MAIN STORY: 

*Changes highlighted in yellow*

Summary:

Scene 1: An arcade shopkeeper reminisces on his childhood memories remembering the joy of
playing video games. Once when he was seven years old, he and his father walked along the
street. All of the stores were brightly shining, except for the one store that was dark black and
had blinking and flashing lights. Gunshots, bombs and pops are what they heard as they passed
by. They went to the arcade store. The store was full of people playing arcades. His father
brought him a chair to stand on to reach the console. His father chooses to play space invaders,
but he dies pretty quickly. His father put in a new quarter, but he died again so they chose
another game. On his last game, the coin slot jammed. So his father went to the storekeeper. 

Scene 2: The storekeeper had a nylon necklace and keys hanging on it. The storekeeper took
the necklace off and put the keys into the hole and fixed it. The machine was up again. The boy
could still remember the machine and what he had felt during the game. He felt that the man
controls all the game, power and pleasure to his hand with a necklace the storekeeper had on
its keys. The only thing he couldn’t remember was what the man looked like. 

Scene 3: Then that night, the boy used to dream of disappearing. He's facing the mirror and
trying to disappear. First, he used to stare at his reflection in the mirror and then he imagined
that his reflection disappeared. That he was no longer there. But his mother caught him staring
at the mirror. 

Scene 4: His mother asked him why he's staring at the mirror and when he tried to explain that
he wanted to disappear, he was brought to him by ear and his mother told him to forget that
foolishness. His parents sent him out of the house to play with the neighborhood's kids. But he
never played with them because they were loud, rowdy, and rough, and pushed him away to the
ground and made fun on his hoodie. 

Scene 5: They bump him or just leave him ahead of his house. The boy just waits for his mother
to work some chores for him to grab the mirror without noticing him. 

Scene 6: Then his father brought him to the arcade game again where he found the world that
he was destined to inhabit. He plays again, the gun's shot has the rhythm: bang, bang, bang
reload.

Scene 7: While he was playing, the machine took him to other places, other worlds where he
can be another person and he made him different people. As he watches the light of the shots
from the gun and feel himself slowly fading to the screen. He always plays arcade games every
few years. He zoned out himself from his mother’s sermon. His parents went abroad. He
pushed himself away from the real world. He dropped school and worked at an arcade, as a
storekeeper, in the shop near the mall.

Scene 8: The boy turned away from reality because he felt that he didn't belong to this world
anymore. He thought of the arcade as his other world because only there he is important and
seen. For a few years, he lost himself in the arcade. The only things bringing him back
to the world where he didn’t belong were the occasional calls, letters, and packages
from his family abroad. Then he met her.
Scene 9: She always went to the arcade every school day with her brother. They played
different games in the arcade. Both the girl and her brother enjoy the time spent in the arcade.
She and her brother are both regular customers in the arcade. He hadn't seen her as more than
an arcade regular until he saw her one day wearing a dress that made the boy remember the
pink dress of princess in the games Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. 

Scene 10: For him, the girl is Princess Peach that always needs rescuing and thanks him for
rescuing and saving her from the enemies. The boy developed an admiration for her and in turn
brought him back to the real world. Whenever she smiles, his stomach is filled with butterflies.
He always remembers the face of the girl.

Scene 11: In the meantime, the brother of the girl, having joined her sister for the arcade,
noticed that the storekeeper was viewing his sister romantically. The brother approached him
and teased him on the subject while the storekeeper blushed and vehemently denied. The
brother chatted with him and realized that they were both super into games and they became
friends. The brother, having noticed the man was not as bad as he looks to be, decides to play
cupid for the storekeeper and his sister, sometimes jokingly shipping them together.

Scene 12: After a normal week has passed, one Friday, the girl with her brother comes to the
arcade with her friends wearing school uniforms. The girls in mustard colored dresses and the
boys in blue pants. He remembers the days when he was studying and attending classes and
when they only attended periodical examinations, and he’s playing arcade games before going
home.

Scene 13: He stopped daydreaming when he saw the girl holding one boy’s arm. He saw his
Princess Peach with a villain and thought of a plan to destroy the castle of the man. The girl’s
little brother was also trying his best to separate the boy’s hand with her sister’s arm, clearly
seeing her sister in pain. But alas he was bumped to the ground. The delinquent boy started to
call the girl as stupid, a waste of a time, and an eyesore for disrupting his game. 

Scene 14: And that's when he came in, sliding between Princess Peach and the villain. He
nudged her back a bit, although she could barely move as she fought to keep her cheeks dry.
The store keeper put him outside the arcade, grabbed him by the collar and led him out of the
arcade and handed him over to the guard.

Scene 15: He came back to his Princess Peach who had been hurt and held her hand and led
her to the backroom where she could sit down. He also went back to get her brother who was
on the ground as well, carrying him with a bruised leg back to the backroom. While patching up
her brother with first aid, he didn't say anything to the girl. After he finished, he sat beside her
and her brother. The brother being the wingman left them as he couldn't stand the both of them
not chatting. From there, they were both alone. He just absorbed her touch, felt the contact
coursing through him. This was how it felt, he realized. He had saved someone, had rescued,
had been a hero, a protector.

Scene 16: He stayed with her that way, silent as she sobbed into his shoulder, until her
friends came to get her. As she was leaving she thanked him and he told her that he
noticed that she came every school day. She smiled and told him that she was flattered
that he had noticed. Then he said that he'd see her Sunday, and she smiled and left.
Scene 17: Sunday came. The girl’s family did their usual routine in the arcade. He was patiently
waiting for her to approach him and bring up the incident that happened last friday. However, it
is not exactly the case when she approached him. She only called her attention because the
game she was playing had problems in it. After he fixed the machine, she just thanked him and
blankly stared at him - totally forgetting about whatever happened the day that he saved her.

Scene 18: The storekeeper, puzzled, approached the girl’s brother wondering why she hadn't
noticed his bravery against the incident. The brother in response did not quite understand what
the storekeeper meant and said her sister thanked him and talked to him though. He did not
want to explain it bluntly to make him a hero as he thought he would be like the jerks from the
games he played. The brother, having noticed the storekeeper was troubled, invited him to play
and chat with his problems like how his sister does to him. The storekeeper declined and left her
brother alone and the family enjoyed playing the game until they were finished.

Scene 19: He spent the rest of the day in a daze. He felt as if his body was becoming
blank, taking up space but having no matter. She hadn't remembered him, recognized
his face, hadn't known who he was. He was not a person; he was just the key that he held.
People only approached him, only acknowledged his presence when they needed a turn of the
key. Who was he then? and how much of his identity lay in the key?

Scene 20: He waited until he was alone so that he could turn the key and come alive
again. This wasn't the world for him, and as he turned the key he knew which one was.

Scene 21: He stared into the screen, watched his face began fading away, waited until it
had disappeared. And as he saw the game start and he wrapped his right hand fingers
around the fake pistol and put it in his head. He thought to himself, if this gun is real, I would be
dead. If I die though, will I be able to be born into the games I’ve played? Would I be able to
finally find my place in the world? Can I be the hero I wished for to be finally true?

Scene 22: A cold wind throwed in the store. Incidentally, the brother of the sister saw this notion
and blazingly in quick speed threw the fake pistol on the floor, the cord dangling to the station.
He warned and was furious and downhearted seeing the fact that his friend, the store keeper
who he had known now for a month, wanted to end his life. A fight of words between the two of
them happened while the brother leaning towards him took his life believing that he could go to
another world.

Scene 23: Angered and depressed by the fact the brother didn't understand him, he stormed
out of the arcade and ran through the night. He wished that he wasn’t born with such a cruel
world. He wished that he was loved by who he was and would be understood with his ideology.
He cried his heart out wanting to live in a world where people would understand him not by his
key but who he was as a person. Thoughts like these succumb to his mind until he starts
hallucinating. He hallucinates being in the Space Invader game bang bang bang reload. He was
able to kill the crooks with ease. However, there was a crook that he couldn’t seem to bring
down. It was only getting faster and brighter as it approached. He quickly reloaded and tried to
shoot, with a “bang” but it seems that the “bang” he wished for didn’t actually happen. He
wonders why he feels pain when he’s just in a game. Then he closed his eyes and thought of
sleeping.