Bethany saves Alex's life.
Alex landed the helicopter in a clearing atop a small hill as its fuel supply reached zero. He couldn't believe it - he had actually passed the canyon level at last.
Behind him, Spencer, Martha and Bethany were whooping with joy at their success. The girls were fawning over Spencer and his incredible feat of fixing the helicopter in flight.
"Aw, thank you," said Spencer modestly, "but he was amazing," he insisted, pointing at Alex. "Our pilot - you killed it!" he declared.
Alex was having none of it. After all, he was only a pilot, but Spencer was the action hero. He joined the girls in showering praise upon the man-mountain.
Their game of praise ping-pong was suddenly interrupted by Fridge. "Excuse me?" exclaimed the tiny man indignantly. "Excuse me! I'm the one who was a human sacrifice!"
The zoologist blabbered on about how it had felt like to be trampled by rhinos, but Alex wasn't paying attention. He was just too happy to finally see the other side of that confounded canyon.
He removed his leather jacket to celebrate, and took a moment to appreciate the lush scenery all around him. It was a sight he had never expected to see in two decades.
He turned towards his four new friends. He would never have made it here without them, and he wanted them to know how much it meant to him.
"Guys, I've been trying to get across this canyon for like, twenty years," he cried. "Do you realise how huge this is?"
Just then, Alex heard a familiar buzzing noise around his neck, and instinctively slapped it against his nape. It took him a second to process what had happened, but then it became terrifyingly clear.
"Mosquito!" he gasped in horror. He didn't have time to say another word before his world went black.
The next thing he knew, he was awake and gasping for air. He opened his eyes to see bright sunshine above him, blue sky, and Martha.
Wait, Martha? Alex's confused mind tried to make sense of what he was seeing. He got bitten by a mosquito, which meant that he was dead. If he was dead, this must be the afterlife. But if this was the afterlife, why was Martha, of all people, here with him? Shouldn't she be back in Jumanji with the others?
Alex tried to sit up, and realised that Martha was not alone. He glimpsed Spencer and Fridge standing nearby, and realised that this was no afterlife - he was still in Jumanji. He was still alive and playing in Jumanji. How?
"What happened?" he asked Martha in bewilderment.
"Alex," Martha told him breathlessly, "Bethany gave you one of her lives."
Alex couldn't believe his ears. With Martha's help, he picked himself up off the ground, and turned around to see Bethany lying beside him, exhausted.
"Bethany, are you okay?" he heard Spencer ask her. "I think so," she replied.
"Bethany, is that true?" he asked her in amazement, helping her off the ground as well. "You gave me one of your lives?"
Bethany gave a dismissive shake of her head, telling him not to bother about it. "I mean, yeah, of course," she replied with a silly smile.
"Thank you!" Alex exclaimed, wrapping his arms around her. She had literally brought him back from the dead, sacrificing one of her lives to do so. He did not know how he could thank her enough.
In that moment, a childhood memory from Sunday School came back to Alex. In it, his teacher was telling the class the story of Jesus Christ raising Lazarus from the dead. He suddenly remembered the name of the location where the story took place - the village of Bethany.
Alex laughed. He supposed that Bethany was truly well-named, and that her heroic action had just made him Lazarus. He had never expected to see the light of life again, but this brave girl had given him another chance to continue playing. He vowed to find a way to repay her someday.
How many lives did each of them have now? Bethany now had one since she donated her second life to him, Fridge had one after being sacrificed to the rhinos, while Spencer and Martha both had two each. Which meant that three of them now had to be extra careful and not lose any more lives if they wanted to get out of the game alive.
Still, Alex had hope. After all, he had managed to pilot the helicopter safely through gunfire and the canyon (twice!) with just one life remaining. But he hadn't done it alone. They had managed to pull through because Spencer had been present to fix the helicopter. Alex realised that if he had attempted the chopper flight alone, it would likely have resulted in failure for him once more.
Together, he told himself. Only together did they stand any chance of beating the game. His mistake had been to try and go it alone, and he had lost two lives in the canyon as a result.
But things were different now - he now had four real friends in the game with him, and they needed his help as much as he needed theirs. He supposed that with the right amount of skill and luck, there was a good chance that all of them could actually win and go home together.
Alex joined the others as they all trekked towards the river to find drinking water. It would be a while before they found the next stage of their mission, and he was determined to enjoy the break while it lasted.