Chapter 2

Welcome

Even though I'm in a world of pain right now, it's still better than the insanity of that nothingness. I thought to myself as I slowly rose from my position on the ground. The actual existing ground.

I checked myself for injuries. No broken bones. No blood. Everything intact. Neat. The only noticeable difference was a series of tattoos on my outer arms. My left arm had a row of hearts and a black bar below that while my right arm had a row of circles and a row of what looked like corn dogs.

Those weren't there before. Or were they? I didn't really check my arms while in that void. But now that I'm out, I better get my bearings…again.

I looked up from my arms only to be blinded by the sheer brightness of my current location in comparison to the black-as-night void. It took a couple of minutes for my eyes to adjust. And when they did, I was awed by the sight in front of me. In all directions was a vast meadow extending for several hundred meters. At the brink of the meadow was a line of trees. Past that was a tall mountain which seemed to tower above the puffy clouds freely drifting through the azure sky. The sweet fragrance of flowers was wafting through the…

Geez, I sound like a poet! Snap out of your daydreaming Cobb! You got bearings to bear!

I looked at my current location. The ground I was laying on was actually stone with intricate designs etched into it. The stone made up a small circular platform with me at the center and several marble like pillars at the edges. I had somehow landed on the very center of this stone platform, without dying, after escaping an unknown void.

I doubt landing on the center of this thing was a coincidence. Maybe someone actually DID hear me when I asked for help and sent me here. Or more likely the heel clicking had a 5-minute delay. Yeah, that was probably it.

I looked behind me and noticed a structure a few meters away from the platform. It looked like a small wooden house with a fenced garden.

I wonder if anyone is in that thing? I thought. I picked myself off the ground and slowly walked towards the house. As I got closer, I noticed some green sprouts from the garden. Maybe some vegetables?

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed movement through the window of the house. Not wanting to be rude, I decided to knock on the door with my foot before attempting to enter.

*Knock Knock* "Hello? Anyone home?" I called out. I heard some noises behind the door before it opened revealing a big-nosed man clad in a brown tunic and brown pants. He had a uni-brow and emerald eyes and his hands were clasped in front of his chest. But Holy Hamburgers was that nose big! It was like a sausage dangling from his face! UGH!

"Greetings, number 999,999,999! My name is Helena. I'm sure you have many questions about your location and I'll try my best to answer them."

Wait, what did he just say? Crap! I was so preoccupied with his nose that I tuned him out! But how could I not focus on that thing!? It's as big as a whale! I thought to myself.

"Speechless I see. I know you must be confused and panicked right now, but I need to ask you to calm down." Continued Big Nose.

Of course I'm speechless! I've never seen a nose that big! Then again, all my prior knowledge up to this point has been a blank void. So why do I have such expectations of proper nose sizes? It's like I know things that should be and things that shouldn't, but I can't remember why I know them. Like this guy, for instance, has a feminine voice and an abnormally large nose. That's not normal.

"Just take some deep breaths King Cobb and come inside. It's getting dark." Big Nose urged.

"Um…okay sir." I replied awkwardly as I couldn't remember if he introduced himself or not. I shuffled inside the house while Big Nose closed the door.

"It's ma'am actually." Stated Big Nose hurtfully.

Wait…Big Nose is a she? Oooooh that's gonna make this conversation pretty awkward. Whelp, better ask her for her name and apologize.

"Oh, I'm sorry I just…look, what was the first thing you told me? I was um…lost in your gorgeous emerald eyes and didn't hear you properly."

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Corny sure, but it might just make up for my earlier mistake.

"O-oh! W-well, of course I can repeat mys-s-self." She stuttered out while blushing. "My name is Helena, and you, Cobb, are the nine-hundredth and ninety-nine millionth, nine-hundredth and ninety-nine thousandth, nine-hundredth and ninety-ninth person to enter this world."

"That's a lot of nines. Wait! How did you know my name? Have we met before?" I asked perplexed.

"No. I know your name because it's above your head." She answered. I quickly looked up, but could only notice a wooden ceiling and an unsurprising lack of a name above my head. "No, no. You cannot see your own name. Only others can."

"Others?" I questioned. This is tripping all kinds of weird alarms in my head. Nobody has names written above their heads. That doesn't sound normal to me.

"Other people. Crafters or Testificates can read your name, and like them, you can read the names above other Crafters." Helena walked over to a chest in the corner of the room and rummaged in it while I wondered what on Earth a Crafter was. And also what on Earth, Earth was.

Helena says I can read names above other Crafters, so she must not be one of those since I don't see any name above her head. Or she's just tripping on drugs and is spouting nonsense. Still beats hanging around an empty void. But what was Earth. It sounds so familiar and nostalgic, but nothing comes to mind when I try and picture it.

"Are…you a Testificate?" I tentatively venture.

She turns around from the chest with a smile on her face and a loaf of bread in her hand. "Correct! You're learning faster than the last Crafter that was here. Have some bread, you must be getting hungry."

As if on cue my stomach growled. "Uh…thanks." Accepting the bread from her I greedily took a bite only to discover that the whole loaf had vanished from my hand. "What the...!"

"Yes, yes I know. 'Where did the bread go?' 'Why did the bread vanish completely after one bite?'" Helena drawled in a lower voice. "I've heard it all before. Almost everyone is shocked when that happens."

"Well, I'm pretty sure bread is supposed to stay with you until after you finish it." I explained. I could still taste the bread and my stomach was no longer growling, but that didn't change the fact that the bread up and vanished.

"Maybe that's the case from wherever you're from, but here it's a different story." Helena fished a bottle of water out of the same chest and tossed it to me.

"And where is here?" I asked taking a swig from the bottle.

"Minecraftia." Helena stated dramatically.

Suddenly, a clap of lightning shook the house. A torrential downpour shortly followed.

I looked out the window at the rain and realized how quickly night came. The sun was up mere minutes ago.

"Where did this weather come from?" I finished the water and handed her the empty bottle. "And wasn't the sun up just a minute ago?"

"The weather comes from the sky." Helena explained slowly as if talking to a child. "And what is this 'minute' you speak of?"

"A minute. You know, a unit of time. Seconds, minutes, hours." Was time a foreign concept to this woman?

"I don't know about seconds or minutes, but our unit of time is measured in ticks." She explained with a raised uni-brow. She deposited the empty water bottle into the chest and closed it with a click.

"Forget it, I have a more important question. Before I landed on that stone platform outside…" I began.

"The Origin." She corrected.

"Whatever…I was stuck in a…"

"Black void, I know." She interrupted as she walked over to the window to gaze at the rain. "Every Crafter in existence started out from the Origin and experienced the empty expanse known as the Void. Some were trapped for much longer than others before they discovered the secret to escaping."

Please tell me it was the heel clicking, please tell me it was the heel clicking, PLEASE TELL ME IT WAS THE HEEL CLICKING!

"Speaking a name."

DAMNIT!

"Ha! Knew it all along." I lied without looking Helena in the eye.

"The story is more or less the same for every Crafter. After picking a name, they got teleported to the Origin and began their existence." Helena stated. "None of them could remember their lives before the Void or how they ended up there to begin with. But each one of them had a degree of familiarity to judge normalcy."

When she didn't continue I realized she was waiting for me to ask her another question. But I was getting tired of playing twenty questions so instead I took a look around her house.

It was relatively small with only one room. A bed was set up against the left wall and a chest was situated in the corner. The right wall had a couple of bookcases and an oven along with a weird looking table. The back of the house had a small table with a few chairs next to it. And on each wall was a torch to serve as lightning.

Whelp, looks like I'm stuck here until the rain lets up. And there's only one bed…and there's two of us…and she's a woman…and she thinks I'm attracted to her eyes.

"Well, if you have no more questions I suppose it's time for bed." She stated lamely.

"Yeah, about that." I began. "There's only one bed."

"Oh, don't worry yourself love." She began "I can't sleep."

"Huh?" I blushed a bit at her 'love' statement. "Why not?"

"Because I'm a Testificate. That bed was here when I moved in." Helena took a seat at the table. "After all I can't craft things like that."

"Craft things?" I asked as a tentatively approached the bed.

"I'll go over more of that tomorrow. It's pretty basic stuff for a Crafter like you to know. But if you want your existence to last as long as possible, you'll need to learn it well." She explained as she kicked up her legs.

Great more explanations. Maybe that Void wasn't so bad after all. There was a lot less to explain there, that's for sure. But not knowing what to do next means I should listen to Helena for now. Plus she fed me and gave me shelter so she must be good.

"In that case, good night." I slipped under the covers of the bed and laid my head in the fluffy pillow. The calm drumming of the rain against the house lulling me to sleep.