The Next, Next Level

I slunk up the old attic stairs. Every time my feet (softly) hit the partially disintegrated wooden planks, I cringed, listened for a minute, and continued with my delicate charade once more.

Looking back, it's a wonder I was ever able to reach the top. My parents were asleep in the room directly below, none of my steps were as quiet as I deluded myself into thinking they were, and just by judging my frame, you could tell I was very ill suited to be sneaking anywhere.

I looked eighteen, but was really three removed from that number, was the biggest fool in the tenth grade, and had an unhealthy obsession about whichever topic caught my eye that month. (I had autism)

That time, I was addicted to older electronics. I found euphoria in rediscovering old, worn out computers or fidgeting with the circuits of aged video game consoles. It was like an irrestible itch that would never go away.

So it was with that great fascination that I came to learn about the positively ancient computer boarded up in our attic. My parents were unsure if it was still there, and they highly doubted it still worked after so many years. Besides, they restricted me from going up in the attic.

"It's already dangerous enough just walking around the second floor without the roof falling down, Timmy. Anyways, even if you do manage to find the old rust bucket, you'll just get the roof to collapse again, and that costs money!" My mother's voice was shrill, and she never looked once at me while she performed jumping jacks in front of the tv.

And despite her very questionable attention span, she was right. Somehow, our family had managed to keep up the illusion of safety around our neighbors and anyone else unfortunate enough to venture into our hospitality. However, we all knew that it was just a matter of time before the roof caved in. After decades of water damage, the only option was to sell or a full renovation, neither of which was an option. We were just too poor.

Nevertheless, for my first order of business, I decided my operation would have to occur on a Saturday. No school the next morning, no school the day before; it was the Goldilocks zone of weekends.

Next, I began learning my parent's sleeping habits. You'd think that I'd know when they went to sleep, what, after living with them for the entirety of my life, but they went to bed sufficiently late enough that I never was able to get a clear idea of their sleeping schedule.

It was two weeks of staying up late and failing quizzes and tests before I determined their bedtime: 1:00-1:30 on a weekday, but 3:00 to 4:00 on a weekend. Luckily, it was still around the beginning of the second semester, and school work was minimal.

I decided that it was go time.

The next Sunday night, at 5:00 pm, I snuck upstairs and pulled down the attic's staircase. I pulled fast, because I knew that otherwise, it'd squeak open and ruin my plan. But I also made sure to deftly catch the bottom with my left hand, carefully setting it down on the floor. Leveraging the springs near the bottom was easier than at the top.

And so that's where I was, searching for an old computer, in a dusty, old, and very unsafe attic, with only a tiny five year old flashlight that barely worked to keep me company.

I crept forward, swiping the flashlight back and forth across the ground, stepping lightly so as not to wake my parents or break through a questionable board. And there, in the full glow of the waning gibbous moon, was the computer.

It was old, obviously, and dust coated its frame. Somehow, all this time, it had been plugged into the wall. There was a dvd player connected to it. It was broken, plastic shards all over the place, but a disc was still lodged within. I barely made out the letters "Juman-". I ignored it. The keyboard, however, was much more important to my endeavors. It looked as if it was a breeze from falling apart; I knew it was just the cobwebs though. Plastic was durable.

The interior though, I wasn't so sure. I spent about an hour fixing the whole thing up. it was in better condition than it could have been, and the only thing I needed for it to do was for it to turn on. I carefully tweaked the circuits, rerouting wires to prioritize just the parts I needed.

Alright, maybe it wasn't that dramatic. Most of that hour was spent figuring out what the heck it all was, and I only messed with the stuff actually inside a grand total of five-ish times.

When I at last gave up on doing anything more, out of fear that I was doing more harm than good, I reached out towards the power button, and pressed my index finger firmly against the circular indent.

With a start, the computer began to wake itself up. It hummed slightly, vibrating softly against the hard wooden floor. Luckily, the computer appeared to be resting on a sturdier part of the floor, and nothing disastrous happened.

I watched as the loading bar slowly crept to the right, and my anticipation built up.

When the loading bar reached its end ten minutes later, a screen came up. The letters, "Adventurers bewar..." started to come up, but I quickly blew past that with the [enter] bar in a rush to check out the ancient piece of technology.

I don't remember quite what happened next. There was a brief flash of white light, and then... nothing.

That nothing was there for a while- or maybe not. It was hard to tell. And it's even harder to remember! But the next thing I knew, I was in the middle of a tropical jungle, I felt taller and stronger, and I couldn't resist looking off into the distance, one eyebrow raised much higher than the other.

"Welcome to Jumanj-!"