When a witch gives you fair warning, you’d be wise to listen.

 

Allie and her friends discover a series of cell phone games that do things no other cell phone game can do. The Rings of Connection series creates portals. Hoops and Giggles is a silly early version that allows players to toss virtual balls through virtual hoops. A later game, Beyond the Glimmering Portal, is much more enticing. Creating a portal the players actually step through, it leads Allie and her friends to a place both fascinating and sinister. At the beginning of the game, a beautiful witch tells Allie, “Do not go any further. Please. I’m begging you. It’s all a trick. Don’t go any further. Abandon the game. The words from Dante’s Inferno: ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’ applies to this place.” Allie really should have listened.

 

NOVELETTE. GENRES: GameLit, YA Fantasy.