You are among the first to check out the first two chapters of my upcoming book, Trapped in a Video Game 5: The Final Boss! Enjoy, and look out for the full book in a few weeks.

Chapter 1: 10 Minutes to Save the World

Ten minutes is not a lot of time.

Let’s say I order you to do something fun in the next 10 minutes. Your life depends on it. Time starts now. What do you do? You can’t finish a TV show in 10 minutes. You certainly can’t watch a movie. Ten minutes isn’t enough time to go to the neighborhood swimming pool, round up all your Nerf guns, or convince a friend to play Go Fish. (Also, Go Fish is not fun.)

Maybe you decide to watch something on YouTube. Cool. YouTube only has five billion videos. Choose wisely—your life depends on it. Uh, how about this one where a guy eats a ghost pepper? OK, you click on it. A 30-second ad plays. Then the guy starts rambling about his Instagram account. You begin sweating because you’re not even close to having fun yet. You click ahead—oh no! Too far! He’s already screaming! You try going back to the spot where he puts the pepper in his mouth, but time’s already up. You’re dead.

My point is, if 10 minutes is not even enough time to do something fun, it’s CERTAINLY not enough time to save the world.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Mr. Gregory was asking us to do. A billionaire named Max Reuben had built a video game universe and was about to use Mr. Gregory’s technology to suck every human on Earth inside. That includes my baby cousin Olivia who can’t even hold up her own head yet, my Aunt Dianne who HATES video games, and my 88-year-old neighbor Mrs. Gardino who leaves her house exactly once a week to go to church. Max actually stole the name for his event from church. He was calling it the “Reuben Rapture.” It was going to be bad. And according to the calm, Siri-sounding lady counting down as I teleported back to Mr. Gregory, it was going to happen real soon.

“Ten minutes to Rapture.”

I finally landed in Mr. Gregory’s lab on the 56th floor of Max’s office building. “What happened?” I asked as I rubbed my head.

“HE STARTED THE COUNTDOWN AND LOCKED ME OUT, AND I DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP IT!” Mr. Gregory shouted as he typed like a maniac on one of his five keyboards.

“Huh? Who? How?”

At that moment, Eric appeared on the ground. “What happened?”

“AHHH! I DON’T HAVE TIME TO EXPLAIN AGAIN!”

I tried to get more information. “Mr. Gregory, are you saying that Max found a way to start the Rapture on his own?”

“THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I’M SAYING!”

“How do we stop it?”

Mr. Gregory took a second to breathe, then turned to face us. “From the inside.”

My heart started pounding.

“I control all the computers in this building. I’m sure of it. The only way Max could have started the countdown was from inside the Reubenverse.”

“So we have to find him in there?” Eric asked.

“And destroy his computer,” Mr. Gregory finished.

“Nine minutes to Rapture,” Siri Lady reminded us.

Now I started to panic. “How are we supposed to do that in nine minutes?!”

Mr. Gregory rummaged through a toolbox on the floor while he answered. “Time moves slower in video games, remember? Nine minutes out here is nine days in there.” He pulled out two watches and plugged them into his tower.

“No, but like, where is he? What does his computer look like? How do we destroy it?”

“I don’t know any of those answers.”

“WHAT?!”

Mr. Gregory unplugged the watches and handed them to us. “These are synced to the countdown. They cannot . . . ” his voice cracked. He closed his eyes and tried again. “They cannot reach zero. Please.”

Eric strapped on his watch and looked up at Mr. Gregory. “You’re coming with us, right?”

Mr. Gregory sighed. “There’s one more thing you need to know. Max’s network is nowhere near ready to handle this. The closer the countdown gets to zero, the hotter it’s going to get in there. If the Rapture actually happens, there’s a good chance that the system will overheat and everyone inside will cook. If I . . . ”

“Eight minutes to Rapture,” Siri Lady interrupted.

“. . . If I stay back, I can at least buy you a little extra time by shutting down power to other parts of the building with that breaker box.” Mr. Gregory pointed to a large metal box in the corner of the room.

I looked at Eric uneasily.

“Listen, you two don’t have to do this. Even if you do find Max, there’s probably nothing you can do. But . . . ” Mr. Gregory covered his face and shook his head. “There’s no time for anyone else to help. There’s just no time.”

I wanted to step up and reassure Mr. Gregory that everything would be OK because Eric and I were just the heroes for the job. I opened my mouth to say something brave, but all that came out was, “Uhhhhhh.”

“WE’RE IN!” Eric said, marching toward the Reubenverse double doors.

I followed after Eric. “One sec! What about . . . ”

Eric held up his arm with the countdown watch. “We don’t have one second!” With that, he threw open the doors, crouched down, and jumped into the swirling red light.

I looked back at Mr. Gregory, who seemed to be on the verge of barfing. “I’m sorry” was all he could say.

I crouched in front of the door like Eric had done and took two quick breaths. “Do you at least know which planet this door leads to?” I asked over my shoulder.

“It’s totally random.”

With that terrific news, I closed my eyes and dove. The last thing I heard before tumbling into the Reubenverse was Siri Lady.

“Seven minutes to Rapture.”

 

Chapter 2: 10 Welcome to the Reubenverse

“Welcome to the Reubenverse,” Siri Lady chirped.

I opened my eyes to see that I was free-falling 5,000 feet above a desert landscape. I reached back, hoping to find a rip cord or jet pack or squirrel suit or something. Nothing. Uh, not good. I flapped my arms, hoping that maybe this was Planet Fly Like a Bird. It was not. Then, I noticed Eric below me. He was falling too, but his fall looked like it was on purpose. He rocketed toward the ground in a Superman pose.

“ERIC! WHAT’S THE PLAN?!”

He didn’t hear me.

“ERIC!” I tried again. “WHAT . . . AHHH!”

Eric smashed into a pile of rocks. Turns out, he didn’t have a plan.

“NONONONO!” I clawed at the air like a cartoon character. Have you ever had a dream where you’re falling off a huge cliff? You always wake up before you hit the ground because your body gets too scared to let you finish the dream. Let me tell you, your body is smart. The end of the dream is the worst. I closed my eyes right before I hit the ground, felt a quick, sharp pain, then heard Siri Lady speak again.

“Welcome to the Reubenverse.”

I reopened my eyes to see that I was back to tumbling 5,000 feet above the ground. Eric was just below me. “SLOW DOWN!” I yelled. Eric spread his arms and legs so I could catch up.

“THIS IS SO COOL!” he said. “DOESN’T IT FEEL LIKE WE’RE FLYING?!”

“NO! IT FEELS LIKE WE’RE FALLING!”

Eric flapped his arms. “IF YOU DO THIS, IT FEELS LIKE YOU’RE FLYING!”

I grabbed Eric. “HOW ABOUT WE FIGURE OUT A WAY TO SURVIVE SO WE DON’T HAVE TO KEEP DOING THIS!”

Eric rolled his eyes and pointed left.

I looked over. The land ended in a cliff, and a wild ocean beat into the rocks below. “ARE YOU SERIOUS?! YOU CAN’T SURVIVE . . . ”

SMASH!

“Welcome to the Reubenverse.”

Of course it’s impossible to survive a 5,000-foot ocean dive. But you know what’s even more impossible? Surviving a 5,000-foot cactus face-plant. I sighed, linked arms with Eric, and steered toward the ocean. When we were 50 feet above the water, I let go and angled my body into a dive.

SPLASH!

It worked! I couldn’t believe it! I’d splashed instead of smashed! I cut through the water probably 50 feet down, then started swimming upward. While I swam, I looked for Eric. There! He’d landed 20 feet away, and he was swimming up too. Before I could get too excited, though, I noticed a shadow appear behind Eric. A big shadow. Like a whale-size shadow. Suddenly, the shadow came into focus, and I screamed.

“BLUUUB!” (That’s an underwater scream.)

The prehistoric-looking creature opened its mouth, revealing approximately 200,000 teeth. Before I could “blub” a warning to Eric, the monster swallowed him whole. Then it opened its mouth again and . . .

“Welcome to the Reubenverse.”

“THAT WAS WORSE THAN HITTING THE GROUND!” I yelled to Eric as we fell again.

“MAYBE IF WE SWIM FASTER!” Eric suggested.

We tried swimming faster. It did not end well.

“Welcome to the Reubenverse.”

“MAYBE IF YOU DISTRACT IT WHILE I SWIM TO THE SURFACE AND FIND A BOAT!”

Perhaps you can guess how that went.

“Welcome to the Reubenverse.”

“WE COULD TRY MAKING FRIENDS WITH IT!”

“Welcome to the Reubenverse.”

After getting eaten by the dinosaur whale-shark four times in a row, we were both a little over the whole Reubenverse thing. The fifth time, we just fell silently and let ourselves get eaten without fighting it. Maybe this was going to be our fate—getting eaten over and over by a dinosaur, waiting for the world to join us in the worst video game ever made.

“WHAT IF WE BANANA?” Eric asked.

I shrugged. Bananaing was what the teenagers did when they jumped off the waterfall near our house. (Actually, it wasn’t a waterfall. It was a drainage pipe that dumped stormwater into a creek, but whatever.) As soon as they’d hit the water, they’d bend their body into a banana shape so they wouldn’t dive down too far since the creek was so shallow. It worked for a while, and then of course some kid got hurt. The city put up a big fence around the pipe and a sign that  read “NO JUMPING!” with a stick person cracked in half, which is the kind of sign city hall has lying around when your town has a lot of teenagers. Bananaing doesn’t really work in real life, but then again, neither does skydiving into the ocean.

As soon as I hit the water, I bent my body into a banana shape and fell only 10 feet underwater instead of 50. I righted myself and swam for the surface like crazy. After just a few strokes, I made it! I cheered when I popped my head above water and instantly realized how pointless this all was. What were we supposed to do now? Climb the cliff? Eric’s head popped up a few feet away.

“We made it!” he shouted right before he got sucked underwater by the giant dinosaur again. I cringed and waited for the same fate, but something different grabbed me. Instead of getting sucked underwater, I suddenly swooped into the air. I looked up to see that I’d been snatched by a pterodactyl. “Woo-hoo!” I cheered, marking the first time in history that any creature has been excited about getting snatched by a flying death dinosaur. I looked up just in time to see Eric appear below the clouds. “Over there!” I pointed as if the pterodactyl could understand me.

The pterodactyl did not understand me, but it looked up anyway, and when it saw Eric, it squawked. We zoomed up to Eric, then the pterodactyl swooped under him and caught him.

“Woo-hoo!” Eric cheered, marking the second time in history any creature has been excited about getting snatched by a pterodactyl. Eric grabbed the dinosaur’s shoulders. “I think I can steer it!” Eric leaned left, and the pterodactyl flew right. Eric pushed down, and the pterodactyl flew up. Eric pulled back, and the pterodactyl got mad and tried to shake him off. “OK, maybe I can’t steer it.”

We were along for the ride wherever the prehistoric bird decided to go. Unfortunately, it decided to go to a nest full of smaller, hungrier prehistoric birds on the side of the cliff. Eric and I both screamed when we saw the squawking, snapping pterodactyls waiting for their meal. Then I sighed. It was OK. Once they ate us, we’d just go back to falling again. Maybe we could . . .

I suddenly stopped breathing. Sitting quietly on the side of the nest was something much more dangerous than a video game dinosaur.

It was a Hindenburg.