Warning: This story has and will have scenes which may be offensive to more sensitive readers. Please do not read this story expecting nothing but good vibes and happy moments, however, there will be a good amount of that. There will also be dark moments and potentially disturbing scenes. Take a look into the tags to see the trigger warnings that are listed. Without further ado, let the story begin.

A lone man ran through the cracked halls, his urgency disrupting the stagnant air of the structure. The sound of his footprints echoed throughout the stonebrick halls, alerting mobs to his location. In his fist he held a torch, its light flashing bright enough for him to see his immediate surroundings.

Suddenly, a zombie appeared in front of him, its shambling form swaying back and forth with its arms outreached, desperately grabbing at the air as it approached the man. The lonesome stranger pulled out an iron sword from his inventory and swung it at the zombie, striking it in the side and knocking it down to the ground.

"I have no time for distractions. No doubt they're on my trail. I need to act quickly." the man muttered under his breath as he continued to hurry along. The zombie moaned sorrowfully as he passed by it.

The man turned a corner and encountered a skeleton, which noticed him and was quick to ready a bow with an arrow. He pulled out a shield and deflected the arrow with it, then came close enough to bash the skeleton with the shield, knocking it back, where it crumbled against the wall. Putting his shield away and replacing it with the iron sword, he continued once again. He didn't want to kill any of the mobs if he didn't have to, for they could also stall his pursuers if it came to it.

He passed through a room with a fountain in the middle of it, only to be surprised by a creeper silently sneaking up to him from the shadows. With what little time he had before it could explode, he plunged his blade into its stomach, causing the green creature to go limp before it burst into smoke, a floating piece of gunpowder being the only thing to remain of it. He took the gunpowder and went on his way.

He soon reached a chamber. In the middle of the chamber was a stairway climbing up to a portal. Guarding that portal was a silverfish spawner, with a spinning silverfish inside it to indicate it being active still. This was the enderportal-a portal that led to the very End dimension itself. A place that many didn't believe even existed. And yet, this was not what the man had been looking for.

The man turned and went down another hall, this time passing through a library covered with webs. He heard a spider hissing from somewhere above him, but ignored it as he carefully maneuvered the library, avoiding getting caught in any of the webbing before he finally exited the room. The next room was another chamber which housed another portal, although this portal did not lead into the End. This was a Nether portal, albeit inactive as the man had expected. Lined with the tormented souls of the damned trapped within blocks of soulsand around the obsidian frame of the portal, the man knew that this could only be the last of its kind. The last remaining Nether portal after all the others had been destroyed centuries ago, after travel into the Nether had been declared taboo, and knowledge of building the gateway had been lost to time.

The man stepped up towards the portal and pulled out his flint and steel. He could hear the trapped souls whispering within the depths of his mind, begging him to turn back, lest he suffer the same fate as them. The man shrugged them off, and with a single strike and a fire particle falling into the empty frame, the portal flared to life. Instantly, the air around the man became charged with a blazing heat as purple particles twinkled around the portal, which now had an interior that swirled with a purple otherworldly light.

"At last, at long last..." the man said aloud. "So many years of looking, and I finally found it. The gateway to the Nether." A malicious grin grew across his face. "I shall bring the Overworld to its knees. And everyone will know my name!" With these words lingering, the man stepped into the portal and vanished.