Chapter 1

RUNNING HOT AND COLD.

Prologue Eek could feel someone watching him. First he heard footsteps on the nylium outside their Nether base. Then he saw a shadow moving between the trees of the crimson forest. For just a moment, he saw the sparkle of something silver right in the window! But when he ran to look…it vanished. "Hello?" Eek opened the front door and yelled, "Is anyone there?"

该页暂无翻译

No answer. Outside, a half dozen piglins sitting in boats snorted pleasantly. "Please come out!" Eek said. "I am not supposed to leave, but I would like to meet you!" There! Another sparkle of silver. Someone was running toward their Nether portal! Eek just barely caught sight of them before they disappeared into the portal, headed for the Overworld. They looked like a player. But not like any player he knew. How strange! Eek didn't waste a second: he leapt out the door and ran for the portal himself. A few seconds of loading later, he was standing in a mossy cave. The glow of a lava pool lit a staircase carved into the stone—and on that staircase was a pair of silver feet, disappearing upward, toward the surface. "Please wait!" Eek called after them. "My friends told me to wait for them, but…earlier today I counted every block we used to build our Nether base. Three hundred and fifty-one, if you are wondering!" They weren't answering. The

silver player reached the top of the stairs a few seconds before Eek—but he caught a glimpse of their arm swinging as they dodged behind a tree. "Then I counted them again. "After that, I named every word I know in alphabetical order. That took a little bit longer. Did you know there are a lot of words?" Still no answer, which Eek thought was weird. Didn't everyone love to talk? All his friends did. Maybe this person liked running more than they liked talking. They soon came to a mountain, snowy and covered in spruce trees. The stranger started climbing. Eek followed. "Before I noticed you, I was pretending to be my friends and having conversations with myself. Would you like to hear my impressions?" He didn't wait for an answer. "This one is Morgan: 'Hello, Eek. Great job waiting for us.' And this one is Ash: 'Wow, Eek! You are doing great!'" Eek was pretty sure his impressions were perfect. The player didn't react, though. They

didn't even slow down. "What I am trying to say is: I am glad that you have invented a chasing game for us to play." The silver player wasn't far ahead now. Eek almost had them! Then they spun to the left and disappeared behind a huge spruce tree. Eek turned a moment later to catch up and was suddenly face to face with a bright green mob hissing like a teakettle and blinking white: a creeper about to explode!