THUD!

Cameron stepped back in a flinch. A book fell from the ground.

Cameron is a 10^th grade student. She was searching for a book called “The History of the Nether.” Cameron looked around, hoping no one saw her. She was searching in a restricted area of the library. Almost no one remembers the history of the Nether, and she wants to find out. She picked up the book that fell and realized it was the one she was looking for!

“Wow…” Cameron gasped.

She opened the book with awe. It was extremely old, and a few pages were missing, but she didn’t really care… she finally found it!

“Let’s see what we have here…”

Cameron flipped through the pages slowly, skimming through it.

Suddenly, she got to a page that started glowing.

“AAH!”

The book fell back to the ground with a thud as she stepped back, wondering what just happened.

She suddenly heard someone walking and ran to a corner.

She huddled up against the side, hoping no one would notice her and leave.

“Is anyone there?” a voice said.

It sounded like an old woman, most likely the librarian.

The woman picked up the book and looked in it. She looked around again, seeing if anyone was watching her. The woman didn’t see anyone.

After a few minutes, the woman left the room and Cameron got up, brushing off all the cobwebs she was squatting in.

Cameron quickly ran out of the room, not wondering what to do about the book.

As she left, the sun poured over her face like an ocean of sunlight, and she ran to her house.

“Mom?” she asked.

A middle-aged woman with curly, brown hair and green eyes opened.

“Cameron!”

Cameron’s mom looked worried and distressed.

“Sorry Mom… I uh… had a project to uh, research. Really important.” Cameron replied.

“I thought you were lost! I alerted the mayor!” Cameron’s mom replied.

“Mom. I was gone for an hour! Just an hour! Besides I was with um... Connor. Yeah.” Cameron huffed.

Connor was Cameron’s best friend. They were friends since birth, their moms were best friends also. Connor went to the same school as Cameron. Connor was always getting into trouble and never studied, he was one of those children that never followed rules. Cameron was the exact opposite; she loved studying and always did what she was told. Surprisingly, they get along very well. They barely have any arguments, and their moms are also best friends.

“Connor? Oh good. I’ll just tell his mom that you two are finally studying!” Cameron’s mom replied.

“What?! No, no uh, you can’t do that. Connor told me t-that his mom is um, she’s at the spa, she won’t get your call.”

“Oh. Alright. I’ll just make lunch.” Cameron’s mom said.

Cameron walked upstairs into her room and fluffed up her pillow. She fell on her bed with an exasperated sigh. She rolled over and stuffed her face into her pillow, trying not to think about what happened in the library. Though, she felt that she should check it out again...





…. The Next Day .…





Snip snip

Cameron and Connor were upstairs in Connor’s room. Their moms allowed them to hang out at his house while both the mothers were having a lady’s night. Cameron told Connor about the book.

“What do you think it is?” Connor said.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s a curse…” Cameron replied.

“This is exactly like the show I was watching! Jay Danger just pulled out the secret treasure and t-...”

Connor stopped suddenly as he heard a door creak open.

They both heard overlapping voices as the two mothers walked in, laughing and joking about someone named “Rob.”

Connor and Cameron quickly put up all the items they were using to make a plan about the glowing book.

“Hello, children!” both moms said at the same time.

“Hi… mom.” Cameron said.

Connor was leaning against the corner of the wall digging his face into the village newspaper.

“What are you two doing?” Connor’s mom asked.

“Oh uh, just… y-know, hangin’…” Cameron replied as she leaned against a cupboard, just to slip and tumble over.

THUD

Cameron fell on top of the bed while the items on top of the cupboard lie down on the floor, some shattered.

“Oh my Notch! I’m so sorry Miss Robinson… I’ll help pick it up…” Cameron told Connor’s mom, with a sad expression on her face, looking like she was about to cry.

“No no, it’s fine, honey. Connor can help you pick it up while I walk Daisy out of the door.”

Miss Robinson was Connor’s mother. Cameron’s mom’s first name is Daisy.

Connor gave Cameron a nasty look, since his mom volunteered him to do work.

The mothers walked out the door and started jabbering off again.

“C’mon, let’s pick this up.” Cameron told Connor.

“Fine…”

Both were picking up the pieces of the broken figurines when Cameron noticed something from the corner of her eye.

A glowing metallic object was sitting on the windowsill.

“Connor!” Cameron yelled.

“What!?” Connor replied.

“W-what is that…?” Cameron asked.

Connor went to look over at the glowing object.

“No… it can’t be…”















There was the book. Sitting on the windowsill, glowing.

Cameron screamed.

Connor looked at her with an angry face, telling her to shush.

“Is that… is that the book!?” Cameron asked Connor.

“What does it look like to you!?!?” Connor yelled back.

“What do you want to do with it…” Connor asked Cameron.

Cameron ignored that question and walked over to open it up, feeling an urge to.

The book paged blew around by some wind that wasn’t there before, increasing quickly and then suddenly…

A portal was created on the floor of their room.

The noise increased until it sounded like a jet engine was inside of their house, all the furniture was flying around, both teens screaming.

Connor’s mom ran upstairs to see what was going on and screamed.

“HELP!” the teens yelled.

Connors mom tried to grab both children out of the vortex, but nothing would work.

Eventually, they were sucked into a vast wormhole.

They kept spinning and spinning until they dropped onto steady ground, finally.

“Oh sweet, sweet ground…” Connor said, kissing the ground.

Cameron slapped him for being so gross.

The both got up and looked around.

The air smelled like burning flesh, and they discovered where they were when they stopped looking at the ground.

“The Nether…”







Both quickly started hyperventilating as they processed what just happened.

“WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!” Cameron screamed, latching herself onto Connor.

“Get off of me! We are going to be fine!” Connor reassured Cameron.

“No, we’re not! We’re going to die! No one goes to the Nether unless they are INSANE!” Cameron screamed.

All the noise they were creating make a Ghast look around, trying to see where the sounds were coming from.

Both of their eyes were wide open. They were dead quiet.

The Ghast kept looking around until it gave up. The teens let out a large breath and fell on the ground. Cameron looked like she was about to cry.

Connor was looking through the book like a psychopath, trying to find some way to get out of this heck hole.

All the book was in a foreign language, just dots, symbols, and lines. They had no idea how to read it.

Suddenly when Connor stared at it long enough, the lines started moving to form words and letters they could read.

“Cameron! Look at this!” Connor yelled at her.

“What!? What could be more important!? We literally almost died!” Cameron yelled back.

Cameron angrily crawled over to the cliff Connor was sitting on, looking at the book on his lap.

“What!?” she asked.

“Look! You can read it!”

“Woah…”

They both read it aloud.



Ah. There you two are. Connor and Cameron.



They both jumped back.

“Did the book just TALK to us…” Cameron asked Connor.

“Yep…” Connor replied.



Don’t be frightened… I’m on your side…



“What do you want from us!? Why did you bring us here!?” Connor yelled at it, ready to tear out the page.

You are the chosen ones. You will find the lost treasure of the Nether and bring it back to the overworld.

“What!?” Cameron yelled at it. “No… we can’t be the chosen ones… we need to get back home…”

“THIS IS AMAZING!” Connor screamed. “We are going to be FAMOUS!”

Cameron was staring blankly at the air, looking like she was ready to cry.

Connor ignored Cameron and looked at the book again.

There was a map!

“Cameron! Look!” Connor said.

“What?” Cameron asked.

Cameron went over and saw the map, immediately feeling reassured.

“Thank Notch we don’t have to do anything too drastic, like walking around in the Nether without anything to help us…” Cameron said.

“Come on! Let’s follow it.” Connor said, already walking quickly away.











The two teens followed the path for what seemed like miles, avoiding any mobs they saw along the way, a couple times almost dying.

Eventually, they got to the final stop on the map and looked up.

There it was… there was the place they were supposed to be. It was a Nether Castle.

The tall Netherite gates stood tall and looming, while the red Nether bricks outlined the walls of the castle, with cobblestone in the middles.

Many blocks were missing. It looked abandoned.

The teens walked closer and closer, until Cameron stepped on a rogue pressure plate at the entrance to the castle.

Ahead of them, fire arrows shot quickly and drastically.

“AAH!” Cameron screamed.

“Don’t worry… the arrows shot ahead of us.” Connor reassured her.

“Just watch your step…” he said.



Slowly and surely, they made their way through the gates of the castle to the entrance.

Blue fire lamps were at the entrance with a towering wall of Netherite blocks were looming above them.

After a few hours of very quietly, slowly walking they reached a large pool of lava.

Cameron wasn’t paying attention and kept walking.

“STOP!” Connor yelled out to her and grabbed her right at the last second.

“Oh my Notch. Thank you so much…” Cameron said while leaping out to hug him.

Connor patted her on the back, smiling.

Across the pit of lava, they saw a Netherite figurine on top of a diamond pedestal. It looked like a wand of some sort.

“How are we going to get across this…” Cameron asked.

Connor looked around and felt the walls. Suddenly, he saw a button.

Connor pushed it without thinking.

Bubble bubble

“Connor… what did you do…” Cameron asked.

A shaft opened up from behind them and lava started pouring out of it.

“AAAHH!” they both screamed.

“Connor! Connor! What are we going to do!?” Cameron desperately yelled.

“I’m going to throw you.” Connor replied.

“WHAT!? You’re not going to make the jump!” she yelled, tears streaming along her face.

“At least you’ll be alive.” Connor reassured her, him slightly crying.

“I won’t let you!” Cameron said, crying even more.

Connor grabbed her by the waist and threw her across the pit of lava to the other side.

“Connor! Jump! Hurry!” Cameron screamed.

Connor was smiling. He wasn’t moving.

“I won’t forget you, Cameron…” he said.

Connor jumped over the pit of lava.





Time seemed to slow down for both of them. Connor was still smiling as he was falling to a pit of his death.

Slower… slower… time went by even slower.

Until the last split second when…

Cameron grabbed him.

His toes grazed the lava as Cameron was smiling wide as she pulled him up.

Time was slowly going faster…

Cameron eventually pulled Connor up and both of them hugged each other a lot.

The wand was glowing a hazy purple, and both of them got up, smiling, looking at it.

They both grabbed it together.

Suddenly, the wand pulsated a purple wave and started intensely vibrating.

The wand burst into a giant vortex of humongous purple beams.

The two teens were teleported back to the library, where the book was sitting on the shelves.

The whole world seemed to have an update. They looked in the book and saw what the Nether was told to look like.

There were new forests and biomes and a Piglin mob…

Both of them looked at each other with a wide smile.

“We just saved the world.” Connor beamed.