I collapsed onto the couch. My head was completely empty, and it was the best state I had been in all evening. My thoughts turned sluggishly, like sleepy snails, until they stopped altogether.

  And then—fingers. Alexia's cool, soft fingers touched my hair.

  The world folded in on itself. Problems, cycles, tomorrow's departures—all of it flew straight into the Abyss. I just wanted to melt into a puddle on the couch and not regain consciousness until the next millennium.

  "ALEXIA!" Ryan suddenly yelled, shattering the silence. "Enough! Stop that right now! He's going to sleep half his life away like that!"

  "Oh, just look at him, Ryan," Alexia's voice sounded as if it were coming from underwater. "He's so cute when he powers down like this. So quiet. Harmless."

  "GREG!" the squirt grabbed my shoulder and started shaking me. "Stop giving in to these pets! You're a powerful mage! Pull yourself together! Why do you even react like this?!"

  I cracked one eye open. The state of pure bliss was replaced by mild irritation. "I don't know..." I muttered, lacking the strength to even lift my head.

  "AW, COME ON!" Ryan stomped his foot. "Alexia, stop! He's going to fall completely asleep, and I'll never find out how to fly on clouds without throwing up!"

  "Alright, alright," Alexia sighed and pulled her hand away.

  Damn it... I felt the warmth fading away, and I became genuinely sad. Bring it back.

  I reluctantly sat up on the couch, rubbing the back of my neck. Ryan immediately stared at me, his eyes shining with curiosity. "You're weird, Greg. Everything about you is weird. Especially your eyes. Why do they change every day? Sometimes they're black, sometimes pink, sometimes gray... Am I the only one who thinks this is way too mysterious? You're like a walking puzzle."

  I looked at him. At seven years old, the world still seemed to him like a place where everything had a reason. I lay back down, staring at the ceiling. "I don't know the answer myself, Ryan. Maybe it's just a side effect of living for too long. Or forgetting too often."

  I closed my eyes. "Go to sleep, squirt. Riddles aren't running away anytime soon, but breakfast might."

  "No!" Ryan stubbornly stomped his foot again. "I'm not going to sleep! You guys are leaving soon, I want to spend more time with you."

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Lianel and Alexia exchanged a glance and smiled in sync. They had some kind of maternal immunity to the squirt, while I just watched, trying to calculate how many hours of sleep I was still likely to get in this cycle.

  Ryan practically flew to the cabinet, fished out a massive round box, and slammed it down onto the table with a loud thud. "Look! Let's play 'War of Kingdoms'!"

  Lianel and Alexia nodded. "Alright," Lianel said. "Then Greg is on my team." "Hey!" Alexia immediately protested. "That's not fair! You just want to hog all the cheat codes for yourself?"

  I stood up, popping my joints. "Alright, fine. So nobody feels left out—it's the three of you against me."

  They laughed, anticipating an easy victory, and we began setting up the pieces.

  The premise of the game was as simple as a brick: everyone has a mini-castle (basically a cannon-fodder manufacturing plant) and a certain number of starting units. You have to capture magical mines to get resources for new warriors. Total anarchy, zero diplomacy. The pieces themselves were enchanted—an expensive toy for those who didn't mind dropping gold on a simulated massacre.

  The game began. From the very first seconds, I engaged "total greed" mode. My warriors rushed in all directions, capturing every single mine in sight.

  "HEY!" the princesses protested in unison. "What kind of tactic is that? That's annoying!"

  The logic was simple: while they were building up their forces, I was hoarding the economy. The downside was that my little soldiers were smeared in a thin layer across the map, and any serious strike would turn me to dust. But the princesses were playing by the textbook—building a massive army.

  "That's not fair!" I grumbled, watching their combined forces march toward my borders. "Alexia, that's my mine! Lianel, Ryan, where do you think you're going?! Five-minute truce?"

  They exchanged a glance and, with identical cold, predatory expressions, answered: "No."

  Oh, so that's how it is.

  I wasn't going to wait for them to demolish my castle. I focused, and right out of thin air, hovering over the game board, ice figures began to form. Tiny, but incredibly detailed.

  "THAT'S CHEATING!" Ryan squealed.

  Caught up in the excitement, I started stamping them out by the dozens. Ice undead, massive orcs, titans the size of a mug. "Mwahaha! What are you going to do now, Your Highnesses?"

  Alexia wasn't about to be outdone. She raised her palms, and actual tiny bolts of lightning shot from her fingers straight into my ice warriors. "HEY!"

  Lianel joined in too—her plastic little soldiers suddenly started shooting real, albeit tiny, fire. "HEYYY! You're destroying private property!"

  The room filled with hissing, smoke, and the smell of scorched plastic. I kept creating reinforcements over and over. "NO! THEY'RE PUSHING ME BACK! Ryan, betray them! Switch to my side and we'll crush them!"

  The squirt, dying of laughter, just shook his head: "No! Perish, Greg!"

  In the end, they overwhelmed me with mass and special effects. My main tower crumbled with a sad crunch under a combined strike of fire and lightning.

  "Ugh..." I leaned back against the couch. "Well, that's it, now it's just a pile of meat. Kill each other."

  The warriors who had just stood shoulder-to-shoulder against me instantly turned around and started bashing each other.

  Homeric laughter echoed through the room. It was loud, stupid, and completely inappropriate from the standpoint of royal etiquette.

  But in that moment, I felt surprisingly good. I suppose this is what they call "spending time with the family." Although I'm still not entirely sure whose family this is.