The epilogue from Alex's perspective.

It was ten days before Christmas, 2017.

37-year-old Alex Vreeke and his family drove up to Alex's childhood home, with a massive Christmas tree fastened atop their vehicle.

Once they arrived, little Bethany Vreeke bounded out of the car and ran up the house steps to embrace her dear old grandpa.

As the rest of his family opened the car doors and got out, Alex put on a jacket and gently took his infant son Andy out of the car. "Dad, when you get a sec, would you give us a hand?" he called out to his old man. "Yeah!" Old Man Vreeke replied, as he went to help untie the large tree from the roof of his son's vehicle.

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex spied four teenagers standing nearby, staring at him open-mouthed.

For a brief moment, Alex wondered who they were, but all of a sudden, it clicked, and he remembered. Jumanji. The jungle.

Memories from long ago came flooding back to him. Could it really be them? he wondered. He had not been expecting this when he got up that morning. His four friends from the game - were they really here, now?

Alex quickly did some math in his head. 1996...twenty years...2016...2017... it's them! They're here! They're finally here! he thought in shock. Twenty years had flown by in the blink of an eye, and now his life with Spencer, Fridge, Martha and Bethany had come full circle.

"Hey, Dad, would you give me a second?" he asked his father, and the old man gave him leave.

Slowly, Alex walked up to the foursome, hardly daring to believe they were real. He could see them clearly for the first time. There was a scrawny Jewish kid in a yellow raincoat, a tall African-American hulk in a football jersey, a fly blonde chick, and a shy redhead in a pink beanie. They all looked like they had just come home from school. Alex mentally tried to match these kids he was seeing with the characters he remembered from the game.

Which one was Bethany? Almost as if in response, the blonde girl waved timidly at him. Alex paused, a little afraid of making a mistake. He pointed to the girl who had waved at him, and ventured: "Bethany?"

The girl beamed at him, and Alex knew he had hit the jackpot. His excitement growing, he turned to the Jewish kid. "Spencer?" he asked, drawing a smile from the boy as well. Next, he looked at the red-headed girl, and marvelled at how much she resembled her character in the game. "Ruby Roundhouse?" he asked with a wry tilt of his brow, prompting her to blush. At last, he turned to the black giant among them. "And that would make you Fridge," Alex finished. Fridge lifted his hands with a smile, as if to say, "Bingo!" and "What's up?"

Alex silently congratulated himself for his memory skills, and tried to find the right words to say. "I'm stoked to see you," he choked out. "All of you."

Bethany seemed as choked up as he was. "You made it back," she finally told him.

"Yeah, I did," Alex replied. "It spit me out right where I started, so...1996." There was a rueful tone in his voice. It was easy to forget, while they were all in the game together, that he was 20 years older than the rest of them. But now, that age gap was apparent to all, and was making their reunion bittersweet.

"And your parents..., and... your house?" Spencer enquired quizzically. Alex suddenly remembered that while in the game, Spencer and Fridge had told him that his dad had grown miserable and his house had become derelict in the timeline where he didn't come back.

"Oh, yeah, I did," he told Spencer reassuringly, pointing to the house, which was now pristine and decked with Christmas decorations. "All good, bro." Upon hearing this, Spencer gave a smile of relief.

Bethany spoke next. "You're an adult now," she said, her voice cracking. "You have a... family."

Alex did not miss the disappointment in her voice, and he knew exactly what she was thinking. They had both developed feelings for one another while they were in the game, but time had separated them between two decades. He needed to tell her what he had done for her.

"I do, yeah," he told the four quickly. He gestured to the infant he was holding. "This is Andy, and..."

He saw Fridge give Andy a wave, and he continued. "And then my daughter... my daughter's name is... Bethany."

Alex wished he could remember the look on Bethany's face forever. "We named her after the girl who saved my life," he finished.

Bethany seemed unsure of whether to smile, drop her jaw, laugh or cry. All she could do was grin from ear to ear and shake her head in wonder. Alex doubted if he had ever seen another human being look as overjoyed as she did right now.

Alex was feeling pretty over the moon himself. For the first time, he realised that his four friends had probably just emerged from the game, and were heading home.

So it was over, he thought to himself. This must mean that their game of Jumanji was at last well and truly over. He marvelled at how a single game had bridged a night in 1996 with this afternoon in 2017, and how it had brought together two generations of kids - kids who would likely not have found each other otherwise.

Alex chuckled to think about all they had gained by playing the game. He would not exchange this one moment with his old (or was it new?) friends for the opportunity to avoid the terror and torment of the jungle altogether. For the first time, he was truly grateful that his dad had found the board game on the beach.

"So stoked," he told them again.

THE END?