Steve Larkins, a regular man that once just played Minecraft after a long day of work. However, that regular man was kind of a dumbass.
He had just got home from his construction job and went to his pc after eating a small meal—he got it from the gas station—and booted it up. His intention was to unwind with some simple building, you know, a couple castles maybe a mountain or two.
That simple kind of thing.
However, when he clicked his Minecraft, a pop-up appeared. [Do you wish to experience an adventure?] a yes or no was below it.
Thinking that his Minecraft was being damaged by a virus he tried to exit out of the pop-up or find out what happened. The window, however, proved intractable, steadfastly refusing to close despite him banging his keyboard and mouse like a gorilla.
Once he calmed down and accepted that he was going to have to get himself a new gaming setup, he clicked yes. That could be said to be one of his biggest mistakes.
The screen immediately flashed, engulfing his room in a blinding white light that caused him to recoil from his desk. Falling on his ass, he shielded his eyes from the light threatening to consume him.
And it did in fact consume him. When the light subsided, Steve found himself no longer in his familiar room but adrift in a boundless, ethereal void, a stark departure from the physical confines he had known moments before.
The black void itself seemed to stretch infinitely in all directions, devoid of any discernible features or reference points that could ground him.
A profound sense of disorientation, coupled with a chilling void of gravity, enveloped him. His body, no longer subject to the gravitational pull of Earth just floated throughout the void.
At first he thought up a lot of stuff, he was extremely paranoid and panicked, his mind racing through countless possibilities, each more terrifying than the last, then he stopped.
Eventually after a while of just drifting he stopped thinking, almost becoming like an inanimate object. This state lasted for an immeasurable amount of time, seemly endless.
Then, with an abruptness that shattered the pervasive stillness, a faint, rhythmic hum began to resonate from an indiscernible source within the void.
It looked like a tear in reality, a gateway to another world, and for once in that immeasurable amount of time, he moved according to his own will.
Propelled by a force he couldn't quite understand he flew towards it, a sensation akin to being drawn into a maelstrom, yet without any tangible current.
Then he 'fell' through what felt like a viscous, shimmering membrane, emerging into a realm he felt familiarity to.
His hands landed on fresh grass, not the fake kind of grass you find in cities, or grass found in nature that aren't as alive, this was almost perfection. It was bursting with life, each blade of grass like a vibrant emerald, and his vision was so clear he could see the water droplets on every exact blade of grass.
With an uncanny certainty and also completely logically thought of train, he knew for a fact that he crossed over to another world. This new reality, however, was not entirely alien; it bore a striking resemblance to the blocky landscapes of his favorite unoptimized game, Minecraft.
This realization did not provide comfort to him, instead, a profound sense of unease settled upon him as he considered the implications of his new home. If it functioned like the real Minecraft world then he would be screwed, 10 minutes of safety, 7 minutes of doom, and 3 minutes of dawn and dusk.
Steve immediately tossed aside any logical thinking and swung at a tree, surprisingly his fist didn't break and fracture into a million pieces like it would in the real world, instead cracks appeared on the tree.
As soon as he saw this Steve began to pummel the tree like a punching bag, he broke the block holding the tree together and it fell. Not like in Minecraft did it float but it fell like an actual tree.
it dropped some saplings and wooden blocks that were in miniature forms, there were floating at his feet, he imagined that he 'picked' them up, and when he looked there were gone with a slight pop sound.
Upon hearing that he imagined some other mechanics from the game Minecraft, a ui appeared with his hearts, hunger, and his hot-bar. Then he imagined his inventory and it appeared.
In it were the dropped blocks, he even had an apple from the dropped tree. Steve immediately turned into a speed running pro, crafting a crafting table a wooden pickaxe and axe appeared in his hot-bar.
Chopping down several other trees Steve never felt better, 'Doing deforestation is really fun, no wonder why it happens a lot.' with that thought Steve found himself immersed in the familiar rhythm of resource gathering, a task that brought a strange sense of comfort.
Once he had a couple stacks of wood, he built himself a cabin, a rudimentary shelter against the encroaching danger. Deciding to get better tools he digs himself an indoor mine.
And with that the journey went on, as Steve continued on, he adapted. He gained better tools, better armor, he began to enchant his equipment and even built some red stone machines.
But all journeys have an End. And he went to it; he killed the dragon and got an elytra from the End Cities. After that he finally killed the Wither.
He gained complete and utter mastery and control over the world he was sent to in less than a decade. It was like he was living in his own Journey to the West. He went through so many beautiful biomes and environments, he saw the beauty of the world around him, a profound appreciation for its intricate details blossoming within his consciousness.
However, despite his profound understanding and mastery of the world, an underlying current of existential ennui began to surface.
And that ennui led way to despair at the thought he had done everything there was to do, he had built farms of crops and monsters of proportions that would make industrialization blush.
He had killed so many things warlords would bow to him. He had amassed a fortune of diamonds, emeralds, and netherite, yet none of these material possessions brought him the slightest flicker of joy or satisfaction as they used to do. The endless cycle of creation and destruction, devoid of genuine challenge or novel discovery, had rendered his existence monotonous, a gilded cage of his own making.
But in short, he was bored, painfully bored.
That ended one day though.
…
When he was coming back from his personal arena and from trying to communicate with his villagers, he stumbled on his road he made. And that was all that was needed in order to cross into another world.