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Now, where was that next light switch...? She couldn't see it from where she was, and she didn't want to fumble around until it hit her in the face. Those things had an alarming tendency to feel like spiderwebs or insects when one wasn't prepared for them... Sometimes they felt like that even when she was expecting it. If she screamed, she wondered if Rhodes could hear her from all the way down here.

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Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if he could hear her? She wasn't entirely sure whether things were safe... The basement didn't look terribly dangerous, but she could say the same thing about a few of her own residents, and the assumption was obviously wrong in that regard...

Wait, what was that?! Kitzu turned around suddenly, having seen something at the periphery of her vision. But when she turned, there was nothing to be found besides old boxes, same as before.

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Sighing, she leaned against the nearest stack of boxes and rubbed at her temples. She must have been hallucinating or something... It was time to stop being paranoid and imaginative, obviously. That light switch had to be around here somewhere, and she was going to find it without freaking out. Taking a deep breath, she ventured out into the dark, with her hands splayed in front of her in search of the string.

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Sure enough, after a bit of walking about carefully, she found it. Surprisingly she actually managed not to be shocked by the discovery, let alone scream. When pulled, it predictably activated another old bulb, which only fizzled for a moment before settling. The light was not by any means pretty, but it was again a ward against the unknown darkness. Kitzu smiled, pleased with herself. At the very least, this basement exploration idea certainly was a nice diversion!

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... Then again, her good mood did flag considerably when she realized how much more of the basement she would have to cover in this manner. It wasn't exactly pleasant, and she was a little dismayed to find the surrounding boxes just as uninteresting. "Maybe there really isn't anything down here," she said. Now that she'd begun talking to herself, it sort of made sense to go on... Her voice made the space seem a little less empty, and anything that could do that helped.

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Almost as soon as she had the thought, however, she saw another flicker at the edge of her vision... This time she didn't immediately turn, opting for a slow and steady movement instead. Surely it was some animal, and her twitchiness had just frightened it off last time...? But again, nothing revealed itself even though she was sure to slow her movements. "Ugh. I must really be going insane, then... Well, alright, if I'm going to be crazy, then I'm going to keep talking to myself. You hallucinations sure seem to enjoy that."

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A strange chiming sort of sound began in her head then. "Oh, good, I'm hearing things too..." she muttered, but looked more quickly over her shoulder. Still nothing. The chimes sounded again, this time followed by a faint voice. ... not... Not? "Not what?" She could hear the panic rising in her voice, and fought to keep herself in control. "Not what?" she asked again, sounding calmer this time, if still uncertain. That was a good start.

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... not... hallu-.... The sound was incredibly indistinct and fuzzy, for all that she was sure she wasn't hearing it exactly. It was more something she felt, except what it felt like was a thought... It was hard to put it into words. But she knew the sensation well enough--- Sivain, when he was in Lubshi form, talked to her in her head, and his voice sounded something like this. But the voice itself was different, as two speaking people's voices might be differentiated despite using the same form of speech. It was not Sivain at all... and that was a frightening thing.

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"Hey, Rhodes? This isn't funny, you know, and you should really stop it..." Her first thought in her attempt to justify things and calm herself was that this was just a cruel trick on Rhodes' part. He probably did it to discourage her from wandering the basement unattended, or some nonsense like that... Yes, that must be it. But when no small black shape or glowing yellow eyes appeared long after she'd spoken, she began to fret again. One would think that a black shape or yellow eyes coming out of the dark wouldn't be reassuring, but she knew the anticipation would be worse than the reality.

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... real... not... This way... The voice was getting clearer, she realized, as the next wave of words came. It seemed to be gaining strength as she kept talking to it... Gee, wouldn't it be funny if she'd woken some dormant thing and talking to it was helping it to build its strength? With that in mind, she should probably leave, but curiosity got the better of her and she kept on talking. "This way? What's real? What's not real?" None of what it said made any sense, either, but the voice was fragmented at best.

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Come, this way... trapped... Not only did the voice become more distinct, but now she was sure it had a direction. She felt herself taking steps when it beckoned this time, almost without realizing. It was only when she thought about it that it seemed strange--- Sivain's voice never did that, not when he was using thought-speech. But what should she do? She had no idea what this thing was like at all, or whether it meant her harm. Forget 'don't talk to strangers'. There must be a rule somewhere that said, 'don't follow strange voices you hear in the basement'.

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There was a reason that neither Sivain nor Rhodes trusted her sense, however. If it were them in her situation, they would have left by now, or dealt with it as was within their power. But Kitzu refused to leave, her curiosity now piqued, and decided that the safest and most satisfying option was to keep asking it questions. "Who are you? Why are you talking to me?" she demanded, trying to sound authoritative. Just in case it could see her, she drew herself up a bit taller too, and crossed her arms for good measure.

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Who...? The voice sounded listless and confused now, as if it had not expected that it would be defied. Maybe it wasn't a very smart spirit, and the speech thing was just a problem it had.

"Yes, who," she said again, a little more impatiently than before, despite herself. The fear faded a bit at the thought that there might be such a thing as a stupid basement ghost. She never read any sort of spooky novel, but that wasn't how it was supposed to go, was it?

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... name is Nanashi... Lonely. It gave its name with some eagerness, and now that she thought to wonder, she supposed the voice sounded more masculine than feminine. At least, that was how her mind identified it if the question was posed, even though the name 'Nanashi' didn't inspire any gender label in itself. But what intrigued her was its response to her other question. Lonely... That didn't sound like a malevolent monster hiding in the dark at all. In fact, it sounded just like a sad person, the kind she might meet sitting at a bench in a park.

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"Alright," she decided on a whim, even if she did sound a little scared about it, "I'll follow you... Where are you exactly?" The voice beckoned again, wordlessly, and she followed it as best she could. It was a little difficult, since she insisted on fussing about lighting, and sometimes it would pull her in a direction blocked by boxes. When that happened, she would have to waste time finding a way around it. That thought she had earlier about a labyrinth of boxes was proving to be more true all the time.