How High Can You Get?

Kill Screen: China Girl

"Jumpman."

"Jumpman."

It took him some prodding, but Lady was finally able to shake Jumpman awake. He opened his eyes and saw Lady standing over him inside the open doors of the elevator. Blood was splattered on the elevator walls behind her.

"What happened?" Jumpman asked her, lifting his resting body up on his elbows.

"I don't know. I think you passed out."

"No. I... I mean what happened in the elevator?"

Lady turned around. She looked disinterested at the crimson spatter.

"Oh, that," she said turning back to Jumpman in a matter-of-fact kind of way. "The weirdo killed himself."

Lady's eyes got really wide and then she asked him a question.

"Hey, what did happen down here?"

The elevator beeped and the doors closed behind her, only to open again as Jumpman noticed she had placed the gun on the floor to prevent them from shutting completely.

"Let me think," he said, as he slowly rose and rubbed his forehead. "First I got into the elevator to go to the top floor. But it was taking too long to close. And DK was chasing me. He kept saying he wanted to eat my face."

Lady snickered.

"Yeah. He told me that. He says he's really sorry. What else?"

"Then the pale kid..."

"The weirdo."

"Yeah, I guess. Then the weirdo came up through the stairway door and started shooting at me and running for the elevator. Wait. Did they both get the bath salts?"

"No," Lady told him as she gently walked him into the elevator. "The weirdo just had a mental breakdown. It happens more often than you'd think."

"Oh."

Lady picked up the gun and pushed the button to the next floor. The thirty-eighth floor. The top floor.

"Then what happened?" she asked.

"Right before they got to me and the doors were closing, I jumped out of the elevator. And then I heard a big bang. And I guess that's when I passed out."

"So you're saying you could have won the whole thing?" Lady asked.

"Or I could have died. But I guess so."

"That's too bad."

Jumpman looked around but soon regretted it. Brain matter was splattered around him. On the ceiling. On the floor. He tried not to step in anything. Lady pushed the button for the thirty-eighth floor, brushing some flesh aside to do so.

"So, I'm guessing by now you figured out DK won. Well, technically both of them made it to the thirty-eighth floor but DK was the only one who stepped out of the elevator."

"I see," Jumpman said as he tried to hold in the vomit. "So what happens next then?"

"Well, normally we just kind of drop you off at the closest bus station and you have to find your own way home. But DK requested for you to be with him for the bonus level. He said he wouldn't have it any other way and that he wouldn't have made it without you."

"Well, that's nice of him I guess."

"Strange," Lady replied. "Especially since you're going to watch him die."

"Wait. What?"

With that, the elevator door opened with a bing and DK was waiting on the other side to embrace Jumpman in a massive appreciative hug. Jumpman was taken aback by it all. He was lead to an office space that had been converted into a sort of hangout. The walls were painted powder blue. There were pink and yellow neon lights illuminating the space. And two comfortable lime green seats on each side of a small white table.  A chill techno rhythm played from a small bluetooth speaker sitting on a thin shelf.