mom’s rule is if we are too sick for school, we’re too sick for any of our normal after school activities.
Alexander is awake now and wants me to help double check our supplies before we go. I will write when we stop for a break.
We’ve been mining for what feels like a few hours now. According to the strange little clock Alexander apparently had this whole time and didn’t bother to tell me about, it’s not quite noon yet. So far we don’t have any diamonds, but Alexander isn’t sure we’re far enough down yet. We stopped for a break and to eat a bit. Our little rest area is just a small hole we dug into a wall and blocked back up. We lit up the area around it in this cave system first, to try to keep monsters away from us. I don’t remember if I wrote it before, and I don’t want to take the time to look cause we won’t be stopped long, but light deters most of the monsters. Zombies and Skeletons burn in sunlight, and artificial light like what comes from our torches keeps new monsters from popping up.
About these torches- They’re super weird but super useful. They don’t require fuel of any kind, and they never stop burning! Alexander said he hasn’t had to replace a single torch in the three years he’s been here. We can make four torches using just a stick and a piece of coal, so they’re super duper easy to make too! Plus, since we brought extra wood, we can make more if we need to. We keep finding pockets of coal while we’re walking. Which is great, because we can also use that to power the furnaces we brought if we need to use them.
Alexander says we’ll need to be careful when we get a bit further down- Apparently, at the depth we’re heading to, he’s seen a lot of lava pools. He said they’re actually not hot to stand around, but he can tell from monsters that have fallen in that the lava is still dangerous. It’s so weird that it doesn’t hurt us to stand near, though. He said we can even safely carry it in buckets! Like, metal buckets! I didn’t do the best in science, but even I know metal is supposed to heat up when exposed to, well, heat.
I’m going to eat something before we keep moving. I’ll write again at our next stop.
It’s sometime after noon now, and we’re a lot deeper in. We passed several of those lava pits, and Alexander wasn’t lying at all! It wasn’t any hotter standing next to the lava pit than it has been. I could hardly believe it! We did have to watch out for little embers that would occasionally pop out of the lava, but those were easy enough to avoid.
We spotted our first enderman while we were down here. It spotted us too, and it really did not like us looking at it. It teleported right at us and attacked, but Alexander fought it off bravely! It was amazing to watch, like something right out of a movie! Well, a weird, blocky movie anyway. Unfortunately, we didn’t get one of those pearl thingies that Alexander says we need, but he did manage to kill it. We’ve also had to deal with several spiders, a number of skeletons, and a huge wave of zombies.
Alexander said we stumbled on what his book called a “spawner” and that’s why there were so many zombies. We surrounded it with torches, because that’s supposed to deactivate it, and looked in this chest that was nearby. There was some really weird shaped armor, an old-style vinyl record, and some bread. We took the bread and left the rest- Alexander told me the armor looks like horse armor. We don’t need it.
Thankfully, we haven’t run into any creepers here. I think it might be harder to deal with them in close quarters like this. Their explosions could be useful for mining large chunks out of walls, but at the same time it’d be difficult for us to avoid getting hurt from that. We’re going to get moving again here in a minute. Here’s hoping we find the diamonds we need soon!
We found a spot to stop for the night. No diamonds, but a lot of what Alexander called redstone. We also found a little bit of gold, but it’s not very useful to us at the moment. There are these cute little bats down in the caves, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned them yet. They seem completely harmless, and they are just so adorable!
Don’t get me wrong- I wouldn’t go anywhere near a bat back home. But these bats are so different and cute! And stupid. Very, very stupid. I’ve counted ten now that have flown straight into a lavafall. (Is that even a word? It’s like a waterfall, but made of lava.) I counted another three that flew into corners and just seemed to get stuck there. Wouldn’t turn around, wouldn’t hang on the ceiling there, nothing. So weird.
We’re staying down in the caves for the night. I wasn’t too keen on that idea at first, but it’s better not to waste our time trying to go back up just to have to spend pretty much an equal amount of time coming back down here. We’ll have to continue our hunt for diamonds tomorrow, and hope we find some. Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll run into more endermen too. If we can knock the diamonds and the ender pearl things out in one go, all the better for us!
I just hope we can round up everything we need soon. I want to go home. I miss my family and my friends. I just hope my they’re not all too worried about me.
I hope we can get through this alive.
Short and Scorch 