In the Trees

Warning: This pasta is a long read.

Day 1
It all happened on one boring summer day. Despite it being summer, the skies were covered in thick gray clouds. There was no trace of the blue sky anywhere, just endless gray. Cold wind was blowing, swaying trees back and forth. The street was absolutely empty of any living creatures. There were no humans in sight, everyone was inside their cozy homes, hidden from the unforgiving cold wind.

All my friends were unavailable too. Three of them were currently on a sleepover, and were enjoying their time together. My best friend Derek was on a holiday somewhere in Egypt. All others were either away on holidays, or simply offline on Skype and everywhere else.

On that boring day, I made a decision to play Minecraft. It has been a few days since I played Minecraft, mostly because I used my time more wisely with my friends outside. However, on that day I was very bored, and I decided to boot up Minecraft and make myself a survival world.

After booting up Minecraft, I pressed the "Create New World" button. I named my world "Survival World", and turned on Cheats. I was planning to not use them, but I wanted them on just in case I someday needed commands.

After the world generated and all the chunks around me loaded, I scanned my surroundings for any interesting features. The first thing I spotted was that I was on a small grassy clearing in middle of a forest. There were quite a few dandelions and poppies scattered around, along with tall grasses. I also noticed that there was a small water lake on the edge of the forest and the meadow. I couldn't see the end of the forest, with trees upon trees reaching as far as my render distance would allow me.

I walked up to one of the trees on the edge of the forest, and punched it a few times until the block smashed and one wood log item appeared in its place. I repeated this until the entire tree was destroyed and I had five oak logs in my inventory. I repeated this for a few more trees up until I possessed 41 logs.

I swiftly converted the logs to planks, and created myself a crafting table and 24 sticks. I placed down the crafting table next to the lake and constructed a wooden pickaxe. Afterwards, I dug myself a small hole in ground. I transported the crafting table into the manhole, and closed the opening using a pair of newly crafted doors.

Now that I had a simple shelter, I was finally able to start doing some other things. I constructed a set of basic stone tools, expanded my cave, and cut down some more trees for more wood. I also slaughtered a few cows for their meat, and by the time I was done, the sun was already setting behind the horizon.

However, as I was about to open my doors and enter my shelter for the night. I noticed something.

A tree.

For some reason, a lone oak tree appeared in front of my shelter.

I slowly walked closer to it. Even in the dark of the Minecraft night, I could see that there was nothing off about it. It was just another typical small oak. But for some reason, it just... appeared. I never planted a sapling in that world, I never saw one. It just kind of appeared out of nowhere.

I did not really care about it. I simply took out my stone axe and cut the tree down, before finally entering my little cave home.

Night 1
Unfortunately for me, I did not kill any sheep that day, so I did not have a bed. Therefore, I had wait my night out.

After a few seconds of thinking, I made the decision to spend the night doing something useful instead of just waiting. I first dug a steep staircase leading down into the depths of my world. I stumbled upon a decent-sized coal vein, along with a few smaller iron veins. This in total added up to 32 coal ores and 13 iron. Afterwards, I climbed back up into my base to craft myself a furnace. I placed it down, stuffed my coal in the bottom slot and inserted my iron ores in the top one.

While my iron was smelting, I decided to get outside to check my surroundings. As I opened the doors, I noticed something strange.

Another oak tree.

I quickly sprinted out of my home and scanned the oak tree. It was just another generic oak. In fact, it was exactly the same as the first one, block to block. It was even in the same spot as the first one.

But there was something behind it.

I could barely see it. It looked like it had the player model, but I was not able to spot any recognizable features of the entity. All I noticed was that various gray colored lines streaked all across its body, randomly crossing eachother at random points.

I sprinted towards the oak as fast as I was able to. I quickly looked behind the trunk, but there was nothing there. I heard footsteps from the forest, but when I turned around, all I spotted were dirt particles as the entity sprinted away into the forest. I followed it as fast as I was able to. I sprinted deep into the forest, not observing any living creatures. No zombies, skeletons, creepers or anything. And neither the entity. It just disappeared into nothingness. Nowhere to be seen.

When I returned back to my home, the oak was gone.

Day 2
After the odd experience from yesterday, I was much more wary of my surroundings, and I started noticing that things in this world were... a bit off.

First of all, I noticed that after yesterday night's encounter with the strange entity, the water lake next to my home drained. In fact, no water was visible anywhere near my home. Any lakes that I spotted were all just drained basins. I even noticed a huge, winding river bed, absent of any water.

I also spotted the entity a few more times. Around three times, it was behind a tree, hidden in the shade of the forest. But not any tree. The exact same oak tree. The one that appeared in front of my home three times. It was always that one oak tree, with the entity behind it. One time, the entity appear in middle of a dried up lake, behind an - you guessed it - oak tree, the same one as I spotted in front of my manhole. Whenever I tried to get closer, the entity disappeared into thin air.

Another weird thing I noticed was that there were no animals in the world since my first encounter of the entity. Wherever I went, I spotted no cows, pigs, sheep or similar. Not even nighttime enemies such as zombies. The entire world was a deserted wasteland, devout of any water or mobs. Only me and the entity.

Day 4
Day 3 went exactly as day 2, just me doing my things all along with the entity observing me from afar. However, on day 4 everything changed.

I was just returning from my mineshaft. On the previous day I had expanded it, so now there were roughly 6 shafts leading away from the main staircase, with more smaller strip mines branching off. As I was walking up the staircase, I heard a sound which did not fit in.

My front door closing.

I sprinted up as fast as I could, and when I came up, I noticed that my chests, bed and furnaces were gone. I quickly checked everything, from my basement to the surroundings of my house. Nothing. My chests and all the items in them were just gone.

This made me mad. I did not care much when the entity was simply observing me, but now it was taking my things. I did not want this. I crafted the best armor I was able to create using the items in my inventory. I had an iron chestplate, iron leggings, and leather boots, along with a diamond sword. I sprinted out of my home and into the forest, searching for that oak tree. I ran and ran, passing tens upon tens of oaks and birches. Brown, brown, white, brown, brown, brown, brown, white...

I heard footsteps.

I stopped running. I turned around, and there, I noticed the entity behind an oak tree, the same one where I always observed it.

As fast as I was able to, I made my way towards the oak. However, the closer I got, the weirder things around me got. Trees started skyrocketing, their trunks growing until the leaves were up in the sky and not visible. The ground rapidly changing between grass and weird blocks like iron, red stone blocks, trapdoors and other weird things. The sky changing colors between blue, green and red. All while the entity was staring at me, behind the intact oak tree.

Suddenly, the entity sprinted from behind the oak and right at me.

Then, my game crashed.

I was back at the launcher, with the crash log visible. I quickly copy pasted the top part which caught my attention the most. Other than the typical coding blabber at the bottom, instead of the typical witty message that appears at the top, this was the message:

The witty message was replaced with some binary code, along with the description. I quickly loaded up a binary converter, and after converting the first message, I got yet another binary string, this time "0100111001101001011000110110010100100000011101000111001001111001". After decoding that message from binary again, I finally got the real answer I needed. The words in binary were "Nice try".

The entity was mocking me.

I then quickly popped the second message into the converter. After doing so, I got a second binary message of "010011000100010101000001010101100100010100100000001011010010000001101111011000010110101100101110011001010111100001100101". After converting this one, the words were finally translated to English. The second message was "LEAVE - oak.exe".

It was telling me to leave.

But I would not listen.

Day 5
I managed to load up the world. When the chunks generated, I found out that the oak, along with the entity were nowhere to be seen. I was standing in middle of the forest all alone.

And that is where I remembered the "oak.exe" file the crash report was talking about.

I loaded up my .minecraft folder and searched it for the .exe file named "oak". I managed to find it hidden within my saves, in the save for my "Survival World".

The file was not running.

I decided to open up Task Manager to see which apps or files were running. I also kept the .minecraft folder open in the background while I played my game. I chopped down a few trees, and used up a bit of my cobblestone to create a small outpost in middle of the forest. It was not anything big, just a twenty blocks high tower with a small base at the top. I did not place any chests anywhere, because now that I was aware that the entity was capable of stealing my goodies, I kept everything with me.

That's when I noticed that my Task Manager displayed the "oak.exe" file as running.

I quickly switched back to Minecraft and scanned my surroundings. After a few seconds of looking around, I noticed the oak tree on a hill roughly 50 blocks away, with the entity behind the oak trunk, looking right at me.

I swiftly sprinted down from my outpost and over to the hill. Once again, the closer I got to the entity, the weirder the glitching got. That's when I noticed that my task manager was now filled with running files titled "leave.exe". They kept duplicating. The save file for my Minecraft world also filled with those files. The closer I got, the more there were.

I slowly approached the gray entity, with the world around me warping into obscure messes of blocks and colors. As soon as I touched the entity, my game experienced a lag spike. My FPS suddenly dropped down to zero, and the weirdest part was that my .minecraft folder got filled with files titled "mistake.txt". I quickly dragged one onto my desktop. Then my Minecraft crashed again, and all the leave.exe and mistake.txt files disappeared.

I noticed that the crash report was exactly the same as the yesterday's one. I also noticed that the "mistake.txt" file I dragged onto my desktop did not disappear with the rest. I opened it and was surprised by a huge wall of binary.

0011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100010011000000110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100010011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110000001100010011000000110001001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100010011000000110000001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000100110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110000001100010011000000110001001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100010011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110001001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100010011000000110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110001001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000100110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110001001100000011000000110000001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100010011000100110000001100010011000000110000001100000011000000110000001100010011000000110001001100000011000100110000001100010011000000110000

I quickly loaded up an online binary converter, before pasting the huge wall of numbers in there and converting it to text. The result did not make much more sense than the first one:

01001100010010100100101001001010010001010100101001000101000011010000101001000101010010000101010101001000010100110100100001010101000011010000101001000001010100110100100001010101010010000101010101001010000011010000101001010110010100000101000001001111010100000100101101001011000011010000101001000101010000100100001001010011010010000100001001000001000011010000101001010100010010000101001101001000010000100101001101001010000011010000101001011010010100110101101001010011010010000101010101000001000011010000101001001000010010000101010101001001010100110100111001001100000011010000101001001001010010010100100101001010010100110100111001010111000011010000101001010011010100110101101001010011010010100100100101001011000011010000101001010111010010010100101001010011010010100101000101010001000011010000101001001111010101010100100101000100010010000100001001001000000011010000101001010010010011010100110101001101010010010100111101010000000011010000101001001100010010100101001101001010010010100100111001001101000011010000101001000100010000100100100001001000010100110100000101010100

After converting the second binary string to text again, I finally got my answer. The binary converted to text said:

LJJJEJE EHUHSHU ASHUHUJ VPPOPKK EBBSHBA THSHBSJ ZSZSHUA HHUISNL IIIJSNW SSZSJIK WIJSJQQ OUIDHBH RMMMIOP LJSJJNM DBHHSAT

A few rows of pure nonsense.

To be continued...