This story takes place over 2000 years before modern Minecraft. It is pretty long, (836 words exactly) but I hope you will like reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Noon, eighth day, sixth month, third year of my service:

Until recently, I was just another unit of his Excellency's militia, but in light of recent events, I have begun to keep a journal, as I fear our great civilization is in its last years of existence.

On the day that changed everything, I awoke in my bunk, strapped on my iron armor, and grasped my weapon, an enchanted trident. Its prismarine hilt was warm with the third and first of the unbreaking and loyalty enchantments. As my squadron filed out of our bunkhouse, we felt the cool sea breeze on our faces and heard the distant clangs and crashes of a squadron of cadets training.

Sergeant Socrates gave the daily briefing in the center of the barracks.
"Awright, men, we're leaving to a small uninhabited island to keep watch while Aristarchus tries one of his zany experiments. We will be gone for eight hours. Any questions? Good! that's what I like to hear"

As my squadron marched down to the docks, I noticed a strange smell in the air, the smell of sulfur. We boarded the S.S. Brontes, the third largest warship in the harbor, and I noticed a platoon of six palace guards followed by the wise Aristarchus himself. The guards were carrying a sort of box, which contained the experiment. As we sailed west, I looked back at my island home of Spartos. I didn't realize that the end had already begun.

After two hours of westward sailing, the S.S. Brontes anchored near a barren, desert island about three times larger than itself. Aristarchus, the six palace guards, Sergeant Socrates, and our squadron all trooped down the gangplank. The guards constructed a stone and gold shrine. They hoisted the coffin-like box to the center of the treeless isle, and by Aristarchus' orders, removed the lid. A great blast of warm air emanated from a strange object within. Lastly, they placed the strange, radiating object in the center of the shrine, and Aristarchus pressed his finger to the shrine's new core. Suddenly, the whole shrine blazed red and began growing steadily warmer. "Back to the ship!" Aristarchus ordered, "It will soon be too sweltering for us to survive!"

"You heard the man!" Screamed the sergeant."We shall observe the experiment from a safe distance!"

As we all boarded the ship, those who looked back saw that the shrine was so blazingly hot, that the surrounding sand began to sizzle and smoke. The few nearby bushes had burned to ashes. "It's working!" yelled Aristarchus over the steady humming that had begun to sound from the fiery shrine "It will happen any moment!"

No one asked, because we soon learned exactly what had happened. There was a brilliant explosion of purple light, and the only thing we could see through our completely purple surroundings was the shrine core itself, which burned the deepest black.

Midnight, Ninth day, Sixth month, Third year of my service:

There is but one way to describe what happened next; time stopped. It had been early afternoon when the reaction was initiated, but when the purple blast had cleared, it was midnight. For a terrifying second, I forgot where and who I was. Then all memory came rushing back.

"Gentlemen, you have just witnessed the power of my new invention, the nether reactor!", said Aristarchus proudly. The small island was gone. In its place, stood an enormous spike of deep red rock. "The large spire you see before you has been recently transported from another world." Aristarchus beamed. "In turn, the island has been transported there."

The outside of the spire had several caves and what appeared to be a bridge made from reddish brown bricks jutting out from the side. A small lava flow spilt out of the wall and hissed as it met the sea below. Inside the caves and on the outside of the spire, there were monsters, almost too horrible to describe. Some resembled enormous ghastly squids that floated through the air. Some looked like smoldering beings of living fire, and some were skeletal beasts armed with swords, their bones charred black.

Evening, Thirteenth day, Sixth month, Third year of my service:

Much has happened in the last few days, so that I have not written, but I will try to compact all information of relevance into a short entry. It has been a very hot summer, the hottest on our records. No small part has likely been caused by the nether reactor. With that and recent natural disasters combined, the ocean's high tide is rising by the day. Soon, many of our towns will be preserved under shallow seas or will be left to the destruction of time. Thankfully, many of our people are evacuating to higher ground, but we were few already, and our abandoned villages litter island coastlines. Now with our homes destroyed, our people may not last another century. I can only hope that our legacy will last, and our ways will not be wholly forgotten.