Scream of the End



The usual stories about MineCraft will always go to Herobrine, about how he lives and he’s a lot more than code. But have you ever wondered about the Endermen, and whether there are any secrets about them?

Everyone who has played MineCraft is well familiar with them by now, and while they can be hard to find in the overworld, many have visited their home in the End. Of course, they aren’t hostile unless you look at them or attack them. For this reason, quite a few people consider them friendly and like them.

Personally, I’ve always found them creepy and killed them whenever i could. They are based off of Slender Man, after all. Well, being as strong as they are, regular players know that if you run into one right after you spawn, you run for water. For some reason, Notch decided to code them with a fear of water, and whoever thought anything bad could happen with water, right?

Well, water is the whole reason this mess started. I haven’t even attempted to start up my game since then. I was playing on my regular world, a server that my friends and I had started. We had plenty of houses built, a seemingly unlimited supply of diamond and gold, and the Ender Dragon was defeated. There really wasn’t much to do in the world anymore, so you had to get very creative.

My friends and I, we were creative enough, and we understood the game very well. Aaron was our redstone guy. If you needed anything powered, he found a way to build it and make it better than any tutorial could ever tell you. Myself, I made a majority of the buildings, and even started working on a city. We had a few guys who would work on supplies, planting, and harvesting anything that was needed. Lastly, we had Graham. He did all the magical stuff.

Potions, enchanting, and he had us build him a mob trap so he could get an outrageous amount of experience whenever he wanted to. Of course we had the randoms who would join, the occasional troll, and sometimes we would have someone new join our group as a regular. We had all fought the Ender Dragon before, and we could do it fairly quick. Aaron, I, and majority of the group would take out the crystals and fight the dragon. Graham, however, would stay underground working up potions for the battle and have the rest do deliveries. He wasn’t too fond of Endermen either. That’s why he made us bring water buckets to the End. He stayed in the middle of the water, where the Endermen couldn’t get him. That’s where I got my whole idea from.

One day when I was had nothing else to do, I decided to get on the server. It had been about two weeks since the Ender Dragon was beaten, and we hadn’t really gone to the End since then. We had a little trap that was set up with torches and sand that would send anyone who walked onto it into the End, but it was mostly just to make them panic. Well I had the great idea of using the End to farm Ender Pearls. I was planning on using Graham’s idea with the buckets in order to do it, but on a massive scale. I had every intention on flooding the End. With the help of an inventory editor and the /fly command, I started.

Of course this was the only time I was using such things, as I made sure our whole server was legit. However, I was the only person on, and I figured everyone would have a good laugh out of the fact that I flooded the home of the Endermen. As I started going, a good portion of the floating island they called home was filling up quickly. You would hear them panic and teleport away every time they would get splashed, and the occasional scream from when they decided to go swimming for too long. It’s amusing how much determination to live a simple computer AI can give a being. As the rest of the island started to fill up, they became very crafty on their spawns.

Many were going under the island on little ledges, but as soon as I saw them, they would be swept away from the water and fall into the Void. I kept going until there was a little square in the center, and the obsidian platform I spawned in on. They were pushing each other for what little, precious space they had left, and one would fall off the platform or into the water every few seconds. I made a few more trips around the island, filling up any spots I missed and finishing off any stragglers that found a comfy spot to sit in. One had even found a spot buried in the ground, in a four tall tunnel, until I flooded him out. This all took till about 1 o’clock in the morning, and I was happy I was able to finish by the night’s end.

After I was sure I had filled every dry spot up, I filled up the square in the center. Many of the Endermen just swam until you heard the death scream and they fell, while a few of them managed to teleport to the platform. I decided to have a little fun, at first flooding the edges and watching them push each other into the water and off of the level. This left only four. This just compelled me to get it over with and flood the center, which I did, causing three of the four to fall off the platform. The one remaining Enderman stayed jumping in the center, and slowly his health was being chipped away.

Finally, he fell to the floor and screamed. But it wasn’t the normal death scream I had grown accustomed to during my trip. It was glitching. Slowed down. Then it would start over, skip, and drag out even more. Eventually the rest of the game took suit, and I was unable to move. The sound repeated itself, as did his body falling to the floor, that is, until, “MineCraft has run out of memory.” MineCraft then crashes, as does Java.

As many people do when something like that happens, I started up both the server and MineCraft again. I figured it was just a glitch due to the massive amount of water running and the loot that was on the ground from the Endermen dying. I put in my IP address in the multiplayer and click connect. “Error: World not found”. Shit, I thought, as I knew that the crash had corrupted the files. Luckily I backed up the world right before we fought the dragon. I grabbed my external, copied over the files, and loaded it right up.

Even though I couldn’t fix all that was lost, I figured I’d go back and fight the dragon again before bed. Thanks to Graham, I had armor and weapons with any enchantment possible, as well as potions that would last me years of battle. I get over to the portal, jump down the hole, and the End loads right up. However, something is wrong. As I look for the Ender Dragon, I see nothing in the air. The crystals are on the tower, but no dragon to feed off of them. I notice next that the Endermen are gone as well. I get on the island, walk around a bit, until eventually I’m hit. I look up and see that the crystals are chaining to what I would presume to be the dragon.

He was invisible. So the world just didn’t load properly. I save, exit both programs, restart my computer, and get right back into it. The dragon is there, but the Endermen are still absent. Easier fight, as I don’t have to worry about looking in the wrong direction and having to ward off a pissed off Enderman. 20 minutes later, I shoot the last arrow into the dragon and he floats in the air, and the egg drops onto the fountain.

I run over there so I can get out of the End, but another strange occurrence. The End portal that usually fills the fountain is now just the same texture as water. A bucket wouldn’t pick it up like normal water though. This just led me to think my .jar file was corrupted, and I hop in. Eventually it functions just as the normal End portal would, except I hear the death scream to the Enderman again. Not just once, but over, and over, and over. The portal finally works, but it isn’t what I expected. Black. Then, “MineCraft has run out of memory.”

I reinstall all the files, including the world for another time, and the game starts up without a hitch. I get back to the portal and hop in. This time, it is not the End that awaits me. Instead, it seems like an endless room. I can still see, but it’s just a faint glow around me. I walk forward, thinking it could be the End and something like a potion of blindness is stopping me from seeing it.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:14px;color:rgb(217,217,217);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:22.100000381469727px;">The faint globe of light is all I can see, and the only source of light in my room as well. The platform doesn’t end in a few blocks though, and the obsidian continues, shattering my hopes of being in the End. The obsidian floor keeps going in all directions, so I follow a straight line. I walk, and the sound start. My footsteps first, but then the sound of blocks being placed. As I go forward the faint sound of Enderman begins, and increases.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:14px;color:rgb(217,217,217);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:22.100000381469727px;">First, just the normal grunts. Then, they sound as if they are agitated. The sounds become much more frequent. It gets louder as if there is a whole hoard chasing me but they refuse to catch me. I start to see the purple pixels as if they are teleporting themselves and me. Then it stops. A few seconds and steps later, one comes flying at the screen, and the death scream goes at full volume. This makes me literally jump and let go of the keyboard and mouse. Silence. It doesn’t start up again until I move the mouse.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:14px;color:rgb(217,217,217);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:22.100000381469727px;">One more sound, a light grunt, as if they are letting me know they are in the darkness, just out of my sight. I go forward again, clicking my mouse, hoping to hit one of them, or a wall, or anything. The pattern starts over, the sounds, the pixels, and the scare. I didn’t stop moving though, and neither did they. It continues. Escape, alt+f4, they don’t have any function. Unplugging the computer is out of the question, as I refuse to risk my equipment. I keep going, hoping it ends.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:14px;color:rgb(217,217,217);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:22.100000381469727px;">After about three minutes of the cycle, it does. I’m teleported one last time, unable to move. The Enderman on the screen stares straight into my eyes. Water surrounds my character, and after the 20 seconds, he begins to drown. “You are dead.” In the background, the Enderman still looks with his stoic appearance, not even flinching as much as an inch. Five seconds later, the computer powers down without warning, and I’m left in the dark.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:14px;color:rgb(217,217,217);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:22.100000381469727px;">The next day, I send my friend the files for the world. They play the game without any flaws, gone to the End and even got a few pearls. I refuse to. I don’t even have the files on my computer anymore. Did a complete wipe of the hard drive. MineCraft became more than a game that night. It’s a lot more than a simple AI controlling a few entities. Definitely more than a glitch.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:14px;color:rgb(217,217,217);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:22.100000381469727px;">These games and entities that form on our fears, they do that and much more. It’s a lot more than just simple coding now. The Endermen, they do hold a grudge. They have a fear, and it is not something to taunt them with. They are aware, and they will make sure you become well aware of them and their presence.