An alarm clock rang. I turn to my side and slowly open my eyes. The room was dark and the annoying beeping sound kept going. I rubbed my eyes and yawned. Still laying on my bed I whisper yell to Liam, "Turn off that thing...". The pillow feels so soft against my cheek.

"Not until you get up," Liam says still laying on the couch curled up in blankets. I groan. I really don't want to get up. What time is it...? I grab my phone from beside me taking the charger out, I see the time says, 3:30 AM. I roll over so I'm on my back facing the ceiling. "I don't want to get up Liam..." I say whining.

"You have to, so you can get ready," Liam throws the blankets off of him and sits upright on the couch. I could hear him getting near me. He grabs my bed covers and throws them off of me. I groan once again, "Please just five more minutes," He shakes his head at me.

"Nope because five minutes always turns to five hours," He pushes me out of my bed. I finally give in once I hit the floor. I stretch on the floor then stand up. Liam goes over to our bags and unzips his bag taking out his clothes. He throws my bag at me which I then set on the bed. I Take out the outfit I'm gonna wear to Streaming-con.

I take out lime green joggers, a tight black long sleeve shirt, and black combat boots. "Do you have my wig in your bag?" I ask Liam. He searches through his bag. "I think it's in the car, I'll go get it while you get changed yeah?" I nod to him and he leaves my bedroom. I grab my clothes and get changed into them.

Liam comes in seconds later with my short bob wig and sets it down on the dresser. I grab my makeup things and set them down on the dresser as well. I do a simple makeup look which takes me 1 hour and it annoys Liam I'm taking so long.

He's already ready and is just laying on the couch. "You done yet?" He asks me. I turn to him putting on the last bit of makeup. "Yup, just need to put my wig on," He nods at me. I put my hair up then put a nude wig cap over it. I grab the wig and place it over my head. I fix the wig up brushing it to make sure it looks as if it were my natural hair.

I make sure I look good in my mirror then Liam throws a black mask at me. "Make sure to wear that at all times while at the con," He said smiling and spraying cologne on himself. I nod at putting it in my pocket.

Liam heads downstairs leaving me alone in the bedroom. I look myself in the mirror just one more time. I give myself one hard look, "You'll do good Carmen, just take a deep breath." I think to myself. I take a deep breath in and out.

I nod slowly but then feel as if my chest is tightening. Why do I feel like I can't breathe? I start to take deep breaths in and out. I begin to pace around my room still feeling the tightness in my chest. I start to feel as if the walls are caving in on me.

I drop to the floor my back against the wall. I start to sweat, I shut my eyes tightly trying to concentrate on my breathing. I tilt my head back feeling the cold wall behind me. I kinda rock my body back and forth just a little. I don't like this feeling, I've never liked this feeling. I know I'm having a panic attack. I haven't had one since I was 15.

I hear footsteps coming into my room. I don't open my eyes though, I just feel someone pulling me close to them and hugging me. "Carmen, hey, you're okay...just take deep breaths in and out for me." I hear Liam's voice say. I do as I was doing before taking deep breaths in and out. I feel him stand up and then come back down handing me a bottle. "Drink some water,"

I nod and sip on the water. "I feel as if the walls are coming in me Liam, I...I...I feel like I can't breathe..." He hugs me tighter to him. "Liam what if they don't like me? I'm gonna be in front of all those people, they're gonna be judging me, Liam, they're all gonna be staring at me and I don't think I can handle that." I swallow harshly and try again to breathe but slowly the tightness starts to leave my chest.

"It's easy to be behind a screen with no camera and people can't see me, what if I do something wrong or mess up. They'll all laugh at me and I'll just be a joke to all of them. What if I disappoint all of them? Or what if I trip and fall on stage?" Liam hushed me quietly and hugs me tight. I lay my head on his chest.

"I don't think you could ever disappear anyone Carmen, you're imperfectly perfect. You'll do great no one is going to laugh at you or judge you. And if you trip and fall on stage then I and everyone else up on stage will trip and fall too. If you go down we all go down" Liam says in a calming tone.

"Slowly open your eyes, Carmen. Look you're fine, look around it's just us two in here. No stage no audience and no walls are caving in," he says to me. I gently nod my head and open my eyes slowly.

"Do you think you're ready to go or do you want to sit here a little longer?" His voice is gentle and soothing.

"I think we can go," I say and stand up. He stands up with me and leaves the bedroom. I grab my bag and head downstairs. My parents are already down there waiting on us.

"Are you okay honey? You know you can always stay here instead of going to that streaming thing. Always put your mental health first sweetie" my mom tells me, giving me a warm smile.

"No I'm fine, I promise mom," I tell her.

"Okay fine but here both of you take this. It's food so you can eat while in the car. I don't want you two hungry" she tells me.

I grab the bag of food from her. We give each other a hug then we wave goodbye to them getting into the car. Liam turns the car on and gets on our way to the streaming con arena.

The ride there only took 30 minutes. On the way there both Liam and I ate the food my mom made for us. When we got to the arena it was 5:30 AM

The convention didn't even start until 6:30 AM and there was already a really huge crowd outside waiting to be let in.

"We have to enter through the back where all the other creators are going through," Liam said. I nod at him and he drives us towards the back of the arena.

The whole parking lot was full. We spent a good 10 minutes trying to find a spot to park until we finally found one. I take my mask out of my pocket and put it on covering half my face. Liam takes his out too and covers his face. We get out of the car and try to hide as best as we can. Especially Liam tried to hide since people knew what he somewhat looks like.

We make our way to the door and show the back security our badges. They nod at us we get in the backstage. There were security guards at every corner backstage making sure no fans get in here.

Liam and I look around until we spot our friends. We run over to them and the first thing I do is tackle Natalie and Rosie to the ground in a hug. We giggle and hug each other tightly. After a minute we stand up. I go over to hug Nick then hug Jayson.

"We'll look at you, that outfit looks so good on you," Rosie tells me. I give her a thank you. We all start to catch up. I looked around and to my surprise, I saw there was a snack bar so I run towards that. So many sweets and snacks I could choose from.

As I was about to reach to grab a red sparkly cupcake I feel someone push my hand back. "Yeah, you're not having sweets this early in the morning," I heard Jayson say behind me. I turn around and give him a look. "You always get so hyper and eating sweets this early in the morning isn't good for you," he pushes me away from the snack bar and back to our group.

We all talked for another while, "you guys wanna explore? They don't open the arena for people to come in until 6:30 AM and it's 6:10 AM we got time to explore," Nick says. It catches my attention. It would be great to look around before people come in. We all agree on this plan and head out to the main area. Before leaving backstage I make sure my mask is on correctly and I make sure it doesn't fall off.

We look around the arena. There are many types of booths and stages for different content creators. Many of the food stands were set at the back of the arena. It was very colorful and I liked it.

We look around to find our booths. We looked for about five minutes until we found them, they were up on the second floor. They were all placed together in a roll. I run to mine.

It was filled up with all my merch. It had life-size cut-out cardboard of my gaming avatars. And a huge LED light of my name, 'CeaselessMena'. I take my phone out and take a picture of my booth.

I post the picture on my Instagram story. Seconds later I could hear people start chanting my name. Everyone turns to me. I shrug at them, "what I thought my booth looked cute," I said.

We find that there were windows overlooking the outside of the arena. Nick and I go and stand near them and see the huge crowd which grew 10 times its size from a while ago. Someone looks up from the crowd and sees us standing there. We wave at them and then a bunch of other people sees us.

They start screaming for us and we just smile and wave.

"Doors are about to open in three minutes so I think we should head back backstage," Natalie says putting her phone in her pocket. We agree on that plan because we don't want to get trampled by fans. We make our way backstage. By the time we get backstage, we could hear people coming into the arena. Tons of chatting and people walking around.

Nick and Jayson check their watches, "Hey will see you guys in a bit yeah? It's getting near our times for our solo booth interviews and we have to be there 10 minutes earlier for mic checks," Jayson tells us. We nod at them and they tell us they'll see us during our joint panel.

We all stand there talking until we end up getting bored. "Hey I have an idea why don't we play truth or dare?" Rosie suggested while giving us a grin. Well a look at each other and give the 'might as well' look to each other.

"Truth or dare Liam?" Rosie ask

"Dare..." he gives a devilish smirk.

"I dare you to...call your mom and tell her you got a girl pregnant" Rosie laughs at this. Liam blinks at her a bit then sighs. He takes out his phone and dials a number. The phone starts to ring

"Hello?" His mother said

"Hey mom...how are you?"

"I'm good Liam very good I just making dinner for your dad and I"

"Oh that's uh...great. But I have to talk to you about something important mom..." Liam manages to say in a very worried voice. Damn this mans acting skills are good.

"Oh what is it Liam? Please don't tell me you're hurt! If you need me and your father can fly out to America. Are you okay?"

"No, no I'm fine I promise. It's just that, uh...I kinda...got a girl pregnant..." Liam bit his lower lip.

His mom was quite on the other line.

"YOU WHAT?!?"

"I got a girl pregnant and I didn't believe her at first but she had one of those dna test things done and I'm the father..."

"LIAM JONES! YOURE BARLEY JUST TURNED NINETEEN A COUPLE WEEKS AGO!"

Liam doesn't hold it together much longer and he bursts out laughing. We all do and his mother hears us.

"Liam this isn't a joke! Having a baby isn't some joke Liam!" Her voice is very serious but we keep on laughing.

"Mom...mom it's a prank I'm sorry" he wipes away a couple tears from laughing to hard. I hear his mom on the other side of the line sighing of relief.

"I'll call you later mom, bye I love you" Liam hangs up the phone. We all burst out laughing once more because of how her reaction was.

"Truth or dare Carmen?" Natalie asks me.

"Hmm tough...but you know what dare," Both Rosie and Liam give me a shocked look.

"You rarely ever choose dare. Okay your feeling like a dare devil I see now," Natalie smirks.

"Hit me with your best dare," I tell her confidently.

"Seeing as everyone saw how you are dressed and look like...I dare you to go outside for ten minutes...alone," she smiled at me. I blink at her, dear god why did I choose dare with her. She always makes us do reckless things. I sigh at this, I know I have to do it. A dare is a dare after all.

I begin my walk to the exit door of backstage. I grip onto the handle and wait there for a second. I turn around and see she's holding her phone with a timer ready to press it. I take in a breath and make sure my mask is secured on my face so it doesn't fall off. I turn the handle and walk outside.

The whole place was filled with a lot of chattering and cameras going off from peoples phone while they took pictures and videos of their favorite content creators. I walked around fine for a few seconds until someone spotted me.

"OMG ITS CEASELESSMENA!" They practically yelled. People's heads turned towards me. People start to come and approach me and start shoving their phones in my faces asking for photos and hugs. The more I tried to squeeze myself out the more they put me back into the huge crowd.

Eventually I stopped trying to leave the crowd because I knew they would somehow pull me back in. Gosh I really hate this dare. Just a few more minutes of this and they'll come and get me.

I took photos with people and hugged them. Some people were smiling and happy while others were crying tears of joy for seeing me. And some people couldn't believe they were seeing me in real life.

As people were coming and going the crowd around me didn't fade. As I looked around I spotted familiar faces. It was Zane with somebody and everyone else. My eyes widen a bit but not a lot for people to notice.

Even from this huge crowd and all of them yelling my name and talking I could still head all the littles get excited and say, "LOOK SHES OVER THERE". I see them all running towards the crowd of people leaving their mommy and daddies alone and come chasing after them.

They managed to push through the crowd of people and come up to me, "H...h...hi! I'm a big fan of yours can I please have a picture!!!" Alex says excitedly. I nod at him and he takes his phone out to take a picture of us. I take a picture with the rest of the littles.

I'm out here for five more minutes until security comes out. One of them taps my shoulder signaling it's my time to go backstage again. While the other security try to dissolve the crowd of people.

As the security team was helping me I took one last look at the littles seeing them all smile and giggle. I looked over to the daddies and mommy trying to calm the littles down because they were getting a too excited then I got curious who Zane was with and I manage to get a glimpse on who it was.

It was Olivia....and Zane was holding her hand....

Word count: 2966