by Dustin Brady
Roger slowly buzzed toward Charlie, his blade whirring louder and louder. Charlie backed up until he hit the wall. It was horrific to watch, but I tried to stay calm and keep my eyes on the RMG. Blink. I pressed “up.” I didn’t know what the code did, but I knew it was our only chance. I also knew that if the RMG saw me type it in—even out of the corner of his eye—his robot brain could piece it together. So I stood there watching like a dummy while my friend stared down a head-sawing blade.
You know who didn’t just stand there?
“Hey, ya dumb flying saucer! You want a piece of this?!”
Eric.
Roger ignored Eric, which turned out to be the wrong decision for the little drone. Just as Roger’s spinning blade was about to reach Charlie’s nose, a CRACK rang out, and Roger went flying. Eric had swung a Nintendo 64 controller with all his might and smacked the drone across the room. Roger spun into a lamp and sliced it in half with his still-whirring blade. Now, the only light in the room was coming from the TV. Roger righted himself and zoomed toward Eric, who was now holding an old computer tower like a shield.
“ERIC!” I screamed. Eric used the computer tower to smash Roger against the wall. That caused me to lose count. Blink. I missed my chance to hit the “down” button. I started counting again.
Five … four … three …
Roger grabbed Eric’s arm with his claw and brought it toward the saw.
… two … one … Blink. Down. I couldn’t lose count again. This was Eric’s only chance.
Shing!
Charlie threw an NES Ninja Gaiden game cartridge at Roger like a throwing star and hit one of his propellers. The impact threw Roger off balance, which gave Charlie an opportunity to pick up the next three games in the stack—Tetris, Paperboy, and Bubble Bobble.
Shing! Shing! Shing!
Each hit made Roger wobble and spin more. He even pulled in the blade so he could focus all his energy on righting himself. But Charlie didn’t let up. He delivered the final blow with the Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt combo cartridge, which caused Roger to tumble across the room and sputter in a heap at the RMG’s feet.
The RMG looked down, unimpressed. Eric stepped forward. “That all you got?!”
The RMG smiled a creepy robot smile. Suddenly, his arm shot forward six feet and grabbed Eric by his shirt. I wanted to scream. I wanted to fight. I wanted to throw down the controller and punch the evil robot right in his face. But I couldn’t. I was on the last blink.
… three … two … one … Blink.
I hit “right.” The screen went black, and a new message appeared letter by letter.
EVERYONE HOLD THE CONTROLLER IN
FIVE …
I glanced over. The RMG hadn’t yet seen the message because he was staring at Eric with all the fury in the world. “You’re not going to like what comes next,” he said as he lifted Eric to the ceiling.
… FOUR …
A crash sounded upstairs by the front door. We heard people barrel into the house. “Down here!” the RMG yelled.
… THREE …
Still holding onto the controller, I grabbed Charlie’s arm. “Charlie! Get Eric!”
… TWO …
Boots crashed down the stairs. Charlie lunged for Eric and yanked him out of the RMG’s grasp.
… ONE …
Still holding onto the controller with my left hand, I pulled Charlie on top of me with my right. That pulled Eric on top of him, which flipped all three of us over the couch.
… GOODBYE.
Waswoooooosh!
Suddenly, my left hand felt like it was on fire. I tried to drop the controller, but I couldn’t. My hand was frozen. Actually, my whole body was frozen. I struggled helplessly while the burning spread from my hand to my arm to my chest. The world began to fade as I started to fall.
There was noise. Lots of noise. I used all my energy to focus on it. Near the door, a group of suits led by the “mom” I’d bumped into at the playground were all pointing at something. By now, my vision was almost completely black, but by squinting, I could start to see what they were pointing at. Another hand was feeling around near Eric’s leg. A hand attached to a super-duper long arm.
“ERIIIII … ” I never got to finish my warning. Because just then, everything disappeared.
Chapter 7
Doom Island
Once I stopped falling, I paused for a moment to prepare myself. Then I opened my eyes, nodded, and sighed. Just as I’d suspected. The world had turned blocky. It was like someone had built an entire jungle out of Legos—but not even normal Legos. It was like those big Legos they make for little kids. There were big, gray blocks that were supposed to be boulders; long, swinging blocks that were supposed to be vines; and little tan blocks at the end of my arms that were supposed to be …
“AHHHH!”
I screamed when I realized what those little tan blocks were. They were my hands. With no fingers. I tried to bring them to my face to get a better look, but I couldn’t bend my elbows. I started to freak out. Not only was I apparently the only one who’d made the trip to Doom Island, but now I was going to be trapped here with no fingers, no elbows, and no clue how to get out.
Also, if that were true, it meant my friends were still stuck in the real world with the psycho robot. I stood up and ran back to look for a warp tunnel or something I could use to get back to them.
When I reached the boulder at the beginning of the level, I tried to climb over it. Turns out—and perhaps you’ve guessed this already—that climbing without fingers is basically impossible. I tried going around the rock. Nope. No matter how hard I tried, I could only walk forward and backward, not left or right. That’s probably because Doom Island was a 2-D, side-scrolling game. I could walk anywhere I wanted in the other games because they were 3-D, like the real world. But in 2-D, I could only walk back and forth, not side to side.
I finally tried jumping to see what was behind the boulder, and that’s when I had my breakthrough. In this video game, I could jump a lot higher than I could in the real world. It felt like I was on the moon. I jumped all the way on top of the boulder only to find a black void behind it. No warp tunnel.
I tried putting my hand in my pocket to fiddle with something while I planned my next move, but of course, there was no pocket. All I could do was stare at the block jungle and think about how nice it’d be to not get sucked into a video game every other week. As I stared, I noticed something weird—a jumble of blocks started appearing below me. I crouched. Was this the first Doom Island enemy? More blocks joined the jumble. They got darker and began forming into a shape. Then I heard a chime, and suddenly the blocks joined together to make a person. I mean, not a normal person. Like, you know when your little brother draws a picture, and your mom goes, “Wow, what a great monkey, Joey!” and he says, “That’s Batman.” It looked kind of like that.
The Batman monkey stood up, stretched out his arms, looked down at his hands, and screamed.
“Charlie!” I called out. “Is that you?”
Charlie looked up at the rock. “Jesse? What is this?!”
“Doom Island.”
“Obviously it’s Doom Island! But, like, how?!”
I forgot this was Charlie’s first time inside a video game. I hopped down from the rock. “It’s that technology your dad invented that lets people go into video games. I think maybe he figured out a way to get your family into this game to keep you guys safe.”
“WHY DOES YOUR MOUTH OPEN AND CLOSE LIKE PAC-MAN WHEN YOU TALK?!”
I don’t think Charlie heard one word I said. I grabbed him by the shoulder. Actually, I tried to grab him by the shoulder, but I really just set my big oven mitt hand on his shoulder, which I think freaked him out even more. “I don’t know how it works. It just works, OK? Your dad knows what he’s doing. Now, I need
to know something—was Eric holding on to you when you got sucked in?”
“I-I don’t … I don’t … ”
Charlie couldn’t get the words out. I stared him in the eyes (actually, they were just two black dots so they could have been his nostrils) and took deep breaths with him to help him calm down. “Charlie, this is really important. If Eric wasn’t holding on to you, then he’s still in really big trouble.”
“WHAT’S THAT?!” Charlie screamed, pointing over my shoulder.
I looked back to see a jumble of blocks and breathed a sigh of relief. I pushed Charlie back and said, “Watch.” After a few seconds, the chime sounded, and those blocks pulled together into a third block person.
“YES!” Eric shouted with his Pac-Man mouth. He punched his fist in the air and jumped as high as he could. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!” He put his arms down and did a weird dance where the only things that moved were his hips going back and forth.
“Eric! I didn’t know if you’d made it! I saw the RMG reaching for you.” I tried to walk around Charlie to hug Eric, but I couldn’t, so I settled for jumping and high fiving him over Charlie’s head.
“Pshhh, that guy?” Eric said. “He was nothing. He yanked at me the whole time, but he was no match for these.” He tried to make a muscle, but of course, his elbow wouldn’t move.
“The whole time?” I asked.
“Right up until the end.”
“You shook him off though, right?”
“I kicked him a whole bunch.”
“That’s not what I asked,” I said as my heart started racing again. “Did. You. Shake. Him. Off?”
“Uhhhh … ”
Eric didn’t need to answer. Because the two eye dots on Charlie’s face got really wide at that moment. He pointed over my shoulder. I turned around to see a massive jumble of blocks form right behind me.
Chapter 8
BUM-BUM
“RUN, RUN, RUN!”
I ran into Charlie who ran into Eric who just stood there staring at the block blob. “What’s that?”
Charlie pushed Eric. “IT’S GONNA KILL US!”
“It’s the RMG!” I yelled. “He got in because he was holding your foot when the controller zapped us. Now move!”
Eric finally understood and sprinted into the jungle. Charlie followed close behind, and I suddenly realized that being the last in line would make me first to get snatched by the RMG. “Can we pick up the pace?” I yelled ahead to Eric.
Charlie also had some advice for Eric. “OK, if I remember right, the first enemy will look scary, but it’s not that bad. All you have to do is jump, and … ”
DING!
Oh no. I put my hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “He’s here,” I whispered. “Let’s keep it down.”
“AHH!” Eric screamed, doing the exact opposite of keeping it down.
“Eric, shut … AHH!” Even though I knew the danger of alerting the RMG by screaming, I couldn’t help myself. A four-foot-tall snake standing in a striking cobra pose was barreling toward us. Now, I know snakes usually slither or squirm, not barrel, but this one was definitely barreling, almost like it was on wheels.
“JUMP!” Charlie yelled, just before the snake reached us. All three of us cleared the snake easily. I turned around to get another look at the snake, and that’s when I caught my first glimpse of the RMG. The transfer to digital did not treat him kindly. The video game version of the RMG had no human skin. All that remained was a gray robot skeleton and a pair of red, glowing eyes. Even though the eyes were little more than two red dots, they were somehow still filled with hate. When his two red dots made eye contact with my two black dots, he started running faster.
“Guys, he’s … ”
BUM-BUM.
The RMG didn’t even try to avoid the snake. He ran right into it, causing him to turn red then disappear, making the BUM-BUM sound.
“Did he just die?” I asked.
“Yeah, but he’s not gone for good,” Charlie said. “He just went back to the beginning of the level.”
“We know the drill,” Eric said. “This isn’t our first time inside a video game, ya know.” Then Eric motioned for Charlie to jump ahead of him.
Over the next few minutes, Charlie led us over a bunch more snakes, showed us how to cross a river by using snapping crocodile heads as springboards, and helped us dodge dive-bombing toucans. I kept looking over my shoulder for the RMG, but he hadn’t caught up yet.
Eventually, we reached a pit with a vine swinging over it. Charlie ran to the edge, looked down, nodded, then backed up. He took a running start and leaped for the vine just as it reached our ledge. He held on to it for a few swings, then jumped ahead when the vine reached a moving platform. He turned around. “Go ahead! Grab on!”
Eric held out his hands. “With what?! We don’t have fingers!”
“Your hands are like magnets,” Charlie said. “It just works!”
Eric nodded and backed up like Charlie had done. When the vine got close, he started running, but slammed on the brakes before he got to the edge. “Sorry.” He backed up to try again.
I glanced nervously over my shoulder.
Eric made the jump on his second try, but he held onto the vine too long to get to the moving platform right away. He climbed to the top of the vine to get a better angle.
“You need to go back down,” Charlie said.
“It’s an easier jump from the top,” Eric replied. “This is how I always do it in video games.”
“No, you need the momentum from the bottom!”
“I’ll bet you a hundred bucks … ”
“SHUT UP AND JUMP!” I yelled. I’m not normally one to yell “shut up” at people, but I’d just spotted a crocodile flinging a death robot into the air behind us.
“You know what, Charlie, you might be right this time,” Eric said, still oblivious. “It does seem like you need to be at the bottom of the vine in this game.”
“HE’S RIGHT HERE!”
Eric looked over his shoulder to finally see the RMG closing in on us. “Oh!” He held onto the vine one—two—three more swings and jumped as soon as the moving platform was in reach.
I sneaked a peek behind my shoulder. The RMG was right there. Just before he could grab me, I jumped. The vine was still far away, but I flew faster and farther than I’d expected. Maybe I could make it! I reached as far as I could and got super-duper close to touching the vine. Unfortunately, “close” is not good enough on Doom Island. The vine passed just overhead, and I tumbled into the pit.
BUM-BUM.
Chapter 9
They’re Here
I opened my eyes in a panic at the beginning of the level. My only hope of safety was sticking with Eric and Charlie, and now an angry, red-eyed robot stood between us. Before I could start to figure out my next move, I heard another BUM-BUM.
This was it. The RMG had followed me down the pit. I started to run, but the thing grabbed my shoulder.
“Hey, over here.”
I turned around. It was Charlie.
BUM-BUM.
And Eric.
“Quick, follow me,” Charlie said as he jumped onto the boulder at the beginning of the level. Eric and I scrambled after him. Since the boulder only had enough room for one person, we ended up standing on top of one another’s heads to make a human totem pole. Then, the bottom of the totem pole started doing a weird dance.
“Cool it!” Eric said. “You’re gonna make us fall off!”
But that’s not what happened. Instead, Charlie completed his dance and disappeared behind the rock.
“How did you do that?!” Eric asked.
“Duck three times and look up once!” Charlie answered. “It’s a secret in the game to get a prize.”
Eric tried the mov
e, and sure enough, he fell behind the rock, too.
“This is so cool!” I heard Eric say. Then I heard another sound.
BUM-BUM.
The RMG had finally taken the plunge down the pit.
I managed to duck twice before the RMG showed up looking angry and confused. I quickly ducked again, looked up, and fell behind the rock.
From behind the rock, I peeked at the RMG. We could see him, but he couldn’t see us. Right now, he was looking the rock up and down. “Do you think he saw me?” I whispered to Eric.
Eric responded by holding up a glowing orb in glee. He’d found the prize behind the rock, and he couldn’t be happier. I reached out to touch the orb, and like a little kid, Eric yanked it away and held it tight to his chest. As soon as the orb touched his chest, it absorbed into Eric’s body, turning him bright white. He started flashing, and loud, happy music began playing.
Dodo doody doodoo doody-doody.
“STOP IT!” I mouthed.
Eric threw up his hands. There wasn’t anything he could do. His body continued producing obnoxiously loud music all by itself.
Dodo doody doodoo doody-doody.
Our rock now had the RMG’s full attention. He turned, stared at it, then jumped on top and tried looking down. We all crouched lower. He examined the rock from all angles, then tried tapping it with his robot claw. Finally, his eyes got super bright and shot lasers at the rock, which was a terrifying thing that I didn’t even know was a possibility.
Finally, Eric’s body stopped flashing and singing. We all remained still. The RMG did a few more rounds before disappearing into the jungle. After a full minute, we let ourselves breathe again. “What just happened?!” Eric asked.
“That was an invincibility orb,” Charlie said. “It’s a pretty good prize as long as you’re not trying to hide from a murder robot.”
I looked out at the jungle. “Unfortunately, the murder robot is still out there.”
