I was unusually relaxed when time had frozen. I remembered a short piece of advice I had heard once, but I couldn't remember who said it. "When time freezes." I began to remember "Just go with the flow, if you start thinking too much, then you will be doomed."

"Alright. So just don't think." I thought to myself "Wait? GODAMIT!" I realised I had been thinking the whole time. "So much for your advice."

His phone started to buzz, displaying a message. "A game is waiting to be played? Do you accept?" it read.

"Duh." I said to myself, even in the heat of all this I couldn't resist. I flash came and everything went black. I found myself in a room with Kolee and 10 doors representing games. "Hey Kolee. What the Jesus is going on?" I asked, not sounding scared or anxious. I had felt more confused, if nothing else.

No idea man. I just got here myself.

I looked at Wolfenstein's confused look with my own confused face. I looked around more hoping to see if anything would give me a hint in which could be used to escape or return back to the world we were once in. I studied the ten doors and the pedestal with imprints where ten crystals could be fitted into. Each door was designed differently. One had a mushroom, another had a hidden dagger.

I have hypothesis on what this place is. I think that these doors will lead us to get the ten crystalline shaped objects which can be fitted into that pedestal over there. I think that is our key to freedom

I checked my cell phone soon after to see if any signal was getting through. Apparently it was not because my phone did not have any signal. Depressed on what is needed to do in order return, I decided to wait to see if any others would show up.



Hey lets wait and see if anyone else shows up. Its better to have more brains working on this don't you think?

"All the same to me." I said. I didn't really care if I was alone or with an army, it was weird, but it was interesting and better than school anyways. "I'll wait if you want to. I think it'll take a while for them to get here though, a couple of them are still panicking."

I walked around and saw the mushroom door and it reminded him of a funny picture he saw. It was a picture of how Jesus Christ survived the cross, apparently at the last supper his main course was a Mario life mushroom. I laughed thinking back, that would be a sight.

I inspected the hidden dagger door and started to get slightly giddy. "This looks so much like Altair's blade!" I said before hearing a sound. Another person was coming.

"What...the crap?..." stumbled through the empty black and fell right into the kid who had introduced himself as Wolfenstien. He glared up at me with one eyebrow raised, clearly asking me to get up.

"Oops! Sorry!" I scratched the back of my neck from embarrassment. Great. Not only had I been taken to some netherworld, but I had just made myself appear to be a clumsy idiot in front of the only two people around.

I had been holding onto my backpack when there was the strange change in scenery, and I was relieved to see that at the very least, I hadn't lost that. I don't know what I would do without my magical backpack of awesomeness. If one were to look inside it, they would swear that it belonged to McGyver in his highschool days. That, and I swear to god the thing spontaneously generates food. I was, however, dismayed to see that my OrangeBox disc was gone.

Several expletives were muttered, and then I looked up at the other two. "So?" I asked, "Plan of action, anyone?"

I started to panic, and realised everyone who didnt sit on our table had gone. The doors were locked, time at stopped, and I was almost hyperventilating
"Oh no.." I said "They've locked the doors.."
"Who are 'they'?" Kyra blinked
"THEY. THEY'RE SOME MURDERERS. They've locked to doors so we cant get out! No one will hear out screams as they slowly TEAR US APART!" I screamed, and then started hyperventilating
Kyra hit me
"..Sorry.." I squeaked
Then, everyone's electronics rumbled. EVeryone took them out to read the message on the screens.
Wolfenstein, Kolee and Kyra had suddenly disapeared.
"..Woah. Where did they just go?" I said to alex. I just shrugged and checked my phone, staring at a black screen with small white letters saying:
A game is waiting to be played. Do you accept?.
Sweet! A freee game on my mobile? Im totally accepting this.
I pressed 'ok' and suddenly there was a flash of white light, and then I plunged into darkness. I opened my eyes and saw myself lying on a cold sotne floor. I sat up, and looked up to see 10 doors. I turned my head and saw the pedestal behind me.
"Heeyyy, I remember that pedestal thingy!" I shouted out as I got up and brushed off my clothes.
"Oh. Hey alistar. Welcome to nowhere.." Wolfenstein said.
So thats were those guys went! They came here aswell. But, where is here anyway? I looked at the doors. One had a mushroom, the other a hidden blade. They seemed familiar.
"Yeah..what now?" I asked.

Naturally as a true gamer, I touched yes on the touch screen. From there, I don't know what happened. I woke up in the room from my dream, the one with the pedestal and ten slots.

This was different however, because there were ten doors surrounding the pedestal, which I assumed each represented a different world; a path to whatever it was fit into the slots on the pedestal.

Kyra, Alistair, Wolfenstein and Kolee were all there as well.

"What are we doing here? More importantly, what is this place? I mean, I remember seeing it in my dreams, but..." I said, until Alistair interrupted me.

"I SAW IT IN MY DREAMS TOO!" She excitedly said.

From there, Kyra, Kolee and Wolfenstein all agreed. Could this truly be a coincidence?

"We're missing someone. Alex. We should wait until he arrives." Kyra said to us all.

[EDIT: Sorry Death Jester, it lapsed my mind when I was posting this.]

I was the last one, all friends were gone, and currently being in the scared persona I tucked my self into the fetal position and sucked my thumb. The minutes rolled by, even with time stopped I could feel them passing. That's when I finally felt it, my phone vibrating, another personality shift hitting me as I opened it up. I was now Draco East, or the brave, courageous, noble, naive, perverted, ego maniac.

"Hehe. This looks like fun.” I hit ‘yes’ and was spirited away to some other realm. The others were there but I took no notice, my eyes were glued on the mushroom door. I walked forward courage radiating from my very step. I stopped when I reached the door. There were no handles, knobs, or anything that could be used to open it. I reached forward to touch but stopped just a centimeter from it. I turned to my friends.

With a voice so deep and full of confidence (so much in fact that an idiot could tell this was another personality) I said "Well, my friends, I would oh so enjoy freaking out with you............BUT, there is an adventure to be had, and who are we to pass it up?" My newly acquired ego was proving itself as an iron wall against weirdness of it all.

“Come on, you know you want to.”

"Yeah I think some of us figured that out." I said "Now it's either we're on the edge of 10 game worlds , or someone moved us to a room which will represent the game worlds. Incidentally, we could all just be inhaling diesel fumes and this might all be a hallucination. Or maybe it could be a combination of the last two?" I said looking up trying to imagine that. Everyone looked at me weird.

"What? You know the school janitor's generator runs on diesel and the fume pipes run through the school. Do not ask how I know that." I said "But either way. We gotta open a door and go through. So which door do you all wanna go through?"

By this time Alistar looked like she was freaking out, Ralph looked confused to christ and Alex looked sort of speechless at the complexity I have made of everything instead of his simple "Lets just pick a door. Idea." which what my rant amounted to in the end.

Oddly Kyra didn't look that phased. I walked around looking a the different rooms until my eyes rested on Alistar "Why is only one side of your face red?" I asked.

Alis shot a good-natured, but still accusing glare in my direction to answer Wolfenstein's question. I remember that I had smacked her when she started screaming something about murderers waiting to tear us to shreds. I really need to work on my people skills.

That's okay. Wolf (I'm too lazy to think out his full last name) over there needs to work on his public speaking; everyone who I could see looked either bewildered or just plain gone. Then again...I'm not really one to criticize others' speaking abilities. Wait, an interesting thought just occured to me...

"Hey, Wolfenstein, you got a first name?" I ask him.

He looks like he's going to answer, when Alex interrupts with a voice so cocky that I would swear it was coming from another person, "Well then, Mr. Charisma, if you think that it's such a great idea, then you go first!" Alex then proceeds to hold his arms out as if directing Wolf to the door.

I suddenly realize that I should probably be panicking. I have no idea where I am, what I'm supposed to do, and I barely even know the people that I'm stuck here with. Then again, I'm sure that I've come across stranger occurences beween my friends, the XBox, and the kitchen. And as to the doors... I've opened and shut plenty of doors in my sixteen years. why should this be any different? Granted... it may not always be the RIGHT door...

With both Alex and Wolf hesitating by the door and having a battle of egos, I roll my eyes and step forward. I'm always stuck being the mediator and caretaker. why should now change anything? I open the door and look inside.

"Anyone here up for a game of Super Mario Bros?"

Alex was the last to arrive. He was getting accustomed to his surroundings just as we all were when we first arrived here. Slowly he got up off the ground and dusted himself off. I went over to offer him some help, but he said that he didn't need any.

I walked to the center of the room, checking my cellphone to see if it had any reception whatsoever, but it wouldn't even turn on. I thought that maybe there was a magnetic field interrupting the connection from the battery to the phone itself, but it had to be something different.

My DS wasn't turning on either, and I knew I had charged it fully the night before.

"Why isn't anything turning on?" I said to myself, when Wolfenstein came over.

"You shouldn't be worrying about that right now. Look around you, look at all these doors!" He said as he spun around with his arms spread, as if he was a realtor showing me the majesty of a new house I was about to purchase.

"I noticed the doors. They weren't here before, in my dream. The pedestal was only here." I responded.

Annoyed, he walked away, back to the door with a mushroom logo atop it. I slowly approached it as well, and I could feel a power radiating from behind the door. I couldn't wait to see what awaited us. What would we find? Could we come back here? More importantly, could we ever go home again?

These questions were to be answered at a later date, I suppose. Slowly we all started to gather in front of the "mushroom" door. I could only assume this had something to do with the "Mario Bros" series that I cherished and loved as a child.

"alright, c'mon." I call. "It's not like we have anything better to do." I look around the empty space pointedly.

I walk through the door and feel an odd sensation that makes my teeth tingle, sort of like walking through electricity.

"Whoa! I'm in 8-bit!!" I exclaim, looking at the blocky and fingerless appearance that my hands have taken. then I notice that my voice has barely any...well...voice to it. it's more like a series of beeps and humming with some vocalized sounds thrown in.

I hear some of the others enter, talking the same way as me, and I can still hear them clearly. cool beans. Then I notice someone approaching behind me. it's a man with a red jumpsuit and hat who makes funny noises when he jumps.
Yep. it's Mario.

In the pedestal room I was looking around, to make sure that everyone was still present. But as I turned around I realized that someone was missing. While the others were conversing, I was searching for whoever it was that was gone. Kolee, Alistar, Wolfenstein, Alex... who was gone? And then I remembered seeing that the Mushroom door was opened. It must have been Kyra that went through. I followed her footsteps.

As I walked through the doorway, something overcame my body. It was inexplicable. I had no control over anything that was happening to me. I felt no pain, but I knew something was happening, transforming me. When I came to and finally regained control again, I opened my eyes. What I saw was breath-taking. A new world. And then I finally looked at myself. I was flat. Completely and totally flat. I still had perfect 20-20 peripheral vision, and total control of my body, but I was flat.

I slowly grew accustomed to this, when I finally turned to see Kyra waiting by the door. Without saying a single word to each other, we basically confirmed that we were both thinking that this was the beginning of a long adventure.

Slowly but surely the others ended up coming through the doorway.

2 people were missing and a door was opened in the room. No one else noticed yet, funny, when people go missing the group never seems to notice, or at least I thought. "They must of just went to check it out, I mean we had to pick at least one door. So I shrugged and simple ran into the room on the other end of the door. Suddenly a felling I couldn't describe came over me and in a flash I was 8-bit and my voice was no longer how it should of been instead was simple bleeps. I saw two people I suppose it was Kyra and Alex but they were 8-bit so I could really tell.

I tried to speak but bleeps came out. I grinned for a moment and tried to make the most of it. I started to bleep the theme song from Mario perfectly, then I went into the Pokemon battle music, including the really fast bleeping before a battle. I then bleeped in Morse code saying "Cool." hoping that one of them knew what I was saying. "So what now?" I bleeped.

"Wait a minute here," I as in Draco said "Three of our number is missing and you don't notice! Feh, I'll be seein' you losers on the flip mode."

I rush toward the door, it opens before me and just as I pass though I yell "I AM A GOD, FOR A BLACK STA-----DRACO!!" When I go though the door I feel this, this electrical shock course though my body. It was invigorating, I could see myself transforming too, First my clothes changed from by usual white jeans and trademark black jacket to white overalls and a black shirt, I also got this nifty (black) hat with a D on. Cool.

But then I started to get all flat and blocky, as well as personality shift so radical and extreme, I as in the Draco personality, felt that if my comrades didn't notice by the end of the level, they we all morons. All of them. Any-bah-oocky, my D (all though you can't see it now) turned in to an H and hit the ground. More specifically Kyra.

I, as in Harold not Draco, quickly got off Kyra saying "Oh my God, Kyra! I'm so, so, so, so sorry. Please don't hurt me?"

I looked at the door.
"...I have to go through that door aswell, don't I?" I moaned to no one in particular., and drooped my head. Well, here it goes..
I ran through the door, and suddenly a white light flashes across my eyes, blinding me. My whole body started tingling. Ya klnow, like I had got an electric shock. Or something. I felt myself shrinking, until I hit hard onto the floor of the next world. I got up shaking my head...my very thin 2-d head
I jumped up, and a weird sound came out of no where
"...What was that!?" Instead of hearing my own strong voice i heard some weird fuzzy distorted voice. "And..and..where am I? Whats up with my voice?! And OH MY GOD WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME!?" I shrieked (or beeped) looking down at my blocky body. I looked around my surroundings. Then it hit me.
"...We're in a game." I slowly said. The others noddeds and clapped sarcastically at how slow I was at understanding this. I looked up and saw a black strip across the sky. It said how many points we had, how many lives, and any special items.
Mario's theme tune kicked in.
I sat down. I squeezed my eyes shut. "Please be a dream please be a dream.." I opened my eyes quickly, expecting to be back in the cafeteria. I was still stuck in mario world. I sighed getting back up.
"It isnt a dream." Wolfenstein said.
"Really." I sighed again. "Well..we're in a game..I guess we're here for a reason. To play it?"

"No!" I answer sarcastically, rolling my eyes. Alis looks a little bit embarrassed and hurt. I wish I could kick myself, but my blocky, 8-bit legs are too short. I don't intend to be mean, I just come across as rather abrasive to some people.

I'm about to apologize to Alis when Alex barrels straight into me from the side. I should probably explain that I'm not the fastest of people. I can withstand quite a bit, and one of my other friends says I've "got the pain threshold of a gladiator", but my gross-motor reflexes suck. Hard. I'm the kid who can run cross-country for 45 minutes at a relatively constant speed, but I'll lose in the 100 meter dash.

Anyway, Alex runs into me and knocks me to the ground. I land flat on my back with him on top of me.

Awkward...

After a brief moment of what appears to be shock on his part, his entire facial expression changes and it's like he's a whole different person again. He jumps up, almost doing the "Twitchy-face" (as I've deemed it) that my friend Connor does, and shouts shakily, "Oh my God, Kyra! I'm sosososo sorry!" He pulls his arms up as if he's ready to pathetically shield his face. "Please don't hit me?"

Huh. That's odd, I swear that I just saw the letter on his cap change from a "D" to an "H". Then again, I did hit my head pretty hard on the ground...

"So, anyone got any idea what we're gonna do here?" I look around. Ralph is totally spaced out with this stupid grin like a kid in a candy shop. Alis looks like she wants to say something, but is afraid I'll get [censored]ed off after my last little outburst. Alex, who was looking around rather nervously, twitching like a crack addict going into withdrawal avoided eye-contact.

"Man, what is wrong with you?!" I hear myself shout before I can stop. Y'know that little filter that keeps you from doing or saying things that your conscience wouldn't approve of? yeah, I don't have that. Ever. Like, permanently on vacation with the occasional postcard telling me that I've done or said something horribly and irrevocably wrong, and it's too late to do anything about it.

Alex looks at me, rather startled. I don't know why, but that [censored]es me off. I hate it when guys are scared of me. "Did you not hear me? One second you're all 'I don't wanna talk to you', then you're all macho and cocky, and now you're being such a twitchy little wuss that you'd fall over if someone looked at you wrong! Do you have MPD or something?! God!"

I was overreacting. I knew that I was, but as I went on, I was still observant enough to note Alex getting more and more nervous. He was fidgeting and looking around at everyone else, then back at me, as if asking me to stop. Then, when I said the MPD part, he just stopped and looked at me with wide eyes. That struck home. He looked like he was going to say something, but then he practically wilted as he turned his gaze to his feet.

"Wait..." I just received another mental postcard. "Alex... do you actually... I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking..."

"Where am I?" I said to myself. All that I can remember is that we had all entered into the Mushroom door, and our bodies had gone through a weird transformation. But now as I look around, I'm separated from the others. I'm in some sort of dungeon, on these weird stone blocks.

"Are those coins?" I looked up to find Two-Dimensional oval shapes, rotating slowly. I got up off the ground and reached up to one. As I touched it, I heard some strange noise. It was bizarre.

Looking for a way to escape this "dungeon", I only saw one thing. It was a green... pipe? The opening was just big enough for my new body to fit through. It looked like the only exit, so I grabbed the rest of the coins, and crawled through the pipe with the thought in mind that I may be able to find the others.