*makes annoying robot noises*

WEL-COME TO THE WORLD OF WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKLY UP-DATES! BEEP BOOP BOP

ASKFJLK SJDF ANYWAYS XD

IM ACTUALLY REALLY EXCITED CUZ I FINALLY HAVE IDEAS AND

*coughs*

THEY TOTALLY ARENT GAY IDEAS OR ANYTHING

TOOOOOOTALLY NOT

…. PFFT.

Chapter Fifteen: I've Always Wondered What It's Like to Be Dead

Time: a few minutes later

Place: the Night Owl's platform.

Sky's POV

"Night Owl, N-O! My pal, my buddy, my main man! How's it going, bro?"

The Night Owl glares at me. "What do you want."

"Let me do the talking," Seto sighs, joining the Night Owl in glaring at me. He turns back to said Night Owl and smiles diplomatically. "Hello, sir. An odd pressure has arisen in our home dimension due to a newly instated honorary member. We've completed the Ceremony of Acceptance, so it should have disappeared by now – and, while it has let up a little, something of it still remains, like a small tug on our world. Have you any idea what could be the cause of this?"

The Night Owl raises an eyebrow.

"Dude, is your magic broken," Ty huffs.

"Oh. My powers are fine, I'm transporting people just like I always do," the Night Owl replies, shrugging slightly, and Seto sighs again.

"Well. In that case – have you, perhaps, had any visitors in the past few days?" Seto asks.

"Just you guys. By the way, unless you have official business, and you never do, could you leave already?"

"Someone rolled off the wrong side of the tree today," I mutter, and the Night Owl glares at me once more.

"Look, are you wanting a transfer, or what? Because you'll need the dimension number."

"Come on, man, do me a solid," I beg.

The bird forces a smile. "How about a visit to dimension H-36-G-9-0-0-J?"

"All right, free vacation!"

"No," Seto sighs again again, "that's the Death dimension. Jason accidentally tried to send us there last time we were on this platform." Jason blushes.

I narrow my eyes at the grumpy bird. "Well, owl be darned! You tried to trick us."

The silly owl growls at me, and I grin and shrug my shoulders.

"Why does the Death dimension even exist? Like, who would want to visit?" Ty asks, tilting his head.

"Sounds like a fun ride to me," E-Ty snorts.

The Night Owl shrugs. "Family and friends go to visit with the deceased."

"Wait-" My eyes go wide. "The people in the Death dimension are actually dead?"

"Uh, yeah," the bird huffs, rolling his eyes. "That's why it's called the Death dimension. There is no 'afterlife' in Minecraft – only a secluded dimension. But the deceased can be very… violent. Which is why mourners usually go armed."

Seto hums, and I glance over at him to find that he has switched entirely into Sherlock mode. "So… Are the deceased capable of leaving the Death dimension?" he asks slowly.

"No, never. What, you been seeing ghosts?" the Owl laughs meanly.

"Quite possibly," Seto mutters to himself, pulling out a notebook and scribbling some things in it with a pen he pulls out of thin air. "Any rumors about the deceased escaping?"

"It's impossible. I guard the platform, and the only way to move from any dimension is to get me to willingly teleport you – or to use some kind of magic teleportation. Magic teleportation isn't allowed in the Death dimension." He snorts. "Of course, there are always the scary bedtime stories for kids about 'ghosts' making a connection with them so they can visit them during their sleep if they're bad children."

"Oh," I realize.

"Yeah," Seto answers, rolling his eyes as though I should have realized it sooner. "You know what, Mr. Night Owl? We'll be back momentarily. For now, can you kindly transport us to our home dimension?"

The bird smirks. "Not unless you've got the dimension number."

"2-21-4-D-E-18," E-Ty spouts off.

"Notch, I hate your group."

"Noted!" I sing. "Barely soft landing, please!"

The Night Owl rolls his eyes as the world bends around us, and then we all fall on top of Seto's reinforced roof with a bunch of "oof"s and "ow"s. Ty chuckles nervously, and I hold out a hand to help him up as he speaks to Seto. "Why did we come back here..?"

"Yeah, man, what the crap?" I ask, turning to help E-Ty up as well.

"We need weapons," Seto says, rolling his eyes, and I can practically hear him adding on the word "morons" in his head.

"Hey, don't call us morons!" Jason pouts. Oh, he said it out loud. That's why I heard it. It all makes sense now.

"His words, not mine," E-Ty grumbles, motioning to Seto.

"Glad to know you're with us, E-Ty," I giggle before fearlessly jumping off of Seto's roof. "Remember last time I did this? I totally almost died."

E-Ty crosses his arms, and Ty glares at me.

"U-Um… budder for sale?" I try, wincing afterwards. The two just shake their heads in disapproval. "Heh. Okay then."

"Just grab a bunch of weapons and armor," Seto instructs us as he, too, jumps off the roof, "and then meet back in the lab."

"Yes, sir!" I shout, saluting as I do so.

Five minutes later, we're armed to the teeth and the Night Owl is sighing in exasperation and teleporting us to the ever-so-lovely Death dimension.

Seto only raises an eyebrow while the rest of us partially panic about the fact that literally the only color in this dimension is grey. Moonlight glints off of Ian's glasses, and it might also be worth mentioning that the moonlight is the only light we have, and the night doesn't seem like it's going to end anytime in the next century. "It's dark," I say.

"You guys should be called the 'Captain Obvious' dimension," E-Ty huffs, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, yeah? Well- Well- Uh, squids! Ha!" I fist-pump the air and turn to high-five Ty. "Burn!"

Ty rolls his eyes but high-fives me anyways, and I grin victoriously as though that simple action justifies my intense lack of comebacks.

"So… What? What are we doing here, exactly?" Mitch asks, glancing around at the dull buildings.

"We're breaking whatever connection they have with our dimension so they can't keep initiating these dream sequences," Seto answers, striding forward. "Any ideas as to where to look first?"

"Well, I guess we need to find the other us, then," I say, shrugging slightly as I run after Seto. "If I were me, where would I be?"

Ty facepalms, and Quentin snorts, and most of the group just ignores my useless input. But E-Ty freezes, and his head snaps over so that he's staring right into my eyes. "I-" He swallows hard. "I could see Sky again? My Sky? The real my Sky."

"Uh...," Jason begins, but I'm quite proud to say that I don't doubt E-Ty's loyalty to us, not even a little. And I do understand his grief – honestly, while we're here, we might as well let those two hug it out or something.

"Could he, Seto?" I ask excitedly, bouncing a little in my shoes.

"Quite possibly," Seto replies cautiously, and I smile wide.

"Haha, this is great, E-Ty!"

"We'll see," Seto tells us both before leading us all into the first building he comes to. "If we're lucky, we'll find whatever we need to find right here in this first building."

"Seems a little too easy," Ian mumbles as we push open the doors and enter the room. It's huge, a high ceiling and a checkered tiled floor that looks like it should be black and white but instead is just grey and darker grey. This floor seems to be empty, but there's a large staircase in the corner of room, with the bottom stair oddly close to the wall so that running down the staircase would likely result in you slamming your face into said wall.

"Uh… Should we check upstairs then?" I ask.

"Maybe we should have split up," Jason says, "to cover more ground and all that."

"You're stupid," Seto replies blankly, and so we all walk up the stairs with Jason grumbling quietly behind us.

"What are we looking for again?" E-Ty asks, though it's clear he's only looking for his Sky.

"I don't know. Our copies? An oddly mesmerizing magical projector? Who knows," Seto huffs, so E-Ty stops asking.

"Holy crap!" I sing in a high-pitched voice. "Oddly mesmerizing magical projector, check."

Everyone spins around to look back at me where I've fallen behind to peek through the window of a locked door. Can't see much, 'cause the window needs a serious Windex session, but I can at least see the light flickering on the wall and putting together the blurry image of a pig. Before I can ask Seto to magic open the door, E-Ty and Ty are pushing me out of the way and shoulder-ramming the door together, and I'm shrugging and letting them in. Hey, I mean, they did the work, they might as well see the room first.

"Is this the thing that's letting them connect to your – our – dreams?" Ty asks, glancing back at Seto and then over at me. I just shrug while I wait for Seto to handle it, and then I walk over to the small table the projector is set up on. It looks old, but it is oddly mesmerizing in that- Well, I- I don't know. I just feel like it's newer than anything else could ever be.

"Most likely, yes," Seto finally replies, seemingly as entranced as I am.

"Woah," Jason breathes. "How old is this thing?"

"I don't believe it has an age," Seto says quietly, and no one asks him to further explain. E-Ty, who looks thoroughly disappointed, rolls his eyes and begins running his hands along the walls, looking for any hidden doors, I guess. Ty is staring hard at the projector like he's one hundred percent ready to slam it on the floor and do some eighties disco moves on top of its grave, and Mitch is running his hand along the projection on the wall while his other hand latches tight to Jerome's. "What is this thing? I've never seen anything like it."

"Uh… Man, I don't know," I say, shrugging yet again. I'm actually pretty done with this room. Ty looks very jittery. E-Ty looks like he's ready to grab my hand and bolt, and I'm just not up for whatever other surprises this room could have in store for us. "Can't we, like… move on? Or shut this thing down, or whatever."

"No, no, we can't interfere if it's something vital to this dimension's wellbeing; we can't doom an entire population all because of the meddling of a few ghosts," Seto rebukes me, and I put up my hands in a defensive position as he turns his attention back to the projector and runs his fingers over some of the buttons. "Hmm. I would assume that this device would project a live image of the desired dimension on the wall here, and one would then be able to – in some way – jump into the picture. But that… No, that can't be what's happening with us. In all our dreams, we've been present in a seemingly timeless and placeless area surrounded by naught but the void."

"Oh my Notch, Seto. No one says 'naught' anymore."

He shoots me a glare. "I do. Anyways, for the projector to still fit into our problem, it would have to somehow be capable of temporarily creating a new dimension to transport our spirits to- But- If the copies in our dreams were our own 'Misunderstood' dimension copies, then why would they repeat the same sequence each time the dream began? Wouldn't they just continue where they'd left off in the last dream? Oh, I don't understand."

"Yeah, neither does anyone else," I huff.

"Look, do I smash it, or what?" Ty asks.

"Don't smash it. Let's find our copies instead," Seto says after some thought.

"Hooray," E-Ty says sarcastically, but Notch knows he's not being the least bit sarcastic.

"Up more stairs, then?" I ask, sighing.

"Yeah," Seto says. "Up more stairs."