Ecliptor looked up from his computer console warily. Giving a brief glance over at the bright green LED chronometer display, he noted that the message the landlord had left under the door read that "the roommate" would be arriving at 13:30 hours.

It was currently 15:18.

The sound of a creature struggling with boxes out in the hall was unmistakeable, though, and he gave a deep, synthetic-sounding sigh of exasperation as he returned to his work. He'd put in his request to room alone, and the landlord hadn't honored it. Therefore, Ecliptor decided that he would be damned if he'd lift a single finger to assist this unwanted roommate hone in on HIS space.

Especially two hours late.

He heard a crashing sound, followed by a scream outside the door. Ecliptor input an incorrect keystroke and his screen flooded with error messages.

This was not off to a promising start.

He furiously turned toward the door, his red glass eyes flaring with rage. He heard the unwanted housemate whining about his spilled items and the bruise he was sure to have developed due to his fall, and Ecliptor fingered his sword.

It was nearly five minutes before the roommate had gotten his things back together enough to come into the apartment he would be sharing with the robotic killing machine, and he sighed loudly and muttered to himself, looking around him, making sure that no one had seen his graceless tumble. The door was a "Push", not "Pull", and he yelled to no one in particular that he'd just "Push this here door right on open and go on inside the house now".

The room was dark, as Ecliptor preferred it to be. The walls glowed dimly with a lime green grid that served as both minimal illumination and decoration. A long, metal slab against one wall served as a bed. A rudimentary kitchen contained nothing but a largely unused black tea kettle and empty cabinet.

The roommate dropped his box in the middle of the room, cracked his spine and both knuckles, and looked around the room.

"Uhhhhhh," he said slowly. "Where's the lights?"

Ecliptor realized he hadn't been spotted yet, and he continued to stroke his sword.

One wrong move, that's all it will take. One wrong move, "Roommate". Will you even know you're making it? he thought with sadistic pleasure.

The roommate walked, lumbered, really, over to the wall and started looking around for a light switch.

"Nnnnnnnn, let's seeeeee," he said thoughtfully. "Liiiight... switch... oh, this must be it!"

He purposefully slapped a convex area of the wall and waited. Nothing happened.

"Doh... okay, that wasn't it. Uhhhh... man, where's that guy they said was gonna be here? I bet he could find it. Hey, HELLO? Mr. Guy? Are ya here?"

Not a sound, Ecliptor thought.

"Awww, maaan..." the roommate whined. "How am I supposed to put my stuff away if I can't find the... room?"

Good question.

The roommate then began scanning the darkness in earnest. He didn't even remember where he'd put his box, so it didn't surprise him OR Ecliptor unduly when he tripped over it for a second time and went sprawling across the floor, landing right at Ecliptor's feet.

An unfortunate mistake. Ecliptor thought, cocking his head to one side and preparing to make a clean kill.

However, things didn't go quite as he'd anticipated, and the roommate got his bearings back much sooner than he had outside the door.

"STUPID BOX!" the roommate yelled, rubbing his head pitifully. "Man, if I keep this up, I'm gonna break a bone."

He took a second and looked down at himself, then let out a worried gasp.

"And THEN what'll I have!"

Ecliptor was poised above the roommate, not making a sound. He wasn't at all sure what gave the roommate the idea to look up, but it was through no actions of Ecliptor's that he suddenly found himself staring into the deep, crater-like eyes of the roommate.

And, just that quickly, he was given away.

The roommate paused for a very long second, and Ecliptor knew it was now or never. In a second, maybe less, the roommate would scream. In a second, maybe less, the scream would be followed by a loud crash as the lifeless body crashed to the floor. The combination of sounds would cause alarm. The downstairs neighbors would be suspicious already.

The scream came.

And Ecliptor put down his sword, resigned.

The roommate continued to scream as he clumsily got to his feet and attempted to run. The box betrayed him a final time, and he landed right on top of it. The flimsy cardboard gave out underneath him and his personal items scattered across the floor.

Ecliptor sighed again.

"Computer, increase illumination by forty-seven percent," he commanded. The computer did so, and a shallow green light filled the room.

The roommate was still under the impression that he was scrambling for his life, and when he realized he wouldn't be able to get to his feet (his pair of roller skates were underneath his knees), he let out another scream of terror and covered his head with both hands.

Ecliptor got to his feet and regarded the situation with bemusement. A shattered vase lay at his feet, with a single fake daisy lying nearby.

"You've broken your vase," he told the roommate.

The roommate whimpered a little and looked behind him at the broken vase. He suddenly stopped whimpering.

"What? Aww, man!" he yelled, seeming to forget everything else. He kicked the roller skates away and crawled over to the broken pieces. "Dude, this was my last one!"

"What purpose could it possibly serve?" Ecliptor asked.

"What? Whaddya mean? It's a VASE! And a flower!" the roommate said, holding up the flower and one of the broken pieces. "Man, where am I gonna get another one of these on such short notice?"

"A store?" Ecliptor suggested flatly.

"What? No, you don't know what you're talking about," the roommate said dismissively, waving Ecliptor away with one hand and looking back down at the pieces on the floor. Suddenly he looked back up and gasped, backing away. "Hey, wait a minute! You just tried to kill me!"

"No, I'm afraid you did that to yourself."

"Oh, yeah, what? Like, like I'm some kind of idiot who... yeah, not EVEN, Buddy. What do you have to say for yourself, sitting there in the dark like that?"

"This is my house."

"Yeah!" the roommate challenged. Then he was silent. "Oh, it is?"

Ecliptor said nothing.

"Oh, for real?" the roommate asked.

Again Ecliptor said nothing. He seemed to blend completely into the walls, which matched him perfectly.

"Oh!" the roommate exclaimed.

Ecliptor backed up as the roommate struggled to get to his feet. He succeeded after a few tries. Ecliptor noticed at this time that the strange creature had a sword of his own, which he clumsily held in one hand, using it to push him up. Once he was standing, he put his hands on his hips and the sword jutted out at an awkward angle.

"Ha! Okay! So... this is your house?" he asked one final time.

"Yes, it's my house!" Ecliptor snapped.

"Oh! I'm moving in here today!" the roommate said.

"Yes, I'm aware of that."

"Oh! So you're the guy!"

Ecliptor decided he wasn't going to speak until the roommate said something different.

"Oh, okay! You're the guy, and this is your house. Well, I'm moving in here today! I'm late because I had to use my dad's van to get all my stuff."

Ecliptor just looked at him.

"And... I have some more stuff down in the van," the roommate continued.

Ecliptor remained silent.

"...So... wanna go down and get it for me?" the roommate finished, pointing behind him with his thumb.

"No."

"What?" the roommate said, disbelief in his voice.

Ecliptor said nothing.

"But I fell DOWN!" the roommate cried.

"I don't want you moving in here at all. Why would I help you with your things?"

"I don't know!" the roommate yelled. "But my dad's gonna want the van back!"

"That has nothing to do with me."

"You're my roommate!"

"Certainly not by choice," Ecliptor said.

"Oh YEAH! Well... well, once I THINK of something threatening, and I, you know, SAY it? And then I... y'know... DO it? Like, once I... and then, once I do that, oh MAN, we're just-- no, we're just not even going to discuss it. But you're gonna be SORRY you ever crossed the mighty RITO REVOLTO! And that's just-- I mean, YEAH. HUH!"

The roommate, Rito, turned on his heel then, and purposefully smashed directly into the door.

The door that needed to be pulled open from the inside.