Despite our iron armor and my Projectile Protection, Lonnie and I were still vulnerable in the Nether. I moved us in between Esme and Anton, with Esme in the lead and Anton bringing up the rear.

Ahead of us, Esme lit netherrack, lighting our way through the darkness, and moved slowly enough to detect incoming enemies, which she conveniently dispatched with her arrows. Just in case they decided to attack.

“Scars are a weird thing to see on the mobs,” Anton said, trying to bring up the subject again. “Even mine don’t—”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” I said, getting annoyed. “I can’t explain it and neither can you.”

“I don’t believe you.” Anton pushed further. “I saw your face when I mentioned the scar. You recognized it.”

“So what if I did?” I said.

“Bianca, remember what I told you about the witches and how Esme manifests them with her anxiety?”

“Yep, and you’ve got literal skeletons after you.”

“Right. So, yours are endermen. There’s something you need to deal with that’s creating endermen, and this one in particular. The only way to get rid of it is to talk through what happened.” He put a hand out to try to stop me, but I turned my body to slip past and kept on walking. “This place doesn’t hide us from the real world. Not really. Everything we’re dealing with out there, we bring in here.”

I picked up the pace and moved farther away from him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have anything to process.” I felt a throb of pain in my head, and ignored it. “And it doesn’t matter. What matters is trying to get to the end of the game.”

“You two!” Esme called from up ahead. She jerked her head toward a mob of zombie pigmen. “Think you can handle that by yourselves?” She was looking at me, but I guessed that she meant me and Anton together. My eyes flicked to Lonnie. “I can babysit for you,” Esme added.

For some reason, this babysitting comment put me over the edge. All the abuse she’d piled on me since the beginning of the game hadn’t done it, but that—an insult designed to hit both me and my best friend in one blow—fueled some combination of rage and pride that made the following possible: I pulled out a diamond sword and axe and strode off in long steps down the path, gathering speed into a run, then jumped as I reached the mob. I brought the axe and sword down in simultaneous swipes, catching two of the creatures in the process. I landed on the other side and wound up behind them. So I turned and struck them again from the back, bringing both the weapons together in a clash of metal and sparks. Then I finished the two zombie pigmen off with a third blow. I picked up the rotten flesh and moved on to the next two, slashing, cutting, and stabbing my way through. By the time Anton caught up, I’d put away the flesh of four of them and was working on a fifth, leaving only one for him to take out with an arrow that he shot from a short distance away. My anger now vented, I put away both the weapons, and grabbed Lonnie from Esme in the space of two long strides.

“Yes. I think I can handle it.”

Esme raised her eyebrows and gave Anton a look. “Well, look who’s finally decided to play the game.”

It was the final straw.

I let go of Lonnie’s arm, and turned to face her. “I’ve been playing,” I said, seething again. “Same. As. You.” I took another step forward. “This isn’t just a game for me, either. I’m playing through. Maybe not the way you want me to, and that’s fine. Lonnie and I can make it on our own.”

With that, I tugged Lonnie out of the relative protection of the two people in the whole place who had any gear with enchantments that we could use to stay alive, and I marched off into the darkness, not even bothering to light my way.

“Come back!” Anton called. “She doesn’t mean it!”

I heard Esme snort with disdain.

“She does,” I said.

“She’s a jerk sometimes,” Anton said, jogging to catch up with me.

“That’s the first accurate thing I’ve heard you say,” I said.

“Hey. I’m trying to help.” Anton sounded genuinely hurt. And when I didn’t stop walking, he added another “Hey!”

“What?” I whipped back, swinging Lonnie around with me, and then had to immediately help him up off the black, gravelly ground.

I faced both Esme and Anton, silhouetted against the black and orange background of the Nether. I suddenly felt exhausted and frustrated and angry all at once. I would have cried if I could. And that somehow also made me ticked off. I dropped my eyes to the ground, wrestling with the warring emotions of how much I was experiencing was the game, and how much was me creating things in the game. I knew that my friends were trying to get me to open up about my feelings, to talk about what happened that night of the accident. I knew it would probably help clear things up. But I also knew I wasn’t ready to talk yet, and I was tired of fighting with Esme and Anton. A distant part of me finally realized I couldn’t put off this conversation forever, and if what I’d brought from the real world into the game was making things so much more difficult, did I really have a choice? It was time to grow up and deal. So I took a deep breath and prepared to speak.

I lifted my eyes again to find Esme shooting a flaming arrow in my direction, and Anton running toward me hard, with a sword held up over his head in both hands and a grimace on his face.

Before my shocked brain could force me to respond, or move, he was directly in front of me, and brought the sword down just to my right as I felt a sharp pain. Something sharp stung me from behind. I fell forward into Anton’s chest. He kept moving, and I slipped off him, and rolled onto my back. Then I saw what had prompted Esme’s attack and made Anton come running: right in front of me was a group of mean-looking wither skeletons with their swords held high.

And I had been hit.

Lonnie was still standing, and he turned to one of the wither skeletons with nothing but his hands, and started to whale on it. The skeleton seemed startled, getting smacked from behind, but Lonnie kept up a relentless pace of punching, so it had no opportunity to retaliate.

Meanwhile, Anton killed one at close range by slicing its torso, and one of Esme’s arrows found its target, destroying the third one. Then both she and Anton turned back to the first, which was struggling to stand up because of Lonnie’s beating. Anton took it out with one sword blow. He looked at Lonnie, as if he was seeing him differently. But since Lonnie didn’t respond, and didn’t reciprocate, Anton held his hand out to me and picked me up off the ground.

“Did you see that?” I asked.

“Yeah, I did,” Anton said.

I looked at Esme to see if she’d noticed. She was staring at Lonnie, frowning, then she shrugged. “I still don’t know,” she said.

“I do,” I said.

We regrouped near Esme. I stared at Lonnie, the speech I was going to deliver before the attack turning to ash in my mouth. I didn’t know what to say, and luckily Esme had already moved on to something else.

“If there are wither skeletons around, there must be a fortress,” she said to Anton and me. “It was actually helpful, drawing them out like that.”

“You mean just now when I was bait?” I asked.

“Yeah, exactly,” Esme said. One side of her mouth cocked up into a crooked smile.

“I’m glad I could be useful.”

She laughed and simply moved on to the next phase of the plan she was laying out.

We needed to build a bridge to get over a thin rivulet of lava. It might have been possible for the rest of us to jump over, but even I wasn’t sure Lonnie would be able to execute that wide a jump. Esme decided we should stay close to where we had drawn out the wither skeletons, so making a bridge and staying close to our current location was our best option.

A few steps ahead, the dark reddish brown and black dirt of the landscape turned a different shade of brown. It was a grayer color and had no tints of red or orange in it. As we got closer, I could make out faces in the pixelated shades that looked like they were in agony, mouths fixed into screams.

“Soul sand,” I said.

Esme stopped short and turned to see it.

There was the equivalent of a large lake of soul sand a few steps away. Anton moved into it first, and immediately slowed to a crawl. He mined it as he went. I followed, gathering as much as he did. Esme stood with her bow resting against her shoulder, ready for anything that might pop out and kill us.

Lonnie stepped forward, as if he was coming to help, but Esme pulled him back to her and held on to him until we had finished mining. I was grateful that she didn’t do so with a snide comment this time.

We finished mining and returned, pulling ourselves slowly out of the muck. Anton was the first to make it to regular Nether ground, and he held his hand out to me to pull me the rest of the way. I took it, already feeling the effects of both the weight of the sand and the hit from the wither skeleton. I winced as he got me out.

“You’re hurt pretty bad, but we don’t have any potions to help you,” Anton said.

“How long do you think I have?” I whispered.

“In this game?” He looked at me as if he could evaluate my strength with a look, then he shrugged. “We’re going to have to adjust the plan. Soon you won’t be strong enough to help us get all the materials we need for the End.”

“I’m fine. It’s not so bad,” I said. “I’m going to power through to the End.”

“So, you’re not going to say anything to her?” He glanced at Esme. “She should know you’re hurt.”

“What’s the point?” I asked. “I’d only get more sarcasm.”

I walked up to where Esme and Lonnie were waiting. When Esme took off in silence, I followed without even a glance back to Anton. Moments later, a black hill came into view. It rose up as we moved forward, looking like it was cut to resemble a face with a gaping mouth. Both Anton and Esme trudged toward it. And then I realized that it was their home base. I stopped, but no one else did, and Anton bumped into me. I picked up my pace, trying to pretend where we were headed didn’t scare the pants off me, when Anton said, “It’s pretty intimidating. I know.” I nodded, and moved along.

The mini fortress Esme and Anton had built was cozy for two, but a bit of a logistical nightmare for four. We broke down a few of the walls, and expanded using cobblestone and nether brick. A couple of curious ghasts flew by, as if trying to decide whether to attack us now or later, but the brick would assure our safety—so long as we stayed inside the fortress, at least.

One of the ghasts came down low, its dangling tentacles nearly within reach. I scrolled through my weapons to choose a bow and arrows, when Esme pulled me inside, with Anton following.

“I could get it,” I protested.

“That’s not the point,” she said. “You’re not thinking. Again.”

I frowned, trying to understand what she meant.

Anton jumped in. “We’re going to need all our supplies to get to the End,” he said. “We need to hold on to as many as we can now.”

“So why not just tell me that’s what we’re doing,” I asked. “Would it have been that hard to say, ‘Hey, we need to conserve the supplies’?” I walked away, shaking my head.

“It shouldn’t have been that hard to figure out,” Esme said. “It’s pretty obvious that we need to conserve as much as we can. There are four of us and we’re sharing the few supplies we’ve got.”

“And all I’m saying is that a little heads-up would have been helpful. If there are new rules that you’re making up, Your Highness, maybe you could clue in us commoners.”

Esme stomped toward me and peered real close into my eyes. I count it as a mighty show of bravery that I didn’t even flinch. This, of course, seemed to make her even more angry, and she stormed off to a back room.

Anton looked like he was going to say something, but I waved him off and turned back to finishing up the expansion of the mini fortress.

“Do you want to help?” I asked when I noticed Lonnie tagging along. I gave him one of my pickaxes and turned him in the direction of a wall we needed to smash.

“Nothing could possibly go wrong,” Anton said, as he layered a part of the ceiling with nether brick, observing us from the side.

I rolled my eyes at him and turned back to Lonnie. “Go ahead,” I said. “Try.”

Lonnie looked at me and then at the wall, and moved forward, bumping into it.

“How about like this?” I said, and I demonstrated by breaking part of the wall.

Lonnie mimicked me, and I heaped him with praise.

Anton came around to where we were working. “It’s like he’s a puppy that’s finally pooped outside,” he said. “I’m sure that makes him feel awesome. I’m kind of glad he doesn’t understand much. I mean, we can’t have his self-esteem go through the roof and turn him into a diva.”

“This is hard enough,” I snapped. “It’s just, sometimes it seems like he’s there, but sometimes…”

“Most times,” Anton corrected.

“Sometimes,” I said again, “it seems like he’s checked out, and I’m worried that if I don’t do everything I can to fix him, Lonnie will hate me forever.”

Anton put his hand on my shoulder. I felt the pressure of his squeeze and the warmth of his hand. “The truth is, it’s nice that you’re doing everything you can do as his friend,” he said. “It’s kind of great. I wish I had a friend who’d stick with me like that.” He turned to walk away, then paused and added, “Sorry if I’ve been a jerk. Sometimes I can’t turn my sarcasm off.” He turned back and looked at me for a couple of seconds before he continued. “The first time I played the game, I stayed in here too long, and when I got out, my legs were stiff from not moving, so the nurses hid the goggles for a while. They said they’d been calling me, and they were sure I was ignoring them. But I wasn’t. I just was so into the game that I’d tuned them out.”

“I know how that is,” I said. “I don’t even need the goggles to tune people out when I’m playing, usually.”

Anton chuckled. “Well, yeah. What I’m saying is, it’s really easy to lose yourself in the game.”

I suddenly felt warmth running through my body, as if someone on the outside had pressed in close to me, or had pulled a blanket up to my chin. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure you’re right.”

“It’s easy to forget that this version of Minecraft is so immersive,” Anton said, as he threw his arm out and looked around. “But you can’t stay here forever.”

“What if I want to stay,” I said more than asked. “What if I just don’t want to deal with whatever is waiting for me on the other side?”

“We will still be there on the other side,” Anton said. “You’re not alone in here or outside.”

“Lonnie always stuck by me, even when I was little,” I said. “And we promised we’d always be there for one another.” I took a deep breath.

Esme came back, looking hesitant. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, and I was surprised that she did sound genuinely sorry. “But we’ve got to go to the nether fortress and gather all the supplies we need so that we can get out of here and back to the Overworld. We have to go now, and we have to be fast. You’re fading,” she said to me.

“What? I, no—”

“We don’t have any milk to cure the wither effect,” she said grimly. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice? And I can’t see your health bar anymore. It’s bad. I hate to say it, but the time to talk is later. We have to get you out of here.”

Anton raised an eyebrow at me, waiting for my response.

“Well?” she asked. “What are you waiting for? Get your stuff and let’s go. It’s time to raid that fort.”