The Portal

December 30, 2034, Christmas Eve

Oh man. I can't wait until we go to my grandma’s house for Christmas Eve. She always gives me so many presents! This year, I asked for a new laser gun, and a new video game. Knowing her, I will get the toys I asked for. But I'll have to share them with my pesky brother just because he’s a little “innocent kid”. But he knows he’s getting the best of me because my parents refuse to ever let me play with MY toys. And for the record, he gets way more toys than me, and yet I’m forced to let him take over mine as well! He’ll probably shoot himself this year, and it will be all my fault, just because I asked for the gun. Everything is my fault. My little brother drew a disturbing picture? Well, i was watching a monster tv show. He jumped in the pool without asking? I said it was hot outside, that must be it. It’s never his fault! Geez. Why did I have to be born into this family? I wish I could go wherever I wanted. It would certainly be better than this. I was steaming mad all of a sudden, and I dashed up to my room so I wouldn’t take it out on someone else. I flung open the door to my room, opened the closet, and almost screamed. There was a swirling, black and blue hole in my closet. That wasn’t there yesterday. I know because I have a photographic memory. The hole was making weird, whispering noises. It’s almost like it wanted me to come into its darkness. I was unsure, but I’ve read LOADS of stories like this. The character thinks hard about where they want to go, and then they step through into that dream. Well, I thought of my favorite video game, alien hunter, and stepped into the weird glowing object in front of me. I felt a weird sensation, like I was going to puke, and then all was quiet. Then I heard a laser blast, and a red light whizzed past me. And then another. And another! I ducked as a barrage of lasers flew right where my head had been. Uh oh. I should run. I dashed away from whatever had guns, and took cover behind something that looked like a tree. Then I felt movement. I looked up into the creature’s face. This is not a good position to be in. It was called a slog. Yeah, I know the names in this game are weird, but that’s the least of my worries. These are hostile, but have poor vision and a re super dumb. If you go out of their line of sight, they’ll stop looking for you and keep eating those things with guns. Yep. I can use this to my advantage. I ran as fast as I could, found a Non alien tree, and hid. The aliens with rifles gave chase, but were quickly snatched up. I could actually hear their cries of terror as they were munched and crunched to pieces. Yikes. Why did I wish to be away from my family, why? Now i'll die and they won't ever find me and i'll never see them again. No. I can't give up. Not yet! I dashed over to the bloody remains of the riflemen, and grabbed the rifle. I remembered what looking through the sights was like, and what angle you needed to get a good headshot on a slog. I aimed, cocked back the lever, and fired. Bullseye. The laser beam went clean through the hostile creature’s head, and left a smoking hole. It tumbled as I yelled, “Timber!” And it hit the ground with a crash, vibrating the whole weird forest I was in. Wait. Forest? That means that this is the level I was on a week ago when I turned it off! This is the last level of the game! That probably means that if I beat the final boss, I can leave! Amazing! But I still have a long, hard way to go. First thing though. I’m gonna need armor. It is really important to you in this gam, because it will increase your hit points you can take. But in the final level, if You don't have armor, the game will destroy you. Every character either has a 5 hit gun, or a 1 hit gun depending if you have armor or not. No armor, 1 hit. Armor, five hits before it shatters, then one hit. I was scared, but not deterred. I knew where to get armor at…

It was about an hour walk, full of dangers lurking about. I tried to avoid firefights as much as possible, but some were inevitable. I counted 5 kills on the way there. Hah. New record in one hour. Seems a lot more dangerous up in person, because I know what’s at stake. My life. Most of the time, I’m not afraid of restarting a level. This time, there are no restarts. And I know that. I finally made it to the shop where I used to buy my supplies. I walked up to the manager and asked him where the armor was. He whipped around, looked scared and shocked. But it was kind of hard to tell because he was alien. “A human?!” He finally said in, well, shock and fright. He then drew a laser pistol. “Why are you here and what are your motives, evil human?” He said, angry now. “Whoa man, chill! I’m just here to buy some armor using the galactic credits I’ve scavenged. I didn't mean to come here, it was by a portal I’ve landed here. I need armor if I’m to survive.” I said calmly. “Well in that case, pay all you have, and i'll find the appropriate suit for ya.” He said, more relaxed this time. I paid him all of my credits, and he smiled. He walked back into his shop, and pulled out an orange and purple suit of armor. “Try it on kid. This is the best I’ve ever made! Should take you up to 10 hit points!” He said. I went into the back and put it on. It was padded on the inside, and the helmet HUD was awesome. I could see behind me with a camera that was on the back of the helme, and it had a built-in hit counter. Also, for no reason at all, a kill counter. That’s a little over the top, but I’m not complaining. I said thanks and goodbye to the alien salesman, and dashed out into the world. There was also jet boosters in the boots, and I made sure to give it a test flight. It had rocket launchers in the hands that automatically reloaded themselves. There were aliens scattered on the surrounding landscape, all looking at my high flying awesomeness. I fired two rockets into a small group. Body parts and gore went EVERYWHERE! Like, my word. I dropped to the ground and ran. It was definitely easier somehow. I was running fast for a reason. I was heading for the boss…

After 2 hours and 59 kills of running, I Had reached the cave of the final boss. Now, I have never beaten it, because I had thought the highest amount of extra hit points you could have was 5. But I was wrong. This could be it, the big moment where I kill him, and stand on his corpse, damaged but fine, with my gun raised high in victory. That’s what I’m hoping for. The boss has 100 hit points. That’s either 10 rockets, or 100 lasers. I might combo attack him. I rushed in immediately, ready to get this over with. That’s when I noticed. The boss alien was lying dead on the floor,blood on the ground and bullet marks covering him. Who could have made such a hard fight look so easy? Suddenly, there was a loud crash, and a figure landed atop the dead monstrosity. “I. Am the true boss you will have to defeat today.” Said the figure. That’s when I realized something. The figure was… he stepped out of the shadows. The alien from the shop!? That could only make sense though. He has all the best armor and weapons this game could offer. I looked above his head. The words and numbers clearly said, “100 hit points” Yikes. I rushed him quickly, hoping he would shoot forward. He did, and that gave me time to boost above his head, and fire two rockets into his back, knocking him over and sending him sliding across the floor. He got up with anger flashing in his eye, before speaking. “Maybe that armor was a bad idea. I knew that when you said “portal,”you meant the intergalactic portal I sent out to find a worthy foe to face me.” He said, smirking. “But now your time is up. I will unleash my full wrath onto your feeble human body, and I will finally have had a purpose. I will have defeated somebody worthy. He said. “And now… YOU DIE!!” He yelled, rushing forward. He drew a sword out of his shank on his side, and swung it into my side, causing 5 hit points of damage. The blow knocked the wind out of me and sent me into a wall, where I took another hit point for collision. I got up, somehow ok, and fired all 30 of my guns lasers into him. They all hit, doing 30 more points of damage to him. His hit counter now said “50 hit points remaining”. I got excited, and made a foolish rush at him. He thwacked me with his sword, and my armor broke to pieces. I stood up, confident in my next play. He smirked like he’d won. But he hasn’t. Not until I’m dead! I rushed him again, but this time, slid through his legs, throwing him off. His blade smashed onto the floor, cracking, shards flying everywhere. I rebounded off the wall, and fired another 30 shots. Now was the finishing plan. I rolled away from his word, which hit the floor and smashed to bits. I grabbed up my two hand plates, rockets still in them, and pressed the buttons on the inside. The rockets hit him in the stomach, and his hit points hit 0. The explosion was massive, and catapulted me out of the cave, as a final cry of, ” NOOOOOOOO” echoed out, and everything went dark…

I awoke in my bed in my room, groggy and confused. I clenched my fist, ready to deliver the killing blow, when I remembered all that had happened. The armor, the portal, and the final fight for freedom. I rushed downstairs, and told my parents to wait as they were about to leave. “Oh Lucas! Did you decide to come after all?” My mom said in surprise. “Yeah. Let’s go!” I said, panting from the run down the steps. All I know is, I'll never complain again.