“Good work, team,” I tell them, helping Benny down from the bed. “Let’s finish looking up here, and then head downstairs.”

Unsurprisingly, the rest of the upstairs has none and we tromp back down the stairs loudly. I wrangle them into the kitchen, letting them shuffle through cupboards and I search the cabinets above. Part of me wonders if the system, or whatever had wreaked havoc, would space them out evenly or distribute them randomly. Would it be better to search each area until one was found, or really scour each place to make sure one wasn’t missed? Checking my phone, I saw that there was 25 minutes till the hour mark, when I had agreed to meet Ren. I’d search thoroughly here, check and see if I could confirm my theory at all, and see what Ren found.

“Can I have this?” Theo asked excitedly, holding something up to me. Pulling myself from my thoughts, I see he’s holding a box of sour patch kids and I roll my eyes.

“Only if you share,” I tell him. He starts yanking the box open halfway through my sentence, doling out handfuls to the others before putting several into his own mouth, munching happily on his stolen treat.

I turn back to my task at hand, now to the sound of sticky chewing. I go through the kitchen fairly quickly; knowing what the collectibles will look like helps a lot. The dining room is easy, since it’s just the table and whatever’s on it. Lastly we scour where we started, checking the living room and the entrance area. I even see Cassidy reaching her stubby fingers inside the shoes, which is somewhere I didn’t think to check.

That would be plain mean, hiding it inside a shoe. I really hoped the system, or game, or whatever, didn’t have a sense of humor or mind of their own. It would be easier to follow if it was all set up like a traditional video game.

“I think this house is good,” I tell the kids. It’s a good thing, too, because I can see they’re starting to get bored here. Hopefully a change of scenery will boost their morale and focus. I hope that we haven’t missed one, because there’s not likely to be enough time by the end to check here again. Already, I feel like we’re behind; I still hadn’t gotten a pop up for the other half of the group.

“Should we start to look in the next house, or should we look outside?” I ask them, checking my phone again. “We only have fifteen minutes left.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Outside!” Theo shouted, running the few steps to the door.

“Yea, let’s go ouside,” Cassidy agrees. Benny nods when I look at him so we trundle out the door. The houses don’t have backyards, only front yards, so I tell the kids to check in the grass.

“Remember what Benny found? That’s what we’re looking for. Won’t it be so cool when we find the next one?”

So they start running through the neat grass lawns, Theo and Cassidy playing tag while they look. Benny meanders over by the sidewalk, peeking left and right as he goes.

*Ding*

*A collectible has been found! 8 collectibles left*

I smile, glad the other group was finally able to get one as well. We had a little over two hours, but since there were only ten collectibles, it might take us the whole three hours to find the rest.

“Here!” Theo shouts. “I found one! Can I grab it?!”

“Wait!” I tell him. “Let me see it first, please.”

All of us hurry over to Theo, who is standing on a lawn chair, hands grabbing up. There’s a table, two chairs, and a massive umbrella shading it all, tucked in the corner of the yard. It looks overgrown, as though it hasn’t been used in quite a while. And, sure enough, there on top of the edge of the umbrella, is sitting a bandaid.

It’s larger than a regular bandaid would be, but still pretty small. Its odd floating pattern makes it noticeable though, as it slowly rotates in lazy circles.

“Can I have it?” he asks excitedly, wobbling the chair he was balancing on.

“Do you…want it?” I ask. “It’s a band aid. I thought you’d want one that’s a bit more interesting.”

“No, I found this one, I want it!” he insists, eyes still locked on it.

“What if you find another one?”I quiz him. “You can’t have both, remember?”

“That’s fiiine,” Theo says, getting annoyed. “I just want this one cause I found it first!”

“Alright,” I relent. “You can have it.” I step around to help him up, hands out to catch him if he lost his balance, but it wasn’t necessary. Theo let out a tiny little fireball from his feet and he hopped up in the air a full foot, grabbing the item with a flash before landing hard on his feet.

“Whoa, you okay?” I ask, surprised. The blue notification telling me the third collectible has been found pops up and I wave it away dismissively.

“Yea! That was great!” Theo says, stoked. “I can’t wait to see what I get!”

“Yeah,” I reply, scrunching my nose at an awful smell. Glancing down, I see a hole in the chair, molten hot plastic still dripping in a few places.

“So, let’s be careful doing that, bud,” I pointed to the chair, making sure Theo understood. “I know that was awesome, but that could really hurt one of our friends.”

“Oh yea,” he says, his shoulders hunching a little. “Sorry, I’ll be more careful.” It doesn’t last long, though, as he straightens up and tells the other two children, “But when you learn your Skills too, it’ll be so much better!”