Save the Princess

It was unfair. For over 90 minutes Alex had been playing now, pumping in quarters again and again, and now that the end of the videogame was near he could not find any more quarters. He had tried every pocket that was present on his body, tried the money slots from machines next to his, gave the person playing on the machine behind him his most pleading smile, but nothing helped. Not a single quarter was to be found, and the clock on the screen of the videogame machine told him he only had 35 more seconds to come up with the necessary funds, or it would be game over. So close, yet so far. For a substantial part of his life, which was now about 24 years long, Alex had been trying to complete this game. He first ran into it when he was ten, and his older brother Jack dragged him into the arcade, told him to shut up and started playing. The concept of the game was simple, and even little Alex could comprehend it: Enter The Castle! Slay The Dragon! Save The Beautiful Princess! It was simplicity itself and for the next half hour Alex watched as his brother Entered The Castle, Tried To Slay The Dragon, But Failed Miserably Time And Time Again. This happened on a few rainy Sundays, and even though Alex derived some pleasure out of seeing his older brother be this bad at something, he was silently hoping that he would for once slay that damn dragon and get to the princess already! Because even though Alex wasn't interested in girls yet, he was curious to see this famed Beautiful Princess. But his brother kept showing how fortunate it was that he wasn't born in the Middle Ages, and so Alex had to wait until he could afford the money for the machine himself.

When, at the age of 12, he inserted his first quarter into the game, he felt a shiver run up and down his spine, as he laid his fingers on the buttons and started steering the brave knight through the castle with the joystick. Immediately it was obvious to him that Jack had always been so bad for a good reason: this game was difficult! Not only did the dragon pop up around every corner, the beast had also filled up the castle with all sorts of devious traps. Dodge out of the way of a swinging blade and you would fall into a fiery pit. Jump over a bed of spikes and the floor at the end would disappear, making the knight fall to an even more unpleasant end. It seemed hopeless, but throughout the months that Alex played the game, he started to become more and more adept at it, slowly inching his way towards the centre of the castle, towards that beautiful princess. The only thing stopping Alex from reaching that goal was, ironically, a lack of money. His pocket money was never enough to last him for longer than twenty minutes and borrowing money from Jack was out of the question, cause he had by that time already spent his last cent on more modern and violent games.

"Why are you still playing that old crap?" Jack would ask Alex time and time again, but Alex never answered. He had a mission, and that mission was to save that princess out of the clutches of that darn dragon. Over the years his mission statement would be slightly altered, the 'darn' part changing to 'bloody' and then to more serious stuff, but he always kept pressing on. And even though, as he got older, his visits to the castle became less frequent, there was still a desire for Alex to finally catch a glimpse of that Beautiful Princess.

Admittedly, there was a long period in his life when Alex left the castle alone. He had a girlfriend, and to him she was princess enough to make looking for a fake one completely redundant. But then, a little over two weeks ago, the girl had dumped him for, out of all people, his brother Jack. Miserable and sad Alex had walked from the girl's home to his, and on the way there, passed the arcade. To his surprise the machine that he had spent so much of his money on was still there, and even though he did not have a quarter to spend on it, the thought of going back to his childhood days and relive those wonderful moments was strong inside him. He became determined to rid that castle of the dragon and finally meet the woman that he had been fighting for, for a good part of his life. And so, when this morning his pay check arrived, Alex went to the bank, withdrew all his money in quarters, put them in his backpack and went to the arcade. So what if he would not be able to pay his rent for this month? For once in his life Alex wanted to do something that would make him proud of himself, even if it was only completing some silly videogame.

So you can understand that at this moment Alex was feeling pretty low. He had reached further than ever before, needed to break down only one more door to reach the final confrontation with the dragon, but all his money was gone. Slowly but surely the reality of all this started to sink in. Not only did he not have any money left anymore, he also had nothing to be proud of. He considered pleading with the man who owned the arcade, but even though it was mostly thanks to Alex that the man could buy an extra expensive ring for his wife (and have change over for an extra beer after work), the man would be crazy to help him finally complete the game. He knew Alex would be back, and he also knew that his return would mean even more money for him! Now there were only twenty seconds left, and just as Alex let his head down and started to consider crying, he heard a voice.

"Hey, you've gotten that far? Wow! I have never seen anybody do that before!" Alex looked up and saw the prettiest sight he had ever seen. A gorgeous, brown-haired woman with blue eyes smiled at him and seemed to be quite impressed by Alex' achievement. For a short moment Alex did not feel so bad anymore. "You must be a hell of a knight to be able to reach the last door! How on earth did you do that?" Even though it was dark in the arcade, Alex thought he could see the woman's eyes sparkle. "I have been looking at people play this game for 14 years but this is amazing! There was once a kid who reached pretty far too, gave that dragon a hell of a fight, but."

As she stopped Alex wondered what was wrong. Did she notice that he had not blinked during the entire conversation? But no.

"You're that kid!" She grabbed Alex by the arm as if he was some long lost friend and for a second Alex had some mixed emotions. There was utter joy at the fact that this beautiful woman was for some unknown reason happy to see him, and then there was a little bit of fright for, well, the same reason. Come to think of it, the woman was dressed a little strange too, in a style that some of those goth chicks used to wear, the only difference being that this woman was wearing light colors and did not look at all like she was about to bite his head off any minute.

"You need to insert a quarter or it's game over!" The woman told him, but all Alex could do was shrug and say: "I'm all out of quarters." This seemed to shock the woman, and she walked up to the man playing behind them and asked him if she could maybe borrow a quarter so that Alex could finish his quest. At first the man seemed reluctant, but when the woman told him to "give him the quarter now or I will make sure you will never be able to play a videogame for the rest of your life", he swiftly reached into his pocket and took out a quarter that looked like it had been in that confined space already a bit too long. The woman took it and, just before the counter reached zero, inserted it into the machine.

And there Alex was, back in the middle of the action. The door was felled with two big blows and Alex could finally enter the room where the Princess was held. He wasn't able to see her with all the smoke in the room, but what he did see was a big fireball coming his way. He dodged it jumped to the left and ducked just in time for the dragon to fly right over his head, instead of straight through him. Alex could feel the woman clinging on to his arm and even though her touch and sweet smell made him feel a little woozy, he was still able to also avert the dragon's next three attacks. Now the beast was getting tired and it was less difficult for Alex to run circles around him, teasing his scaly hide with small pricks of his sword. The dragon became furious, and as the woman yelled out "Look Out!" the dragon made his final charge. Again Alex ducked, and this time he had a clean shot at the neck of the beast, slicing it through with one mighty swing of his sword.

And then it was over.

"You did it!" The woman yelled. "You saved me!" This confused Alex. "What do you mean I saved you?" The woman smiled. "Look at the screen."
Alex averted his eyes from hers and looked at the screen, expecting to finally see his Beautiful Princess. But in the middle of the screen, where the woman should have been, there was nothing else than an empty bed.
"Hey, even damsels in distress have to go to the bathroom every now and then, you know! And there is a bathroom in the castle, but when you sit down there's these huge spikes that come out, and, well, it's not a pretty sight!" Alex' mouth fell open, but the woman did not seem to be disturbed at the clear view she suddenly had at the inside of his mouth.
"So, my brave knight, do you want to join me? Without that dragon it's quite a nice castle, and I am sure I can dig up some clean sheets somewhere." Alex was stunned, did not know what to think, but decided to take the woman's hand anyway. Smiling, she walked towards the machine and just before they both disappeared forever she said:

"Game Over. You Win."