They had lost control of the game right after Zaidan had started screaming and then everyone burst into action, running in every direction through the woods.

Mike stared at the chaos unfolding around him warily, but not surprised. He had warned Tony that twenty players were too many. It wasn’t going to be like the garden variety tabletop they played at each other’s’ places every other Sunday afternoon. It’d get out of hand; kids would appropriate it as a BYOB and there’d be mayhem. He’d predicted something like this would happen, though not on this scale.

Kids were dashing around, and then, just as quickly, the area was relatively quiet again, the dust settling, leaving just Mike alone with Tony. Mike and Tony were best friends, but they could not be more different.

Mike was short for his age, fair-haired, but broad and had a deep, flat, somewhat monotonous voice. Tony, on the other hand was taller, skinnier, with brown hair, glasses, and his voice had a tendency to whine at an upper register when he shouted. Tony was a classic nerd. Mike was also, but he loathed the stereotype and went out of his way to distance himself from it. Apart from his short stature, he looked more like a jock but had no affection for that stereotype, either. His flat electric black-eyed stare and low, level voice gave him a slightly autistic air, but he was quick to anger if anyone messed with him. If you could pick Tony out of a crowd for his height and cheerful grin, you could pick out Mike from a crowd by his loud, discordant sarcasm. Some people avoided him, suspecting he was bitter or even misanthropic. It wasn't that he didn't like people, but was bored easily by them.

From way off, some kids’ voices echoed about vaguely, like a sound effect in a haunted forest. There was a whistling call from another direction, possibly beckoning, but it could just as easily been a bird of some kind.

“Chase!” Tony yelled out, looking around. “Adam!”

He looked back at Mike, disappointed.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Chase was Mike’s other friend, but they weren’t ‘close’ close. Mike thought Chase could be a real blundering idiot sometimes. So his absence – his getting caught up with the rest of the rushing crowd – didn’t bother Mike as much as it should have.

And as for Adam, well, they technically weren’t that close, either; he was more Tony’s friend. It was clear to Mike that Adam had a pretty thinly disguised hard-on for a girl called Madison – his head spun around any time she passed – and Mike (not one for heightened emotions) found that level of infatuation for a girl embarrassing. She was stunning, but came off like a high maintenance princess and there was a joke that followed her around campus: How is Madison like the sun? Typical answer: She’s hot. Correct answer: She goes down.

Not that he’d had much to do with her but in his opinion she came off like a high maintenance princess. He liked quiet girls who didn't get in his way or talk back, and gave him space. He didn't think it was sexist to believe a girl had to know her place; and in his opinion that entailed happily volunteering the driver seat to the man in every conceivable decision. In return, the man opened the door for her, pulled her chair out, and so on. If he felt like it. If that was old fashioned, well, then call him grandpa.

But who cared about the other boys now– they’d all run off. So much for loyalty and solidarity. Just for staying put, Tony had gained a bump up in Mike’s respect. Then again, it was Tony’s game; so it would’ve been truly sad if he’d run off too.

“Did you know this would happen?” Mike asked.

Tony had moved over to Zaidan, who had now been transformed into a human size stone statue, screaming in soundless terror. He was inspecting him warily, but his eyes gleamed with delight, like a child seeing their first magic trick.

For the time being, Mike had no interest in the statue, or where the others had gone. He just wanted to know what was going on. Winning this thing would be cool, too. It would shove it in everyone’s face. The collective insanity only a second ago was even kind of funny, to him.

“No,” Tony said, now moving away from the Zaidan-statue and looking down at the game board. The both watched in silent fascination as the pieces started to move on their own, one after another, like they were taking turns.

“You see that?” Tony said, pointing at a glass bubble in the center of the gameboard. “The pieces move as you walk around. And you see the green words? It does that when someone gets a Conjuration Card.”

Mike craned his head but the words had vanished. Whose turn had that been, just then?

“I hope Casper and friends are having a blast,” Mike said, referring to the supernatural movements of the game pieces across the board. His eyes continually jumped back to his own piece, the Knight, which hadn’t yet moved again since his original turn – the turn which, he now realized had transported them all here. He felt not a trace of guilt for it. And why should he? If anyone should’ve felt guilty, it should be—

“Tony,” Mike said, his eyes locked on him. “You said you’d played this before.”

Tony started back, his eyes wide and sincere. “I have! This has never happened. I mean, come on -- !” He laughed nervously. “Don’t you think I would’ve told you? But…” he paused in thought, “…I told you my uncle gave me this game when he died, right?”

Mike nodded. He remembered scrolling through eBay to see what the vintage-looking game was worth second-hand, but gave up after failing to find any such mention of a game called ‘GOOM’ on the internet – on eBay or anywhere at all. He assumed that meant it was worth peanuts, and forgot about it. Until now.

“Well,” Tony continued slowly, “before he died he said strange things happened if you played the game with a lot of people. That’s why I arranged this whole thing. I mean, I didn’t actually believe him because the medication he was on made him kinda, well, up in the clouds, but…”

“Did he tell you how to beat it?” Mike cut in unsentimentally.

“No,” Tony said quietly.

Mike took a long draught of the night air, which chilled his lungs. It had to be midnight (in this land, at least), or later.

“Well,” he said, “game’s not gonna beat itself. So let’s go.” He nodded down at the gameboard, where the pieces were sequentially coming to life, taking their turns. His own player, the knight, had jumped forward a couple of spaces since his first turn, but compared to the other pieces, a gap was starting to open up, putting him behind. He shared his space with Zaidan’s player, the ‘Beastmaster.’ There was only one other player piece behind his; which he assumed was Tony’s, which hadn’t even moved from starting position.

“Everyone else has started. We’re behind.”

Tony gave a cursory glance down at the game board.

“What player did you pick, anyway?” said Mike.

“The Wizard’s Apprentice. You think the game will just stay here and keep playing on its own?”

“I’m more concerned for us,” said Mike, not looking back.

They began to walk, briskly but silently, through the forest, which was mostly silent back at them. At one point, thunder rumbled in the distance, unseating a flock of birds from their treetop perches. Mike scanned the sky for a moment, but there was no accompanying lightning – anywhere. The thunder quickly faded as if it suddenly had a change of mind. Odd.

“Ah, the old ‘boomerang’ storm,” Mike offered dryly. “Seems to be racing right to you, then suddenly turns tail and disappears.”

It felt like they walked for hours. The scenery had changed little but the temperature was dropping gradually, and the ground began to crunch and squeak underfoot with the beginnings of snow. More snow could be seen up ahead, through the trees.

One their left, a green firework flashed way off in the distance. It whizzed up into the air, over the treetops, before curving gracefully back down towards the ground and out of sight. Could one of the other kids have done that? Mike wondered.

“What was that?” said Tony. “A signal?”

“Well, flares are red, so…no.”

In truth, Mike had no interest in investigating. He couldn’t get over how the firework had been totally silent; it bothered him. They wouldn’t have even noticed it if it hadn’t happened in their field of view. Not only that, but they didn’t know where they were, all they knew was that they had been heading in a straight line from their starting point. He was constantly trying to map their path in his mind. If they turned or diverted, that one certainty would be lost. It might’ve helped to leave a trail, or tie things around trees passed, but they had no rope or anything.

They kept going, but their pace had to slow as the snow built up on the ground, causing their shoes to sink a little with every step – shoes that were not appropriate for the environment. Mike could feel the sting of frigid moisture dampening his socks now.

The ground began to climb up. They dug their feet in, taking the hill straight up, and then beginning to zig-zag diagonally once the ascent became too steep.  Their faces were red and puffing big icy clouds with every labored breath. Every inhalation stung their lungs. Mike felt the sweat running down his sides prickling painfully as it began to chill.

Tony stopped suddenly, panting loudly.

“Hate to be ‘that guy’, but this was kinda sorta pretty dumb,” Tony said. “We’ve got to turn back. We’re going to freeze to death.”

Mike turned and looked back out at the path they’d made up the mountainside. Behind and below them, the forest reached out to the borders of the horizon. The sheer height of their current position startled him; he hadn’t realized they’d climbed so high.

“Hang on,” said Mike. “If we turn back we’re defeating all our progress. There’s got to be some way of going ahead.” He wasn’t yet ready to accept that a board game (realistic or not) could offer up lethal challenges. It was just a game, even if it looked convincing. Just a hologram with incredible verisimilitude.

In compromise, they found a small level outcropping of snow covered rock, where they sat down to think.

Within a few minutes, Tony’s wristband started flashing.

“It’s my turn,” he said uncertainly. His finger hovered over the screen indecisively. “One, two, three,” he chanted, “don’t turn me into a tree!” And he pressed the symbol on his screen.

Mike stared at him blandly, and Tony responded with a crooked grin. “Hey, the game likes rhymes, okay? Thought I’d try one of my own.”

“What did you get?”

“A Conjuration Card, of course. You get them every turn. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.”

Now there was a message on his wristband. It said:

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, now become your in-game double!

A cloud of green sparks suddenly consumed the air around Tony. Taking a step back, Mike blinked screened his face with a raised hand. When he looked again, it was no longer Tony standing in front of him, but some strange older man wearing some medieval shit: brown hooded robes, pointy shoes and fingerless leather gloves. He was also holding an ornate wooden staff.

“Whoa,” said the man, in Tony’s voice. “That was unexpected.”

“Tony…” Mike said. “What?”

Tony flipped his pointed hood back to reveal a bald head. “Hey!” he cried, running a hand anxiously over his scalp. “Not cool, game!”

Mike could now see it was Tony under all the authentic nerdy cosplay. Or, it resembled Tony, a slightly older, bearded Tony, looking less dorky and more authoritative. If it impressed Mike, he decided to not let it show.

Tony’s eyes widened with childlike excitement as he stared back at Mike.

“I’m my player!” he grinned, spinning his staff almost like it was some vaudevillian cane. Then he suddenly stopped. “Maybe I shouldn’t wave this thing around,” he said a little apprehensively, “in case it’s real.”

“Well, try a spell then.” Mike gestured up the mountainface. “Make a ski lift.”

Tony pointed the end of his staff at the incline. “Shazam!”

Nothing happened.

“Yup,” Mike said flatly. “It’s fake. Wouldn’t sell on eBay for $2.”

Tony brought the staff back upright, planting it against the ground. “No, I felt something. It vibrated. Like it was trying.”

“Yeah. Vibrated like a toy wand. I think I heard a cheap prerecorded sound effect, too.”

Tony wasn’t listening. He was concentrating on the staff head.

Then a finger of green flame appeared there, and, wavering a little, grew until it was as big as large adult hand.

Both boys goggled. Tony grinned.

“It worked! Yes!”

Mike’s jaw hung open. “What did you do?”

“I just thought of a flame, and it appeared!”

Flipping the staff around, he began to sweep it around over the snow like a metal detector, trying to melt the path ahead of them. The snow sizzled and steamed, evaporating as if the green flame was not fire, but lava.

“It’s powerful,” Mike said, feeling his breath short in his chest. Part of this was apprehension, but another part might have been envy.

Tony looked over his shoulder at Mike briefly.

“Come on!”

They carried up the mountain, following Tony’s trail of newly exposed brown grass and rock. As much as Mike secretly resented Tony’s fortune at being the magic wielder, he was grateful that at least one of them had it, as it made the trek undeniably easier. The rock was still slippery, but firmer under their feet than the snow.

“Hey,” Mike called out. “Give me a turn of that thing!”

“Just be patient,” Tony said, not looking back. “Wait until we reach solid ground again.”

But after only several minutes of journeying the flame suddenly extinguished, leaving the staff head bare again, and the boys stranded in the snow.

“Oh, no,” said Tony. “What happened?”

“Okay, it’s real,” Mike scoffed, “but it’s still cheap.” He sighed. “Guess it’s like one of those lame one-use-only weapons. Use and lose. Apply and bye-bye.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the staff,” Tony protested, running his hand over the staff end where the flame was moments ago. “The magic’s still there, I can feel it, it’s just – ”

“Tony, no,” Mike said impatiently. “It’s done. We wasted it making grass slushies.”

“No, it’s coming from me. The staff is just a conduit. Or a focusing lens. But I’m the power.”

Mike ran a hand over his forehead, feeling tired, rattled by what he was hearing.

“Is that your catchphrase now?” Mike said gruffly. “‘I’m the power’?”

“No, too ‘He-Man’. But seriously, I feed the staff energy, it’s just I’ve run out of magic energy.”

Mike turned his back to Tony for a moment, trying to survey the world below them through the screen of near opaque misty air. It was becoming increasingly difficult to determine how high up they were. And getting near cold enough to freeze the balls off a polar bear. He started to wonder what he’d do if he and Tony got separated somehow. The thought made a panicky chill ripple over him.

Tony was in a good position. He wasn’t. Bad enough that Tony got the staff. But that just meant he had to wait his turn to get to do Harry Potter stuff. But now it turned out the staff was useless after all – ironically, as he’d suspected – it was Tony doing the magic. That meant no Harry Potter stuff, period. Tony was the exclusive gatekeeper of the magic.

What luck. What a shitty game. Were there any cheat codes? Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right…etc. Yes, he was a sore loser, he knew it and made no apology for it.

“No hard feelings, Tony,” Mike patted his shoulder, “but I’ve always said your endurance needs work. Now, let’s move.”

Tony just stared. “What do you mean? We can’t go any further.”

Mike plodded on past him, crunching into the unmelted snow.

“There’s no other way.”

“There is another way. It’s called ‘back’.”

Mike shook his head emphatically, keeping his eyes on the ground. They had to keep going. He just felt it. If they kept going, the game would reward them with aid, like the magic. If the game made any sense at all, rewards would be proportionate to their progress – that was how the games he was familiar with worked. You did not get upgrades and gear from doubling back. You only wasted time and effort. Not to mention, it looked weak.

“Come on, Mike,” Tony whined behind him. “Don’t be a dumbass…”

Mike kept his feet planted in the ground, staring at Tony levelly. His cheeks were growing pink from the cold. “We’ll see who the dumbass is when I get my turn.”

“We shouldn’t go blindly blundering on. We don’t know what the penalty is if we lose.”

“I would rather lose than give up.” He turned and continued heading up the slope.

“Why don’t you work on some more magic? If you hadn’t shot your load so early, maybe we’d be up the mountain already.”

Tony watched as Mike took another several steps through the snow. Then he stopped abruptly, and Tony sighed in relief. But Mike did not turn around. He leaned back and said up at the sky:

“Oh, finally!”

His wristband was flashing. It was saying it was his turn. He turned around to see Tony standing there, giving him a questioning look.

Without a moment’s hesitation Mike punched the dice symbol on his flashing screen. It was kind of fun, he considered. Like some bizarre wheel of fortune.

Wiping the condensed mist from the screen with his hand, Mike raised thw wristband up to his face to read the message that had now appeared:

Grab your skis and hurry up, before the mountain catches up!

“What does it say?” said Tony. Mike read it out to him. Then, looking up, said:

“It rhymed ‘up’ with ‘up’. Lazy.”

However, Tony’s face had drawn tight with anxiousness. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Mike scowled. “Always the pessimist, Tony? How would you know? It sounds like it’s going to give us skis!”

Tony began to look around fearfully. “I think we need to start going back down the mountain…”

Mike pointed emphatically at the ground. “If we go down, then everyone will– ”

There was a muted rumble from further up the mountain.

They both stared at each other, stricken. They knew exactly what it was. From up higher, the snow was spilling over, beginning to reach down at great speed, tumbling, picking up volume as it went.

“—NOW!” screamed Tony.

Jumping to their feet, they began to run back down, but the hazardous incline and slippery terrain prevented them from sprinting. Tony staggered on the slippery ice, almost falling over.

“Quick!” said Mike. “Do something to get us out of here!” The next second, a pair of skis appeared strapped onto his feet. Tony’s too. Now they were both sliding down the mountain. Mike’s pulse jumped ahead at the shock of the abrupt sliding motion. Then it began to stabilize in relief.

“Why not take my cue from the card, right?” Tony yelled out, laughing, his brown robe flapping behind him.

Mike bent his body aerodynamically to pick up some more speed. Yet he was aware the noise was getting louder. It wasn’t enough, and he was going as fast as he was able, even recklessly so. If he took a tumble it was all over.

He looked over his shoulder briefly to find the churning body of snow behind them, much closer now – nearly on them. He looked sideways. Tony was aware of it too, he looked anxiety-stricken again. They met eyes briefly.

“I’m going to teleport us out of here,” he said, struggling to be heard over the fast encroaching din. “Ya ready? – three, two, one…”

What, no rhyme this time? Mike thought dryly. Then he felt a stab of terror. Tony had vanished. Mike had not.

“Tony!” he screamed. “You bastard!” Deep down he wondered if the spell had gone wrong – in fact, it must have, he was sure. Tony was a good guy, he wouldn’t ditch him deliberately. Or, maybe not, after all. The possibility of being ditched by his best friend incensed him. The next second the great wall of snow rolled over him like a stampede of rhinoceroses, and he wondered no more.

But, back at the game board, miles away, the green eyes of his game piece continued to glow…