A Fault in the Code

Chapter 9

A loud, hospital-like beeping sound wakes me up. Or maybe it was the crash I heard just before the beeping started. Everything in my vision is a dark, blood red. Something is very wrong with me. I try to turn my head, but even at the slightest movement I feel the bullets shooting me in the head over and over again until I stop.

I decide to just look with my eyes, not my head. The door to this room is swinging wide open, and I wonder why that could be. The skeletons on the wall are all gone, and the little jail cell is empty. Where did Jeff go? Is he in danger? I need to find him!

Despite the sever pain in my head, I force my body to sit up and bite my tongue to hold back a scream. I realize then that my hair feels wet. I look on the stretcher where my head was laying, and I see something horrifying that makes my head hurt even more. There is a giant blood stain.

My hand floats to my head and I touch it, my hand soaking with blood. I feel something that I don't normally feel on my scalp, and I don't want to know what it is. What makes me feel better, though, is that if it were my brains oozing out of my head, I would be unconscious if not dead. I think I'm okay. At least for now.

I slide off the stretcher and put on my backpack which is still by the jail iron door. My vision is still red and my head feels a thousand times worse, but I need to find Jeff. I don't want to lose my only friend.

I exit the room through the open iron doors, and there is a trail of purple liquid on the ground. It looks an awful lot like the color of Jeff's eyes. I start to follow it, and I realize there are more subhallways in this main hallway than I had thought.

I go through a maze of corridors, and after several minutes I hear many bangs and crashes, and I head towards the sound. I turn a corner and see a room at the very end of the hall with the light on, and I can see figures through the blurred glass windows in the doors. One looks black, the other looks tan.

As I get closer to the doors, I see one of them is slightly cracked open. Good, I'll be able to get in. I crouch down on the ground so they won't be able to see me. Then I peak through the crack to see what's going on.

Jeff is punching the man with all his might. Jeff has a large limp and cuts all over his body, oozing purple liquid, which must be his blood. The man is fighting back, but he has a bottle of green looking liquid in one hand and a sword in the other.

Jeff is fast on his feet even without his teleportation, so he is able to move out of the way quick enough when the man takes a swing at him with the sword.

Every so often, the man takes a swig of the green liquid he's holding, and every time he does, green swirls start floating from his feet. Jeff punches the man and tries to grab at his neck, but the man knocks him down and starts to dig his sword into Jeff's arm. Jeff makes a sound which I can only guess is a scream, and with his abnormally long legs, he kicks White-eyed (which I decide to call the man) off of him.

As White-eyed is getting to his feet, Jeff suddenly realizes that I am standing just outside the door. He makes eye contact with me and shifts his eyes over to the left. I look in that direction and see many shelves with bottles of colored liquid and other weird looking stuff. I look back at Jeff, bending my eyebrows down trying to ask, What do you want me to get from there?

And he points to himself.

Just as the silent word, what? comes out of my mouth, White-eyed rams into Jeff's side, knocking him down again. I then decide that I should go in there and try to help. But not get involved with the fight.

As Jeff and White-eyed are tackling each other, I look inside the room right next to each side of the door and I am relieved when I look to the right. There is a bookshelf, and it is just far enough away from the wall that I can slip behind it.

I start to walk along the wall behind the bookshelf, being forced to hear my friend being beat up with nothing to defend himself with. I flinch at every sound he makes.

I finally reach the end of the bookshelf, and I can either go forward, out into the room of the fight, or keep going right, where there is a staircase that leads up to a dark room. I'm not sure which to choose. Going into the fight is a dangerous choice, but I think I just saw something move up at the top of the stairs.

I don't want to waste another minute, so I pick the choice that I am closest to. I dash into the room where the fight is going on and run past the two who don't seem to notice me. I sprint to the shelves of glass bottles and the other funny looking materials and start to search for something that could possibly have to do with an enderman. Maybe a purple or black potion? A teleportation device? I wouldn't know if no one ever told me.

I look for several minutes, and out of the corner of my eye I see a hand reaching straight toward me. Just as I look back, I see Jeff grab White-eyed and throw him out of the open iron doors and push them closed. Then he leans on it with all his remaining strength.

He's exhausted.

He is gasping for air, his eyes are drooping closed, and his head is dropping down. Droplets of his purple blood plop down on the floor from each cut one by one, making small puddles where they land. I run over to him and hug him, glad that he's alright.

I let him catch his breath for a moment, then ask, "What did you want me to get?" I hand him the book and quill.

He writes his answer, slower than usual. Ender pearls. They kind of look like teal colored eyeballs. Get all you can.

I remember seeing those greenish eyes when I searched through the stuff, but they didn't look like something that would come from an enderman.

I hurry over to the shelves and collect many of them, and when I return to Jeff, he motions for the book, quill, and an ender pearl.

Me eating one of these should get me my teleportation back.

And then, he swallowed one whole. I put the rest in my backpack to store for later.

Jeff holds on to me, and we teleport out of that room just as the loud thumps against the iron doors begin.