My quill is stiffly guided over the paper I hastily and crudely crafted from spare sugar cane. The ink flows steadily, though I do sometimes need to top it up from the ink well. The ink is a deep black. Deeper than the void.


 


I struggle to put into words my experiences. And I know my time is running out. I try to convince the words to come faster.


 


The only sounds are the scratching of my quill, my breathing, the gentle ‘plop’ every time a drop of ink lands in the ink well from my newly ink-refreshed writing utensil.


 


Deep breath. Dip quill. Write.


 


That is the rhythm which I follow for the next few hours. At sunset I gather my items, go inside and seal the book.


 


I name it ‘Of the Mines Below’ for that seems a suitable title for my experience. Then I lock away the book in a safe place. Safe from myself.


 


It is then that the transformation takes place.


 


And this is what the book reads.


 


It was a day like any other. I got up, put on my armour and ventured down into my mine. It was a twisting maze of tunnels. I walked along one for a while, then began a new strip.


 


My pickaxe struck the rock, and I fell into a regular pattern. Swing. Mine. Pick up whatever I had just mined. Swing. Mine. You get the idea.


 


Suddenly I found my pickaxe hitting nothing, and my feet resting in mid air. With a shout of alarm I only just managed to keep hold of my pick, my other hand clawing desperately at the rock as I fell down.


 


Nobody expects to suddenly find an underground ravine: especially not when they are only a few blocks away from bedrock. And as I glanced down I could see the fabric of space below me. I could see the Void.


 


What had happened to the bedrock?


 


This life flashed before my screen, all forty minutes of it. But this was a death from which my items could not be recovered.


 


Just as suddenly as I had fallen I stopped, suspended in mid air only a few seconds away from my inevitable death.


 


And I blissfully lost consciousness.


 


When I woke up I was lying down outside the entrance to my mine, which had been filled in with a dark purple block that I had not seen before. No amount of mining could break it, not even with my diamonds pickaxe. It was only when I stood back that I noticed the sign upon it:


 


‘Your life for your soul? Not a bad deal. Thanks. –HB’


 


HB? That must be –


 


Suddenly I lost control of my body, my mind screaming at me to stop as I walked away from my house to plains unknown.


 


It is only now that I have again managed to control my body, and so can write this now.


 


And that is what I wrote. It took me longer than it could, I believe, as it was hard to write.


 


Suddenly I noticed a trail of blank ink trickling down my wrist.


 


For it wasn’t ink I was writing in.


 


It was blood.