Disclaimer: All rights belong to the creators and writers of Julie and the Phantoms (2020). I take no credit, and I do not mean to break any copyright rules. This is simply a work of fiction made for enjoyment. No money is being made.

Rating: K+

Author's Note: My semester is over so hopefully I'll be able to do a lot of writing during break! I have another Juke story in the works, which I hope to have posted by the end of the year and I'm working on a couple others for different fandoms, which I also hope to post soon.

Chapter 12

They reach the base of the mountain by early afternoon. An hour later, they reach the top of a hill where Julie's map had ended. When they look over it, they're shocked into silence by what lies beyond.

A white sand beach stretches out in front of them. Crystal blue and green waters shimmer in the sunlight. In the distance, just a green mass, is an island.

Julie pulls out her map. The boys all crowd around her shoulder as the final section unveils itself. The path leads over the water and ends on the island.

"That's it," Alex says. "Look. It has a symbol for the statue."

"So we just cross the water, find the statue, and stick the emerald in the hole?" Luke asks. "Seems simple enough to me."

"It can't be. Caleb must have all sorts of traps set up around it, not to mention that he'll be there himself to defend it." Julie rolls her map closed and sets it back in her canister.

"The good news is that we all have one life to spare," Reggie says. "If we all rush him at once, he won't be able to kill us all at the same time."

"There's no way it's that easy. He probably has an army of men waiting for us." Julie starts off in the direction of the beach. The others follow at her heels.

Though her avatar isn't as fast as Luke or Reggie's, her determination drives her forward. The sooner this is all over, the better. They've all come too far now to turn back.

A part of Julie had been hoping that there'd be a boat for them on the beach, but she's also not entirely surprised when there isn't. She and the boys first strip off all their heavy furs and boots, which they don't need anymore, and then set to work gathering driftwood.

They use their remaining rope to lash the driftwood together. The final result is a crude raft. If the island were any farther than it is, Julie wouldn't dare try it out, but she's the one pushing the boys to work harder and faster.

"Jeez," Reggie says when he takes a short break. "It's almost like you don't want to spend any more time with us."

"That's not it at all," Julie protests.

"Are you sure?" Luke asks. "'Cause I'm getting that vibe, too."

Julie reaches into her pack, grabs a marker, and then takes Luke's arm. She writes out a series of numbers. "There. My phone number. Proof that I'm not trying to get rid of you. Call me when we get out of the game."

Luke grins and shakes his head at her. "Nice try."

"What?"

"This isn't my body. When we get spit back out in the real world, my arm will be blank."

Julie rolls her eyes. "Then memorize it."

"She's probably got a date with that Nick kid and she's eager to be out of here," Reggie teases. When she doesn't answer, his jaw drops. "Oh, she does!"

"I see you've been busy when you're not in the game," Alex says, smiling at her. She ignores them and tightens the last knot on the raft.

"Okay. I think we're good to go."

Alex, Reggie, and Julie pile on, Alex and Reggie holding roughly-fashioned oars and Julie holding a her walking stick. Luke hesitates on the beach.

"What is it?" she calls. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet."

He shakes his head. "My character's weakness is water. Until we step foot on the island, I'll probably be worse than useless."

"It's just water, I think we'll be fine."

Luke reluctantly pushes the raft out into the water before climbing on. He sits in the very middle. His face turns pale and green and Julie realizes that his avatar is seasick. They're barely bobbing and he's already out of commission.

Reggie and Alex slowly row them towards the island. The water beneath them gets darker. Julie dips her hand in and is surprised by the frigidness. She's just pulling her hand back out when something bursts from the surface and flies towards her face.

She lets out a shriek and crawls back as far as she can on the small raft. She watches the sea creature as it floats in the air for a second before falling back down. It looks like a harmless fish except for the large fangs extending from its mouth, as long and thick as her fingers.

She tightens her grip on her stick. The raft bobs precariously from her jerky motions. Alex and Reggie exchange worried glances and Luke holds his stomach and stifles a groan.

They're halfway between the beach and the island. They just have to survive for a few more minutes.

Julie thinks the fish might be gone because there's absolute silence for a few seconds. Then all hell breaks loose.

A fish comes flying out of the water right at her face. She swings her stick and whacks it back into the water. Another one flies at Reggie and he uses his oar to knock it away. A third one flies right over Alex's head as he ducks at the right moment.

The piranha fish start flying from every direction. One lands on the raft, flops over her way, and takes a bite out of her ankle. She picks it up with her bare hand and chucks it away. Her leg stings but she ignores it as she waves her stick around, trying in vain to knock all the fish away.

Julie remembers belatedly that her avatar's weakness is fighting. There are too many fish and while Reggie and Alex are slowly getting them closer to the island, they're still too far away.

A horrible idea occurs to her. Julie knows the boys won't like it - heck, she hates it herself - but she sees no other choice.

"Keep rowing, no matter what!" she shouts at Reggie and Alex. "You have to get to the island."

Alex's head whips up. "Julie - "

She doesn't wait for him to finish. With a deep breath, she stands and leaps off the raft into the water. For a few seconds, all is quiet and peaceful as her dive takes her deeper underwater.

Then the fish surround her. They latch on, their fangs sinking into soft flesh. Julie screams, her voice nothing but bubbles as she sinks farther and farther into the ocean depths.

A few minutes later she falls from the sky, landing on the soft sand of the island. A few feet away, the boys are ditching the raft and sloshing onto the island. The piranha fish swarm the raft, taking it under with them. Other than a few bleeding bites, the boys are fine.

"What the heck, Julie?" Luke shouts when he sees her. Then he doubles over and throws up on the sand. Luckily they haven't had very much to eat today. While he succumbs to sickness, Reggie and Alex pick up his train of thoughts.

"You just - fed yourself to the fishes!" Reggie exclaims. "That's the kind of idea I would come up with! And there's a reason why we never listen to my ideas!"

Alex crosses the distance between them and grabs her arm. "Are you okay? The fish got me a couple times - I can't even imagine what it would be like…" he trails off.

Julie takes a deep breath. Yes, she had suffered, but it had ended rather quickly. She doesn't want to dwell on those dark moments in the water any longer than she has to. She flips up her wrist and sees the two black tallies.

"At least if I die again, I can just reset the game. If I hadn't jumped off the ship, all of you would be on your last lives right now." She draws herself up. "I did what I had to. Now let's go replace this stupid gem and get out of this stupid game."

"Oh, that hurts."

The strange voice causes all three of them to whirl around. Standing at the treeline is a tall, dark-haired man wearing a black suit with a black cape and hat. He smiles at them.

"Caleb." Julie spits out his name like a curse.

"Yes. It is so nice to meet you all. Now tell me, how have you been enjoying my game?"

Luke stomps forward, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "Not at all," he says, stabbing his finger at him. "Now let us out."

"Oh." Caleb frowns. "I'm sorry to hear that. I thought the kids like video games these days."

"Not anymore," Reggie says.

"Well, I hate to be the cause of that." Caleb clasps his hands together in front of him. "It's an intricate world, though, isn't it? I put a lot of thought into it."

"How about you put a lot of thought into letting us go?" Alex suggests. "We'd be very appreciative of that."

"Hmm." Caleb thinks for a moment. "No, that wouldn't be any fun. You guys are the best players I've seen in years. I've enjoyed watching your progress." His dark eyes turn to Julie. "And you, my dear...I've heard the most interesting stories about you."

Julie is so sick of this game. She's never met this man before, but if he's the one who created it, then that's all she needs to know about him. She steps forward until she's right in front of him. He frowns a little.

"Well I've only heard one story about you and it didn't turn me in your favor. I'm about to give you one more story about myself to remember for the rest of your miserable existence." She grabs at the machete at her belt and whips it towards him. He jumps a step back, his eyes widening at the sight of the blade. "Now get back. We're getting out of here."

Caleb sneers at her. "We'll see about that." He waves his hand and he disappears. The boys gasp in surprise, but Julie simply motions for them to follow her as she takes off at a run through the trees.

The statue comes into sight ahead of them. It's huge, about thirty feet tall, and almost completely vertical stone. The gap for the stone is at the top, where the statue's eyes would be. She has no idea how they're going to get up that far.

"If anyone has any ideas, I'm open to hearing them," she says. She turns to face the boys.

"It might be a moment," Reggie says. All around them, black-uniformed men are closing in. Reggie's hands curl into fists. Luke grips his machete tighter. Alex holds an oar out.

Julie's mind spins, trying to find a way out of this. For the first time, she can't. There are too many men. Even if Luke and Reggie could take them all out, they still wouldn't know how to climb up the statue and retrieve the gem.

Her eyes dart to a tree near the statue. "Luke, can your character climb?"

"A little!"

"Climb that tree and try to leap from it to the top of the statue!" She unzips Reggie's pack and pulls out the glowing gem, tossing it to him. "We'll hold the men off down here!"

Luke hesitates for a second. She can see in his eyes exactly what he's thinking: But your weakness is fighting! It doesn't matter. She's not any better at climbing and that's what they need in order to get the gem up. If Luke can't succeed here and now, they'll have to restart the game. Even if they can make it back here in a timely fashion - and that's a big if, because it took them nearly three weeks to get here in the first place - Julie still doesn't know what they could do differently to defeat Caleb and get the gem in place.

Julie holds out her machete and swings it in front of her. She tries to make her face look intimidating, but she has no idea if it's working. If it were her own face she knows Caleb's men would pause, but she only has a vague idea of what Rebecca Cho's face looks like.

She stands back to back with Alex. Reggie turns on his berserker mode and moves around, twirling and swinging and taking down men with powerful kicks and punches. He takes down two men for every one that she and Alex together take down, but it's still not enough. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Luke reach as far up on the tree as his weight will allow. It sways dangerously as he tenses, readying to jump. The gem is tucked under one of his arms like a football.

Behind her, she hears a crack and Alex falls down. He returns a moment later, falling from the sky right on top of one of Caleb's men. The men with guns have had enough of all this fighting and are ready to take matters into their own hands. Luckily the guns they have are single-shot and old fashioned to fit the theme of the game, but they're still deadly.

Julie hears another crack, and this time she's the one falling in pain. The bullet hits her side and knocks her to the ground but doesn't kill her. The pain washes over her again and again. Her eyes blur and for a few seconds she can't see anything. All she can do is curl up on the ground, clutching her side and squeezing her eyes tightly shut.

When she finally pries her eyes open, the scene is like one from her worst nightmares. She watches as Luke leaps from the top of the tree, reaching out for the statue. His fingers just barely grasp onto the edge as the rest of his body swings over the open air. He strains to pull himself up and there's another gunshot. The stone right in front of his fingers explodes and he lets go. Julie looks away as he plummets to the ground.

Reggie is covering Alex now, more than aware that he's on his last life. The knowledge burns itself into Julie's mind. As much as she hates to admit it - and she truly does - they can't beat this game. Not here. Not now. Not like this.

If all the boys are going to survive to try again, she has to act before anyone else dies.

She frees one of her hands from around her side and swipes through the air with bloody fingers, unlocking her menu. Her hand shakes so hard that she can hardly control it, but she forces herself to.

She punches the option for restart game.

"Flynn?"

Julie sits in the darkness of the garage, the only light coming from the screen of the old TV. Her dad and Carlos are already in bed and she'd snuck out after she was sure they were fast asleep.

On the other end of the line, the voice is groggy and coarse. "Yeah?"

"Thank God. I need you."

Flynn's voice immediately clears up. Julie can imagine her sitting up straight in her bed. "What is it?"

Julie hesitates. She knows Flynn is going to think she's crazy. She isn't entirely sure she isn't crazy herself.

"Remember that thing we were talking about today? The thing I couldn't tell you about?"

"...yeah."

"I want to tell you about it. I need your help. But I can't talk over the phone. Can you come over?"

"Julie, I'd do anything for you. You know that. But it's midnight!"

"Please? I'll pay for the Uber myself. This is really important."

There's a sigh at the other end. "Only for you," Flynn says. "I'll be over in twenty minutes."

"Good. Don't come to the house - I'm in the garage."

"Julie, you're kind of freaking me out right now."

And I'm kind of freaking out myself, Julie thinks. "I know. I'm sorry. I'll explain everything."

Julie sits in the darkness, her leg bouncing up and down uncontrollably. She can still feel the pain from the gunshot wound in her side. Her heart is still racing from the action. In her mind, she can still see Alex being shot, Luke falling, and Reggie being swarmed by a dozen men. She wonders if she can get PTSD from this game. She also wonders if she's making the right decision by bringing in Flynn.

Getting her best friend involved in this nightmare is the last thing she wants, but Julie realized something as she lay on the ground, slowly bleeding out. She realized that Caleb knows what they're capable of now and will be better prepared for their next try. She also realized that there's a reason for all the avatars. The boys couldn't navigate without her, the cartographer; they wouldn't have survived in the wilderness without Alex's nature skills and they wouldn't have survived the men chasing them without his animal knowledge of starting the stampede to cover their retreat; they wouldn't have survived the assassins in the woods or held off the men on the island without Reggie's berserker mode; and they wouldn't have made it anywhere without Luke's leadership instincts. They were so close to winning and yet they were missing the last piece to get that stupid gem in the stupid statue. Whatever that piece is, Julie is certain it has to do with the last avatar.

There is another avatar in play in the game, though. Julie had seen it as being taken but it wasn't one of the boys. She wonders who it is and what they're doing. Whatever the case, she hopes it isn't the final piece they need. They were so close that she can't imagine they'd need all six.

Exactly twenty minutes later, Flynn is knocking lightly on the garage door. Julie lets her in and leads her up to the loft. Flynn takes a seat on the floor next to her.

"Okay," she says. "Talk."

Julie shakes her head. "You're not going to believe it unless I show you." She picks up a controller and hands it to Flynn before taking her own.

Flynn stares at it. "A video game? Really? That's what all this is about?"

"This isn't just any normal video game." Julie takes a deep breath. "It's going to be confusing at first, but I promise that I'll explain as we go. We'll meet the others, and they'll explain, too."

"Explain what?"

"Jumanji."

Julie hits the start button on the game. Instead of taking them directly to the jungle, it stops first at the avatar selection screen. Only one is left unclaimed - a guy named Brad Wilson.

"Seriously?" Flynn asks. "I have to be a white frat boy?" She sets down her controller. "Julie, you're really going off the deep end. I'm calling your dad."

"No - wait. Please. Just one game. If you don't understand after that, then you can tell my dad everything."

Flynn holds her eyes for a minute. Then she picks up the controller, selects Brad Wilson, and everything around them goes dark.