Minecraft: The Shipwreck/1CHP

Chapter 1: Jake
Jake and his father are moving into an apartment complex in Los Angeles, after living in other cities such as Chicago, San Antonio, and Seattle. He originally lived in Maryland with his mother before his father got a job as an architect. The two stop at an apartment complex that is prepped for renovation. Jake gets his backpack and a box of his things out of the truck, while his father gets a box of stuff meant for the kitchen. Walking toward their new condo, they go through the lobby of the soon-to-be renovated Pacific Crest Community Center and Apartments. The walls are adorned with ocean waves, a person at a computer lab, and people at a swimming pool; it is also painted in a deep aquamarine color. Eventually, the two arrive at the new apartment complex, entering a condo on the second floor. Jake asks if the place has internet, but his father says there would be none until tomorrow. Jake enters his small bedroom, which currently only has a mattress and an unassembled bed frame. Setting down the box and backpack, he retrieves a bed sheet from the box, plopping it on the bed. Jake then pulls out his laptop and starts playing Minecraft.

Jake has flashbacks of Danny, a friend from Maryland, with the two constantly playing Minecraft together until Jake moved away, yet they still keep in touch, albeit barely. Jake then selects "Singleplayer" and scrolls through his older worlds. One has a half-finished replica of the Eiffel Tower, another has the most powerful weapons and armor, and the third has a huge map of monuments and strongholds. However, Jake decides to create a new one, spawning in a forest biome. Hours pass by, and soon Jake’s dad leaves for a work appointment. Jake soon gets hungry, and notices a twenty-dollar bill on the dining table for pizza, along with a note from his father saying that he’ll be back late. Jake then hears shouting and echoing from the kitchen window. Opening it, he hears some kids playing on a playground, but they run off after noticing a boy with dark hair and a denim jacket approach them, named Tank. His younger sister follows behind him, and Tank begins to gently push her on the swing.

Chapter 2: Tank
The narrator mentions Tank as someone "who ate lunch alone and talked to no one". That is, until a person named Shark sits down beside him. He asks Tank if the two should hang out a Fortress Park, a "fun park" that is home to go-karts, mini-golf, and a snack shack. Tank hesitates at first, but accepts, and soon after, the two become friends. Tank also has a part-time job working as a shipment sorter at a local convenience store, managed by Mr. Mishra. The apartment that Tank lives in with his family (consisting of himself, Vivian, Ma, Ba, and Auntie Phuong) is in the west tower of the Pacific Crest Community Center and Apartments. Upon entering said apartment, he checks his pocket for the money he got from the part-time job and exhales, knowing that it isn’t a lot, but would be just enough to help. Tank puts half of the money he earned in Ma’s purse and puts several twenty-dollar bills in an envelope in the kitchen, leaving just twenty dollars for himself. Just then, Ba arrives back early from his part-time job at a local auto shop, saying that the shop had no customers today. This infuriates Tank, who was hoping to save some money to buy a new pair of sneakers.

Ba starts heading toward Vivian’s bedroom to see if she wants to help him with some things, but Tank stops him, saying that she is studying, and gives him the twenty-dollar bill to buy some groceries. Ba shrugs his shoulders and leaves the apartment. Tank, relieved, gets a glass of water and joins Vivian in the bedroom, where she is playing Minecraft. Vivian is playing with two others: Mina, who lives somewhere along the east coast, and Rocky, who lives in Japan. Upon noticing Tank, she soon disconnects and starts playing in a world that her and Tank had begun the previous week. Vivian is annoyed that Tank keeps building the same farm, as well as looking for flowers. Tank tries to keep Vivian from having him fight hostile mobs, but he eventually gives in, with Vivian sending Tank her location via coordinates.

Chapter 3: Jake
Jake is working on his Minecraft world when Danny sends him a text, saying that he should go find a giant sheep statue that he built on the server. Jake replies back; at first, he begins to type a long paragraph, but deletes it and instead just says that he’ll check it out once he gets internet, and asks Danny as to how his summer is going. Jake puts his phone away and asks his father if the Wi-Fi is up. Jake’s father says that he thought they came yesterday, but Jake replies that nobody showed up. Jake’s father then says that he’ll call the local cable company to make sure they stop by, and says to Jake that he’ll make dinner tonight, as well as that there are groceries in the fridge. Jake opens the fridge, enthusiastic about the contents inside: mozzarella sticks, yogurt, cheese slices, and deli meats, as well as bread and cereal on the counter. He pulls out a gallon of milk, followed by a bowl, and pours the milk into it, followed by the cereal. Jake’s father then leaves for work. As Jake finishes his cereal, he looks outside and notices the kids from the other day. Jake then rinses his cereal bowl and heads back to the window. This time, he notices three boys who begin rubbing cooking oil on the playground equipment.

Just then, Jake’s phone buzzes with texts from his father, asking him to be on the lookout for the cable company. Jake brings his laptop into the living room to keep an eye on the window. He starts up the world he created yesterday and notices a guy with a hat peering through the back gate. Jake is ecstatic under the assumption that it is someone from the cable company and rushes out towards him. Going around a corner, he bumps into Tank, sending rolls of paper towels flying everywhere. Tank scowls at Jake, who quickly apologizes, and Jake gives Tank back a roll of paper towel before meeting up with the guy in the hat. Jake asks if he is here to hook up Wi-Fi, but the guy in the hat says he is here for a package delivery. Although disappointed, Jake opens the back gate for him and begins heading back toward his apartment. He notices Tank hiding the paper towels in some shrubs, who quickly runs off. Tank’s friend, Shark (along with his friends, Gus and A.J.) soon notice Jake, who ask him if he has money to buy them some soda. Tank then distracts the three, asking if they are ready for a go-kart rematch at Fortress Park, allowing Jake to slip behind a door, entering the lobby of the Pacific Crest Community Center and Apartments.

Jake walks around for a bit, noticing things such as a pool table, and several decks of cards. He eventually finds the computer lab, taking interest in one of the computers in the first row and turns it on out of curiosity. As the computer is starting up, Jake notices a yellow cord plugged into a phone jack in the wall. Excited that it’s the internet cable, he tries to take it out, but soon realizes that the cord is zip-tied to the computer. Although disappointed, Jake heads back to the computer and soon realizes that Minecraft is installed on it. Excited, he logs into his account and goes into the multiplayer server that is set up. Jake eventually finds a village which has fortifications surrounding it. Inside the village are several signs which read as follows:

Jake wanders around the village, noticing that the houses are dotted with blue tiles, along with paintings of shells, kelp, and boats. One of the houses contains a chest of supplies such as coal ore and iron armor. Another house has a library and an enchanting table hidden behind a painting, along with a chest containing a potion of leaping. Jake takes the potion and then crafts some wooden tools before falling asleep in a bed to avoid hostile mobs. Upon waking up, he takes some wool from the house and then begins to explore.

After traveling hundreds of blocks by land and boat, Jake eventually finds another village, as well as an ocean. He decides to head toward the ocean and swims around in the water. By nightfall, he notices a shipwreck in the water and swims toward it out of curiosity. Entering the shipwreck, he notices a trapdoor. Opening it reveals an underwater torch and a chest filled with gold ingots, emeralds, and a treasure map. Excited about his findings, he swims back up to the surface, but quickly notices a door behind the trapdoor, so he swims toward it again. As Jake approaches the second door, movement from outside the shipwreck catches his eye. Seeing the shadow of a tail, Jake believes that it is a mermaid and swims after it. However, he doesn’t realize that he is low on health and soon dies from drowning. Jake respawns in a small hideout that he built, and is frustrated that he didn’t save the coordinates to the shipwreck. He tries to head back to the shipwreck, but panic begins to set in when zombies begin approaching him; as such, he heads back to the hideout and closes it up. Just then, a girl enters the computer lab, startling Jake. The girl is typing on her phone when she sits down at the opposite end of the row of computers, turning one on. The groan of a zombie breaks the awkward silence, with Jake trying to kill it by punching it. He eventually succumbs to the zombie, however, and disconnects from the server. Jake looks at the desktop clock, realizing he had been in the lab for several hours. He tries to introduce himself to the girl, but she leaves soon after.

Chapter 4: Emily
The girl is revealed to be Emily, who also lives at the Pacific Crest Community Center and Apartments. However, when she plans on doing shopping trips with her friends, Nita and Pattie, accompanied by Pattie’s mom, Rose, who works as a television producer, she walks two blocks down the street to the lobby of Glen Oaks Apartments. On this particular day, Emily leaves the computer lab early upon noticing Jake, and walks over to Glen Oaks Apartments to be picked up for the shopping trip. After a few hours of shopping at H&M and Forever 21, as well as getting some food from Orange Julius, they post some pictures from the shopping trip on Instagram and drop off Emily back at Glen Oaks. When the car they are driving in turns the corner, Emily walks two blocks back to the Pacific Crest Community Center and Apartments. She enters her apartment, which is located in the west tower, and flops into her computer chair, checking her social media. She switches between her personal YouTube account and her Minecraft YouTube account, smiling as her feed changes from make-up tutorials and moving videos to everything about Minecraft.

Emily is browsing through her Minecraft videos when she notices a comment left by a user named PacificViv, saying that she loves what she’s doing with the pressure plates. Emily replies to the message, and soon the two begin having a conversation. Ultimately, Emily asks PacificViv if she wants to join her Minecraft server, in which PacificViv replies enthusiastically. Emily gives the user the server name, and soon, the two are playing Minecraft together. As they play, PacificViv gives Emily a download link to a voice messaging app, which she downloads. The two begin communicating via voice chat. They build a base and kill some skeletons, but soon, Emily mentions to PacificViv that she has to get going. They disconnect from the voice chat, but PacificViv types via the in-game chat, asking Emily if she wants to join a server that herself and sixteen other people are a part of. Emily’s phone then buzzes with a text from Pattie asking about an outfit, followed by her mother asking her to get the mail. Sighing, Emily types to PacificViv that she’ll think about it and disconnects soon after.

Flopping on her bed, Emily posts a selfie on her Instagram, directing users to a video on her personal YouTube account. Pattie comments on it right away with several heart emojis. Emily sighs as her mind races between her two passions: fashion and Minecraft. She thinks back to when she saw Jake in the computer lab, disgusted that it is once again a public place instead of her own personal one. Emily has thoughts about how herself and Jake could end up becoming friends, but soon the thoughts become daydreams as her mind races between Pattie and Nita making fun of Jake. Shooing the thoughts away, Emily leaves her apartment to get the mail. On the way to the mailboxes, she notices Tank wiping down the playground equipment with paper towels, and hides behind some shrubs. As Tank throws the paper towels away and heads over to the north tower, Emily finds some paper towels and an empty bottle of vegetable oil in a nearby trash can.

Chapter 5: Jake
Jake approaches an old lady by the playground, and asks if she is okay. The old lady immediately scolds Jake for being on the playground after 5PM, which is not allowed according to the community guidelines for Pacific Crest, and mentions to Jake that there are fines for children on the playground after hours. She walks away, mumbling to herself. A few days later, Jake is back at the computer lab by 11AM. This time, he is fixed to a routine after knowing how the people in the complex go about their days, and also figures out that he can go directly to the computer lab by walking along an inner balcony and heading down a stairwell. Jake goes back into the Minecraft server and once again finds the village in the desert by the ocean, turning it into a home base of sorts. He screenshots all the anomalies he finds and thinks back to the riddle from the first village. Feeling that he missed something, Jake climbs up a mountain to the west, soon noticing several patches of ice. The first patch leads to stone, while the second leads to a cave. He explores it, but soon reaches a dead end. Jake looks up at the top of the cave, noticing paintings of shells and three signs with several numbers on them. He adds up the numbers as the riddle mentions and gets the following totals: 108, 5, and 1,072. Jake gasps in excitement, believing the numbers to be coordinates, but the excitement is cut short as his phone buzzes with a text from his father, saying that dinner is ready.

Back at the apartment, Jake is eating chicken parmesan that his father made. As him and his father eat, his father asks Jake some questions about life in Los Angeles so far, such as if he had met anybody at the community center. Jake shrugs and says that he only met a few people. Jake’s father then asks him if he’d like to see what he was working on in Minecraft. Suddenly, Jake has a flashback to when the two had lived in Chicago, shortly after his mom had passed. Within a few weeks of moving there, Jake had discovered Minecraft for the first time, and would play it every day after school. Jake also built a replica of their house from Maryland, as well as a replica of an apartment complex from his father’s blueprints. One day, Jake tried to show his father the apartment complex replica, but he scolded Jake for barging into his workplace.

Chapter 6: Tank
One day, Tank mentions to Shark that he has to leave for "family stuff" as an excuse for heading to his part-time job. Shark asks Tank if he wants to hang out at Fortress Park, but Tank politely refuses. Shark then mentions to Tank about Jake, but Tank shrugs it off and asks why mentioning him is funny. Shark then calls Tank a "riot" and says he’ll see him later. Tank heads over to the computer lab, soon noticing Jake, who quickly runs off. Tank hears music from the computer that Jake left on, recognizing that it is from Minecraft. Acting carefully, he logs Jake out of Minecraft, shuts down the computer, and heads back toward his own apartment.

Chapter 7: Emily
Emily is playing Minecraft when her mother says that dinner is ready. Heading out to the dining room, she greets the rest of her family: the twins, Ricky and Minnie, her older sister, Carmen, and her mother. As they eat, Emily asks her mother if she can go shopping with Pattie and Nita tomorrow, clarifying that she isn’t going to buy anything. Her mother says that she should actually save money and says she’ll find some clothes for her for the new school year. Emily rebuttals, saying that the clothes she picks out are "old-looking". Her mother then asks if she should invite Pattie and Nita over to her place. Emily doesn’t respond, instead leaving the question to the thoughts in her head. Just then, Emily’s father enters the dining room holding a shopping bag from Lemon Russo, handing the receipt to her mother as he gives a stern look at Emily, saying that he is disappointed in her actions. Her mother shows Emily the receipt, asking her as to why three shirts and a pair of pants are that expensive. Emily is then grounded for a week, not being allowed to use her laptop or phone, and is ordered to return the clothing to the store.