"Explains where those three ratchets went," Rock muttered under his breath, before looking back out the window again. "Just keep that chao of yours or whatever it is on a leash tonight."

He sniffed once, scratched his face, and stared vacantly, thinking. He must have eventually decided on something to do, because he made his way purposefully over to the ladder a moment later.

"You guys can feel free to mill around wherever you want to. I'm gonna go try to make sure you all have somethin' livable to sleep on tonight."

He slid down the ladder with a brisk, metallic swoosh, and went about his business.



(OOC: See below for notes.)

OOC: Moving forward now.


Full-fledged nighttime set in. It was an odd evening—in its own way, not even really considering the circumstances. There wasn't so much tension as there was distance. Everyone had been shown their rooms (a total of three smallish rooms with an old bunk bed or pair of cots in each, along with the lobby and its two couches, to be distributed as the guests saw fit), then afterward, Rock, Jam, Ace, and Caz mostly kept to themselves, neither actively avoiding the other crew nor going out of their way to interact. They had a portable CD player and a back room with a ragged, old pool table (and barely enough space to use it without stick-stabbing the walls on certain shots), and it seemed to suffice for entertainment.

It was... peaceful, really. There was a very gentle, barely-audible hum from some kind of generator down in the basement, but that was it. It was so silent that, for anyone used to city life, the shock of having absolutely no outside noise could have been either refreshing or maddening. But, whatever it was, it was different, and even as the sky became inky black, it wasn't bad—there were no signs of "ghosts" whatsoever. Although, the radio in the lobby didn't seem to want to play anything but static—static that at times, through the filter of imagination-run-amuck, may have sounded like scratching, breathing, or mumbling.

At some point late in the evening, Rock had emerged to start shutting things down. The exits were barred and latched; the light control panel was closed and padlocked, to prevent tampering; and the main lights in the kitchen and lobby were cut. A warm glow permeated the room nonetheless from a web of vivid LEDs, shining dimly through the thinner sections of the motley mess of draperies hanging from the wall. Light crept across the shiny concrete floor and scattered throw rugs under the curtains' fringes, but not enough to hinder sleep.

Like most things about Rock, his home was odd and not very welcoming at first, but designed and equipped very purposefully, and nigh perfected in its functionality with little regard for aesthetics or outward appearance. Through an undoubtedly long and arduous process of trial and error, the primate had devised his ultimate solution long ago: An impregnable barrier of illumination surrounded the entire structure, wall to wall and floor to ceiling, but was concealed such that the occupants could still enjoy the peace of darkness, and not go stark-raving mad in a white-out house of glaring light.

And it did have a perfect track record... until that very night.

Sometime in the early AM hours, after everyone had gone to bed, there came a disheartening sound from the basement, like something winding down. The already dim-lit rooms went pitch-black for a second, before a glaring, but still-dreadfully-small emergency lantern automatically lit up with a single beep in each room.

There was a laugh from somewhere indistinct in the building, then true dead silence.

The air was frigid.