"Just over this hill and then I'm calling it quits," Markle mutters, his pixelated legs heavy with exhaustion. The square sun hangs low in the sky, painting the blocky world in oranges and purples that shouldn't look beautiful but somehow do. "Thirty days to resurrect a dragon, but I'll be lucky to survive one night at this rate."
His stomach growls, a strange sensation in this digital body. The hunger feels authentic, though he wonders if it's just his mind remembering what hunger should feel like.
"After this, I'm building a dirt hovel and calling it home." He crests the hill, prepared for another empty vista.
Instead, his breath catches. In the distance, unmistakable against the sunset backdrop, stand cubic structures. Buildings. A village.
"No way," he whispers, blinking to make sure it's not a mirage. "Please don't be my imagination."
He breaks into a run, his fatigue momentarily forgotten. Each footfall makes the familiar tapping sound against the grass blocks, faster now, urgent.
As he draws closer, his initial elation fades. Something is wrong with the village. Many of the structures appear damaged or completely destroyed.
"What happened here?" Markle slows to a walk, approaching cautiously.
The first buildings he passes are little more than charred frameworks. What were once wooden houses now stand as blackened skeletons against the twilight sky.
"Fire?" He stops to examine a burned beam, his blocky fingers coming away dusted with black pixels. "Or explosions."
The damage pattern reminds him of creeper explosions from the game. Missing chunks of buildings, crater-like depressions in the earth around them.
"Hello?" he calls out, moving deeper into the village. "Anyone here?"
Only silence answers him. The village path, once neatly laid with gravel, now lies scattered and pocked with holes. Farm plots sit abandoned, wheat growing wild and untended.
"This couldn't have happened too long ago." He notes that some of the crops haven't yet withered. "Days, maybe?"
The center of the village shows the worst destruction. What might have been a well or gathering point is now just a deep crater. Wooden structures around it are completely gone.
Stone buildings on the outskirts, however, remain largely intact. Their cobblestone and stone brick construction apparently more resistant to whatever caused the destruction.
"Smart building choice," Markle comments, approaching the nearest stone house. The windows are dark, but the structure itself seems sound.
He hesitates at the door, his hand raised to knock. What if whatever destroyed the village returns? What if the occupants aren't friendly?
"Only one way to find out." He raps his knuckles against the wooden door. The sound echoes oddly in the empty village.
Markle waits, counting to thirty in his head. No response comes from within. No footsteps, no voice calling out, nothing.
"Hello? I'm not here to cause trouble. Just looking for shelter." He knocks again, louder this time.
Still nothing. The wind whistles through the damaged buildings behind him, carrying the scent of ash and approaching night.
"I'm coming in," he announces, pushing against the door. It swings open with a creak, revealing darkness within.
Markle steps inside cautiously, his senses alert for any movement. The interior is cool and smells musty, like a space closed up for days.
"Anyone home?" His voice sounds unnaturally loud in the silent house.
The main room contains a crafting table, a furnace, and basic furniture—all intact but coated with a thin layer of dust. A chest sits in the corner, its lid slightly ajar.
Markle moves to the chest and peers inside. Empty, save for a single stone pickaxe and some string. Whatever valuables it once held are gone.
"Seems like whoever lived here left in a hurry," he muses, noting the open drawers and scattered items on the floor.
A staircase leads to an upper level. Markle climbs it, finding a small bedroom with an unmade bed. Clothes spill from an open trunk, as if grabbed hastily during an evacuation.
"They didn't plan on leaving." He runs his hand over the bedpost. "Something forced them out."
Back downstairs, Markle explores a small side room that serves as a kitchen. A furnace still holds cold coals, and shelves contain clay pots and wooden bowls.
His stomach rumbles again as he spots a covered pot on a table. Lifting the lid cautiously, he finds what appears to be stew—congealed but not yet spoiled.
"Two days old, max." He sniffs it tentatively. No obvious signs of decay. "Beggars can't be choosers, I guess."
The thought of eating someone else's abandoned meal gives him pause. His hands twitch with a strange, displaced guilt.
"Sorry, whoever you are," he says to the absent villager. "I promise to pay you back if you return."
Markle finds a wooden spoon and sits at the table. The stew tastes better than it looks—some kind of meat and vegetable mixture with an unfamiliar earthy flavor.
"Not bad for abandoned apocalypse food." He scrapes the pot clean, his hunger finally subsiding.
With his basic needs addressed, fatigue washes over him like a wave. His pixelated eyelids feel impossibly heavy.
"Should really set up some defenses," he mumbles, looking around the room. "Barricade the door or something."
But his body refuses to cooperate. The thought of more work seems impossible after his day-long journey.
"Just for tonight," Markle decides, dragging a chair in front of the door. It won't stop anything determined, but it might provide warning.
He makes his way back upstairs to the bedroom, guilt twinging again as he approaches the bed. Sleeping in a stranger's house feels invasive, but the alternative is the hard ground outside.
"They're not using it," he justifies, sitting on the edge of the mattress. It yields beneath him with surprising softness.
Through the small window, Markle watches as darkness falls completely over the ruined village. Stars appear in the cubic sky, perfect diamond points against the black.
"What happened here?" he wonders aloud, lying back on the bed. "And where did everyone go?"
Questions swirl in his tired mind. The village destruction, his supposed magical abilities, the zombie brotherhood's ultimatum—all problems for tomorrow's Markle.
Tonight's Markle can barely keep his eyes open. His muscles ache with a fatigue that shouldn't be possible in a digital body, yet feels as real as any exhaustion he experienced in his former life.
"Thirty days," he murmurs, staring at the ceiling. "Twenty-nine now, I guess."
The quiet darkness of the abandoned house wraps around him like a blanket. Despite his strange surroundings and the many unknowns, sleep tugs at him insistently.
"Just a few hours," Markle promises himself, his eyes finally closing. "Then figure out the next step."
His breathing slows, deepens. The sounds of the night—distant zombie groans, the chirp of crickets, the soft hiss of spiders—fade from his awareness.
In his last moments of consciousness, Markle thinks he hears footsteps downstairs. His eyes flutter, fighting to reopen, but exhaustion claims him completely.
He slips into dreams filled with burning villages, telepathic zombies, and a dragon waiting to be reborn.