"So you're telling me that the Alan Parrish lives here?" Rogue asked and her nose wrinkled with distaste as she looked the mansion up and down.

Roni seemed to agree with her sentiment as her own lips twisted. "Not quite the rugged home you'd picture the legend living in, right? I guess I should warn you now that he's not quite the same person he once was."

"And I thought I'd left all the cryptics and mystics behind in the jungle," Rogue scoffed. "So you're telling me he's not the mighty warrior legend portrays him to be?"

Roni shrugged. "As far as I know, the mighty shoe wizard hasn't exactly kept his skills up-to-date."

"I understand each of those words separately," Rogue stated, "but for some reason when words are combined from your mouth they turn to utter nonsense."

Roni sighed. "Just take it easy when we go inside alright? I don't need you to give him a heart attack."

"You're just instilling my confidence in this man," Rogue retorted sarcastically with false enthusiasm.

"Imagine how I feel," Roni retorted, muttering under her breath as she approached the front door of her home. She reached out a hand to turn the handle, but hesitated as she considered how her family might react. She'd thought she was past the point of needing approval, but it's hard to outgrow a feeling that one never feels is satisfied.

Rogue's lack of patience won out in the mental battle as she pushed past the girl, twisted the handle, and threw the door open before marching inside. A panicked look crossed Roni's face, snapping her out of her minor trance, and she rushed inside to catch up.

"Mom. Dad!" Roni called out, sort of trying to warn them about what was to come. "I hope you don't mind that I brought a guest—"

As she stepped foot in the dining room, her words faltered. Rogue stood in the doorway, an unimpressed look of judgment plastered to her face. Meanwhile, both her parents had halted their conversation and now stared at the stranger in confusion. Roni would have jumped straight into a conversation; however, she hadn't expected to see her own brother seated at the table as well.

"Robbie..." Roni's brow twisted in confusion. "What—what are you doing here?"

The relationship the two had was quite bizarre. Not quite friends and not quite enemies, a statement that could describe most sibling dynamics. However, there was a minor touch of jealousy that created a feud of competitive nature between them at times. Roni often felt as if she had an impossible role model to look up to as her brother grew up with the title of "perfect child." Even now it was like he was showing her up as his shoulder length hair was neatly styled whereas hers was teased and tangled. His suit was nicely pressed while her jeans and jacket were torn to match her "edgy" style. While he was a successful lawyer living on his own, her major was still undecided.

"Robert always comes home for the holidays," their mother injected, answering for him. "Now who's this, Veronica?"

Her parents glanced between her and Rogue as if their daughter had simply brought home another bad influence. Apparently she would never live down the moment she was driven home by the company's president, Carl Bentley—no relation to Matt or his principal father—following a heist gone wrong that she'd devised with a couple of kids she'd been shoplifting with earlier. Of course it hasn't been right that they'd tried to steal her father's newest show line-up, but she'd hoped that she'd be allowed to outlive the mistakes of her thirteen-year-old-self.

Roni's eyes narrowed slightly and she no longer felt the need to ease her parents into the introduction. "This is Rogue. Have you turned on the news yet?"

Her father's brow contorted with confusion. "What news?"

Roni mostly managed to conceal the grin toying at her lips as she walked into the next room, picked the remote off the living room table, and turned on the television to the news channel. Her parents slowly migrated into the room, catching sight of the events captured from downtown.

"The invasion started right here at Brantford's up-and-rising brunch spot, Nora's, as a pack of wild ostriches escaped from the zoo earlier this morning," the reporter explained. Meanwhile, in the background, animal control warily loaded an unconscious lion into a crate. "There have been similar reports coming in from all around town. The local authorities are recommending that everyone remain in their homes while the situation is taken care of."

Roni allowed the television program to continue, turning down the volume slightly as she faced her parents. Their faces mirrored one another: pale with horror, as if relieving a nightmarish fever-dream.

Rogue scoffed. "This is the legendary Alan Parrish? A rugged warrior now quaking in fear."

Alan blinked a few times, snapping from his fixed trance on the tv. He turned toward his daughter, both disapproval and caution evident in his expression. "If this is some sort of prank, Veronica—"

"This isn't a prank, Dad." Roni frowned. The back of her neck was bristling, but she controlled her temper. Lashing out wouldn't do any good. Her friends were counting on her, and they were the only things making this interaction bearable.

"You didn't say Parrish was your father," Rogue interjected, crossing her arms.

"Some days he isn't," Roni retorted, eyes hardened.

"Would somebody please explain what's going on?" Robert finally spoke, trying to clear his own confusion.

"Remember this stories dad would tell us when we were younger?" Roni rhetorically asked her brother. He slowly nodded his head, unsure if he liked where the conversation was headed. "Turns out that Jumanji's a real place. I've been. Twice. Now the game's gone back to its original roots and seems to be trying to claw its way into our world. Rogue here was my avatar, the person I became in the game. Now she's here and I don't have any experience with this sort of thing in the real world, but you do, Dad. So you're the only person who might give us a chance of fixing this whole mess."

A stunned silence filled the room once Roni finished her explanation rant. Her parents were now sheet-white but slowly regaining color in their faces with each passing second. Rogue and Robert appeared similarly confused, neither really understanding anything she'd said.

"You went back into the game?" Alan asked.

"I didn't really have a choice," Roni rebutted. "That's not the point though. Look, are you going to help me or not?"

Rogue stepped forward, placing a hand on Roni's shoulder. "You have a fighting spirit, kid. It was a nice try, but I know a couple of yellow-bellies when I see 'em. There's two courses of action to take in this world: fight and flight. There's a time for each, but you've gotta know when. You can't enter a fight and expect to win when the rest of your team flees. Understand?"

Roni blinked, slowly nodded her head, then switched directions, shaking it to infer that she in fact did not understand.

"You need a team that's got your back," Rogue simplified. "I don't think that team is here. Let's go, kid."

Roni nodded and began to follow Rogue, but her father caught her arm as she passed. "This isn't a game, Veronica."

Roni pulled her arm away. "Actually it is, but I'm the only one here taking it seriously."

Alan opened his mouth, but instead of words, the familiar echoing of drum beats were heard instead. Alan and Sarah both paled, even Roni felt her face lose color. The world of Jumanji was enthralling, but part of its charm in her opinion had been that actions don't always need consequences. Before she could waste two lives without breaking a sweat. Now... she looked down at her bare wrist. She had only one life—the one she'd been living and been the least satisfied with—now was the time to make it count.

Robert was the only one unfamiliar with the drums. Although they didn't have the same impact for Rogue as the others, she'd heard the native song of Jumanji on a couple of her journeys, enough to recognize the tune.

"Do you guys hear that?" Robert asked, his brows knit together with curiosity as he walked back toward the kitchen. "Where is that coming from?"

Roni's eyes widened with alarm. As far as she was concerned, you should never walk toward the ominous sound of the drums. Every time she'd heard the steady rhythm, trouble always followed.

"Robbie!" Roni exclaimed, rushing after her brother, but she stopped in the doorway beside him, recognizing something new in the room. She tilted her head and for a brief moment the siblings looked like twins, sharing the same look of confusion as their heads were cocked in the same direction.

"I thought family game night wasn't until Wednesday?" Robert asked.

Roni nodded her head in agreement, stepping forward to look at the board game set out on the table. There was something unnerving about the intricately carved, wooden game... perhaps it was the title Jumanji, carved clear as day on the cover. A title marred by what looked like a large set of claws as three slashes interrupted the letters.

She knew better than to touch, but her hands acted as if they had a mind of their own, reaching out toward the game with their own sense of greed. She unfolded the cover, revealing the interior of the game just as her parents entered the room. Her mother gasped and her father rushed to her side, pulling her away from the game.

Roni's closed hands were trembling and she blinked as if snapping out of a trance. Her father bent down, keeping his hands on her arms as he looked her in the eyes with an unfamiliar sense of concern. "Are you alright? Did you touch anything?"

Roni shook her head, but froze mid-motion as she noticed that the board was already prepared. The four game pieces stood erect, ready to move at the roll of a dice. The drums echoed around the room, causing all four players to jump in fright. The palms of Roni's hands opened, and a pair of dice that she'd never picked up fell from her fingertips, rolling across the table. After a moment of tense silence, the obsidian crocodile token slid along the board, moving on its own.

Roni felt her stomach drop. The world felt as if it were moving in slow motion as her token creeped along six paces.

"Hell no," Rogue exclaimed, shaking her head as she finally entered the room. "I'll treasure hunt, and even kill a guy or two for the right price, but I draw the line at voodoo."

"It was waiting for us," Alan muttered his realization of horror under his breath.

Sarah quickly shook her head, her eyes wide as she turned to leave the room. "No, no, no. This isn't real."

"Mom," Robert caught his mother and held her back, looking between his parents and his sister with concern. For the second time that day, he repeated his question. "Would somebody please explain what's going on?"

Roni's eyes never left the crystal ball in the center of the board. "The game's begun."

Her answer did the exact opposite of providing clarity. Robert's face twisted. "What the hell does that mean?"

For a brief moment, Sarah snapped out of her frozen terror to chastise her son. "Language, Robert."

Alan tried to console his wife from across the room. "As long as no one else rolls, the game can't go on. You need more than one player."

However, he remained focused on the game board, pulling his daughter close to himself as if it might protect her from the horrors within the wooden box. Within the center of the crystal ball, green mist swirled around as golden letters jumped into existence.

Roni gulped, allowing her father's arms to remain wrapped around her as she leaned forward to read her fate. Her voice quivered with each syllable, "Don't stop the game you realize... Or one of you may vaporize."

"Alan," Sarah warily called for her husband's attention. "What does that mean?"

Alan shook his head. "That's a new one. I don't know."

Roni gasped and winced, struck with a sudden pain. She no longer possessed control over her own body, falling limp into her father's arms. He caught her with ease, kneeling on the ground to better support her.

"Dad," Roni trembled. "I don't feel so good."

Worry filled Alan's eyes as he looked his daughter over, searching for the source of her discomfort. It was sort of nice to know that he cared, she'd always assumed that her parents wouldn't bat an eyelash should she ever go missing; however, the fear present in her parents' expressions proved her wrong—and she didn't exactly mind being wrong this time.

Alan finally found what he was looking for, lifting her hand up into the air to reveal that her fingers were disintegrating, like dust blowing in the wind—looking similar to the moment she was sucked into Jumanji the first time around, only Roni wasn't being pulled toward the game.

"Somebody else roll!" Alan exclaimed.

"You just told us not to roll!" Robert replied with the same tone of panic in his voice.

"It's the only way to stop it," Sarah whispered under her breath, coming to the same realization that her husband had just a minute prior. She lunged toward the table, scooping the dice up into her hands, then rolled them onto the game board as she rushed to her daughter's side.

Although Robert had remained behind, stunned and lost, he took a second to clear his head then crept toward the game as the keratin rhino piece moved ahead two spaces. Rogue followed behind him begrudgingly.

The pain that had radiated throughout Roni's body receded and gradually she stopped trembling. She exhaled, realizing a breath she didn't even realize that she'd been holding. Warily, she lifted her hand up in front of her face, wiggling her fingers. As her mother had taken her turn, Roni's hand had been restored as if it had never disappeared in the first place. For a brief moment, it looked like everything was alright... that is until the walls began to shake and cracks tore through the wallpaper.

"They grow much faster than bamboo," Robert read the new set of words as they appeared, "Take care or they'll
come after you."

As if experiencing deja vu, Sarah and Alan looked at one another simultaneously before shouting out instructions to their kids in unison. "Everybody away from the walls!"