Nocturn Core (Abridged)

My roommate was replaced with a guy named Alex. He had a black cat named Sylvester. We didn’t talk to each other much at first. One night, as I was trying to fall asleep, I heard Alex murmuring in his bed. He had a stuffed lion in his arms. I knew it was named Simba because he frequently talked to it during the day… The next day, he accidentally spilled a whole container of bleach on my bed, so I helped him clean it. I joked about him doing it on purpose. He also accidentally dropped a bag of chips behind the bed. I refused to pick them up. The residents of the connecting room, Sandy and Tyler, knew Alex from high school. They were dating. They hardly ever came over to our side of the suite, but Alex frequently went downtown with them to parties. Alex had to go somewhere, so I decided to take the initiative to clean up our messy room. I finally disposed of the bag of chips. It was empty… I wondered where the chips had gone. I also washed a bunch of dishes by hand in the bathroom. They weren’t my dishes, but I was still worried someone would be mad that I didn’t dry them off and put them away.

Standing in the doorway between our bathroom and the other room, I gave Tyler a creepy stare. He was watching the History Channel. Confused and a little concerned by my weird smile, he explained that he never goes to class on Mondays. He always just watched the History Channel to learn things. I wondered if I should be doing that… Apparently, I was in the same history class. Tyler had to use Alex’s computer for something, so he came over to our room. Shortly after, we heard pained whispers behind the door.

“Help me…” a voice wailed.

“Just a second,” called Tyler. The whine repeated. I realized the door was already cracked open. Alex poked his head in. “Wow, it’s just Alex… Prick.”

“You know you love me!” he laughed. Alex was amazed by how clean the room was. He started looking for his chips.

“I threw them away,” I explained. He reached into the trash, pouting.

“But floor chips are the best kind of chips…”

“Well, no one’s been eating said floor chips, so…” Alex looked up at me with a raised eyebrow.

“Dude, Sylvester’s been snacking on those for like a day!”

“Really?!” I was surprised I didn’t notice…

“Dude! You ate my donut?” Alex asked Tyler.

“Yeah… What of it?” replied Tyler.

“Nothing, just saying…” He stared sadly at the half-eaten donut in the trash can. I sensed that he was considering eating it. I decided to go to the bathroom, and Sylvester followed me in. The cat started unrolling the toilet paper while I was urinating, so I sent him away. Then he hopped in the toilet itself – before I could flush down my waste. “This cat is psycho…” I flushed it with Sylvester inside the bowl, hoping he was too big to get stuck. The cat ended up with his head and front paws sticking out of the bottom of the bowl. He was soaking wet and could hardly pull himself out… He managed, though. After shaking off his back feet, he trotted back into the room. Alex cracked up when he saw what had happened to Sylvester. I secretly wondered if the cat could talk… Tyler and I discovered a stuffed warthog that played recorded sounds. Although it takes us a minute, we realized they were all recordings made by Alex when he was a kid. He had kept this since he was a child.