Joe was hanging onto the ledge trying not to let go due to his cramping fingers.

“You cannot die here you piece of shit,” he mumbled to himself.

He used all the strength he had left in him to pull himself up enough to use his elbow for support. Once he had one elbow, it was easier to get up from there. He wedged his feet into the rocks to push himself all the way up.

“You are still trying to get past this level man?” Joe’s roommate, Claire said.

Joe flinched from not expecting Claire’s interruption and because of this, his character in his Jungle Terror video game tripped and fell down the cliff. The words ‘YOU DIED’ in all red popped onto the screen.

“Seriously Claire? You knew I have been stuck on this damn level since last Friday,” Joe bemoaned.

“I know but I am bored and want to go out and do something. You have been so cooped up in this room trying to beat this dumb level or whatever and you should take a break from it for at least one night.”

“I know but I am really trying to get past this, once I do then I am all yours. Even for a whole week if you want me to.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep sir. You should hurry up then and not die.”

“Easy for you to say. And if you want me to then get out and stop interrupting me!”

“Okay, sheesh. I will leave you to it then and come Monday, I will be barging back in here to hold you to your word mister gaming nerd.”

“Okay I gotchu. Imma try my hardest to get past this by Monday. I was literally about to before you came in here.”

“Yeah sure you were. Imma go to the bar then without you. Have fun with your silly game.” And with that, she left his room closing the door behind her.

Joe looked back at his screen and pressed the retry button. He got as fast as almost reaching the top of the cliff again, but no matter what he did he was not able to get to the top. It was fail after fail until he finally saw the sun rising outside of his dorm room window. He had to get up for class in the next two hours, which meant no sleep once again, but it was not something new for him. He decided to turn the game off for the time being and try to get an hour of sleep.

“I wish I could go in the game because If I was in the game myself, I knew I would win this bullshit,” he babbled.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep. Little did he know that he was not going to be waking up in his bed.

The next morning Joe woke up and shot up, immediately realizing he wasn’t in his dorm room anymore. He was surrounded by trees and the noises of wild animals in the distance.

“where the fuck?”

He stood up to get a better look of his surroundings and then it clicked, “This isn’t really happening.”

He was indeed inside of his video game. He knew he asked for this but it never occurred to him that it could actually happen. It was indeed some type of movie shit to get stuck inside of a game.

“Am I dreaming? Nah this seems to damn real and this is the exact Spotify respawn at when I die. Welp onward I go.”

He continued forward through the trees and came across to the high mountain he has to climb up. He wasn’t sure how he would actually make it up there since he doesn’t have any serious climbing experience other then the one time he went rock climbing for a school field trip. He looked for the edge where he would always start and placed his foot on it. He lifted himself up and thus began to climb. He finally got to the top and was hanging from the ledge trying not to let go due to his cramping fingers. ‘Damn this hurts more than it actually looks in game,’ he thought to himself. He used all of the strength he had left to pull himself up enough to use his elbow for support. He wedged his feet into the rocks to pull himself all the way up and he had no distractions this time.