[This is told from Steve's standpoint, incase you were wondering.]

[Also, bolded words in this mean thoughts. The italics weren't working :/]

Yeah, I'm alone. 

I have been for 5 years. 

This seems like the perfect time to write my story. What happened to me? How did I get to this place, this world, where no one else sees me?


The truth is, I once had a family. A life. Now I have none of that. I live off the land, isolated, like they wanted. This all came to be one day, a regular work day for me. It all started when I said the two words that would get me here. I quit.

The morning of the day that led me to this world started off regular. My wife, Mary, made me and my two sons Alex and Robert breakfast. I still remember it now. Pancakes. There are no pancakes in this world. Those were the last bites of pancakes I ever had, and probably will ever have, unless they set me free, take me out of this place.

I went off to work. The sun shone bright, it was late August and the summer was just wrapping up. It was the day after we got home from our family vacation to some beautiful island resort, you know, the typical one. Pools, waterslides, even a beach. Great for my sons and Mary, but I was stuck doing work for much of the time. Anyway, I'm getting off-topic. Back to the main story.

See, I hated my job. I was a lawyer back in the day, working for an evil corporation called Mine Co., who owned tons of coal and gold mines in the area. The working conditions the miners worker in were terrible -- not only were they payed about 2 dollars under minimum wage, they worked for about 16 hours a day, getting little sleep. Many of these workers died in these horrible conditions. Of course Mine Co. covered up a lot of this information with lawyers and doing certain things that if I told anyone, I would get killed. Even in this world alone, they would probably find me and kill me. 

The worst part of my job was, hands down, my boss. He was the reason this corporation, one that could have been nice and still made a ton of money, became evil. When taking over the rank of CEO in the corporation, the first thing he did was extend the working hours and lower the pay. He had friends in the government that never brought up the issue, and it was never dealt with. If anyone said something, they were punished and maybe killed by the company.

We were in the middle of a big case, something to do with someone somewhere suing Mine Co. for their working conditions. My boss, Herobrine, usually called Brine, was too late to stopping the information to getting out and was now in a court case, one that could potentially destroy the business. He was calling on me to do much of the work. I was sick of it. It ruined my family vacation, and more importantly it was ruining my life. Not just the case, but the job. It was too much.

So when I got into work that day and he flipped out on me because I didn't bring in something I wasn't assigned to bring in, I was not happy. I yelled those two words at him that I was talking about before, those two words that I still to this day regret saying. I quit. I knew that anyone who does this would have to be dealt with. Of course I believed that punishment to be murder, based on many incidents of murdered people who had spoken wrongly of Mine Co. This was not what happened.

Once I said the words, I regreted them. Instantly. Especially because Brine was yelling at the head of security, his brother Notch, "GET HIM! GET HIM! BRING HIM TO THE ROOM!" I didn't know what to do. I just ran, down the hallway, down the stairs, hoping, praying, that Notch or Brine or any of their minions wouldn't be downstairs waiting for me. Well, whoever I was praying to has some sick sense of humor, because Notch, Brine, and 10 of Notch's security guards and 3 of my workmates were down there. "There he is!" a man named Jeb yelled when he saw me running down the stairs. "Get him!"

Who's Jeb, you ask? He worked in the lab. Why did Mine Co. have a lab? I had no idea until that day. That day I realized that this evil corportation was more than that. It held the prototype for a new jail cell type concept. They called in Minecraft.

I was brought down a long hallway, held by two of the biggest and most muscular members of Notch's team. We walked. I had no idea where we were going. Why am I not dead? I wondered, still believing they wanted to kill me. No, I was not their next victim. I was their test monkey, the first person to ever be sent into the world of Minecraft.

I saw the lab approching. The labs? Why? I wondered. Did they have some sort of killing machine in here? Is this why I barely see Jeb, why he works in the lab? To kill? I wasn't 100% wrong, I guess. They killed my life, and I am dead to everyone in the real world. So yes, they essentially killed me. But hey, I'm alive, just in another world.

As the big metal gates of the lab opened, I didn't see what I expected. I expected probably what you did. The typical lab. Mixing liquids. A bunch of scientists building machines and expermenting with new ideas. No, this is not what I saw. Only a door.

A door. Nothing else. A door.

It looked pretty regular, besides the wires coming out of it and a computer about the size of a TV. The door was brown, with a golden colored knob. The rest of the room was white, completely white, and empty. No scientists. 

Notch and Jeb looked over at me. "Welcome to the door into the world of Minecraft," Jeb said. "What's Minecraft? Minecraft is a world without technology, without all the things you take for granted in life. There is just a perfectly clean world, with trees, deserts, and snow tundras. You are to live in it for the rest of your days, as a test for us. All of the people who break our rules are to go to here, to survive, in different parts of this world. Should you meet up, great. But I doubt it. No point of explaining why, you'll just try to bypass the system.

"Notch, here, yes, he is the head of security. At least by day. Me and Notch, we created this. He helped me with ideas, I put them to work. Now all we need it a tester. And you, Steve, you are the man for the job. We can't have people spreading 'lies' about Mine Co., now can we?" Jeb laughed.

Notch spoke, his voice deep and raspy. "Yes. We'll say you died in a freak explosion in the building, along with many others, on the top floor, where you usually work." He took out a button, and pressed it. A loud boom went off. "And there's the explosion. Now, let's hope that doesn't hurt the rest of the building, or else you REALLY will be dead."

Brine, who had been standing behind me the whole time, ran up and opened the door. "Shove him in," he commanded the security guards. They did as they were told. I fell in, and entered this world. This world called Minecraft. And from there forth I survived. All around me was trees, and a river a few blocks away. No civilizations. Nothing.

Now I have it all. I have diamonds galore, a nice castle to live in, enchanted swords and armor, bows to shoot monsters, and food to last me years. But what is it for? For me to survive? I'm still not sure why, when I spawned, I didn't just jump into the river and drown myself. I guess I liked the challenge of surviving. But now I'm bored. I have fought the monsters in the depths of the nether, mined all there is to mined, and even recreated the resort I was at the last family vacation I ever took. I tried making a pancake, that's how bored I am. It didn't work, long story short.

I've started the search for people, for civilization, for anyone to talk to. Maybe Mine Co. has sent more people, maybe they haven't. But if they have, you know quite well that I'll find them. I survived here, now I'm going to thrive here.

In a world.

Isolated.

At least for now.