11

A month ago, I was playing on a server- I won’t disclose its IP or name for the sake of safety. I had finally reached the End, but had given everyone else a head start to be nice. A vast ocean of void surrounded me. Equipped with full diamond equipment, a bow, and five stacks of arrows, I began to attack the dragon. After a while of uninteresting combat, I managed to defeat it. I collected the egg and returned home. The End Poem played, and I reappeared in the stronghold I had re-purposed as my fortress.

 

However, when I got there, the music playing was not Chirp like I had left it on, but rather 11. 11, if you don’t know, is a nightmare-inducing soundtrack at the center of many theories. Oddly, at the same time, a message popped up: “11 has joined the game!”

 

I assumed that he must have put in the 11 music disk to mess with me, and that I hadn’t seen him join thanks to the End Poem. The End Poem is really long, so it wouldn’t have surprised me. I looked around the house to see if he had stolen anything. He hadn’t.

 

None of us had heard of this “11” before, but it didn’t use the new player message, so I suppose he must have joined while nobody else was on.

11: The world will fall.

Me: Well, isn’t that cheerful.

11: Chaos, order, the past, the future. To one of these, the world will fall.

Me: Are you one of those people who pretends Herobrine is real? I stopped believing in him maybe a year after I joined Minecraft.

11: Herobrine is a legend.

Me: Well, at least you admitted it.

11: I, however, am not.

Me: Well, legends can’t type on keybo-

Before I finished typing, 11 wrote a reply.

11: Do not mock me.

 

I sat there for a second, wondering how 11 did that. Was he simply self-aware enough to guess that I would make fun of him? That was the only reasonable explanation. I requested to teleport to him. I hadn’t seen him at my house, so I figured he must have used /home. He accepted.

 

I found myself in a mansion of quartz, a veritable cathedral. Huge spires of packed ice erupted from the ceiling.

Me: Did you build this? This is awesome!

11: You could say that. I appreciate the compliment.

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I decided to study his skin instead. It was pretty generic. A creeper hoodie, a diamond sword on his back, a checkerboard bandanna, oversize eyes, the whole thing. But the thing that struck me as odd was that his eyes were completely black. I assumed he just liked messing with people, seeing as how he was the one who put on 11 at my house.

 

11: 111 109 110 101 115 032 098 105 098 101 110 116

Me: /afk

I’m interested enough in the mysterious to know he was using ASCII, since ASCII is common in that context. I opened up Google Chrome and typed it into an ASCII-to-text translator and got back “omnes laudant.” Latin for “all praise.” (Yes, I speak Latin.) What did he mean?

 

I closed Chrome and resumed Minecraft. 11 was running around with a diamond sword, jumping up and down. In retrospect, i wondered how he even got that if none of us regulars had ever heard of him.

 

11: .- .-.. .-.. / .--. .-. .- .. ... . .-.-.-

 

I must admit, this was puzzling. I finally realized that it was Morse code, and opened Chrome to a translator.

“All praise.”

I went back to Minecraft. I decided to keep Chrome open in case he felt like spouting any more nonsense.

Me: “All praise?”

11: Indeed. You speak Latin? I am impressed.

 

At this point, I was getting freaked out. He knew that I spoke Latin? How? He said “all praise” in English the second time. The rational side of me argued that he could have simply guessed.

 

11 wrote my real name.

I have never shared my real name online.