~Jesse's POV~

This chapter is also one of the finest examples of 'making shit up as I go along' haha

And I'm not sure if I ever said this, but Jaq and Jandro's world is kinda borderline medieval. Like...Minecraft medieval. Kinda. I dunno how to describe it lol.

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The next morning, when we all went outside, I was not the slightest bit surprised to see Entity 303 standing on top of his obsidian tower. He looked like a ghoulish white vulture, looming down while we climbed to the top.

It was windy that day, the breeze chaotically tossing my black curls around my face. Jaq gave me a half sympathetic, half smug look, putting a hand to her short hair.

"So what are we gonna have to go through now?" Jandro asked tiredly. "And please tell me we get more warning than just 'good luck'."

Entity 303 replied with a thin sneer that may have been his attempt at a smile, and may have just been a sneer. "The next trial is split into three parts. You will probably have much more trouble with this one than the previous, because it will hit a bit closer to home. You'll see what I mean."

This did not sound good. I had already been harboring suspicions that he was looking into our minds and purposely striking where he knew it would affect us most. So if he was admitting to doing it this time...it could mean any number of awful things.

"What do we have to do?" Jaq asked. She had been stoically quiet so far, and was completely avoiding Jandro. I got the feeling that the two of them didn't fight a lot, so the argument last night could've been a big deal for them. I wasn't about to ask.

303 shook his head slowly. "I can't tell you that. The most help you will get is this: You must complete again your past tasks, and the beginner must also be the finisher. And as much as you hate to hear it...good luck."

He waved his hand, and once again, everything was white.

Oh for fuck's sake. That's getting old. I thought as I waited for my surroundings to form. They slowly did, little by little.

It was night, and I was standing just beyond the edge of a forest. In front of me stood a massive castle, nearly the size of the Order's temple I'd found, all those years ago. Torches glimmered from all sides of it, though where I was standing was just outside the range of the torchlight.

"Oh, gods no. Please tell me I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing." Jaq whispered from beside me. I jumped, not yet aware that the others had appeared here as well.

"If you think you're seeing a freaking nightmare castle where we almost died like, six times, then yes. That's what I'm seeing too." Jandro replied through clenched teeth. I glanced over at him. "Is this the place you were telling us about yesterday? The castle raid?"

"Yes." Jaq said softly. "Herobrine was right. He's sending us through our memories."

"But...but what does that mean? What do we have to do?" Justin asked, looking utterly bewildered.

Jaq pulled her enchanted iron sword from her inventory. "303 said we had to 'complete again our past tasks'. That must mean we just have to do what we originally came here to do."

Jandro looked over at her, brow crinkling worriedly. "But when we came here the first time, we didn't really have a goal. It was just blindly following Char through his mad quest."

Jaq didn't quite look at him. "Unless he means..."

"No..." Jandro whined in reply. "No, Notch, Jaq, you're kidding."

"I don't kid about insane death trials." Jaq said, sounding distracted. "Okay. I think I know what we need to do to finish this, but I'm not sure how this whole memory thing works yet. If we honestly have to do what we did four years ago, I don't know where to start."

Luckily, the solution presented itself before we had to overthink it. A young girl with long black hair and dark skin came running past, not seeming to see us. She looked like a ghost, translucent but not entirely transparent. Parts of her faded in and out, and she paused, apparently waiting for someone else to catch up.

Jaq gasped deeply and stepped back. I looked closer at the girl, and jumped slightly when I realized I was looking at none other than fourteen-year-old Jaqueline. She looked very different with long hair, and didn't yet have the scar across her forehead.

So she wasn't a ghost. Just a memory.

Only a few seconds later, she was followed by a younger Jandro and several other teenagers, all faded and slightly see-through.

"Right, okay, that's creepy." Jandro remarked. Jaq waved her hand at him in a 'shush' motion. "Now I remember. Our group managed to sneak up to the castle, and then the fighting started. That means that Char must be around here somewhere..."

A tall man was the next to come through, though he looked much more solid than the others. He had scruffy hair and umber skin, and wore a thick iron chestplate over his dark clothes. Next to me, Jaq shuddered and shrank back. "There. That's Char. I was right- we have to do this again."

"But..." Jandro looked anxious and scared, a combination I'd never seen on him. He always seemed so unruffled and calm, even in this maddening, never-ending, predicament.

"Okay. Okay. What are we gonna do." Jaq muttered nervously, more to herself than the rest of us. She was pressing her fingers to the sides of her face, her dark blue eyes darting back and forth.

"No one seems to be able to see us, so it shouldn't be too hard to get inside and just follow Char." Jandro said steadily. Jaq lifted her head. "You think it'll be that easy?"

The dark boy hesitated. "Welllllll...let's call that the best-case scenario?"

They seemed to understand each other fine, but to me, the two of them were talking in riddles. "What's the objective here? Remember, you two are the only ones who know what's going on."

Jaq's darting gaze landed on me. "Not even that, Jesse. It's...this was so bad when we went through it the first time, most of the important details have completely escaped me. Han, which tower do we need to get up to?"

Jandro looked up at the castle, biting his lower lip. "Uh, that one. Or wait, was it that one? Wait...no, I was right the first time. Remember the flares that Char was going to set off near the end? It's that one." He said, pointing to one of the castle's towers.

Jaq followed his line of sight, then nodded. "Yeah. Okay. We need to get up to that one, preferably before the fire starts."

She started forward, walking and then quickening to a jog. The rest of us followed her, rapidly approaching the castle.

In just the few moments where we had paused while trying to figure out what to do, the area in front of the castle had turned into a battlefield. I didn't see four-year-younger Jaq or Jandro, but I noticed the tall man, Char, racing into the stone fortress. I could distinguish the castle guards by their elaborate armor, but they seemed outnumbered by the scruffily-dressed bandits, even though the guards had better weapons. Oddly enough, the guards seemed completely solid, while the bandits were more transparent.

Justin noticed this as well. He lifted his head, frowning at the guards up on the castle wall, who were continuously firing arrows into the fight. "Are they...can the guards see us, since we can see them so clearly? Because none of the uh, bandits saw us, but they were also a little harder for us to see. Or...was that just me?"

His question was answered as an arrow whistled past us, narrowly missing Jaq. Another one came right after, and I barely ducked in time to avoid getting it through my face.

Jaq cursed. "Of course. The enemies can see us, but any of our team won't be able to. Notch forbid we get even the slightest bit of help."

"Come on, quick. Where did Char go before the tower?" Jandro asked Jaq as we hurried into the castle. She shook her head. "I don't know. Probably to murder the royals, but I don't know where they'd be, and we wouldn't be able to do anything anyway. We should just get to the tower."

"Which way is it?" Justin asked. The entry to the castle opened up into a massive room, lit with far too few torches. Pillars around the edge formed little mostly-open corridors, some of which led out of the main hall. Jaq pointed to one corner of the room. "There's a hall that leads off that way. We need to go there."

"There's something else you two ought to know." Jandro told us as we hurried towards where Jaq said the hall was. "The original night...it was kind of like this. The two of us, and then two of our friends. I bet we'll see our little shadow-selves in a moment...but that's not the point."

"Both of them are dead. They died that...this night. We had to fight a few guards, and Kyrie got stabbed. Then later on, while we were on our way up the tower...the fire started, and Anton didn't make it out." Jaq added, not seeming like she was paying full attention. "We almost didn't make it out. This was undoubtedly the scariest thing I've ever been through, and to this day, I still don't know how we both got out mostly unscathed."

"And we're telling you now, because, well, we don't want you to go the same way. It doesn't seem too bad right now, but when we started losing the battle outside, and the guards started looking for Char...it got pretty scary." Jandro added.

Right as we started down the corridor, four people rushed straight through us- younger Jaq in the lead, a girl with long black hair and pale skin, a red-haired boy, and younger Jandro, who was holding a hand to his left ear. The four of them ran like their lives depended on it, bolting down the hall.

Jandro absent-mindedly reached up and touched the top of his left ear, and I noticed for the first time, the thin scar there. I had previously noticed that each of the Shards had a visible scar somewhere, but up until now, hadn't given their origins much thought.

"Shit. We need to move faster. I don't know how this'll go, but get ready for a fight." Jaq warned. We turned a corner, and abruptly stopped, meeting a junction. Two halls stretched into darkness- one to the left, and one angling right.

"Shit. I don't remember which way we went!" Jaq cursed, running a hand through her hair.

"Then I guess we need to try both." Justin suggested noncommittally. "We can split up, and if it turns out to be a dead end, just go back the other way."

"Justin and I'll go right." Jandro said quickly. Jaq scowled. "But...no! You and I should go together..." She protested. He shook his head. "You go left, with Jesse. They don't know their way around the castle."

"Neither do we!" She objected. "We were only here once, four years ago!"

"You still know what to look for. Stop arguing." Jandro ordered stubbornly. Jaq opened her mouth, probably ready to shout again, but he interrupted. "Jaq, I'm not having this argument with you. You're not in charge of everything, just find the freaking tower."

That said, he turned his back on her and strode away down the right path, Justin following quickly behind. Jaq stood still for a moment, silently quivering with emotion, then turned towards the left path with a huff.

"Come on. We don't have much time." she told me, gesturing down the dark passage.

We hurried along in silence for a minute, sticking close to the wall and hoping no one came this way, or at least no one hostile. She blended into the shadows easily, but with my pale skin and the bright purple on my armor, I felt way too conspicuous. I watched Jaq as she hurried along through the dim passage, wondering why she was acting so oddly. I understood her nervousness about being back in this castle, but why was she trying to pick a fight with Jandro? And if she was mad at him, why did she get so upset when he went the opposite way?

She glanced back and caught my eye, then looked away, seeming distressed. I wondered if I dared ask her what was up, but before I could say anything, she started talking in an uncharacteristically soft voice.

"I almost forgot how bad it was here. I haven't even been gone very long, but I guess I unconsciously tried to block it out."

"The castle?" I guessed. She shook her head. "This whole place. My world. The kingdom. I've never liked it here, but I don't have anywhere else to go."

Jaq was quiet for a second more, then continued in a despondent voice that sounded very unlike her. "You don't get it. Back at home, you have a life you like, and friends who love you. All I have is Han, and I think I'm slowly losing him too. I consider myself a survivor. I want to live through this...but being back here is reminding me how much I don't want to go back to my life. It's so hard to explain- you would really have to be there, be part of it to understand, but it's...it's not easy."

I didn't know what to say. Jaq had been very unfriendly and indifferent to the rest of us, and I felt foolish for not considering why. She was right- I wouldn't understand. But I still wanted to help.

"Is there...there's no way to change it? I mean obviously, I don't know how this world works, but..."

She laughed bitterly. "I've been trying to change it since I was fourteen. Our bandit group...we're all there because we have nothing else. All of us are only part of the gang because we have nothing to lose, and we know we're not likely to gain anything. We're just treading water, not going anywhere, not changing anything...just surviving and making trouble."

"There's more to life than survival." I said quietly. "Without survival, there is no life." She countered, then lowered her voice. "But yeah, you're right. I've known that for a long time, but I've never been able make it apply to me."

The hall started sloping downwards, obviously leading to a lower part of the castle.

"Okay, nope, we need to be going up." Jaq said, whirling around without a second's hesitation.

"Looks like the boys were right to go right." I cracked. She rolled her eyes, but I noticed the slight smile that danced across her face.

We had only made it a few feet when a shout echoed down the hall, coming from somewhere to the right. I froze in my tracks. Jaq also paused, listening carefully. "Was that...?"

Though we could still hear the noise of the battle outside, the sounds of another fight came from much closer, probably only a corridor away. Through the clanging of sword against sword, I heard a boy's voice holler something panicked and unintelligible.

Justin.

Jaq and I glanced at each other for only a moment, then took off running.

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Where the hell am I going with this

I have no idea

Word count- 2538 (does anyone actually care about the word count or am Ijust wasting my time I think I'm just wasting my time b/c my word counts areinteresting to me but I realize that everyone else is probably indifferent hhh)