[Xander – 12 years]

"And what will you do if things are too much for you?" Trey asks.

"Teleport to the hotel."

"No," he groans. "Xander, it's 'let the others know you need a few minutes, then go off to a spot to calm down. If you're able to calm down and rejoin them, then do so, if not, then let them know you're going to leave'."

"Oh, right."

"Also," he adds. "I'm staying with the Martins tonight. They offered to let me so that I'm close by just in case. So it's not the hotel you teleport to if you leave, it's me."

"Oh, right."

"Xander?"

"Yes, Trey?"

"It's okay to be nervous," he says. "You're going outside of your comfort zone. And it's okay if you find you aren't able to handle it, okay? What matters is that you tried. If you can't, then you can't and there's no shame in that. Okay?"

I'm pretty sure I'll be really upset and ashamed and embarrassed and whatever else will be there if I end up not being able to do this after I try. But I want to try.

"Alright," he says. "Do you want to give me a hug?"

"Yeah," I nod, and he moves an arm out to the side.

"Come on," he says.

I give him a hug and he wraps his arm around me, but keeps his other one down. After a few moments he pats me on the back.

"You're doing good, Xander," he says. "I'm proud of you, and I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

"Alright," I say, then remember something. "Love you, Trey."

He tenses up for a moment and… I'm not sure what those emotions I'm feeling from him are. Did I mess up? It's what Grandpa Adrian says when he finishes on the phone with me, and I've heard S.G. say it to his aunt at the end of phone calls. He also said it to her when she was leaving. Connor, Sam, and Isaac said it to their dads when their dads were leaving, too.

Which I think means you're supposed to say it to family members you care about a lot. While Trey isn't my dad, he does act like one a lot and I think what I feel for him is that. Not the bad kind of love, the family kind of love.

But maybe that was the wrong thing to say? That's the only reason I can think of for him to tense up and feel emotions that confuse me.

"Love you, too, Xander."

But he was honest when he said that. I look up at him.

"Bye, Trey."

"See you in the morning," he says as we stop hugging, then he joins the other adults still here, who are preparing to leave.

They all leave and once I can't see them anymore, I head to the changing rooms. No one asked me to revert them last week so they were still here when everyone arrived today. Collin told me it's because they decided to leave them permanently – Cater comes down here with friends all the time, and they do barbecues here a lot during the warmer months.

Often enough that having something permanent is better than something they constantly have to remake.

In the changing rooms, I pull off my backpack, then undress and head into the showers to scrub off, before slipping into the swimming trunks I bought for swimming in ponds and lakes. Should I put on my floaties? No. No one else is wearing floaties, so I'll probably get made fun of.

If not, then looked at like I'm dumb and a little kid. But I would feel a lot safer with them.

My heart pounds in my chest as I stuff my things into my backpack, then leave the changing rooms in just my swim trunks and backpack. The only other people here now are S.G., Carter, Tate, Bo, Knox, Connor, Isaac, Sam, and me. Just a bunch of boys ages twelve through fourteen.

I only met Knox today, since I needed an extra player since I'm not going to invite Russell again since he's a jerk. Carter invited Knox when I asked if he knew anyone else who was good and trustworthy who could participate in the beta. He seems pretty nice and is really cute, and just as fit as basically everyone else here. Well, at least, as fit as the local boys.

The game they're playing in the lake looks like a lot of fun and I want to join in. But at the same time… they all have their friend groups, while I really feel like I'm just an extra.

Right now, they're all playing in the lake, chasing after each other and roughhousing. Braveness. That's what I've got to be right now. Braveness.

Or brave. That's probably the more correct way of saying it. Or thinking it. What does this count as?

I take a deep breath as I put my backpack down. Then another deep breath. My body is still trembling, and my heart is still racing, and my head still feels light and dizzy. I really want to put a shirt, pants, and socks back on, and go around people who are not wearing just swim trunks. Maybe just go home and hide away from everyone.

But none of them have done anything creepy to me or tried to touch me in bad ways. Even if I haven't had a sleepover with four of them, I've had a sleepover with the other four. They didn't do anything bad. And the other four also all have blessings from the gods, which means they're good people.

Thinking about the blessings makes me look at Sam. He's… not a bad person, but that doesn't mean I like him. He keeps crossing my boundaries. Even if he says it's by accident and he's honest when he does, it's hard to fully believe because it keeps happening.

But I think I figured out what his blessing is. Or at least, what his older blessing is. The not-real fairies that are apparently actually real that were active when I was looking at the World Memory were the ones that gathered around him before his newer blessing showed up.

And they were extra-active during the incident. Blessings can cause certain things to happen, but they don't override free will. When it affects other people, it's more like it gives them a feeling, or manipulates events not from people to give them an opportunity.

I think his old blessing… makes it easier for him to get help when he's in a bad situation. Why else would the unicorn have happened to have been there when he got hurt? Not after noticing the trap was triggered?

Because it had a feeling it should go there. It decided to listen to the feeling instead of ignore it and when it did, it found Sam getting hurt from its trap. Then, it made the decision to go ask a healer for help. The healer agreed to the unicorn's request for whatever reason he had, and that led to Sam's arm getting mostly healed.

Even if that wasn't the case, his arm would have been fully healed today by Grandpa Adrian because I was going to ask about it. Grandpa Adrian did finish the healing job, too. Sam apparently turned onto his arm while he was sleeping, making it take longer to heal the rest of the way, so he wouldn't have been ready today otherwise.

That's not from the blessing affecting me, though. That was just because I didn't want to exclude him from the test. In other words, the blessing made sure that if today's healing weren't going to happen, Sam was still taken care of.

Then I asked Trenton if that was the case and he confirmed it. Sam has a blessing that makes sure he gets quick help if he's in a bad situation or if he gets badly hurt. A god apparently liked him enough to bless him while being concerned about that for some reason.

So that means he's not really a bad person. But still… he's here…

Deep breaths.

After a few more deep breaths, I teleport to above the lake, making sure to use the extra-splash spell I saw some of the others using. Like Carter, Tate, Bo, Knox, Greyson, Parker, Tyler, and Luke. S.G., Connor, Isaac, and Sam don't really know that spell yet so they can't do it.

But since the ones who can use the spell all did, I think it's important to when jumping into the lake. Or teleporting in.

"Xander!" Several of them laugh as I surface, and that reminds me about my earplugs.

I forgot to put them in, but I think it's too late to grab them now. They feel really weird, too, so I don't like using them. Maybe I'll try to play in the lake without them. But it'll probably get too noisy. Should I?

"I feel like I got hit with the most water," Sam says.

"Ha!" S.G. laughs. "As if anyone could tell the difference! We're all just as soaked! Xander, we were trying to think of something to play!"

"Yeah," Knox says. "We haven't figured out what, yet, since they can't use water magics for playing games. We usually battle with our water magics in the lake."

"Battle?" I move back a little.

"Not actual battles," Carter snickers. "Play battles, Xander. For fun. No one gets hurt. It's just using different water magics to splash each other."

"Like this!" Tate gestures at Carter, sending five water darts at his head.

They just hit Carter and splash, and he doesn't look hurt at all. I'm not sure I'd like playing that, but I do want to play with them. Is there something we can all do that I might find fun? There are four boys with around 400 or so units of mana, one boy with over 3,000,000 units of it, and four boys with more average levels of mana. The first four are probably good at playing games with water magic, I'm not that great at it as I've never done it before, and the last four aren't able to.

Also, it needs to be something where my head won't get dunked under the water, nor where someone will try to tackle me or something like that. Or try to "capture" me and hold me in place or down or something.

The others all tell me their thoughts on what we could play as I try to think of something, but it's when I look at S.G. that an idea comes to me. He likes call himself a Bastion, probably a play on his first name, Sebastian, and how he's really tough to beat in video games and is pretty tough in real life, too. He's chatting with the others, debating on which game might be best.

"Maybe…" I start to speak, and they all quiet down and look at me. "Um… maybe it's stupid."

"Just say it!" S.G. tells me. "It might be a good idea!"

"So I was thinking…" I say. "You guys split up into two teams. Carter, Bo, S.G., and Connor on one team, and the others for the other. That's two who can use water magics to play with, and two who can't, on each team. And your goal is to keep me from tagging the ones who can't use water magic to play with my own water magics. I can make it so that when I use them, they'll create a green mark if they touch a person, but just be normal water once it hits the lake. So you'll know if I tagged someone by the green mark. And canceling it isn't hard."

"There's a spell like that?" S.G. asks.

"Yeah," I nod. "I got curious about spells for playing with people after you told me about you playing with Carter and Tate with them doing the water magic stuff in Nine Springs. How to tag someone like that was something I found in Greyson's database. Well, there were all sorts of weird errors in the spell formula, and it was just tagging with magic, but I can add it to the water magics without an issue. And without all of the weird errors."

"What kind of errors?" Knox asks, and the other boys groan.

"One of them was the spell going ksssh-ksssh for some reason when that wasn't even necessary," I tell him. "And for some strange reason, there was also it going bwppoh instead of bolp."

"I don't… I don't know what that means."

"Xander can perceive mana and magic directly," S.G. tells him. "He's actually straight-up describing what he is perceiving. And he finds it hard to translate it into a more… understandable way for us. Right?"

"Right," I nod. "It's hard to know what the differences between what I perceive and what you perceive are. And those are just two of the errors in the spell. There were also ones which caused it to leak out mana, so I cleaned those up in the spell formula, too.""

"Hey, Xander?" Carter asks.

"Yes, Carter?" I look at him.

"Can you use light magics to draw on the air?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Can you draw the old formula and your version doing that?"

"I can try."

I focus on the air in front of me and weave green, magically-conjured light, shaping it into two spell formulas.

"This is the one Greyson had in his database," I point at the one on the left, then I point at the one on the right. "And this is the one I cleaned up and fixed all the errors in. I think the mistakes are an attempt by Greyson to increase the cost of the spell so that he can build up his mana more. But I'm not completely sure."

"That's cool," Carter says. "I think it'll take me a bit of practice to cast that spell."

"I've only done it a few times," I tell him. "But I can do it good enough to play."

"Alright!" He says, then looks at everyone else. "What about all of you? Want to play that?"

They all say they do, which surprises me. They're all honest when they say they do. So my idea sounded good to them? We'll have to find out if it's actually enjoyable or not, but it makes me happy knowing I came up with something that sounds good.

We start playing the game, and I have a lot of fun trying to tag the others. I'm not good at manipulating my water darts and streams to try and hit people around others or to make them dodge defenses very easily, and that just makes it a little bit more fun to me. Maybe a little frustrating, too, since I'm not doing it perfectly, but the others are all having fun.

I'm not having as much fun as I thought I would since I can't hit them every time, so I continue to try my best.

"Xander! Pause!" S.G. calls out after a few minutes, then swims over to me as everyone stops. "Xander, you're not having fun, are you?"

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

He said that quietly, so I respond quietly when I respond. He's very close to me and has a couple of green spots on him. Also very close to me. Maybe a little too close. Should I back up? No, I should respond to him. But I want to back up.

"No," I answer while trying not to back up.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't hit you guys that well."

"You don't find trying fun?" He asks.

"I try my best," I tell him. "But… I'm not that good."

"Xander," he says. "None of us care about being that good. We're just wanting to have fun. No one's competing here. In fact, you've hit us a few times… do you get a reward for doing so?"

"No, but-"

"Exactly!" He grins. "There's no reward because it's not a competition. The point is to try, and then get happy when you succeed! Not to be upset when you fail. Just figure out what caused you to fail and adapt! And remember that it's not a competition, we're all just trying to have fun! So there's no point in being serious about it! That's how we play! Alright? Can you try to keep that in mind when we play?"

"I dunno…"

"Try," he tells me. "Think about how good it feels when you do manage to tag one of us. Remember – we're trying to avoid getting hit. When you do manage to hit me, I'm not upset. I'm just 'awww, I got hit! Time to try again!' I don't go 'damn, I failed, what a loser!' Because we're just having fun, not competing! You're not getting graded or judged. Okay?"

"Okay…"

"Come on!" He says. "Try and keep that in mind, and let's get back to it! Once I get behind Carter and Bo again."

I try to keep what he told me in mind as we continue playing, but it's hard. I do end up having a little bit more fun after awhile, though.

By the time we quit playing and get out of the lake to relax, Collin's returned and built up a bonfire. He'd left to grab some more things before the parents all left, and is here to supervise us for the night, just in case something happens.

Carter normally camps out here with his friends without supervision, but S.G.'s aunt and the other three's dads weren't too sure about letting that happen. The compromise was Collin's presence for the campout.

I really want to change back into normal clothes, but no one else moves to change out of their swim trunks when we reach the fire. If I change, they'll probably think I'm dumb or stupid or something. But this is uncomfortable. I want to change. Now.

"Hey, Xander," Collin says, and I look over at him. "Want to help me make some pizzas? We'll use dutch ovens."

"What are those?"

"I'll show you," he beckons to me. "Right over here."

The tables to prepare stuff on are set up not far from the fire, so I follow him over. At least we're still in close view of the others, so they'll see if he tries something.

"If you want to go get changed," he says once we reach them. "You can. They usually spend the entire campout in just their swim trunks, apart from when they're sleeping, since they go in and out of the lake a lot. It's not a requirement, though, and you can get dressed. No one will judge you for it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he answers.

I look over at the others, who are all chatting with each other about different things. But if I get dressed and they don't, I'll still feel really weird because of it.

"M-maybe I'll try and brave through a little longer," I tell him.

"Alright," he says. "Got another question for you."

"What is it?"

"Are you only allowed to use the AR stuff for the tests?" He asks. "Or are you allowed to play with it at other times? Like when it's just you and your friends, if you wanted to play a game with them just randomly?"

"Like… at any time?" I ask. "Yeah. The tests are just because they need testing, but I made the glasses for playing with my friends. Grandpa Adrian said I'm not restricted to it with just the tests."

"Okay," he says. "When you do the overhead scanning thing like you did last Saturday, does it make the map and create the borders solely off of what it saw? Or can it do it in, say, a forest?"

"Both," I answer. "It uses both what it sees and the location itself on the geo… uh… whatever it's called. The actual location. So if making a playing field in a forest, it can scan things overhead, and it'll register the coordinates, then use those. Then under the forest canopy, the border markers will still be there even though the scanner couldn't see the ground, because it knows the location for the geo-thingy."

"That's pretty neat."

"It was Grandpa Adrian's idea," I tell him. "So it's a new feature."

"Alright," he says. "So if you wanted to play a game out here with them tonight, you'd be allowed to do that? You wouldn't get into trouble?"

"Yeah," I say. "Officially, they're being paid on a weekly basis for assisting with any and all testing of the glasses and game. That includes any other times we play stuff outside of the streamed ones. Oh, but no streaming. I was told to only stream the tests, outside of my other streams. And I'd need to get permission from Trey to stream anything, anyway, and S.G. would need permission from his aunt. And I think Carter would need permission from your parents?"

"That's fine," he says. "Know how everyone was told to bring dark clothes, including pants and something with long-sleeves, if they were coming to the campout?"

"Yeah," I nod. "I got them in my backpack, but wasn't sure why. I'm not going to rob someone… if we can even do that from here."

"No," he chuckles. "There's a game called 'spotlight' that gets played out here. Not sure about over where you live, though. They play it sometimes at night, and I know Carter was wanting to play it, so he'll probably ask everyone soon if they want to – and if you don't, you don't have to. You can just hang out here at the fire."

"I've never heard of it," I tell him. "How's it played? And is that why you were asking me about the glasses?"

"Yeah," he says. "It's hide-and-seek, but in the dark and with flashlights. The person who's It uses a flashlight as they try to find the hiders, and when they find one, they have to shine their light on that person and say their name. Whoever is the last person still hidden is the one who's It in the next game. The dark clothes is to make it easier to hide from the seeker."

"But in a big forest like this," I say. "You have to tell everyone where the boundaries are and hope they see them… oh! So that's why you wanted to know about if I could do it even if the scanner can't see the ground? If we used the glasses' boundary feature, we could have everyone wearing the glasses and they'd be able to see the limits of where they can go for playing."

"Yeah," he says. "How does that sound? Would you be willing to do that? Is it something you can do without the zombie shooter?"

"Yeah," I nod. "I can set it up. Um. But maybe I'll need help knowing where to mark out the boundaries, since I don't know the area. But that can probably happen after the scan is complete, since I won't have the map to show you until then."

"Alright," he says. "Let's get the pizzas ready and into the dutch ovens so they can cook, then you can send off the scanner orb."

"Okay."

We make four pizzas, since they aren't that big and we're all going to be a bit hungry. With five of us being mages who used a lot of magic, we'll probably end up eating a lot again, anyway.

While the pizzas cook, I send off my scanner orb to scan the area, then I work on creating a new game program for playing spotlight. Most of the programming is already on my developer laptop, which was in my backpack, so it's not difficult. There's the boundary program, but I also want to add in some other features.

Such as making it so the game registers when the person who's It meets the requirements for catching someone. This will make it easier to know if everyone has been found yet, and it'll also allow the last person still hidden to know that they've won the round. However, only the person who is It has the list of who's been found – so no one else knows who's still hiding from the game's program until there's only one person left.

And they find out because they get told they won.

Hm. I should also add in a program to show the optimal route back to the bonfire, shouldn't I? At least, based on what they and others saw, since I doubt just the scanner itself can register that. To free up everyone's hands, the game should also utilize the enchantments which can produce a flashlight-like beam.

That way, no one needs to carry around a flashlight.

The people who are hiding shouldn't be using flashlights as that will make it easier for them to be spotted, but they might want the light to see by the way back. When it comes to when they're hiding and moving around – Collin told me as we cooked that it's okay to move around while hiding, just to be stealthy about it – they might need some extra sight. The glasses can make it look like there's more light than there is, to make it easier to see in the dark.

Okay, so I'll add that in as an optional functionality for the game. What else?

----------------------------------------

[Sig – 13 years]

Xander is so absorbed into whatever it is that he's doing on his laptop that he didn't even notice the pizzas finishing. They're super good, and I made sure to put a plate of them beside him. He barely even noticed that, but he is eating them.

Using a laptop during a campout like this is weird, but I'm just happy that he's actually here. And he didn't change out of his swim trunks, so I think he's even super comfortable! That makes me even happier, because it means he's relaxing around us more!

"Hey, do y'all wanna play spotlight?" Carter asks everyone.

"Yeah!" We all respond, and Xander looks up from his laptop.

"Please hold on," Xander says, then looks at Collin. "I forgot to tell you but it's ready for you to tell me where to mark."

"Hold on?" Tate looks at him. "For what?"

"Collin asked about using the AR glasses to make it easier to see the boundaries of where to play," Xander answers. "So I was creating a game program for spotlight that does that. It also gives the person who's It the list of everyone still playing, so they know how many people are left. That way, no one gets forgotten. Since some of us aren't familiar with the forest, I also programmed it to show a path back once you're found. That one's, uh… iffy. I'm not sure how good it is, but it should work. And there's also a notification to the last person hiding that they won once everyone else was found. That way, we don't need to go out and start calling for them. And if there's an emergency, an alert will go to everyone so they know. Such as if someone falls and gets hurt, or if a monster attacks, or something like that."

"That's what you've been working on?" I ask.

"Yeah," he nods. "It's a bit more than what Collin asked for, so I hope that's alright, but I wanted safety to be important. That's why hiders can also turn on the 'brighter view' feature – that's just what I'm calling it right now – to make it easier for them to see what's around without using a flashlight. And the person who's It and everyone who's out can use the glasses' flashlight feature."

"They have a flashlight feature?" Carter asks.

"Yeah," Xander nods. "It's a newer one, and it's through enchantments. That's why there's no lightbulb or light lens or whatever. You can just turn it on and it'll create a beam of magic light, like a magic flashlight would. I also put in an 'I quit' feature so you can quit the round, if you want to give up and just return here for some reason. Um… but we don't have to play with all of those extra features. I know it's a lot more, um… what's it called? Technological? Than you probably do when camping. I was just thinking of safety. But I guess you guys don't really care about all that since you play it all the time, according to your brother."

"No, it's cool!" Carter tells him. "I'd love to play it with them. Y'all wanna give it a try, too, right?"

We all do, so Xander finishes up the program and has the borders determined by Collin. The AR glasses are handed back out and Xander sets up the console again with the new game – he apparently even had a blank game card to put the game on – and we head to the changing rooms to change into our darker clothes.

Most of us put on baseball caps as well to hide our hair, but Xander just… turns his hair pitch-black. It's apparently a temporary spell and not an actual permanent change, so he can revert it back to his real hair color after without any issues.

Something he emphasizes several times as if he's worried he'll get into trouble for the spell. As if any of us would care. I'd love to be able to change my hair color on a whim, and I know Connor, Sam, and Isaac would, too. Then, we wouldn't need to use spray cans of temporary dye/hair paint to do stuff like make it glittery.

Once we're all ready (Xander changes after us so that no one sees him change), we stand in a circle to decide on who's going to be It first.

Just as we're about to… a message with the words "Nose Goes" pops up in my vision in game's HUD and Xander quickly puts a finger to his nose.

It takes me a moment to realize what's going on and I do the same, as do others. Isaac ends up being the slowest, making him the first It.

The rest of us run into the woods as a timer appears in my vision. It seems we're being given ninety seconds to find a good hiding spot before Isaac comes into the woods. While I don't know them perfectly, I still know the forest better than the others who came from Dragon Falls, so I know a few good spots.

Reaching them takes longer than a minute and a half, but I have enough of a headstart on Isaac to not worry. When I reach one, I climb up the tree and wait. And wait. And wait. The ability to "lighten" what I'm seeing so that it doesn't look as dark is pretty neat, especially since it doesn't use any light to do so. At the same time, it also turns off the moment I'm hiding, probably so that it's closer to a "normal" game of this.

The feature exists to help us hide without getting hurt and isn't necessary if we aren't moving around.

Is it simple magitech or something complex? I'm no technie, not even a normal techie, but I think it might be something like the glasses just registering what they can see and then adding some sort of filter based on the normal colors for things. That could be wrong, but it's what makes sense to me.

Eventually, I spot a beam of light underneath, then Isaac comes into view. He's looking around and even up into the trees, but misses me and continues on. Once I can't see him anymore, I carefully climb down and move to another spot, crawling in a few areas. He nearly spots me a few times as I move from hiding spot to hiding spot, and I even spot some of the others from time to time.

After about half an hour, I near one of my favorite hiding spots, a good one if I can just wedge myself in-

A light shines on me.

"Sig!"

"Darn!" I exclaim as I return to my feet and turn on the glasses' flashlight function as a path forms in my vision, along with a notification stating that I'm out. "How many are left?"

"Three," he answers. "Tate, Carter, and Xander. Don't tell me where anyone else is if you know. But have you even seen Xander? At all? At any point? Because everyone's mentioned they've seen someone else, but no one's seen Xander."

"Nope," I answer. "Maybe he's hiding in that spot he was disappearing off to when he was sneaking his snacks earlier and last week?"

"Maybe," he says. "But I heard Collin telling Xander that spot was off-limits for the game, so he's probably not. Anyway, I'm gonna go look for them. Bye!"

"Bye!"

I head back to camp and a few minutes later, we get a notification that Xander won. Tate returns before anyone else who was left when I got caught and I give him a fist-bump.

"Did you ever see Xander?" He asks.

"So you never saw him?" I ask.

"Nope," he answers.

Xander arrives a few seconds later, coming from the same direction as Tate did. Everyone starts asking him about his hiding spot, and he just looks confused.

"But Isaac looked at me a few times," Xander says. "He just never said my name."

"What?" Isaac asks. "When did I look at you?"

"Um…" Xander gestures in front of him. "Here. And then I moved because I figured maybe you just forgot to say my name and were gonna come back and do it. Then you found me here. And I moved again. And you found me here."

Is he sending Isaac clips from-wait.

"Xander?" I ask. "Are these recording as we play?"

"Yeah," he nods. "The data will be useful-oh. Did I forget to have the game tell you that? I thought I set it up to let you know when accessing the game. It's both for the data for review later, and in case something bad happens, so that there's a recording of it. Um… sorry for not mentioning."

"It's cool!" I tell him, then look at the others. "Right?"

They all agree that it's fine. It's weird for this to get recorded, but his reasoning is understandable. He's just worried about something happening and wants to make sure there's proof. When I close the game and open it back up, I find that there is a notice about the game being recorded for "developer use".

Isaac's the only one who didn't answer, but he's doing some sort of gesturing with a frown on his face, so I think he's looking through something in the glasses.

"Holy crap!" He suddenly exclaims, and we all look at him. "Xander, I did not see you there. Yeah, I shined my light on you, but I did not notice you. Look, wait, how can I send you my clip?"

Xander teaches him how to do that, then watches whatever Isaac sends him.

"Huh," he looks shocked. "I was hidden really good?"

"Can I see?" I ask, then the others all ask.

Isaac sends us the clip and I watch it. It takes me replaying the clip six times before I spot Xander in it. While Isaac did shine his light on him, Xander's hidden really well. It doesn't seem like he was using magic, unless the glasses accounted for that. The spot itself looks insanely good. He's wedged himself into a small gap underneath a fallen tree.

Isaac does shine his light on him, but it's briefly and not fully. That's why it takes me watching it several times – it just looks like a fallen tree.

Once we all look at the clip and spot Xander in it, we start the next round. Since Xander was the last one left hidden, he plays It for this round.

I do my best to find a good hiding spot and hunker down until he passes me by… except he doesn't pass me by. He swung his light over me for a moment as he walked past and now he's looking through this area.

Don't. Move. A. Muscle. He had to have noticed something was off and is now looking for me.

The light shines on me.

"You don't go by your name," Xander says, the light still fixed on me. "You go by nicknames. So do I say 'S.G.' or 'Sig' or 'Sebastian' for this?"

He just said all three of them, which I'm guessing was him trying to make sure I couldn't get away with "but you didn't say my name".

"Either nickname works," I tell him as I stand up. "So I'm the first one out, huh?"

"No," he says. "I already found Carter and Knox."

"Already?" I ask. "You got here after, like, three minutes!"

"They were close together," he says. "I'm gonna go look for the others, now."

Sam ends up being the last person Xander finds, so he's It for the next game… and is completely unable to find Xander during his turn. Since Xander doesn't want to be It again so soon, Knox goes next since he was the last one found. Knox also doesn't find Xander. Nor does Bo. Nor Tate. Nor Carter.

Xander even shows everyone his hiding spots after, and we all look at the clips of the It when they did actually shine their light on him. All of his spots are amazingly good.

"Man!" Carter says. "This is my family's property but even I haven't managed to find spots as good as yours for hiding, Xander! You're really good at this!"

"I did keep reusing spots," Xander's fidgeting, his face a little bit red.

Awww, he's getting shy over the praise! It makes him look even cuter! Wait, no, I shouldn't think that about him.

"Still!" Carter says. "That's still amazing, Xander!"

"I've got some dessert, if y'all want," Collin says, and we look over to find him opening dutch ovens. "Dutch oven cobblers and some ice cream! And y'all can make s'mores if you want, too. With white or normal chocolate, choice is yours."

"Food!" I pump my fists up into the air. "Got beer, too?"

"Yeah!" Carter says. "Got any beer? Or whiskey?"

"How about root beer?" Collin counters. "They're in glass bottles."

"That works!" We respond, and I pump my fists up into the air.

"Root beer floats!"