u/Lord_BlueFlame

i still remember my first time playing Minecraft, and i still remember the horrible, terrifying mistake i did.

it was a rainy night of 2013. i couldn’t fall asleep in any way, it was 2 PM, so i decided to watch youtube. i was only a kid, but i don’t remember if i knew anything about the game… and i also don’t remember anything that happened in my life before. this is the fault of the game itself, you will later understand why. i’ve watched a couple videos about it that night and i decided to give it a try. i installed it on my phone, and opened it. i created a new survival world, and didn’t know how to call it, so i just typed randomly, the thing that my fingers came up with was “B57EDC”. at the time i didn’t know that it wasn’t just a random string of symbols, but a sign to turn back.

the world loaded. the videos i saw were mostly about Minecraft survival, so i knew what to do. i chopped down a tree, crafted planks, a crafting table, sticks and then a wooden pickaxe. but the videos i’ve seen didn’t tell me one thing. the first, golden, inviolable rule of Minecraft. a rule so important that nobody, ever, could break it. but i didn’t know it, nobody ever told me. DON’T. MINE. STRAIGHT. DOWN.

as you can imagine, i broke that rule. it was a monstrous, tragic mistake. i dug a hole straight down, i broke the dirt layer, and then i started breaking the stone. i wasn’t sleepy, but as i went down, i started being tired. my eyes started to close, and then even to hurt. i could barely see anything at that point, but i continued mining down. i had an awful feeling, as if i was doing something nobody else in the world should do. as if i was disobeying God himself. this feeling was growing. time started to slow. it felt like i have been mining for HOURS, but my inventory only had 10 pieces of cobblestone. at that point even breaking one block would feel exhaustingly long. i broke 2 more blocks, but for some reason, i didn’t want to stop. was i curious? was i thinking that i were just falling asleep? was i thinking it was all a bad dream? a nightmare? i don’t know. today i only know that it was indeed a nightmare. but it was real. not just some bad dream.

i had 12 cobblestone in my inventory. i was breaking the 13th block, but all the bad feelings were growing. and growing. and growing. they didn’t stop. at that point i was scared. but i wasn’t normal fear of a scary game. it was something completely else. completely different.  i t   w a s   s o m e t h i n g   a n   i n n o c e n t   k i d   w a s n ‘ t   r e a d y   t o   e x p e r i e n c e . i could stop, turn around and just close the game in any moment, but i couldn’t. or i didn’t want to.

i t   w a s   c a l l i n g   f o r   m e .

the block was about to break, i could barely see the last breaking sprite in the dark of my phone, even though it was at max brightness. the room’s lights were on, but to my eyes they were off. but i didn’t think about that, i, i was only thinking about the game, like if it was the most important thing on this planet. i was looking at the block that was about to break, but it wasn’t breaking. it was like i, or it, were frozen in time. i was in a completely different dimension of space time. here, more that ten hours or so passed, even if in reality only less than a second did.

it finally broke. silence, i hear no sound. the next one wasn’t a block of stone. it wasn’t a Minecraft block. it didn’t have the shape of a block. it didn’t have a shape. it didn’t have a colour. it wasn’t “something”. it was a feeling. it was a sensation. it was an experience.

i couldn’t see it, i was blind. but i could perceive it. not with my eyes, but with my mind. my eyes gave no signals, they were seeing nothing but a blank hole with literally nothing inside. but it wasn’t nothing. it was just unrecognisable normally. to be recognised by me, it projected itself into my mind.

『꧁LΔ∇ΣΠDΣR꧂』

it has entered my mind. my consciousness. my thoughts. it was reading them. removing them. adding them. changing them. and i could do nothing. i was trying to run, but it was useless. i couldn’t. it was holding me back.

it was projecting itself into my mind, but it was too much, my memories were slowly overridden. almost all my memories were gone, except for a couple things, including everything that happened that night.

it was projecting itself into my mind, but i couldn’t understand what it was. a ghost? an object? an entity? a God? maybe it wasn’t any of these things, it was something without a name, something that shouldn’t even exist, but it does.

it was projecting itself into my mind, but i couldn’t comprehend what was my mind full of. it wasn’t like browsing memories, or even thinking. time was deleted. i couldn’t understand what was “time”. i couldn’t understand. i couldn’t think. i couldn’t feel my body.

i was stuck in an infinite maze, a library of babel, but every symbol was unrecognisable, every page was unrecognisable, every book was unrecognisable, everything was unrecognisable, it wasn’t like a library with randomly generated books, but something COMPLETELY random. it had every possible combination of everything, of books, of people, of planets, of worlds, of universes. 

i was stuck there, in every part of it, everything, everywhere, at the same time, time didn’t exist for me, and there was no exit. i was scared. but if i couldn’t think about anything, then how is it possible that i was? it should be indeed impossible, but i was still somehow scared. scared of something i couldn’t understand even slightly… maybe because i was unable to understand even what exists and what doesn’t?

i was in hell. i was suffering for an eternity, or for a moment of time so small it didn’t matter. i was in pain, but i didn’t know what pain was. i wanted to think about something, but i couldn’t think. or even want anything. i was simply there, for no reason at all, with an infinite weight on my shoulders i didn’t want to carry.

ten years passed, ten exact years from that day, but i didn’t feel like it was ten years, i couldn’t even feel the passage of time. or feel. i woke up in hospital, it was a bit after 2 PM, the exact moment i broke that last fateful block. my family members told me that they found me unconscious on the floor, with my phone in the hand. i was taken to the hospital and i remained in coma for all those years, the doctors couldn’t understand what was happening in my mind, it was like all parts of it were working at the same time on something, and there were no signs of any brain damage, even after i woke up, there was nothing wrong with my brain, it was completely normal.

my phone didn’t seem to turn on, meanwhile the memory had literally nothing, no OS, no Minecraft, no normal files, but only an enormous amount of text files that contained the same thing, the same string of numbers. “B57EDC”.

there is no way to describe what i felt but to feel it yourself. but don’t do it. p l e a s e .

d o n ‘ t   m i n e   s t r a i g h t   d o w n .

i still remember my first time playing Minecraft, and i still remember the horrible, terrifying mistake i did.

it was a rainy night of 2013. i couldn’t fall asleep in any way, it was 2 PM, so i decided to watch youtube. i was only a kid, but i don’t remember if i knew anything about the game… and i also don’t remember anything that happened in my life before. this is the fault of the game itself, you will later understand why. i’ve watched a couple videos about it that night and i decided to give it a try. i installed it on my phone, and opened it. i created a new survival world, and didn’t know how to call it, so i just typed randomly, the thing that my fingers came up with was “B57EDC”. at the time i didn’t know that it wasn’t just a random string of symbols, but a sign to turn back.

the world loaded. the videos i saw were mostly about Minecraft survival, so i knew what to do. i chopped down a tree, crafted planks, a crafting table, sticks and then a wooden pickaxe. but the videos i’ve seen didn’t tell me one thing. the first, golden, inviolable rule of Minecraft. a rule so important that nobody, ever, could break it. but i didn’t know it, nobody ever told me. DON’T. MINE. STRAIGHT. DOWN.

as you can imagine, i broke that rule. it was a monstrous, tragic mistake. i dug a hole straight down, i broke the dirt layer, and then i started breaking the stone. i wasn’t sleepy, but as i went down, i started being tired. my eyes started to close, and then even to hurt. i could barely see anything at that point, but i continued mining down. i had an awful feeling, as if i was doing something nobody else in the world should do. as if i was disobeying God himself. this feeling was growing. time started to slow. it felt like i have been mining for HOURS, but my inventory only had 10 pieces of cobblestone. at that point even breaking one block would feel exhaustingly long. i broke 2 more blocks, but for some reason, i didn’t want to stop. was i curious? was i thinking that i were just falling asleep? was i thinking it was all a bad dream? a nightmare? i don’t know. today i only know that it was indeed a nightmare. but it was real. not just some bad dream.

i had 12 cobblestone in my inventory. i was breaking the 13th block, but all the bad feelings were growing. and growing. and growing. they didn’t stop. at that point i was scared. but i wasn’t normal fear of a scary game. it was something completely else. completely different.  i t   w a s   s o m e t h i n g   a n   i n n o c e n t   k i d   w a s n ‘ t   r e a d y   t o   e x p e r i e n c e . i could stop, turn around and just close the game in any moment, but i couldn’t. or i didn’t want to.

i t   w a s   c a l l i n g   f o r   m e .

the block was about to break, i could barely see the last breaking sprite in the dark of my phone, even though it was at max brightness. the room’s lights were on, but to my eyes they were off. but i didn’t think about that, i, i was only thinking about the game, like if it was the most important thing on this planet. i was looking at the block that was about to break, but it wasn’t breaking. it was like i, or it, were frozen in time. i was in a completely different dimension of space time. here, more that ten hours or so passed, even if in reality only less than a second did.

it finally broke. silence, i hear no sound. the next one wasn’t a block of stone. it wasn’t a Minecraft block. it didn’t have the shape of a block. it didn’t have a shape. it didn’t have a colour. it wasn’t “something”. it was a feeling. it was a sensation. it was an experience.

i couldn’t see it, i was blind. but i could perceive it. not with my eyes, but with my mind. my eyes gave no signals, they were seeing nothing but a blank hole with literally nothing inside. but it wasn’t nothing. it was just unrecognisable normally. to be recognised by me, it projected itself into my mind.

『꧁LΔ∇ΣΠDΣR꧂』

it has entered my mind. my consciousness. my thoughts. it was reading them. removing them. adding them. changing them. and i could do nothing. i was trying to run, but it was useless. i couldn’t. it was holding me back.

it was projecting itself into my mind, but it was too much, my memories were slowly overridden. almost all my memories were gone, except for a couple things, including everything that happened that night.

it was projecting itself into my mind, but i couldn’t understand what it was. a ghost? an object? an entity? a God? maybe it wasn’t any of these things, it was something without a name, something that shouldn’t even exist, but it does.

it was projecting itself into my mind, but i couldn’t comprehend what was my mind full of. it wasn’t like browsing memories, or even thinking. time was deleted. i couldn’t understand what was “time”. i couldn’t understand. i couldn’t think. i couldn’t feel my body.

i was stuck in an infinite maze, a library of babel, but every symbol was unrecognisable, every page was unrecognisable, every book was unrecognisable, everything was unrecognisable, it wasn’t like a library with randomly generated books, but something COMPLETELY random. it had every possible combination of everything, of books, of people, of planets, of worlds, of universes. 

i was stuck there, in every part of it, everything, everywhere, at the same time, time didn’t exist for me, and there was no exit. i was scared. but if i couldn’t think about anything, then how is it possible that i was? it should be indeed impossible, but i was still somehow scared. scared of something i couldn’t understand even slightly… maybe because i was unable to understand even what exists and what doesn’t?

i was in hell. i was suffering for an eternity, or for a moment of time so small it didn’t matter. i was in pain, but i didn’t know what pain was. i wanted to think about something, but i couldn’t think. or even want anything. i was simply there, for no reason at all, with an infinite weight on my shoulders i didn’t want to carry.

ten years passed, ten exact years from that day, but i didn’t feel like it was ten years, i couldn’t even feel the passage of time. or feel. i woke up in hospital, it was a bit after 2 PM, the exact moment i broke that last fateful block. my family members told me that they found me unconscious on the floor, with my phone in the hand. i was taken to the hospital and i remained in coma for all those years, the doctors couldn’t understand what was happening in my mind, it was like all parts of it were working at the same time on something, and there were no signs of any brain damage, even after i woke up, there was nothing wrong with my brain, it was completely normal.

my phone didn’t seem to turn on, meanwhile the memory had literally nothing, no OS, no Minecraft, no normal files, but only an enormous amount of text files that contained the same thing, the same string of numbers. “B57EDC”.

there is no way to describe what i felt but to feel it yourself. but don’t do it. p l e a s e .

d o n ‘ t   m i n e   s t r a i g h t   d o w n .