Noon 021

[allthekeys]

|| DAY 021: NOON At first the chimes of noon sound almost normal. The slow donging of the clock pronounces the hour, and then it begins to strike off its count: but by the fifth, the sound begins to distort and is replaced by a loud rumbling that drowns out the remaining calls. The entire house shakes with the rumble, windows rattling and quivering in their frames, the walls straining. Door frames creak under the pressure and stress of the event. In the shadows, a flicker of movement can be seen. The Rats stream from their hiding places, nooks and crannies all over the house, and fall into lines -- all seeming intent to head somewhere. They chase their way up staircases from the lower floors, scrambling over each other to get to their destination then vanishing away holes in walls and hiding places under furniture. The spiders that emerged from the dolls earlier seem equally keen to escape. The crowd to the edges of rooms and stream out towards any available window, trickling out through cracks in avoidance of something. For a moment the power flickers, bathing the entire house in darkness. It returns mere seconds later; as the last of the shocks fade into memory and the clock finishes its hourly pronouncement as if nothing ever happened. In the dark, someone has placed a small, waterproof bag by each house guest's feet. The bag contains an unmarked bottle with two white pills, four food bars, a water filter, a snorkel, a towel, and an emergency blanket. Nothing is labelled, but everything is just the right size for the person who found the bag. The foundations of the house give one last shuddering sigh.