“I told you to stop playing!” my father yelled at me from down the hall.

“What could MapleStory possibly do to me?” I replied, irritated. “But fine...”

My father had never really cared for me playing online games. It was like he expected me to invite a total stranger over to my house, then ask them to kidnap me.

“I wish I could just play without his permission... It’d be cool if I could just be in it...” I thought, my imagination wandering off to a sci-fi version of first person games, like it often did. All of a sudden, the world seemed to shake, as if something were happening nearby that I didn’t know about. But no one else mentioned anything, so I pretended nothing had happened. I started walking toward my room when I realized I wasn’t in my house.

“H-hello?” I called out, hoping for - but not expecting - a friendly response.

“Ah, Asokha, have you captured the Stadium from the Horde yet?” some one asked from behind me.

“Um, no, not quite...” I replied as I turned around, confused.

“Okay. Well, tell me when you do,” she sighed.

“Is this...? No, it can’t be...” I said to myself, trying to make sense of what was going on. A pure-white griffin came down from the sky to land on the dirty, red, rocky ground that stretched in all directions. The person on it walked into a large, wooden building, which looked strangely familiar. I tried to figure out why something I had never seen before looked so familiar. Then I finally figured out where I was – Outland, a world from a game I played, World of Warcraft. And I was one of my characters.

“How do I escape? Do I find a flying mount and fly away? Do I use the Black Portal?” I wondered. I ran off to try both. I ran all the way to the edges of Outland to search for 22 gold – the amount I remaining for me to get training for my flying mount. I didn’t find gold, just Unyielding Knights – the ghosts of those who were once honorable but now ready to attack anyone living. One of them charged at me. Out of instinct, I did the only thing I could to defend myself – I fought back. As I fought him, my power grew. I tried to remember my abilities, then I finally used one of my most powerful ones to deliver one final, harsh blow through my heavy, steel sword, which had turned as cold as ice to power up my strike. After defeating my opponent, I summoned my mount – a black horse with blue flames around its hooves – and rode off toward the nearest town, Honor Hold.

On my say there, I stopped y the Stadium –an area that the enemy teams, the Horde and the Alliance, had been constantly fighting over – to claim it for the Alliance. Sitting next to the red flag, awaiting the moment it turned blue, I was attacked by a horde player – a warrior who had been encircling the area, waiting for a venerable Alliance character, like me, to come along. He came spinning towards me, and the next thing I knew, I was dead. I wasn’t completely dead, but I was a bodiless ghost. I headed back to the area I had died at and was revived.

I returned to honor hold to find a package in the mail containing just what I needed – 22 gold. I headed to the Griffin Master to train in riding, allowing me to fly on my own mount. After receiving this training, I hopped onto my Snowy Griffin, grabbed onto its pure-white, feathery neck, and flew away.

My first attempt at returning to the real world failed. I decided to try a different method of escape and flew to the Black Portal – a portal connecting Azeroth, the main world, to Outland. Entering it was as useless as my other method. I couldn’t fly on my own mount in Azeroth, so I took a flight to Darnassus, the main city for the Night Elves – a race of tall people with bluish to purplish skins and blue, green, purple, or white hair. All of the Night Elves shared a love for nature and had built their city around a large tree. I searched for anyone who might know something about how to get back home. Everyone took it as a joke.

I searched endlessly for some one who would at least take me seriously. And no one ever did. Since no one would answer, I never found any way out.

That is, until I woke up to find myself in front of my computer, where I was before ending up in an alternate world. Although it had felt like 30 years, only 30 minutes had passed. But when I logged in, I still had my flying mount. I closed my eyes and went back to the unique, first-person mode in which I was my character, not just playing it – but this time, I didn’t have to panic; I knew what was going on. And I set off for Honor Hold with a grin.