So not long ago I watched a video by Squiddo about a Minecraft mod that adds the sanity mechanic from Don't Starve into the game.

Here's the video, if you're interested:

https://youtu.be/eFG8plKvFRE

It was really cool in my opinion. But I can't download mods.

So what do I do?

I write it, of course :D

Like most, if not all, other Minecraft content that I will ever write, this will be from the perspective of Caspia, my Minecraft OC. I also tried writing with a sarcastic/humorous tone at some points. Which I think I semi-failed at, but hey, I semi-succeeded, too- XD

So enjoy.

TW: Blood/Gore, hallucinations, general going insane things

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I felt the typical sensation of loading in as I was transported into the pocket dimension that was my world. The dirt-block loading screen that was plastered to my retinas vanished, making way for the sound of a light, cool breeze and water lapping at sandy shores. Light poured through the wintergreen pine needles covering the forest roof, soft podzol sinking beneath my feet.

I took everything in as quickly as possible. Old growth spruce forest, judging by the podzol all around and mossy stones that stacked on top of each other nearby. The perfect materials for a build - spruce was my absolute favorite. What a lucky spawn!

Immediately I walked to the nearest, not-towering fifty blocks in the air tree and began punching at it. A lot of punching later, I had a decent amount of wood and an unnecessary amount of saplings clogging my inventory. Quickly I made a crafting table and decided that it was now the perfect time to make an axe and... cut down more trees. You never know. I like collecting my wood. Especially when it comes to spruce.

It was to my awareness that I had a new vital bar at the bottom of my vision. Next to my hotbar, where my off-hand slot would usually appear had I been holding something in my left hand, was an image of a pixelated brain. Currently, the meter was full. I knew about it long before I'd loaded the game. A modification I added to the world. I think it's a horror mod - something about sanity. Sounded cool, so I tossed it in. I needed a bit more challenge.

I had made it to the top of one of the larger trees and was mining my wooden log staircase I'd carved away when I accidentally knocked away the log beneath my feet. I lost my balance as I found myself over open air, and yelped as I crashed five or so blocks down. My vision flashes red, the hearts on the bottom of my vision flickering and depleting by about one. Curiously, the brain meter also went down, a pixel or two.

Well, good to know that can cause some loss of sanity, I thought to myself, straightening my ace-flag beanie and pushing my glasses back up my nose. Problematic, since I tend to take damage recklessly, but I'll make it work.

I stood up and managed to cut down the rest of the tree without issue. I collected a few saplings, replanted them, and made my way through the spruce forest.

This being a very large spruce forest, there were absolutely zero sheep. One of the worst qualities of these biomes - beautiful, but sheepless. Meaning, no sleep for me. Sheepless and sleepless. There was a pretty lake. But that was it. I managed to snag some salmon (at the expense of more of my sanity, which I took note of), but no wool.

Pretty quickly night fell. I did not wanna get caught out here at night, so I did what every sane person would do: dig a hole. To die in, of course.

Just kidding. I placed a dirt block over my little hole and placed my crafting table in the wall. A bit of mining, and I found one measly piece of coal to make a torch. Guess I'll be using charcoal for a while.

My sanity meter had been steadily decreasing up to this point. I had a feeling it was because of the pitch black darkness I was blindly swinging my wooden pickaxe at. The torch helped a little, thank the Aether, but I was around a quarter down by the time I lit the flame on the stick. With my cobblestone, I did cook up some salmon to saturate my slowly growing hunger, so that was also nice.

Eventually, dawn came, and I climbed out of my nighttime hole. The sanity meter was about half-depleted. That... was probably not good. My eyelids were heavy from my lack of sleep, and my brain was a little fuzzy - probably the main cause.

I decided to travel around until I found some sheep. So I got to walking.

On the way I found a nice patch of bright yellow dandelions. Deciding to try something out, I got down and picked a few. I took each stem and tied them together delicately until I had crafted a small flower crown. Sanity meter definitely liked that, for it went a few pixels upwards for the first time since spawning yesterday. I took note of that. Definitely keeping the flower crown, definitely.

After what felt like hours, I managed to find a grand total of three sheep. Which was perfect for bed crafting. Bad for sanity, considering I had to slaughter the sheep instead of shearing them, but at least I could sleep. I had found the sheep on the edge of the taiga biome, in a three-way biome meetup of the taiga, a swamp, and an extensive plains biome. That's where I decided to set up camp. There was a nice slope in the taiga biome that overlooked the other two biomes, so I decided to start a simple build.

After building a moss-cobblestone foundation and building some spruce walls, I had a decent home coming along. I was missing windows, unfortunately, so I blocked those off until I could find some sand. I remembered there being sand at the shore of that lake by spawn, and I cursed myself for not picking some up. Windows made it so much easier to lighten the build without thirty torches in hand.

I reset my spawn point with my new bed, and decided to take my recently crafted stone pickaxe and go mining. I only had, like, two more torches, so it was probably best I got to digging. I wasn't too worried - I had enough wood to last the rest of my life and more just sitting around my tiny cabin - but I thought it'd be best to get coal, since that was quicker to get than burning logs in a furnace.

It seems to be my lucky day, because after two mediocre coal veins, my pickaxe found the open air of a cave. At this point, I was starting to become anxious in the darkness, each little drip of water and bat squeak setting me on edge. I placed a few more torches and made sure I had my flower crown on my head, and that helped a little. The torches warmed the small, cold area around me at least.

I got to work exploring. A few bats rustled from their sleeping places as my torch became too bright for their sensitive eyes. The gold soles of my boots clicked lightly against the stone rhythmically as I walked around the evidently small cave system. I found a few more coal veins, and some iron, before stumbling across a one-block opening in the wall.

The darkness on the other side gave me a chilling feeling that struck my heart and crept down my spine. I placed one of my torches and pulled my pickaxe out into my hand to swing. Crack, crack, crack, and eventually the block crumbled away, allowing me a space to creep through.

Immediately a cold wave of still air hit me like a rock. Water flowed somewhere, and a droplet of it dripped onto my face. I lit up a torch and gazed at what opened up before me. It was a cavern, stone gradiating to darker deepslate that covered the bottom of the giant cave. I couldn't even see most of it - my torch only lit up a few blocks. There were multiple pillars of stone visible in the darkness, as well as a few streams of glowing lava and blue water that poured into the bottom of the cave from some unknown source in the ceiling.

I was certain there was some good ore in here.

In case I found diamonds or mobs, I managed to smelt and craft my iron into a sword and pickaxe, which would definitely help me, judging by the distant echoes of undead groans from the bottom of the cave. I noticed its accompaniment was a symphony of clattering bones, so I made a shield, too. Just in case. With all this in mind, I found the closest water stream and jumped in.

The water was freezing, and suddenly I was grateful that hypothermia wasn't a possibility here unless I fell into powder snow. The frigid water cut deep into me as I hit it, but I pulled through until I was washed, shivering, to the bottom of the cavern.

And what's a better way to be greeted than with an arrow to the shoulder?

Immediately I whipped around with a torch now on the ground, finding the hollow, eyeless gaze of a white skull piercing the dim light. A flint-headed arrow was being knocked on the string of its bow by pointed bony fingers, each joint clicking together with a hollow sound like wooden swords hitting each other lightly. The skeleton stared dully at me as it raised the bow, ready to take more of my health from me.

My shield flew over my face, and the arrow hit wood. Barely giving the undead creature a chance to grab another arrow from its quiver, I lunged, striking its vulnerable shoulder joint. The arm holding the arrow fell, then the one with the bow. Soon its head was rolling away, what was left of it disappearing into a puff of white smoke, leaving nothing but two bones and an arrow behind.

I was barely given a chance to collect my prize when my vision flashed red again. Pain flooded my back as nasty claws raked through my skin. I whipped around with my sword, the iron blade finding a zombie's abdomen. Soulless eyes rolled back into a beaten skull as red splattered from its gut, rotting organs spilling out with nothing to hold them in. Before the blood pools far, the zombie also poofs away.

That was barely the end. There were more, suddenly creeping from the dark and assaulting me with claws and arrows and bites from arachnid pincers as spiders joined the fight. I sliced and swung as much as I could, but I was getting pretty low on health pretty quickly.

But that wasn't all I noticed. There was this... lingering presence that seemed to loom in the dark, black eyes gleaming in the dim light and watching me struggle against foes that craved my flesh. A tall creature, patiently waiting, prepared to strike when I let my guard down.

As I locked eyes with it, time seemed to slow, my heartbeat suddenly overwhelming my senses as I watched the creature. It didn't move. I couldn't tell what it was from my stance - an enderman, perhaps? It was surely tall enough. However, everyone knows enderman have purple eyes. And if it had been one of the lanky, antisocial mobs, it would've ended me by now with this prolonged eye contact.

I snapped back to the present when I heard a soft sound reach my ear.

Hissssssssss...

I didn't have enough time to leap out of the way before the creeper combusted mere blocks away from me, sending a wave of bright light through the small area of the cave. At that moment I caught a bare glimpse of the creature before it was plunged into darkness once again. Immediately I felt my limbs lock up as the lanky, long-fingered beast stared at me with blank, black eyes that sent waves of terror through my heart like the arrow that was painfully still stuck into my arm.

A yellow petal floated past my eyes. Then another. And suddenly the flowers atop my head withered, falling apart and limply lying on the ground sadly.

My only mental lifeline. Now wilted on the deepslate ground.

Pain filled my senses as a spider tried to drag me across the ground. My sword sent a slash across all eight of its eyes, killing it in a burst of blood and smoke. Another arrow found my gut, then another found a place with its buddy in my shoulder. My head was spinning, the darkness around me warping and whispering to me. Whispering? Darkness doesn't talk, right? That's not normal, right?!

I scrambled to my feet, ditching all the mob drops on the ground and swimming back up the stream with a lot more difficulty than I care to admit. I felt those black eyes boring into my bleeding back, creeping with me as I swam one block at a time back to the ledge I'd entered on.

Don't fight it.

I crept onto the ledge, arms shaking weakly as I felt fire in my veins. I tripped and stumbled to my feet, limp-running through the cave system as I pulled the arrow from my stomach. The bats I'd seen earlier gazed at me, watching with predatory eyes as if I was a mosquito they desired to feast on, rip apart, devour like a hungry child with a candy bar.

Don't resist.

I tossed the bloody arrow aside, ripping the ones in my shoulder out as well. My blood left a crimson trail that glittered in the torchlight, watching silently at my flighting state.

Give in to us.

I didn't like this. I didn't like this at all. Why in the name of the ender dragons did I decide to explore a giant cave without armor?

You are powerless.

My legs carried me up the stairs of my strip mine, bringing me to the surface of the woods. There was an ominous mist that covered the podzol-dressed clearing. I could feel eyes, watching me, watching me everywhere. It was like a stage, and I was the lead role, but I'd forgotten my lines and had some sickness and wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.

Give. In.

I groped in the spinning darkness for the door to my cabin, finding the cold metal handle. I turned it, and the sound of bone cracking and some poor kid's screams pierced my ears. I thought I caught a glimpse of dead emerald eyes in front of me as I jolted my hand back, screaming in shock. There was nothing. Nothing there. Nothing there at all. Just the door. Just the damn door.

It's all in your head, Caspia, it's all in your head, it's all in your head-

I pulled the door open and slammed it shut behind me, white eyes gleaming in the misty dark after me as the lock clicked shut.

You cannot escape that easily.

The voices didn't leave me alone. Something screeched in the distance, echoing through the forest. I was suddenly grateful for my lack of windows.

"GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HEAD!" I screamed into the air. I hit my head against a wall, my bloody hands clutching my hair. I'm surprised I didn't pull it all out.

Succumb.

I banged my head against the wall again.

Release.

Again.

Give up.

Open the door.

I wasn't controlling my own actions. I didn't remember opening the door. I didn't remember looking down at a valley of white, beady eyes brighter than the full, red moon over my head. My vision was fuzzy. Everything blurred together. I was still in agonizing pain, and it only became worse from there.

My sanity meter reached zero.

Time's up.

Cold fingers found my neck, white eyes glowing brightly and staring down at my trembling gaze. I couldn't breathe properly. My heart hammered in my chest, little rabbit panic threatening to burst from my chest and scamper away from danger. I couldn't even move. Terror kept it's hold on every inch of my body as my life suddenly began to deplete.

Tick.

Eyes surrounded me, engulfed me, dug into me.

Tock.

Claws reached down my throat, groped at me and tore at my skin.

Tick...

My health flashed. Two hearts left.

Tock...

Teeth sank into the soft skin of my neck, rendering the screams I didn't even know were escaping me silent. One heart. Half a heart.

Ding-ding.

Your time has run out.

One final rush of pure agony washed over me before finally nothingness found me.

-

You Died!

Score: 687

Caspia was torn apart by Creeping Terror.

[Respawn] [Main Menu]

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2777 words

Really enjoyed writing this as procrastination instead of working on the BS animation (Which, to be fair, is more than halfway done, so I'm not quite worried about it) and anything else possibly productive that I could do- :,D