Unplugged

Chapter Ten

You are now half-way through this story. Time for intermission!! :D

Felix finds himself in a familiar place. It's the game Fix-It Felix Jr. The apartment building's here, the lake, the homes Felix built for the gameless guys- everything's here. Felix looks around with his eyebrows scrunched in a confused expression.

"But... this game was unplugged..." Felix says to himself.

"Since when?" a voice asks. Felix turns around and his mouth hangs open. Ralph's standing there right in front of him.

"Ralph!" Felix exclaims. He throws his arms out. "What are you doing here?? I thought this game was a goner!"

"It's not a goner yet, buddy," Ralph sighs. "This Tuesday Litwak's gonna pull our plug, remember?"

Felix frowns, "Wait, what?"

"This Tuesday it's game over for our game," Ralph repeats.

"But, our game already got unplugged this morning."

"What are you talking about?" Ralph scratches his head.

"What are YOU talking about?" Felix throws back.

"Felix, you must of been imagining things. Our game's right here. I'm right here."

Felix looks around and then looks back at Ralph. He doesn't understand. When his plug got pulled this morning, it seemed so real. It couldn't have been his imagination.

Then the ground suddenly shakes, and Felix loses balance for a moment.

"What was that?" he asks.

"I don't know," Ralph answers. Then the ground shakes a second time, and a strong wind begins to blow. Ralph shields his face with his arm from the wind, and Felix clutches the back of his head so his hat doesn't fly off.

"This is bad," Ralph says. He glances at the apartment building and his eyes widen. The building is transforming into pixels and it's dissolving into code at a decent speed. "We gotta get outta here!" He shouts over the wind. Then he starts sprinting to the game's exit and Felix follows him.

Objects in the game start to dissolve around the two men at an incredible speed. Everything's vanishing into code as the winds grow stronger and the ground trembles beneath them.

A huge piece of the apartment building falls several yards in front of Ralph and Felix. Felix easily jumps over the massive piece of the building as Ralph punches his way through the walls.

More parts of several other buildings from East Niceland begin to fall to the ground. Ralph smashes his way through the rubble and punches objects aside while Felix jumps and flips over them.

They make it to the cord to Game Central Station. Ralph and Felix pick up speed as they sprint as fast as they can down the tunnel.

"We're gonna make it, brother!" Felix shouts. The two can see the light from Game Central Station at the end of the tunnel. But they don't seem to be getting any closer to the station. They feel like they're not making any progress no matter how fast they run.

Then it happens. The plug is yanked out of the socket and a huge shock wave comes speeding down the tunnel straight for Ralph and Felix. The force hits Ralph and he goes flying back to the collapsing game.

"Ralph!" Felix calls. Then he himself gets sucked back into the game as well. The light in the tunnel now gets farther and farther away until Felix can only see darkness.

He's still soaring through the air. Felix looks below him and he sees the ground breaking apart, revealing a bottomless dark abyss. There's no sign of Ralph, which leaves Felix all alone. Then his heart skips a beat because he's no longer flying. He's falling.

Felix screams as he plummets down into the abyss. He keeps falling and falling. The light fades away until everything's pitch black. Then he screams even louder because a sharp pain erupts from his waist. He immediately turns to pixels and dissolves in thin air before breathing his last breath.

"AUGH!!"

Felix quickly sits up in bed. His breathing's heavy and he's drenched in sweat. He hesitantly looks around and notices that he's no longer in Fix-It Felix Jr. He's in Tamora's bedroom, and beside him in the bed is his wife-sound asleep. The room's dark and quiet. All Felix can hear is his heavy breathing. He feels his face and legs and everything. He's not turned to code. It was all just a bad dream.

After a moment to pull himself together, Felix buries his face into his hands with his shoulders jerking up and down as he sobs.

So, to make things clear, Felix had a nightmare about his game getting unplugged. He experienced what Ralph and the Nicelanders went through in the dream. It was awful for him, so it must have been awful for them.