Anjana and the Game World

Anjana was a 14-year-old girl living in Russia. She loved basketball, reading books, and writing TV shows, but she hated studying her mother tongue. One day, her friend Sanya told her about a video game called "Alice in Wonderland."

"It's amazing!" Sanya said. "You can build a magical city, with castles, neon lights, and clouds. You can earn money and make your city bigger and bigger!"

Anjana had never played video games before because her parents protected her from them. But she got fascinated. She started playing and completely fell in love with it. She played all day, hiding in the bathroom or playing at school. Her parents were worried about her grades, but she couldn't stop.

She built incredible things in the game: a city called Mesopotamia, a Roman castle with neon lights, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal, and the Great Wall of China.

"Daddy, look what I built!" she'd say excitedly.

"Why don't we just visit the real places?" her dad would ask. "Why spend all your time in this silly game?"

But Anjana was obsessed. One day, she played for so long without eating or sleeping that something strange happened. The game seemed to grow big and suck her right inside!

Suddenly, Anjana was *in* the game. At first, she was excited. She ran along the Great Wall she had built, touched the Sphinx, and drove a car—something she couldn't do in real life. She flew a plane and ate all the candy and chocolate she wanted without having to eat green vegetables.

But soon, she wanted her parents. She looked around, but there were only game characters who couldn't really talk to her. She got sick of the fake ice cream. She wanted to go home.

"I want to get out!" she cried. But she was stuck.

She remembered the game had 72 levels. She was on level 37. "If I finish the game, maybe I can get out," she thought.

So, she started playing for her life. She fought dragons on level 39, battled giant sharks on level 40, and rode a whale to level 41. She built a rocket to touch the stars in level 42. It was scary, but she had to be brave.

Level by level, she advanced until she reached the final level: 72. It was the hardest one. She had to sail a small boat across all the oceans of the earth—the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean. The sea was bumpy, and she had to catch fish to survive.

Finally, she saw Singapore, the finish line. She sailed her boat into the harbor. "GAME OVER," the sky flashed.

BOOM! She was thrown out of the iPad and back into the real world.

Her dad walked in. "Anjana, are you still playing that silly game?"

"Daddy!" she cried, handing him the iPad. "Take it away! I will never play again!"

She hadn't actually gone inside the game—she had just played so intensely that she *dreamed* she was inside. But the fear was real enough. She realized that real life was much better than any game world.