Disclaimer : I don't own anything from Jumanji.
Ok, I know I said, I won't write any Jumanji till the next movie but when your dream throw this kind of stuff in your mind you have to do something with it :).
So here we are... I hope you'll enjoy !
Bad day, crazy night
From, smashing her little toe on furniture few minutes after waking up, to forgetting half of her homework home so she's been full charged with extra homeworks from her teachers for the next week, Bethany was having one of those days where nothing seems to works, where all the planets are aligned to make you having a bad time, whatever you try. So, by the end of the day, she had accepted her fate and waited for the day to pass.
Even walking home, mother Earth seemed to have something against her. Half way, it started to rain as heavily that it was sudden.
- "Seriously!" she exclaimed as a car watered her, passing full speed on a large pool next to her.
She arrived home drenched.
- "Honey, what the hell did you do?" asked her mother when she saw her.
- "I woke up this morning." replied the blond girl with a tired smirk. "I'm going to bed."
- "You're don't want to eat something first?"
- "I won't take the risk. With the day I had today, I could accidentally stab myself to death with a little spoon."
- "But it's a bit early to go to bed."
- "I know…"
But she did anyway. After a hot steaming shower, she slipped on the large T-shirt she was usually using for the night and put herself in her bed. Strangely, she felt really tired and fell asleep almost as soon as she hit the pillow.
###
She woke up to the sound of her phone vibrating on her bed table. She blindly stretched her arm and search for the device. She cracked open one sleepy eye to see who was calling her. It was Martha. When she spotted the hour she let out a soft annoyed :
- "2am, seriously?". The sound of her own voice made her instantly regaining full consciousness. "Please, don't... don't..." she chanted as soft as she could.
Using the light from her phone was emitting, she raised up the quilt to discover exactly what she was afraid of. Oberon's body was fully occupying her night shirt.
- "Oh my god!" she whispered, hiding once more under the quilt. She answered the phone.
- "Bethany, I'm sorry to phone that late but I have a big problem." said her friend low voice.
- "Not big as mine." she replied. Martha kept silent a few second.
- "You too?" she finally said.
- "Well, it seems so."
- "What do we do? We can't go to school like that."
- "Well, school is not my first concern, right now. My largest T-shirt hardly covers my whole body..." she countered. "I can't go out at all... I'm trapped in my room."
- "Wait a minute, I've got an idea. I'll call you back."
- "Martha... I..." It was too late, her friend already had hung up the phone.
Bethany grumbled a little bit. She rolled herself up into the quilt and got up. She carefully opened her bedroom door and listened. Fortunately, everyone seemed asleep. Using her phone to light the way, she ventured out in the corridor and tiptoed to the utility room. In the pile of clothes to iron, she searched for her father's clothes. He was taller and slimmer but with luck she could find something she could dress with. Alas, there was not much in the basket and nothing she found fitted, except for a pair of socks she put in.
Reluctantly, she decided to return in her room. But, the moment she was going to leave, her phone vibrated, making her jump in surprise. She hid back and answered.
- "What?" she asked a bit dryly.
- "We have all changed to our avatar from Jumanji." came the muffled reply from Martha. "Fridge is going to Spencer with large clothes, I asked him to take some more for you. We'll call you when we'll be here."
- "Ok, thanks." Bethany said calmer. "And how is it for you?"
- "Well, Ruby is taller than me but she is thin. My clothes are a bit short but I can dress."
- "Do you have any idea of what happened?"
- "Nope… I just woke up like this." Suddenly, Bethany heard some noise coming from the hall. "Sorry girlfriend, I gotta go. I think my mom woke up."
She hung up quickly and listened carefully. The steps were coming in her direction. She had nowhere to hide and couldn't escape so, anxious, she waited in the middle of the room. When her mother entered and switched on the light, she tried her best smile, but that didn't work quite well as the blond woman screamed her lungs out.
- "Mum! It's me Bethany! I don't..." she exclaim trying to reach her mother witch made her scream louder - if that could be - and literally run away, closing the door on her face. "What is it with everyone tonight?!"
Bethany carefully opened the door as, once again, nothing was to be heard.
- "Mum? Dad?" she asked.
She was expecting more agitation after her encounter with her mother but the house was silent again. She went straight to her parents room and called them softly again through the door. She waited a few seconds for an answer. Nothing.
- "Mum? Dad? Are you there?" she asked louder. "Well, I guess it's a bad idea but what could be worse?" she told herself before opening the door. The room was empty. "What?! Mum! Dad!"
She searched the house and found out at she was all alone. The strangest thing was that nothing seemed wrong except her parents were not there. The front door was even locked from the inside.
- "What the…" her phone rang. "What?" she said a bit aggressively to Martha.
- "Wow! Would you calm down, please?"
- "Sorry... I'm on the verge of freaking out, right now. My parents have disappeared and..."
- "There are more urgent thing to assess right now. How long can you survive in your house?"
- "Excuse me?!" shouted Bethany
- "I thought we could arrive sooner at your house, but after we joined Spencer, we got lost. I don't know how but it could take a few days for us to join you."
- "Are you kidding me?" the conversation was surreal. "This is Brantford. I'm twenty minutes from your house at most."
- "Look outside." Bethany sighted but obeyed. She regained her room, then she lifted the curtain and picked a look.
- "Well, what should I see?"
- "You don't see anything strange?"
- "No. Everything is fine."
- "Ok so it means you're safe for the moment. I have to hung up now to spare the battery. See you soon." On that, Martha did indeed hung up the phone.
- "Well, this time she warned me..." said Bethany a bit taken aback by the conversation.
As she was replacing the curtain back, she saw - or thought she saw - a tall men in the dark in the lane, but it was just a shadow. She was maybe a bit nervous and beginning of imagining things. Then she sat on the corner of her bed, still wrapped in her quilt, and she waited.
- "My parents have gone. My friends are crazy. I'm maybe stuck in male body for good. If today was already a nightmare, tonight is turning to hell." She lowered her head in defeat and looked at her feet. " On the bright side, I have found a pair of socks." She shrugged.
She knew she should do something but for the moment she was just afraid that things would getting worse if she tried anything. Though, troubles found her anyway. She jumped and let out a cry of surprise as she heard something smashing against her window. She got up and looked through it. Her three friends were there in the lane, in the most ridiculous outfits. Martha seemed to wear clothes skrinked by a too hot bath. Spencer was wearing Fridge's football equipment and Fridge himself was floating in too large clothes and had a backpack which seemed also too big for him. She opened the window.
- "Why didn't you use the phone, like civilised people?" she reproached. "You could have broken the glass. And, what happened to the days you would get lost in Brantford trying to reach me?"
- "Get down!" required Spencer ignoring her.
Bethany was growing more and more annoyed by the general attitude of everyone but she obeyed. She got down the stair and tried the front door. The key was turning but it was still locked.
- "Hey guys! I can't unlock the door!" she screamed to them through the door.
- "Try the window." came Fridge's reply.
She entered the living room, but there were just walls. In panics, she tried the other rooms of the first floor. All the windows were missing. She ran up to her room and found with relief that hers was still there.
- "There is no exit!" she screamed in alarm.
- "You're in front of one. Get down!" replied Spencer still ignoring her distress.
- "Are you kidding me?! Even in my own body I wouldn't jump from there!"
- "This makes a little slide. I'm sure you can do it." said Martha pointing out the small part of roof under her window. Bethany looked at her friends with big eyes. "Come on, we don't have time! You have to get out, now!"
- "Well why don't you jump and join me up there? You're much welcome in my crazy house."
None of them replied. They just blankly stared at her. Suddenly, she heard a deep baritone voice behind her. She turned round and saw the large figure of the foreboding presence of Van Pelt.
- "No way!" She pushed herself up and passed the threshold of the window.
She felt the man grabbing her quilt. She pulled harder but she was caught in the momentum when Van Pelt let her go. She flipped head over heels out of the window and rolled freely on the small piece of roof. She screamed her lungs out when she fell from the first floor. Strangely, the impact was not as painful as she had imagined it would be but she was still a bit shakened.
- "Are you ok?" asked Martha helping her on her feet.
- "Miraculously alive." she replied.
- "Oh please!" exclaimed Fridge turning his head in disgust.
- "What now?" Bethany asked now deeply annoyed by the lack of consideration her friend had for her. Then she realised that the quilt wasn't covering her whole body. "Give me some pants, so I can spare your innocent eyes."
Without looking at her, he searched in his backpack and dropped a pair of jeans next to her. Bethany put them on quickly.
- "Why on Earth do you sleep without underwears?" asked Martha while she was dressing.
- "Don't you? It has to breathe, girlfriend." the red haired girl sent her an outraged look. "Well, and excuse me but right now, I'm pretty happy that I don't, so that dear Shelly is not in my panties." she replied rolling up the bottom of Fridge pants to adjust the size to her shorter legs. "Do you have any tops I could fit in more comfortably?" she asked pointing at her night t-shirt stretched on her body.
- "I'm gorgeous." read Martha out loud. "Really? Even when you go to bed?"
- "That's positive reinforcement thoughts. That's good for your ego."
- "Girls, we have no time for that. Van Pelt!" interrupted Spencer.
The tall man was uncannyly still, standing in the street, a few feet from them.
- "How did he…"
- "Run!" screamed Spencer.
- "Wait, I have no shoes!" exclaimed Bethany, joining the course nonetheless.
They ran for a few minutes ignoring the way. They were just escaping Van Pelt who seemed to miraculously cross their way all the time.
- "I have questions." said Bethany out of breath when they finally stopped. "First, why do we run when obviously the bad guy can teleport?"
- "She has a point here." notted Fridge, leaning against a wall.
- "Then, how did you manage to come that fast to my place after telling me it would take days?"
- "We did take days, even weeks. How did you manage to survive that long, by the way?" Bethany was first taken aback but then she began to understand what was hapenning. The increasing nonsense was begining to make sense, so she tried an absurd approach. "I almost starved for those two long minutes but I'm resourceful. I ate the couch, it's made of leather." she replied waiting for a reaction. There was none, as she expected. "I am dreaming?" she asked then.
- "Smart girl." said a baritone voice on her back. She turned round. Van Pelt was just behind her "They still have not figured it out. They think they are playing once again."
- "They are not real, aren't they?"
-"Well. It depends on your definition of real. Are dreams real or is it just this one?" Van Pelt smirked.
- "Either way you don't seem to control my reality very well, mister bad guy! So, Freddy Krueger, you better get out of our heads or I'll make you regret that you ever thought about getting here in the first place. Don't mess up with a girl that had a bad day."
Van Pelt was about to laugh at her but then everything went nut.
###
The next day, Bethany met Martha on her way to school. Her friend was visibly tired.
- "Hi there. Are you ok?"
- "Oh hi, Bethany. Well, I had an awfull night."
- "Really?" asked the blonde girl with an innocent grin.
- "I was trapped in Jumanji with you guys. We were back in our avatars and we fought in the jungle for weeks as it seemed. And then, I don't know how nor why, I was suddenly throwing fireballs with my hair. Fridge was bouncing around with his elastic limbs. Spencer was made of rock and wearing Fridge's football suit."
- "And me?"
- "You were generating force fields and doing some crazy stuff I wish I didn't remember 'cause you were in Oberon's body."
- "You know, you can only totally disappear if you're naked." Martha grimaced but didn't notice that Bethany just pointed a detail she didn't mention before.
- "You were calling us the Fantastic Four of Odd Fashion." she continued. "After that, it made even less sense. I can't even tell you. That dream just exhausted me."
- "Well, at least we defeat him, right?"
- "Yes, I guess… Wait, what?" exclaimed Martha, suddenly getting the implication. "That's impossible!"
- "As much as being stuck in a video game." Bethany laughed.
The end
Yes, I actually dream that stupid stuff hahaha! Well, to be fair, I dreamt until the "Fantastic 4". I made up what happened 'cause I woke up just after Bethany said "We're the Fantastic Four of Odd Fashion" ^^. I didn't see what they did, or their powers.
Have a nice day!
