A Wellness Check (Spencer and Kyle join)

“Flight ### will be boarding passengers soon.” The intercom suddenly announced.

“Oh, they are starting to board people. Bye.” Kyle said as he hung up on Logan.

Logan then texts Spencer the flight’s estimated landing time while in line to get on the plane. The flight lasted several hours.

“Hey Spencer, the flight just landed and I’m waiting on my luggage.” Kyle told Spencer over the phone.

“That’s great I’ll start heading over to pick you up. I’m already in town since I went shopping while waiting for your flight to land, so it won’t take long. Do you want to eat out, pick something up, or eat after getting to my house?” Spencer answered in his rapid-fire way of speaking.

“I was thinking we could pick some dinner up for us and Logan and Damien and visit them since Logan sounded so bad this morning.” Kyle answered while waiting at the luggage collection terminal.

“That sounds like a good idea, I was already planning on dropping off some get-well baskets tomorrow anyways so we can do that as well. So, what did you want to get Asian, fast food, or something else? I’m entering the Airport now. Where are you now?” Spencer continued to say pulling into the airport’s parking lot.

“Oh my luggage just came by, I’m heading to the exit now. I'll be waiting outside so just drive by. I was thinking of just getting some chicken, all of us enjoy it." Kyle replied, taking his bag and heading towards the door.

Spencer agreed and continued to chatter on as he drove to the entrance of the airport and picked up Kyle. Afterwards both of them picked up some fried chicken and took the hour drive back to the neighborhood and went over to Logan's house first.

“Well, we arrived. Should we call or just knock?” Spencer asked as he finished parking his car in Logan’s driveway.

“I’ll get the door; you bring the basket.” Kyle said as he got out of Spencer’s car and tried to open the door but it was locked.

Kyle then began rummaging around near Logan’s front door and excitedly grabbed something from under the welcome mat. Spencer after grabbing the food in one hand and the get-well basket in the other walked to the front door.

“I should tell him he shouldn’t be leaving his emergency key under the welcome mat.” Kyle said to Spencer as he was opening the front door.

“Shouldn’t we tell Logan that we’re entering before we barge in.” Spencer began to tell Kyle but was cut off by Kyle's reply as he was entering.

“It’s fine we’re just doing a surprise visit. Just get in already.” Kyle said as he cut off Spencer and entered Logan’s house.

Spencer quickly entered as well. After putting down the basket and fast food, Spencer saw the game board set up in another room through an open door and felt an urge to check it out. Kyle noticed Spencer wandering into another room and decided to follow.

“Hey, do remember if Logan had this game before or if it’s something new?” Spencer asked Kyle, intrigued by the game.

“No, I think it’s new and I think we should play as well. We can just stay after dinner to play.” Kyle said as he grabbed the Frog token and placed it on the large start space.

“You're right and it does look interesting, so I’ll join too. What’s the worst that could happen? It's just a game and if Logan doesn’t want to play it with us, we can just remove our pieces from the game.” Spencer said as he grabbed the Brown Bear token and placed it on the start.

“Well, we can’t really start without Logan and the other person that’s playing the game. I’ll go find Logan, why don’t you warm the food.” Kyle said to Spencer after they placed their tokens on the game board and headed back to the kitchen.

“I’m betting that the other player is Damien. I’m saying this as when I last saw Logan and Damien it just felt like they should be together.” Spencer said sharing what he felt after meeting Logan and Damien the other day, before they split up to accomplish their tasks.

As Spencer started warming the food Kyle went up the stairs and checked the first room with an open door and saw Damien’s suitcase in the corner. Kyle left the room wondering who Logan’s guest could be, but didn’t need to wait long to find out as he went to the room, he remembered to be Logan’s. After entering Logan’s room Kyle saw Logan embracing Damien as both peacefully slept only half covered by the blanket. Kyle then decided to try to wake them up by gently shaking them, but before Kyle could even take a step forward Logan’s alarm went off.

“Already dinner.” Logan said with a slightly hoarse voice as he started to untangle himself from the slowly awakening Damien and stretch with his tail extending up and out of the blanket unaware of Kyle standing in the doorway.

“What time is it?” Damien asked in a much hoarser voice, also unaware of Kyle.

“Well, it’s currently dinner time and you both are in luck as me and Spencer brought fried chicken.” Kyle said with a loud voice nearly causing both Logan and Damien to jump out of the blanket that kept their naked bodies from being exposed. This caused the blanket to slip down from their chests to their stomach.

“How did you get in?” Logan asked, flicking his tail in confusion causing the blanket to slide further down Logan and Damien’s bodies.

“You forgot to change where you kept the emergency key from under the welcome mat. Anyway, after you two get dressed, come down for dinner.” Kyle said after seeing the blanket slide further down their stomachs to their hips and seeing them wearing nothing.

With this juicy information Kyle closed the bedroom door. Wanting to respect his friends’ private love life Kyle decided to keep this information to himself. After a few minutes the friends met up in the kitchen and proceeded to eat dinner talking.

“Hey, me and Kyle found that game you're playing, and we want to play so we set our tokens at the start of the board.” Spencer Said at the end of dinner, with Logan and Damien looking at each other with a look of despair.

“No need to make that face, If you don’t want us to play, we will remove our tokens and go.” Spencer said after seeing their reaction. “It’s not that we don’t want you to play with us, it's just this game is a bit different than a normal game.” Damien said with a tentative voice.

“So, it's a punishment game.” Kyle said after listening to Damien.

Suddenly an alarm on Logan’s phone went off.

“Well let’s show them it will be easier than trying to explain it.” Logan said after silencing the alarm.

Logan then ushered Spencer and Kyle into the game room followed by Damien, and then directed their attention to the board. Before their eyes the pieces started to come to life and the block became cards.

“What just happened?” Kyle and Spencer shouted in unison.

“That’s the game it warps reality according to its rules, you did read them right” Damien said but knew the answer when both Kyle and Spencer averted their gaze.

“Long story short, every turn you can draw up to three cards causing changes draw more and get punished permanently, turns are daily cannot be delayed and go in order of who placed their token first, you cannot leave the game after joining without the game letting you. In order to win your token needs to get to the end. The winner gets to decide if non-permanent changes stay. That's about all we know so far as the game goes.” Damien continued on to telling them the rules they understood.

“That sounds neat.” Kyle said, seeming to understand what the game was about.

“I agree. It can't be too bad if you and Logan are examples of what changes the game can cause, since you look like you always did.” Spencer said to the raised eyebrows of Damien and an irate look of are you stupid from Logan.

“Are you …” Damien started to say but was stopped by Logan.

“Let them experience the game and then we can talk some more.” Logan said with annoyance in his voice.

“Anyway, it's time to begin the next round.” Logan said when the tokens had completely come to life and looked like game piece sized live animals.