It also never really gets dark in Los Angeles; the faint orange glow of the city twinkling away, the red-and-white gleam of cars trapped on the freeway. Stars, if you can see them, blink through the muddle of the night sky, trying to glimmer through the haze of light pollution and smog. Sometimes he dreams of a star-filled night, clusters of galaxies so far away and larger than he can fathom.
Once, his class went to the California Science Center and watched this movie in a circular theater; the whole place lit up with stars, and the narrator explained how big everything was. It freaked out a lot of the other kids, but it made Tank feel good. Safe. That the universe was so big that it didn’t matter what he did, it was going to keep on going. Nothing he did would change it or stop it or affect it; he was just a small speck. It was comforting, knowing that.
The whole presentation did have one part that unnerved him. It wasn’t the stars or the planets or the way the universe was expanding, but that notion of the dark, what scientists didn’t understand. It was deep and unforgiving, a darkness that could only exist beyond the realms of imagination, darkness that was so far away and impossible that he couldn’t even begin to understand it.
He doesn’t usually bother with caves and stuff in Minecraft because Viv tackles them, always lighting the way with torches or exploding things or charging headfirst into some danger. Tank prefers to stay above ground where he can always see what’s in front of him.
He doesn’t like this dark, this endless hallway with only a bit of flicker on the other end to show that there’s even an end to it in the first place. It makes him nervous, this setting where he can’t affect the environment, where he doesn’t have anything to defend himself with. It reminds him of that endless darkness that he’d thought he’d forgotten about until he started walking down this hallway, thinking about the universe and all of its unknowns.
He doesn’t like the anonymous Wizard person who stole all their stuff and took them on a wild goose chase in the first place.
But it was fun, a small part of him says. Figuring out the puzzle, spending time with Jake and Emily.
It’s been weird, playing Minecraft with people who aren’t Viv. Tank’s come to appreciate Jake’s steady and levelheaded logic, the practical way he stops to empty out his inventory and remind Tank to do the same before they head somewhere dangerous. Emily’s no-holds-barred aggressive combat style unnerves him, but it works for their group dynamic. He feels like part of a real team.
“Come on,” Emily says.
Tank takes a deep breath and keeps trudging forward. The few minutes in the dark seem to stretch out forever, but finally the flickering torch is in front of him. It’s barely enough to light the small room the hallway opens out into. Unlike the ruins they were teleported into, this room is bare of detail and design. A simple cobblestone floor, surrounded by more cobblestone walls—wait, no. There are five doors embedded in the walls surrounding them, and the single torch flickers against a stone column with a chest sitting at the foot of it.
“Weird,” Jake says. “I can’t affect anything in this room, either.”
“I bet these doors open to something interesting,” Emily says, pacing in front of them. Above each of the doors, an item is framed on the stone wall: a bottle of green potion, a bucket of water, an apple, a sword, and a bucket of lava.
“Don’t open any of them yet, we don’t know what’s behind them,” Jake warns. “What if it’s lava?”
Tank opens the chest. The creak echoes in the room, and then the foreboding music starts.
“What’s in it?”
“A book,” Tank says. He opens it to read the contents aloud, growing more and more confused with each line.
I am both life and death. Feed me three things and I live. Give me one drink and I will die.
You must defeat me to move forward.
“It’s the first clue,” Jake says, bouncing up and down. “I told you! We’re at the start of the game.”
“The answer must be one of these doors,” Emily says. “So first, what is the thing? And what is the thing we need to kill it?”
Tank has no idea. He punches experimentally at the ground, but it doesn’t budge. He tries the chest, which does give after a few punches, so he tucks it away in his inventory for later, watching Emily pace back and forth.
“That’s poison,” Jake says, pointing at the door with the painting of the green potion.
“Great! Poison will kill anything. Let’s go!”
Emily opens the door.
For a second, nothing happens, and Tank can only see another hallway full of darkness—and then the darkness moves, moves right into their room, with eyes and legs and—
“SPIDER!” Tank yells, leaping backward instinctively and raising his weapon, but he’s got nothing in his hands except the stupid chest—
Emily screams and starts punching at it. Jake is fighting, too, but there’s another spider, and another—
Tank turns around and runs, even as he knows it’s too late.
RoxXStarRedStone has died in battle
MCExplorerJake has died in battle
TankFarms has died in battle
They respawn back on the stone dais with nothing again.
“Okay, the answer clearly wasn’t the poison,” Jake says. “Come on, and don’t open any of the other doors until we solve this.”
“Process of elimination!” Emily protests.
“I hate spiders,” Tank offers. “Let’s not go through each door and keep dying.”
“I mean, we could, four more times,” Emily says.
“Let’s just solve the riddle!” Jake triggers the pressure plate and opens up the hallway. This time, he opens the chest and reads the riddle again slowly. “You must defeat me to move forward.”
“What if behind each door is a different monster that we have to defeat?” Tank asks.
“No way, we have no weapons. It would be a stupid game if the Wizard wanted us to fight something like that right away,” Emily mutters.
Tank wouldn’t put it past the Wizard, who seems like someone who would find that funny.
“We have to pick the item that will defeat the thing in the riddle,” Jake says. “The sword seems the obvious choice, or the poison, but we know it’s not poison…”
Tank takes the chest again, and tries to grab the torch for good measure. He’s pleased to see it does work, even if he can’t affect the stone column behind it.
“Hey! Tank, put that back! I can’t see anything,” Emily says.
Tank holds the torch aloft. “Better?”
“Feed me three things and I will live,” Jake mutters. “I feel like the answer is staring me in the face, and it’s going to be really obvious or something.”
Tank follows behind Emily with the torch so they can see each of the paintings in clear detail.
“Well, the most obvious answer would be the fire,” he offers. “I mean, since the torch was in the middle of the room.”
Emily stares at him. “Three things—that’s it! Oxygen, heat, and fuel. The riddle is about fire!”
“So—” Jake pauses at the door marked with the bucket of water.
Tank opens the door. Behind it is dark, but it’s not the suffocating finality of the hallway—it’s the open rustle of the night and the wilderness.
“Yes! We did it!” Emily cries out exuberantly. She runs to the nearest tree. “Yes! I can punch things again!”
“Awesome,” Jake says, clapping Tank on the shoulder.
Tank blinks, and everything comes into focus: the three of them sitting in this dingy computer lab, Emily whooping as her avatar punches a tree, Jake grinning excitedly at him.
“Thanks,” Tank says, and means it.
“Oh, it’s four! I have to go,” Emily says. “My mom wants me to go grocery shopping with her.” She shakes her head and sighs, disconnecting from the server. “It’s like ever since I’ve been grounded she’s been bringing me everywhere with her on errands and stuff, like it makes up for not having any apps on my phone.” She makes a face. “She made Carmen change the password to all of my accounts, so I can’t even access them. It’s really annoying.”
“That sucks,” Jake says, following suit. “We can pick this back up tomorrow.”
“Sounds good,” Tank says. He guesses if he leaves now he’ll get to Mr. Mishra’s early. He hadn’t realized they’d stayed this late already.
Tank waves at Jake, watching him leave as well. The afternoon light softly filters through the windows, dust motes swirling in the air. Tank shakes his head; it’s still the same old computer lab, but now there’s something to it. He turns off the computers one by one, running his hand along the monitors and letting the warmth seep into his fingers. He wonders what’s going to happen at the end of the service project, when they don’t have to be here anymore. Emily and Jake—they’re here because they have to be, like him. They’re just passing the time with this game, like he is.
It doesn’t mean anything.