Chapter 17
It's Not Failure That Matters, But How You Recover

I'd like to say that it was a nightmare that woke me in such a funk. It would have been a nice excuse. But the truth is that, just like the first time, I didn't remember anything. Even if I had, I doubt it could have competed with the horrible memories of what I'd done the day before. Still shrouded in guilt, still replaying those squawking cries, I slouched slowly downstairs, and practically collided with a creeper.

It was standing in the middle of the entryway, right in front of the open double doors, and vibrating with the hiss of a fuse.

Quick as lightning, I jumped back and off to the side, into the bathroom. The explosion was deafening: an earsplitting blast of splintering wood and shattering glass!

Unhurt, I twisted around to a sickening sight. The entryway was destroyed, all the windows gone, including the glass ceiling.

Molten lava was pouring down, covering the floor, blocking my exit. I slammed the bathroom's wooden door shut, but it promptly burst into flames. I was trapped and I was naked. I'd taken everything off before going to bed. No tools to knock out an exit, not even a spare block of cobblestone to seal the doorway. I looked up at the ventilation hatch, too high to jump through, then down to my only other option: the toilet.

As the burning door disintegrated in a flood of flaming rock, I threw open the hatch and leapt into the potty. Instantly, the current took hold and flushed me through the sewage tunnel. I plunged into the sea, shot back up to the surface, and gasped.

My house was burning, lava sparks igniting wood. The expression "spreading like wildfire" suddenly took on new meaning as fresh planks caught in a chain reaction that threatened to consume the entire mansion.

Was there some way, any way, to smother the flames? Maybe a bucket of water? But all my buckets and reserve iron were either in the entryway or up in the workshop.

What to do? What to do!? The flames rose and spread, eating my beautiful home like a flickering, ravenous beast, and leaving, like the discarded bones of a meal, fireproof objects suspended in mid-air. Windows, chests, furnaces, all surrounded by cubes of flowing lava.

The hill was now a volcano. Blazing liquid oozed down the eastern slope before me, demolishing my precious garden. And on the western slope…

"Baa!"

THE ANIMALS!

Heart racing, I swam around to the meadow. The red river was coming, destroying everything in its path. Soon it would reach the open field and then the forest. The trees! All that wood! Where were my…

I could see the cow and sheep family, all still grazing as if nothing were wrong.

"Run!" I shouted. "Go, go, go, go!"

They continued munching, oblivious to their peril.

"Don't you see it!?" I hollered, pointing to the roiling tide. "You gotta get outta here!"

They glanced at me dimly as if this were just another monologue.

I had to stop the lava.

Build a wall? Nothing to build with…

DIG!

Frantically, I tore into the earth with my bare hands, trying to cut a trench between my friends and a fiery fate. Blocks of earth flew into my belt as the lava reached the meadow; another two squares and it would be on me. Scorching my hair, baking my face.

Popping, bubbling, laughing heat. Here I come.

Made it! I jumped out of the trench just a half step ahead of the flaming flood. The ditch filled and held, and for a second, I thought I'd saved the day. Then a spark popped from the barrier onto my skin. Recoiling from the sting, I backed right into Rainy.

"Hey, what are you—" I began, but stopped as the sheep ambled right past me.

"NO!" I shouted pushing it back. It was like the lamb couldn't see the trench, didn't know that certain death was only a few steps away. "Get back!" I roared, shoving the deluded animal.

"Help me save your baby!" I shouted to its black and white parents. In a gut-punch of irony, I saw that the parents were also casually meandering over.

"What's wrong with you!?" I yelled, trying to jostle them back. I was just pushing Cloud into the tree line when a sound turned my stomach to stone.

"Moo."

Eyes flicking across the meadow, I saw my cow, my conscience, my best friend in the whole world, on her way to a flaming execution.

"Moo!" I screamed, sprinting over to bodily bounce her away. "Please, you gotta understand!" I begged. "You're gonna die! Don't you get it!? You're gonna die!"

She wouldn't listen, wouldn't stop.

"Please, Moo!" I pleaded, racing back and forth between her and the sheep. "Please, please, just listen to me! All of you, listen! Pleeease!"

At that moment I heard a sickening "B'geck!" and turned to see one of the chickens stepping into the fire-filled trench. A bloom of orange and red, a flash of feathers and cooked carcass, and then it was all gone.

"Look!" I screeched through hysterical tears. "Don't you see!?"

They didn't. Something in their brains, in the rules of this world. A fatal blind spot. A cruel joke.

"Stop it, Moo!" I thundered. "You stupid, bloody hamburger!" My fist shot out, socking her square in the face.

With a flashing red "moo!" she ran from the flames.

"I'm sorry," I cried, punching the sheep away. "I had to!"

They ran to the safety of the trees, stopped, and, to my throat-closing horror, began slowly walking back. I couldn't keep punching them forever. Another blow might kill them. And I couldn't keep pushing all of them back. Eventually one, or maybe all, would end up fried in the ditch.

I had to extinguish the source. I had to cool that lava!

Looking up at the hill, I saw my one slim ray of hope: the rest of the hot tub, including the water, still sat above the fiery gusher. If I could just smash the glass between the water and the lava below it…but how to get there? The stone tower was still standing. Maybe I could use the dirt blocks in my hand to make a bridge.

I took off running for the southern slope, the one spot that still seemed clear. I tore up the incline as fast as my rectangular legs could carry me, then stopped as if hitting an invisible wall.

From the summit of the hill I could now see that a seething river lay between me and the tower. Worse still, lava was actually surging into the tower itself so even if I got there, I'd still be cooking myself for dinner.

A sudden, crazy idea sprang from the paltry dirt cubes in my hand. It was a reckless plan, a hopeless gamble, and when it came to self-preservation, a completely unnecessary risk.

But maybe it was a different kind of self-preservation: preservation of the soul. Losing my friends would drive me crazy, especially knowing that it had all been my fault. And maybe, just maybe, if I risked my life to save them, it could be some slight redemption for the mass slaughter of so many others.

None of this was conscious. There was no rational decision chain. At the moment, all I could think about was getting up to that water. I sprinted over to the edge of the stream, placing my first dirt block within its molten mass.

I'd pictured building a raised path all the way to tower, but simple math told me I didn't have enough dirt. I'd have to stagger them every other square and jump perilously from one to the other. I hopped up onto the first block, then the second block; then turning back to the first, tried to punch it back up. I thought if I could collect the dirt behind me, I could remake it into a bridge from the tower to the hot tub.

I thought wrong. No sooner had the earthen cube been released from the floor when it incinerated in the lava's heat. There wasn't time to reconsider. Every moment brought my friends closer to death.

Hop, skip, jump, all the while knowing one mistake would be my last. If I hadn't been grateful enough for the superpower of long-range reach in the past, I certainly was now.

Hop. Place. Skip. Place. Jump.

I made it to within a few steps of the tower and placed the last few blocks at its entrance. The lava began to drain, but not fast enough.

Wait till it's safe. Just a few more seconds.

Then, from the meadow, a plaintive "moo."

Mind flashing with the image of that burnt chicken, and with that image morphing into a burning steak, I sprang into the tower.

Just one thin mini-cube layer of lava. That's all it took to set me alight. With flame-clouded vision, and the agonizing smell of my own roasting meat, I charged up three flights of stairs.

The tub, four blue cubes across from my open doorway. An island of water in an ocean of fire.

One chance. Slim chance. To miss and fall…

"Moo."

She was almost to the trench, another few steps and…

"Yaaaaaa!" I launched, trailing smoke and cinders. Arcing up…leveling off…down…down…Time slowed. Eternity in flight. Too long? Too short!

Miss!

SPLASH!

Cool, quenching relief.

Hit!

"Moo!"

Don't rest! Don't stop!

Bare, burnt fists smashed at the glass floor.

CRACK!

Water rushed out, smothering the lava, turning it to blackstone, but blocking it from reaching the hill!

Keep going!

I shattered the clear walls and, once again, was flushed away.

Carried down the hill on a ramp of new, steaming cobblestone, I landed softly in the trench, and right at the feet of my friend.

"Moo." Thank you.

But I didn't notice her, or the other saved animals, or anything else except the image of what had once been my beautiful home. Nothing was left standing but a suspended waterfall in a skeleton of hanging windows. It was all gone; all of my accomplishments, all of my work. All of that time and energy and thought and wealth. All gone.

And what did I feel at that moment?

Nothing.

I was numb. No anger, no grief; I was as empty as the ruined shell before me.

Failure.

The word closed in like nightfall. I'd failed. I'd ruined everything.

I was a failure.

I don't know how long I watched the ruins. I'm guessing the better part of the day. I didn't feel the hunger or the half-healed wounds. I didn't feel the nudges of my friends, didn't hear their calls. I didn't want to listen, or feel, or think, or care. I didn't want to be.

The sun set, warm rays fading to evening chills. I didn't move. Still and silent. Detached. Over.

"Guuuggg!"

The blow struck me hard in the back of the head, knocking me literally forward and figuratively back into the here and now. Spinning, I saw the looming ghoul, and without thinking, I said, "Thank you."

Running into my observation bubble, now nearly submerged in the waterfall, I slammed the door behind me. The zombie didn't follow. It couldn't. Through the window I watched it enter the trench, hit the water, try to push through, and get knocked back in over and over again.

"You just keep going," I said through the glass. "You'll never stop."

I thought of that first night, cowering in a pitch-black hole, hunger gnawing at my insides while an undead predator lurked within arm's reach. How far had I come since that vulnerable, terrifying ordeal? Even now, with the ruins of my home still smoking on the hill above me, I could not deny my progress. I was safe in my well-lit bunker, with all the hard-won skills I needed to completely rebuild my life.

And I would rebuild.

That night, locking eyes with the indomitable zombie, I told him, "You don't stop, and neither will I. I'll be back tomorrow. I'll craft new tools, plant new crops, build a new house, and come out of this experience stronger and smarter!"

The ghoul gurgled back.

I said, "Thank you for knocking some sense into me. Thank you for making me see that it's not failure that matters, but how you recover from it."