‘That’s great, Lance,’ Chets says, as Bandito9000 effortlessly takes down RabidMilson2006, leaving me looking like a noob.

‘Thanks, mate,’ I say. ‘She’s been so ill since our Crater Lake Year Six school trip-slash-fight for survival in the summer that I’d forgotten what it was like to have normal Mum around the house. She’s smiling and singing again. It’s nice.’

‘It wasn’t your fault, you know,’ Chets says.

‘Feels like it was.’

Mum’s illness can get triggered by stress, and let’s just say that what happened at Crater Lake made her lose her mind with worry. You can’t blame her, really. She thought she was sending me on a Year Six residential where the scariest thing that would happen would be a bad zip-wire landing, or falling out of a canoe. Nobody 3 expected Crater Lake activity centre to be the HQ for an alien takeover.

There’s just us and two other duos left in the game.

‘None of us asked for it to happen, and if it wasn’t for you, we’d all be creepy bug creatures.’ He pauses and I swear I can hear him shudder at the same time I do. ‘Like Digger. How are you sleeping now? Any better?’

Sleep has never come easily to me, and it’s been even worse since Crater Lake. The crater contained the remains of a meteorite which released invisible spores into the air. Sleeping at Crater Lake allowed the spores to use your body as a host, turning you into an alien slave. When sleep means the end of your life as you know it, it becomes the enemy. And that’s not a fear you get over easily. The CPAP oxygen machine I use every night helps with my sleep apnoea, but it doesn’t take away the nightmares.

‘You know, same as usual,’ I say, because I don’t want sympathy. We’ve all struggled with awful memories of our residential.

We take out another team.

‘You’ll always be a hero, Lance,’ Chets says. ‘No 4 matter what happens, you’ll always be the one who saved us.’

As much as I’d love to take all the credit – the respect I got after defeating the alien hordes and stopping them from taking over the world was the high point of my life so far, and I will almost definitely never get that kind of glory again – winning at Crater Lake was a team effort. Everyone had courage, and everyone had skills. Chets with his smarts and tech genius; Kat with her kindness and insane talent for climbing; Mak with his prepper survival knowledge and bearlike strength; and Ade with her mega-brain and super-speed.

‘We all saved each other, Chets. You, Katja, Mak, Ade and me.’ I glance at the screen. ‘They’re not coming, are they?’

‘They might still,’ Chets says. ‘They’re probably just running late.’

‘VenomAde has joined another party.’