(Illustrations don't belong to me)

Steve couldn't believe the contents shown in front of his blue eyeballs.

What they were standing in was not another tunnel, nor a rabbit hole, but a huge cave. It really was huge! The cave had no ceiling – indeed, it was opened to the flourishing air outside, freshening everything up with the silky flow of the chilling mountain wind, and opened to the blazing sunlight that made Steve's vision blur. What's more, forests of birch, oak and spruce trees were growing, sprouting on the grass floor of the cave, and the buzzing sound of bees happily collecting nectar echoed through the tunnels. 

Steve rubbed his eyes in utter disbelief. He turned to Lily, and saw that she was smiling broadly, happier than ever.

"Steve, do you know what this place is?"

Steve shook his he"No. In fact, several days of investigating the mountain range, and never for once have I come across anything similar to this. How could it be here, and how come I've never even seen this before?"

"Neither have I", Lily smiled. "But I think I know what this is."

"You do?"

The girl pondered for a bit before giving a confused Steve an answer:

"Well... I remember a book that the librarian in my village gifted me saying things like this. I can't remember it clearly now, you see... But I did read about it. A cave with huge chunks of forests and trees inside it, where air and sunlight flourish forever... A hidden gem inside the mountains, where nobody but bees can find it. Maybe this place is it?"

Steve still retained his suspicion about this mysterious location, that really seemed to appear out of nowhere. Nevertheless, he was already worn out from all those hours of wandering clueless in enormous dark and stuffy tunnels. Maybe they should just camp there for the night (the clear patch of sky was now fading into a bloody red colour), and in the morning he would try to get Lily out of this cursed Mineshaft, maybe through the open ceiling. He would risk his neck alone, without dragging in another person.

More of that later – as his hunger bar was reaching a critically low level, Steve looked around to find food.

Sure enough, over the distance lied some berry bushes, their fruits plump and ripe, like gems between the thorn leaves, inviting him to come over and take a bite. Steve approached the bushes. He wasn't spiked, despite being absolutely certain that he had in fact accidentally touched one of those sharp leaves. He collected enough berries for a whole day or two, then came over to where Lily was sitting to share the fruits.

She picked up one of them, said thanks to Steve, then eat the fruits. They were sweet with the faintest trace of sourness, and were watery as well. Those berries seemed to be picked with the perfect timing. Next to her, Steve was also filling up his hunger bar with a suspicious look in his sharp blue eyes.

Indeed, Steve was suspicious. He was alarming, even. The berries were tasty, but something was wrong. He wondered if Lily had noticed what was going on. She did. 

"Steve... Are you... the same?"

Lily breathed: "These berries... they don't refill my hunger bar. At all."

Steve ran to the nearest oak tree. Using his hands, he punched a log until it broke into an item. The oak log broke alright... just no item in his inventory. Suddenly he saw many pairs of flashing red eyes - poisonous spider eyes in the distance,somewhere halfway from the ground to the ceiling - and the sound of spider fangs impatiently clicking against each other. He had realized what was happening.

"Lily! Run! This is just an illusion to lure us into the spiders! Run now!" he shouted.

As soon as Steve cried out, the scenery blurred, and changed. The airy, chilly atmosphere was replaced with the ominous air of the tunnels; a cold stone floor took the place of the lust, freshening forest; and the glimmering light of the fading sun weakened then died out, leaving him in total darkness. Turned out they were never in an open cave at all – a place like that never existed. The only comfort Steve had then was that his excavation wasn't a total waste of time.

***

Total darkness drew around him like a swift curtain. Steve, once again, used the trusty method of seeing the surroundings: his magical blue sphere. Of course, what he saw did not comfort him one bit.

Spiders. More spiders. Countless. The eerie blue light of his sphere reflected upon their blind eyes and bounced off their monstrous bodies, both in size and appearance: as if a normal spider wasn't terrifying enough, they seemed to have been enlarged, and had even absorbed the stunning effects of the swiftness and strength potions. Not stopping there, the illuminating particles of what seemed like nothing but air suggested the involvement of invisibility. To top it all off, Lily was nowhere to be seen, and Steve's power was so weak he could barely stun a spider.

The foul creatures crept in, slowly drawing a circle around Steve. He fought them off with every bit of power he could gather. Stun them, confound them, levitating them to smash against the floor and the ceiling... No use. The spiders were dumb, but their sheer number outweighed all. More and more spiders crept in, eager to put Steve to a painful and meaningless death. 

He couldn't do anything. He was simply exhausted. Steve collapsed into the floor, while pairs of flickering red eyes swarm before his blurring vision, and the humanoid shape of something coming towards him must be the arrival of Death...

Then a blind light, of the most brilliant colour of turquoise-like, swept through the room, and Steve closed his tiring eyelids. It would be over... quite soon...

***

"Steve! Wake up! You can't despawn like that, we've just met less than forty-eight hours ago and I know nothing about you!"

Steve woke up. He was still lying there, his back pressed against the cold stone floor of the Mineshaft. The spiders were gone, and there was water all over his face. Trying fruitlessly to stand up (which of course resulted in him pinning his body against the stony surface again), Steve twinkled his eyes, and saw the worrying and relieving face of another person.

"Lily?"

"Me."

She was sitting by his side, singing a lullaby under her breath, all the while a transparent lime orb floated lazily on her hands, spinning slowly and releasing small sparkles that seemed to illuminate Steve's body. Needless to say, Steve was astonished.

"The magical sphere in your hands... I have no idea..."

"You're still tired."

"I can walk."

She helped Steve to get on his knees.

"Steve... I really have not a clue about how to find a way out of these dangerous tunnels. Do you?"

Steve shook his head.

"Then I hope we have luck on our side. Let's try to find a way out. Do you feel better now?"

"It's okay. And, Lily... thank you, back there, at the spiders'."

They persisted (It wasn't that they had a choice, from the look of things). Together, they walked into many more corridors, made many more (bad) choices of direction – that was, blindly following their instincts. Many hours passed. No traces of spiders were to be seen... but no light could be, either.

Then, finally, after countless twisted turns and legs that felt nothing short of rubber, they found some orange light source. Not the exit, just a particularly disrupted lava pool.

Steve recognised that. It was not merely just a normal dangerous spot for mobs and Minecrafters alike. It was the exact pool that Steve almost fell in! Apart from the blocked ceiling, nothing else had even moved. Still the same blocks of sand and gravel, and Steve could even trace out his footprints, spots on the floor that had accumulated less dust than the other areas. 

Their long walk, the encounter with the terrifying spiders and the illusion of an opening place to rest, was just a stupid effort to walk around in a circle, back to where he started his journey.

He had already prepared for this gloomy situation. Give up all hope, and try to jump in the lava. Perhaps he would be able to watch everything from heaven with a weightless heart and mind. Turning to Lily, his faithful company, Steve muttered weakly:

"Lily...this is where I fell. We have walked around in a circle. I'm sorry for leading you into this. Sorry, for not being able to guide you out of these tunnels."

To Steve's surprised, Lily looked quite amazed.

"Steve... Are you sure... absolutely sure, that we have walked in a circle, and this is the exact spot where you start?"

"Well yes, but..."

And to his intent shock, Lily ran to the lava pool. She stopped right by its edges, and peered into the burning liquid, her eyes reflecting the brilliant, flashing orange colour. Without warning,

she stepped a foot inside it, without any hesitation.

"Lily...!"

Steve was shocked. But before his tearing scream even came out of his dry throat, Lily came back, unburned, with a wide smile on her face, as if she had made a discovery that lava was just as drinkable as a bottle of water.

"Steve! You see that? Look! I'm not burned. At all. I don't even lose any hearts."

Steve was utterly bewildered. "But why?"

"It's our imagination, Steve! The answer to this maze is our own minds!" Lily cried out excitedly.

Right when the word "minds" was spoken, everything rattled. It was like an earthquake was raging inside the mountains. It got louder and ever more frightful, then... 

crack

The stone wall, where seconds ago was absolutely smooth, now crumbled, a rupture appeared and spread to the ceiling and the floor, dust fell on their heads, the stone under their feet started to tremble.

And then, with a loud "Click!", everything was shattered. Just like a thrown splash potion or a broken window pane, even the stone blocks broke into hundred pieces like glass, and the ceiling too, the shards danced before their eyes and fell to their feet, creating what were shining white sparkles. Eventually the floor,just like anything else, broke into a thousand fragments, sending Steve and Lily down into a black pit, falling into the deep underground, out of the existence...