Welcome back everybody to the Minecraft Short Stories Podcast.
In this episode today we have a listener story and the stories
by Zachariah. Zachariah has read a story that
I've read on the podcast before. It was the story with the
stiffer in the villager who stole it, so hopefully you can
find it through that description.
I forgot the name of it, but it's definitely worth the
listen. In the prologue episode today
that's I recorded and that were released today, we talked about
the worst ever Minecraft short stories, the worst ever read on
the podcast. And if you've ever been
listening to this podcast and are like was calm OK when you
wrote this? Then maybe you'd be interested
in this episode. So you can find all the prologue
episodes on my Patreon and you can find that link inside the
description. The story is called The Uncanny
Tale of Hollow and let's get right into it.
Disclaimer before the story begins, the following story is
fictional. It is not based on actual
events, User names are made-up, and any relation to any actual
player is coincidental. The Uncanny Tale of Hollow by
Zachariah. It started with a pumpkin.
What else am I supposed to say? There's no chunk glitches, no
cobblestone crosses, no none signs, no giant footsteps.
Just a pumpkin. Well, I guess you would call it
a carved pumpkin. I was playing on an earlier
version of Minecraft, the version right before the regular
pumpkins were added. So the carved pumpkins were just
called pumpkins. Anyway, I've been scouting an
area in our survival realm for me and my friends to build
castle on. I've been taking measurements,
digging an outline, and assessing what blocks to use
ever since that morning the sun began to set.
I decided to head back to my house to change it to morning.
No one else was on, so I would have had to wait on anybody.
I ran back to my house and helped them bed.
As my screen began to fade, I realized I'd forgotten
something. I clicked leave bed.
I was supposed to check on the zombie farm for zombie villagers
tonight. I sighed and decked myself out
in armor. If I waited until day, they
would just burn up. Grabbing my sword, I opened my
door and that's when I saw it. The pumpkin.
It was just sitting there, a few blocks away from my door,
staring at me with his expressionless, hollow eyes.
It was certainly startling, but I almost instantly rolled my
eyes and checked to see if anyone else had joined the
server. I was friends with a prankster,
so it could have been one of his jokes.
To my surprise, I was the only one still in the realm.
A little off put, I moved away from the pumpkin, eyeing it as I
walked off. I'd heard of strange things
happening in people's worlds, like finding sand pyramids and
leafless trees, but I never heard of a pumpkin creepypasta
before. After checking the farm and
going to sleep, I decided to leave the world to do some
investigating. First, I hopped on the Internet
and search for any reports of carved pumpkins on people's
doorsteps. No helpful results.
The next day at school, I tried to see if any of my friends knew
about it, but none of them had been on the realm in a week.
The prankster said he was on a restriction for video games for
a month. All this information narrowed
the possibilities. No one had bet on the server,
and no one had experienced any pumpkins on doorsteps.
And so I conclude that it was very possible I might be sharing
a world with a new creepy pasta entity.
I shrugged it off. Maybe I placed a pumpkin by
accident. That was a bad assumption.
Next time I hopped them to the realm, the pumpkin on my
doorstep was gone, but it was replaced by more.
Pumpkins riddled my yard and my house.
Some even replaced the wood planks of my walls.
I was shocked. My breath became imbalanced.
So there is a being in the world, I thought to myself.
I paused so I could leave the world and then notice something
run by my half pumpkin house. It was Neon Creeper.
The prankster Neon creeper. What'd you do to your house?
Sniff. Sniff.
Which is me. Don't even try, man.
What? You think I did this?
I must admit you had to be thinking that Herobrine was in
the room or something. Neon creeper.
I didn't do it. Yes, I love to prank you guys,
but I didn't touch other people's builds.
That's against my policy. Then who did this?
I don't know. I've been on restriction for the
past month. Remember?
I was released today. Maybe we do have a Herobrine
entity of some sort in the realm.
How cool. Me.
Is it really that cool, though? Yes, it is.
Totally. Neon.
You there? Ah, it's him.
He he's got me. Me.
What? Who?
Who's got you?
Neon Creeper left the game. I rolled my eyes.
It was another one of his pranks.
Neon Creeper was fine. With him out of the way, I could
think I observed my house. What did the pumpkins mean?
For once, I actually trusted the end.
Creeper. Breaking other people's stuff
was out of his character and no one else was mean enough to
vandalize my house with pumpkins.
Maybe someone was mad with me that I hadn't updated the world
in, you know, years. I had not heard any major
complaints yet. I sighed.
I was delaying the truth. There was a pumpkin obsessed
entity in my world. With this idea in my mind, I
knew what I was going to do. Find it.
Capture it, if possible. Ask us some questions.
I know they're going to be some risks.
I spent about 45 minutes listening to some creepypasta
episodes of podcast that I like to prepare me for what I could
encounter. I opened Minecraft again and
into the realm. I looked around.
More pumpkins had already replaced blocks in my house and
yard. I ignored it and concentrated.
If I were a Minecraft lunatic monster who loved pumpkins,
where would I hide? Thought to myself, there was a
field not too far from my house that contained some pumpkin
patches, so I decided to check there to try and increase my
chance of finding the thing. I crafted some pumpkin pies and
put them in my hot bar. Maybe I liked pie.
I sprinted out to the field and began my search.
I spare you all the details and just tell you that after a whole
life hour of searching I didn't find the vandal.
I even tried coaxing it out of its hiding via the chat but with
no avail. I didn't even know if it could
hear me or not. I logged off and decided to go
to bed talk with Neon Creeper in the morning.
Neon Creeper was OK as I thought.
He said that the whole He's got me thing was just a joke, but
said that he was going to hold off on the pranks for a bit so
that's not to interfere with the investigation.
While Neon Creeper was a prankster, he knew when he
needed to stop. I checked with everyone else and
still none of them have been on the realm.
After school and homework, I entered the realm.
As the chunks loaded, I realized I was still inside the pumpkin
field. I returned to my house only to
find it completely made of pumpkins.
The walls, the yard, the roof, even the fencing gates were
replaced by pumpkins. I busted through the pumpkins,
occupying the space where my door was.
I stared wide eyed. I was in front of me.
Everything was replaced. That made my chest as well.
If Minecraft characters could crumple to the floor, mine would
have done just that. I had diamonds, Redstone, even a
scraper to have nether in those chests.
Now they were just pumpkins staring at me with that dark,
hollow gaze. Now I was mad.
I assessed where I had my inventory, tried to stay cool.
Pumpkins have been appearing in an out of place environment, I
thought to myself, So what if this time I searched in a place
where pumpkins don't naturally appear a waste?
Behind my house was an oak forest that went in for miles.
I certainly didn't remember seeing any pumpkins there and
once again set off. I walked for days with no luck.
Not a single pumpkin. I didn't even bother sleeping.
I fought through the nights and searched through the days for
real time, hours. Finally, after growing tired of
fighting off armies of zombies, skeletons and whatnot, I decided
to pitch a bed and sleep. I watched the sunset, waited
till I knew I could sleep and click the bed.
My character lowered its head. The screen began to dim and
that's why I saw it. A pumpkin looking straight at
me. As I was dozing off, I clicked
leave bed, jumped out and stared at the pumpkin straight in the
eyes. It stared back, expressionless.
I sighed. I looked around the forest.
Miles would soon spawn if I didn't do something.
Quickly mined the pumpkin and crafted into a Jack O Lantern
that would help me a bit. I seen the Jack O Lantern on the
ground so it illuminate the area around me.
I looked around not too far from where I was.
There's another pumpkin. I walked over to it and saw
another pumpkin. And another.
It was a trail.
As I followed it, things became even more out of place.
There were no mobs and the trail of pumpkins was getting thicker.
So twice I thought I saw a mob, or worse, the Pumpkin Vandle,
but they're just some strange statues.
They look like the recipes for some sort of golem, but they
weren't like any I had seen. They took the same shape as an
iron golem recipe, but instead of iron it was made of black
concrete with a typical pumpkin on top.
It was eerie, but I continued on.
After following the trail for a few minutes, I reached a cave,
the tap that goes almost straight down.
I couldn't see the bottom, but I could see the walls.
They're completely made of pumpkins.
Their faces seemed to gesture downwards, as if they're afraid
of what was down there. I know I was.
It was night time, both in Minecraft and in real life.
I wasn't really supposed to be playing games this late.
Nonetheless, I pulled out a water bucket, dumped it down the
mouth of The Cave, and descended into the unknown.
The Cave was also eerie. As I reached the end of my water
elevator, I observed the inside. Instead of regular pumpkins,
Jack O Lanterns took their place, making the small cave
bright and clear. Although it was no longer dark,
the place was disturbing. The Jack O Lanterns gave off a
creepy disposition, same one that the backgrounds gave off.
Everything was still too still. Noticing a small opening in one
of the walls, I walked over to it, my nerves making me shake
with such intensity I could hardly press the right keys on
the computer I appeared inside. It was a long one by two
hallway, which was of course made of Jack O lanterns.
With a shaky breath, I began walking a drone and coursing
through me. One step, 2 step, three-step,
four steps. Every step seems to last for
hours, each time seeming to echo out through the Jack O Lantern
hallway. Their faces haunted me, watching
my front, my side, my back with a seemingly fret and look in
their eyes like the Stony statues of Medusa till finally I
reached the end. I sprinted out hoping that this
would be the end of the nightmare, the light, the end of
the tunnel. I emerged from the hallway,
relieved me in a more open cave. That ecstasy was almost
immediately shot down because of what was before me.
My house. All the right blocks were there
and a single pumpkin on it. It was almost as if someone had
taken a structure block and then copy and pasted it.
I ran inside. My chest were there too.
I opened them up, grabbing as many items as I could carry, and
then burst out back of the door and there he was.
His appearance had the shape of a player's skin, except he was
pitch black on his head. He wore a pumpkin, the same dark
hollow expression I've been staring me for days now.
I gasped upon saying this thing and Sprint as fast as it could
back down the hallway, fear of being caught being the only
thing that kept me from passing out.
As I ran, the hope of escape filled me.
I may have been able to make it at the thing that turned out the
lights in the midst of my escape towards as all of the sudden
popped out of all the Jack O lanterns at once, turning them
into pumpkins. The hall became completely
black. I kept running.
Not only if I was moving or if I was running up against a wall.
The yellow text slowly materialized in the middle of my
screen. Stopped running.
I let go of the West Key, my heart beating like a drum.
Handshaking, I open the chat. Who are you?
New words appeared in my screen. I am hollow.
That was all I needed. I paused the game and quit, not
before seeing the words. No, wait.
I was returned to my world's collection and I hovered over
edit. Then I noticed the world name
had been changed. Don't do this.
I ignored it. I clicked edit and started
scrolling downwards. The toggle on off features have
also been changed. Please listen.
You can't do this to me. I won't hurt you.
The pleadings went on. I kept scrolling, ignoring The
entity was practically down on its knees begging for mercy.
You knew what was coming. Finally, I reached the bottom.
In the place of the deli bun were 5 words.
This is my only home. I froze as all the pieces
clicked on my brain. Hollow was a glitch that was
accidentally created in the game before regular pumpkins existed.
Mojang eventually discovered Hollow and fixed a glitch when
they updated the pumpkins. Therefore, Hollow could only
thrive in worlds which did not have the update.
Is it really possible that I'm the only player who hasn't
updated? I thought I moved away from the
delete button and pressed play. I was meant by blackness once
more and words appeared on my screen.
You're back. Sniff.
Sniff me. Why did you steal my house?
That's just what I do. I replace blocks with pumpkins.
Well, lay it off. You're not going to delete me.
I thought about this. I tapped your response.
No. You're harmless entity, right?
Yes. Then you can stay.
You know what? You can have the world as well,
please. As many pumpkins as you want.
The world is yours. I don't know what made me do it,
but I did it. My eyelids were heavy.
My senses were weakening. Early awake, I clicked save and
quit and dozed off the last thing I saw being the world's
cover. The name had been changed again.
Thank you. I got busted.
Of course. My parents awoke the next
morning to find me, collapsed my game chair in front of my open
computer, and banned me from games for two months.
Beat that in the young creeper. Usually I would have launched
into a state of depression, knowing that I couldn't play
that long or knowing that I gave away my world to a Minecraft
density. But I felt fine.
I had done something that no one else had done before.
I had somehow made friends with a Glitch.
I didn't even know that was possible.
I've removed the world from the realm to keep everyone away from
Hollow, and I don't plan to join the world either.
I'm just going to let Hollow do his thing.
I told Neon Creeper about the experience and he thought it was
amazing. He told me I should try to
spread the story on the net so everyone knows about Hollow.
I've tried to recreate the experience into Worlds, and I've
sent it to a guy who reads stories on a podcast for a
living. With any luck, I can spread this
experience to other players, warning them about Hollow to
help remind people to update, or maybe so they can invite Hollow
into their own worlds. The end Thank you to Zachariah
for submitting this story. This is going to be a chunky
episode. The recording thing says it's
already been 21 minutes and this has been the single handedly
longest story ever in the podcast.
At 3000 words. At least I think it is.
Maybe so. Thank you so much to Zachary for
submitting this. I really enjoyed reading this on
the podcast and I'm sure the listeners enjoyed listening to
it. Thank you for submitting this.
And now the story was not too long.
The story was fine. I'm glad it was this long.
So thank you. And I'd just like to thank you,
the listener, for getting to this part of the episode.
This is the end of the episode, if you haven't noticed.
I hope to see you inside the next one.