Chapter 32: Living Arrangements

"This place is incredible" Jade said as she ran from room to room. "The kitchen comes with a sacrificial altar in the middle which doubles as a cooking preparation surface. The blood of innocents adds a lot to the flavor of a good meatloaf."

Nikki followed her into the kitchen. "Its what we've always dreamed for" she said pretty sarcastically.

Jade frowned. "That's why I do most of the cooking isn't it, you don't share the same enthusiasm for culinary preparation."

"Perhaps so, I do think the crystallized chunks of hope in the corners is a nice little something extra on this stone slab though."

Ethan stumbled over to the fridge. "Look, an ice dispenser."

Nikki rolled her eyes. "Leave it to him to get caught up on frozen water distribution from our fridge."

"Hey now" he interjected "its important to cover the basics first. If you can't have ice, the whole rest of the pyramid will fall."

Nikki countered "Actually I don't think pyramids can fall over, it's a pretty stable structure. I'm also not aware of any pyramids that have ice cubes as their base because that seems like the kind of pyramid that would not hold up in your average pyramid environment."

"You know what I meant, don't get caught up on semantics."

Jade smirked. "But you're so cute when you get flustered like that. And you do get flustered a lot don't you."

"I don't know what you're talking about" he said innocently. Ethan smirked before stepping into the living room. "Hey check it out, a new big screen TV, that's pretty neat."

Nikki picked a receipt up from the floor, looked at it and then handed it to Ethan. "I don't think you'll like this too much, its a receipt for the TV payed for with our credit card and with your forged signature."

Ethan examined the receipt for a moment and then shouted "You'll pay for this Tigerlily!" He thought for a second and added "Apparently I'll pay for this but you know what I meant." Tigerlily sauntered in and gave him a mean look before turning around and sauntering away.

Nikki continued on to the next room as Jade followed close behind. They entered one of the bathrooms and were surprised to find the room was huge with just a single toilet in the middle and a whole lot of empty space everywhere else. Nikki commented "Oh yeah, that's efficient use of space. Maybe we can put like a dunking booth in here or something for people to play while they're on the toilet. Maybe a water slide or something."

Ethan pointed to the ceiling near the entrance to the bathroom. "Look its a set of spinning blades."

Jade shook her head. "I think that's a house vent. I'm suddenly inspired not to confirm my theory though, just in case. This place is unique, I'll say that."

"Hey did you guys see, it comes with a dungeon too over on the other side of the house, complete with shackles and stuff." Nikki was pointing excitedly down the hallway towards the far end of the house.

"Down girl" Jade said in response to Nikki's excitement. "This place is pretty neat, though I'm a little concerned with the door outside by the cars with all that nonsense about 'Abandon all hope ye who enter here'."

Ethan shrugged. "I wouldn't worry about it too much, we'll stick Ralph in there since I hear he's looking for a place to live all of a sudden."

"What happened to his place again, it has something to do with the phone call you got on the way home right?" Nikki asked.

"Yeah apparently the new kitten he got recently wasn't very adept at not burning apartments down. When Ralph got home, he found he was homeless all of a sudden. I hear the only things that made it out of the fire undamaged were the litter box and some cat food."

Nikki laughed. "I hate to say I told him so but that kitten had a very suspicious sounding name like Dr. Evilmeow or Chairman Annihilate. He probably just brought this upon himself for picking that particular kitten from the animal mastermind shelter and containment center or AMSCC for short."

Ethan said "Why can't he have normal cats like ours." Nikki and Jade looked at each other for a moment and then back at Ethan. He added "And did anyone else see an orange cat just lumber by?"