Before you can understand Erik's story, you need to understand the world he lives in. It may look like a simple world of blocks, but it is far more complex and dangerous than it seems.

  You see, this world wasn't always like this. There was a world before, one with curves and smooth edges, a world much like the one you probably know. But that all changed on the day of the Great Merge.

  No one knows why it happened. A silent, white light simply washed over everything, and when it faded, reality had been rewritten into the blocky world of Minecraft. The hardest lesson, the one that shaped the new society, was learning that this world was real. People learned that when their friends and neighbors died, vanishing in a puff of smoke and dropping all of their items,there are no respawns. Death, whether from a monster or a careless fall, is permanent.

  In this new world, there are also villagers. These sentient beings, unlike players, cannot break blocks or craft items themselves, their existence bound by the code that created them. Yet, they possess distinct personalities, needs, and a surprising capacity for commerce. They live in their villages, believing with unwavering certainty that their world is the only one that exists, completely unaware of the vast network of servers that players can traverse.

  In this new world, sleep is a precious thing. When you lie down in a bed, you can actually sleep, and if everyone on a server sleeps at the same time, the night passes in an instant, saving you from the monsters that hunt in the dark. But that is all sleep does. It's a brief rest, a moment of peace.

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  To travel, to truly leave a world behind, you do something else entirely. You must stand perfectly still, close your eyes, and focus your thoughts on leaving. When you do, the world around you dissolves, and you find yourself in a mental space everyone calls the Main Menu. Here, you can think of the name of a server, and if it exists, a doorway to it will appear. You can also choose to create a new place of your own.

  You can create a private "world," a solitary existence where no one can join you. Or, you can create a "server," a public space that others can find and enter. When you create a server, you are given a unique choice. You can add up to five "mods" to it.

  These aren't mods like in the old world. You create them with your mind. In the Main Menu, you can think of a feature—new creatures, faster-growing crops, strange new building materials—and if your idea is balanced, it will become a mod for your new server. But there are limits. A mysterious, unseen force that everyone just calls "IT" polices these creations. If you try to make a mod that breaks the fundamental rules, like allowing respawns or making the world too easy, "IT" simply won't let it form. Your idea will dissolve into nothing. This ensures that no matter where you go, the core challenges of survival always remain.

  So when you read about Erik, remember this: he is a survivor in a world that is both wondrous and deadly, in a server he chose to create with no mods at all, hoping to build something precious.