Cold!

Again!

And this time it was worse than when I first rowed into it.

This time, I woke up shaking, chilled right down to my bones.

“Whoof,” I gasped, jumping onto the icy floor. Tight muscles, spasming limbs. “Whubu-huh-hasubusah,” was all my chattering teeth could say.

Of course—I should have planned for this! All that built-up body heat couldn’t last! Lying still all night, surrounded by warmth-sucking stone. I could have at least laid down a furnace, thrown in coal and all the extra cobblestone I’d gotten from building this underground refrigerator.

Maybe, I thought, punching up my bed and heatless torches, I’ll just lay down a plank of wood and set it on fire with a flint and steel. Just enough flames to warm my face and hands.

But I realized I couldn’t stay hidden underground burning my supplies—and burning daylight! Given how short the days were in this world, I couldn’t waste one more minute in this hole.

“T-t-time t-t-to g-go,” I stuttered like an old-timey cartoon character. “At least-t-t the sun’ll k-keep me w-warm…”

I broke down my cobblestone “door,” marched up and into my earthen room, collected the torches I’d left to keep the mobs at bay, and prepared to break down the dirt wall.

Click, click, click. I stopped, hearing the skeleton on the other side.

“Aw no,” I said through frozen earth. “Not this time. You think I don’t know what you’re up to? Waiting there in that shaded little pond hole, safe from the sunlight, hoping I’ll be dumb enough to just come blundering into your arrows.”

“Click, click, click,” came the response, which had to be, “Uh, yeah?”

“Well, it ain’t gonna happen,” I answered, and turned my shovel on the opposite wall. “I’ll just tunnel the other way, up into the bright, safe sun.”

I dug out a stairway to daylight. I could almost taste the rays on my face, banishing the cold, bathing me in hot, welcome…

“Oh c’mon!” Breaking through the earthen roof, a small, diamond-shaped flake of four mini-cubes came fluttering slowly onto my face. A snowflake. It was snowing up there.

“Come on!” I whined, climbing up into this world’s version of a blizzard.

So much for being warmed by the sun. Each flake felt like a stinging, icy needle on my skin. An assault by nature itself! “What did I ever do to you?”

Click, click, click.

The skeleton. Laughing at me from…Where was the hole?

Turning in its direction, all I saw was unbroken ground. There had to have been an entrance last night. How else could I have fallen through it?

The snow didn’t help, obscuring my vision with its curtain of infinite sting-flakes. I should have just backed up, left it alone, gone on with my journey and remembered my rule about careful curiosity.

I actually thought I was being careful as I stepped gingerly forward, eyes on the ground, ears guided by the invisible, incessant clacking. I was sure I’d see the hole in front of me any second.

Whoosh!

Right through the snow!

I fell back down into the cave and into the freezing pond.

Thock! An arrow in my chest, and the gray, lipless smile of an approaching skull.

I raised my shield, deflected the second shot, then swung my sword and felt dry bones crack against the edge of my diamond blade. The skeleton must have already been weakened by the morning light. It turned to smoke before I could swing again.

“What the…” I started to say, looking up at what appeared to be a solid white ceiling. It was thin, no more than a mini-cube at most. What was this, quicksand…or quicksnow? How could I fall through something without even leaving a mark? And when I tried to touch that ceiling—just one punch, mind you—the whole roof spontaneously shattered.

“New land, new r-r-rules,” I said as a chilled bolt shot up my spine. In the “heat” of battle, I’d forgotten that I was standing in waist-deep, ice-cold water.

Get moving, get warm.

Digging out a staircase to the surface, I poked my head out with renewed caution. There might be other mobs waiting for me there, protected from the morning sun by the heavy gray sky overhead.

I made sure to scan the horizon, looking for anything moving on its own. There was that polar bear from last night, shuffling around as if its recent battle had never happened. There was what looked like a creeper, but so far away I couldn’t be certain. And there were a few of those little, hopping dots, barely visible between the falling flakes.

I can’t tell you how disconcerting that moment was, trying to make out shapes from far away. Back on my island, everything had been so close. Even down below in the lava canyon, and below it in the abandoned mineshaft. Nothing had ever been farther away than a couple dozen blocks.

Now, in this vast expanse, I almost felt lost at sea again, but with a whole new assortment of shapes and threats to identify. And now my only ally, the sun, had taken a holiday at the worst possible moment.

Back down to the bunker? I wondered. Light a fire, have breakfast, and wait for the snow to stop, even if that means holing up for another day?

As I weighed that increasingly attractive option, my tortured eyes swung into view of the volcano. Red, glowing. Close enough to reach in a few minutes.

If I’m looking to warm up, I reasoned, that’s a whole lot hotter than a furnace. And once the snow stops, climbing to the top will give me a better view.

It wasn’t exactly the rousing start to my day that I’d hoped for. My nose burned from the cold, along with my ears and fingertips. And my teeth chattered so hard, I thought they might actually crack. I couldn’t feel my cheeks, or rather, I felt like there were thick, heavy pads glued to my face. That’s what happens when you lose all feeling in them. That’s how my toes felt as well, no matter how hard I tried to wriggle them.

Will I lose them? I wondered nervously. Isn’t that what happens to people who’re out in the cold too long? What’s the term for that?

Frostbite. The metaphor for being attacked by the cold. Will hyper-healing fix frostbite? I wondered, blinking red, raw eyes.

Something darted off to the side. Something small, fast. A silverfish? A surface-dwelling version of those tiny foot nibblers? Another one, in front of me this time, just beyond a small hummock. Sword ready, I charged!

And came face-to-face with nothing more than a black and white bunny rabbit.

“Whew!” I breathed, and then, with a twinge of embarrassment, said, “Sorry if I scared you. I guess I’m a little jumpy.”

The rabbit wasn’t listening, too busy bouncing back and forth through the snow.

“Hey,” I said, reaching into my belt for a carrot. “You hungry?”

But it was too far away to notice, as it hopped away over the pale expanse.

“Hey, look,” I called, trying to catch up.

Quicksnow!

The thought of falling through one of those invisible traps slowed my steps. “Hey, hopper,” I hollered again, waving the orange root. “Look what I got for you!”

The rodent ignored me, vanishing through the falling snow.

Two for two, I thought morosely. First the bear, now the bunny. No luck yet with making any new animal friends.

At least I was closer to the volcano, and with each approaching step, I could feel the increasing, welcome heat.

I sighed at the prickling sensation of what had to be blood returning to my frostbitten skin. At about ten blocks I stopped and just absorbed the heat. I could feel it on my face and arms, and, after a few thawing moments, there was even a tingling in the ten little icicles that used to be my toes.

“Mmm…” I sighed again, and turned around to give my back its turn. That acted like a heated highway for my whole body. In a few minutes I nearly felt human again, and raising my temperature was almost enough to raise my spirits.

I say “almost” because turning back around to face the lava brought a lot of chilling memories. The most immediate one had to do with what happened to my first house. How I woke up to find the creeper in my living room, to hear the explosion, to see the lava cubes from the hot tub I’d built upstairs spilling out and down my little hill.

“Enough,” I said aloud, trying to shake off the memory as I stepped gingerly around the bubbling red pond. “Keep focused.”

And I did, looking for the safest, easiest slope to climb. I walked around the lava’s perimeter, looking for caves as well as a way up. I worried that any shady shelter might conceal another waiting mob. After falling through the snow, I couldn’t afford to relax. But I didn’t see anyplace where a monster could hide. And, ironically, the only way up I could find was right back where I started. Right next to that lethal stream, the slope seemed to rise in a naturally occurring staircase.

“Careful,” I told myself, “careful…”

I kept my eyes, and mind, fixed on every step ahead. The slope was nearly barren, not a tree or clump of grass in sight. The only thing growing was a single red flower barely two blocks away from the lava stream. “You’re braver than I am,” I told the little poppy, and then noticed something unusual about it. I thought I remembered, but I couldn’t be sure, that I’d passed other flowers that only grew in groups. I tried looking behind me, but through the snow, it was hard to spot any more plant life.

I also noticed a weird little quirk of this volcano—the lava poured out from the side. About a third of the way up, right next to the lone poppy, I saw that the source of the stream was a single cube space in the rocks. Weren’t they supposed to come from the top? I didn’t know. After all, I don’t think I was a geologist, or volcano-ologist, or whatever you call those folks back in my world. For all I knew this side-flow was perfectly normal in both worlds, and the only reason I’ve taken an entire paragraph to bore you with this question is because it’s gonna come into play later.

Just like the smell.

I barely noticed it at first, just the faintest whiff, but as I climbed farther up, I could swear my nose detected something…unusual? I tried a couple deep inhales, but the cold, dry air only made my nostrils hurt. It wasn’t the lava; I was sure of that. It was coming from someplace farther up. It smelled like…

Okay, now, fair warning: If you’re super-sensitive to words, skip this paragraph. But I’m telling you, this smell, this growing stink drifting down toward me, could only be described as that word that’s created when F meets Art.

Yep, I said it. Okay? Sometimes truth is rude, but that’s the plain truth of what I was smelling. “Do volcanoes toot?” I asked myself aloud, and nearly fell backward at the audible click that answered.

Click.

What was that?

I paused, spun, reached for my sword, and, again, almost fell right back down the slope. I thought it might have been a skeleton, although experience had taught me that the sound couldn’t have been any more different. This wasn’t the rapid clickety-clack of bones. This was just one quick, high-pitched click.

And then it was gone. And so was the unpleasant smell. Had the wind shifted? No, that doesn’t happen in this world. Had I moved up past it? Probably, I reasoned. But what had been the original source?

A crack between the stones? I’d learned that sometimes diagonal blocks have just the tiniest space between their edges. Raindrops through my island house’s slanted roof taught me that. Maybe that was the case here, an imperceptible slit between two stone blocks that was giving off that impolite odor.

It was a mystery to be sure, as was the hole I discovered a few blocks up.

Just one block in size, pointing out sideways like the lava opening. I peered inside, and saw that it went far back into darkness. I thought about maybe planting a torch inside for a better look, or even going to work with my pickaxe to see if it led to a larger cave.

Don’t get distracted, I reminded myself. For all you know, that’s just another lava hole ready to erupt, and besides…

I looked up at the inviting summit.

You’re almost there!

A few slow, nervous minutes later, I was standing at the top, and for once, luck was with me. The snow stopped falling, the sun came out, and I got my first clear look at the world around me.

“Thank you,” I said to the sun, closing my eyes and letting my face warm for a second. “Good-luck mountain,” I breathed, then opened my eyes to take in the view. I was facing east, toward the rising sun, and from this height, I could see all the way to the coast. There was the ocean, barely visible past the chain of low hills, and that thick, pale ice crust that had wrecked my boat. There was the “quicksnow” hole I’d fallen into. And there was the frozen, purplish river I’d crossed, with, yes, my polar bear ally still muddling about at the bank.

Turning in a slow, three-sixty arc, I realized that this barren wasteland had a kind of beauty to it. The hills and valleys, the frozen ponds and occasional trees with their pointed, dark green leaves. And there were more red flowers, and even a few yellow ones, and yes, they were all in clusters that broke up the snow.

“Not bad,” I said, “not that I’d want to live he—” Just as I finished my full rotating view, I noticed a total, dark break in the western horizon. It was so far away, I might have missed it if the snow had been falling. Another snaking, iced-over river, and beyond that…

A forest! Yes, a real, honest-to-goodness forest, so vast it stretched from one end of my vision to the other.

“Here we go,” I sighed, then repeated with more excitement, “Here we go!”

Picking my way down, I had to force myself to go more slowly. “Careful!” I repeated, resisting the urge to jump. “Care—”

Click!

There was the sound again!

Click!

And again. Behind me!

I turned but couldn’t see anything. I scanned the slope I’d just come down. Nothing. I looked left, then right. Everything was quiet, still. Nothing but stone, dirt, and occasional lines of gravel.

Sword up, I twisted, ready.

Crunch.

Another rabbit, with pink eyes and fur as white as snow. “Oh, that was you,” I said. “You’ve been making those clicking sounds. And”—smiling at my own cleverness—“I bet that little hole I discovered was your burrow.” It felt good to finally be getting a handle on everything, to understand the rules of this new land.

At least that’s what I thought.

“And, hey,” I said as I reached again for a tempting carrot, “you know you want this, right?”

I couldn’t mess this one up, not with the animal right above me. “Mmm, nice.” I waved the morsel before its small, attentive face. “Let’s be pals, okay?” It looked at me as I stepped closer.

“That’s right, c’mon,” I said, already envisioning our new, lasting friendship. “I think I’ll name you NO!”

That last word came as the bouncing squeaker jumped right off the cliff past me and crash-landed into life-ending smoke.

“Ohmywhat?” I gasped, running to a patch of hovering fur and meat. “What were you thinking, you dumb bunny?” I asked the remains hopping into my pack. “What kind of world lets that happen?!” I remembered when my animal friends back on the island blindly loped toward the lava from my house, the chicken roasting itself alive.

The memory didn’t console me; it only reminded me that this was the rule of life in this world. It didn’t help that this was an accident. It just hurt to watch something, anything, innocent die.

I had no idea that this small death was nothing compared to the savagery that was waiting for me in the forest.