SUBAQUATIC

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1.

The sky flashed. Steve was reading a book about mysteries of the world, including a picture of pure seaweed. He scratched his head, flipping the page to a pack of insomniac-devouring manta rays with their skeletons showing.

Steve jumped, sending the book flying out of his hands. It landed on the floor, opened to the page with the seaweed picture. He put the book on the oak bookshelf and walked up to the bed. But as soon as he glanced out the window…

There was a blue manta ray with its skeleton showing. Steve screamed and dashed out of his bedroom to Alex’s, landing on his back and awakening her.

“What now?” Alex asked sleepily.

Steve pointed to the window. Alex screamed and they both dove under the bed, curled up in a cube. They shivered as they dreamed of fangs hanging from an ugly, fierce mouth.

When they both woke up, the thunder was gone. They slowly crept out from under Alex’s bed and stumbled down the stairs for breakfast. Steve brought his book downstairs, although it sometimes reminded him of the manta rays. He flipped to the page with the seaweed as he sipped from the wooden bowl.

“What’s this?” Steve pointed to the picture.

“Seaweed, I guess,” replied Alex. “But why’s it in this book?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“Right. You’re the one who first asked that.” She thought for a moment. “I had a dream last night-”

“About the manta rays?”

Alex was shocked. “How’d you know?”

“How would you not dream about something horrifying that happened to you?”

Alex was confused. “Whatever. It was really cool, and scary, because of the inception.”

“What inception?”

“Like we saw the manta rays in the dream and later went to sleep and I dreamed of them in the dream.”

“No, we actually saw them.”

“What?”

“Let’s eat. We need to get to the swimming lessons.”

And they ate. Shortly after breakfast, they both changed and went to the swimming lessons. Little did Alex know that Steve was right, the manta rays were real. The thought of those creatures made them shiver in the water, because manta rays normally lived in water.

Before they knew it, the lesson was over. They’d been thinking about scary manta rays so much that they hadn’t even paid attention to the time. After changing, they went back home.

“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to swim in the ocean?” Alex asked.

“No, have you?” replied Steve.

“Yes. It would be really wild and have a lot of salt-”

“And-”

“Don’t talk about that.”

“Oh, sorry… Wait, that’s what the image was! The ocean! That book also had pictures of those m-”

“Sh!”

“Alex. Seriously. You need a look at that page.”

“Fine…”

Steve flipped through “Wonders of the Minecraft World” to the page with the mantas. It read:


Phantom


A blue-skinned manta ray with its skeleton showing. Sightings have been rare, but most report it showing up at night to eat insomniacs.


“Well, what do you know, this is just like the one we saw!” Steve exclaimed.

“Did you stay up late again?” Alex scolded.

Steve’s face turned red. “Yes, I did, and what’s wrong with that?”

“Phantoms.”

His face transitioned from bright red to pale. “Right.” It quickly turned back to normal.

“I wonder what happens if we both stay up to search for them?”

“That’s a stupid idea.”

“But it’d be cool! And we’d get famous!”

“Fine.”

They opened the front door (when going to the swimming lesson, they opened the back) and were astonished to find flat, white, cellular pieces of stuff scattered everywhere across their front yard, topped with a huge nest laid on their biggest tree. It looked as if the cellular stuff was partially burnt.

“What happened here?” screamed Alex.

“What’s all this stuff?” screamed Steve.

“Hey, don’t touch that!”

Steve immediately flung the object above the fences, hitting someone walking in the shadows with a bright blue jacket.

“Sorry!”

“Don’t touch that white thing!”

The person took one look at the object, green eyes squinting. The disguise was removed, revealing something cascading toward them. In fact, it wasn’t a person at all. It was one gigantic phantom, ready to chase them down.

“Quick, do something!” Alex shouted.

Steve grabbed a bundle of sticks, ran inside, and came back to see a shadow looming over a shrieking Alex. It dove down, smelling the fresh scent of human meat…

Just as the phantom turned, it burst up in flames, emitting wet breathing noises as it flapped around aimlessly. Steve had created a torch.

The phantom soon disappeared in a small butt of smoke, leaving some cerulean eggs with bright green spots. Steve and Alex entered their house, relieved.

2.

The next day, Steve was bouncing around with eight shells in his hands.

“Where’d you get those from?” asked Alex.

“Fishing,” replied Steve.

“Why’d you get them?”

“Um, well… the 1.13 update has this new thing that requires them.”

“And what’s it used for?”

“Breathing underwater.”

“Why?”

“You said you’d like to go to the ocean.”

“Not really!”

“Oh…”

But Steve really did want to go to the ocean. They had normal days after that, mining, crafting, and other generic human things while the shells and phantom eggs were locked up in a large, dusty chest of unused things. But they didn’t really fit in there, because they’d later on be the most important items in the whole house.

One time, Steve and Alex headed to a faraway beach for summer, carrying most of the items in the house, including the “useless” ones. While they were enjoying their time, Steve got the ridiculous idea to search through everything to find dirty ones.

But he could only find one. “Spoiled egg,” he said carelessly and he flung the mostly cracked egg across the sky.

“Wait, no! That one’s not spoiled-”

“Can’t you see? It’s cracked.”

“I think something seriously wrong is going to happen.”

“Why? Is it going to pollute the water or something?”

“That was the phantom egg.”

They were frozen in fear, not moving a body part but the internal organs and head, which was cranking its way toward the phantom. It lunged at them with great speed as to not be seen, and dashed toward their faces, looking for a bite. Steve and Alex covered their eyes…

They opened their eyes to a small, friendly (but wet) phantom wagging its tail with a blue orb glowing on its chest.

“Hold on!” said Steve. “I think this is what you put in the middle.”

“What middle?” asked Alex.

Steve dragged the crafting table out from his supply bag, and placed it on the sand. He swept his hand across its grid, laying down a blue orb surrounded by shells. Then he hammered each item on the grid to get a messy brown cube.

Steve then dragged a prismarine pyramid he secretly made out of the bag, and placed the cube on top of it.

“What are you trying to do?” asked Alex.

A few seconds later, the cube burst apart, showing the bright, gleaming blue middle. Everyone on the beach turned their heads, thinking they were hallucinating. Some even covered their eyes.

“We’re going to find whatever’s under the seaweed.” said Steve.

“What? I was joking!” said Alex.

“I don’t care if you were joking.”

“But everyone’s going to stare at us!”

“I know. We’ll get famous.”

Alex sighed and walked towards the ocean with her head down. Steve, on the other hand, sprinted toward the sea with the wiggling phantom in his arms.

3.

Steve threw the phantom a pack of invisibility potions, and it flew overhead Alex and Steve as they walked through the shallow water, and started swimming.

“How long is this going to take?” asked Alex.

Steve checked the book. “Well, it’s about a mile from here.”

Alex rolled her eyes. The phantom still had to skim the water, because its eyes were showing.

“You can breathe underwater, you know,” Steve said.

“Wait, really?” Alex was astonished.

The phantom stared at them for a second, then dove under. Steve and Alex waved, and the phantom waved back. It pointed down with one wing to a mass of colourful coral. Steve and Alex looked down, patting the phantom. It laughed, but was muffled by the water. As soon as it was about to point again, Steve and Alex were down picking sea pickles.

It glided down to the seafloor. Everything looked like a playhouse, will all the bright colours shining in your face, and the funny shapes the coral and sea pickles made.

The coral reef stretched on for, guess what, a mile. They enjoyed the bright static animals. But after a while, everyone got bored and their eyes hurt from the brightness. The phantom smelled fish, and wanted to see/eat it. So it flapped its wings over to the source of the fish. Steve and Alex stored the pickles and followed.

A laser erupted from a strange blue pyramid, shooting toward them. They delved behind a pillar and looked around what they had jumped behind - seaweed!

In fact these weren’t fish at all - they were guardians. Alex suggested escaping, but Steve reminded her that this was the seaweed place.

They crept from behind the pillar. When a guardian wasn’t looking, the phantom lunged toward it and made a wet, vicious bite. Steve and Alex clapped their hands. The phantom grabbed the book with its tail and opened it to a page about scaling guardians.

They would leave a pile of guardians beside the pillar. The phantom would devour the meat, and Steve and Alex would collect the prismarine. Then, they’d destroy the monument.

Steve and Alex took out their swords. They slashed through guardians as they circled pillars, avoiding lasers. The phantom also circled, and used its teeth to pierce flesh. Soon, they were pushing a mound of carcasses into a mound of carcasses.

When all the guardians were slain, they took a few bites out of the meat, but saved most of it. As they got up, an unimpressed cube flashed through their vision. Three elder guardians with the same face swam up to them, one for each.

The thorns were first slashed off. After the creatures got closer to the pillars, they bit and slashed off the thick skin of the elder guardians and added them to the pile. Steve, Alex, and the phantom collapsed onto the prismarine ground as the pile followed. Steve and Alex got up as the collected flying shards and crystals.

The phantom got up too, looking at the delicacy. Then, it looked back at Steve and Alex. They agreed that all would have a feast.

The meat was enough to last five minutes, also enough for them to be extremely satisfied (but not chubby) and to clear the mining fatigue.

They swung their pickaxes through the prismarine types. Halfway through, they found a mysterious mob and jumped, throwing their pickaxes. What looked like a nautilus awakened and returned to its home, after all those years being trapped by the guardians. A new mob was born.

After all that was left was a ruined little house full of bones, they floated back up. Now Steve and Alex had enough prismarine to build a pet house, fifty more levels of minecraft experience, the experience of an adventure, a contribution to nature, and best of all, a new friend.

"Hey, 1.13 is still in progress," Steve said. "So why not add the Nautilus Spawn Egg?"

"Sure," replied Alex. "And turn the ruins into a structure."

"I can't believe this took a day."

"Yeah." Alex looked down, and there was a sleeping phantom. Steve picked it up and they traveled home. With the phantom.

Note that this was made of google docs with fancy text... and is for the "Deep Below" blog contest.