Emerald grumbles as she rolls out of bed. "Pff..." she looks out the window. "Still night time. Why am I so awake?"

But she's not alone. The whole town feels rested, yet it is still night time.

A little bell tolls in each of the hutts. Timothius looks confused by it.

Back in the slumberparty room, Shelly also looks confused by the bell. But Emerald explains. "Oh.. well... just as well we're awake. Shelly, Mittens, that is the signal to report to the mess hall..."

She leads the way to the mess hall.

Lucky, Pyrus, Joe, and Meiou would also know it is the summoning bell, meant to let people in a given hutt know they are to report to the mess hall. And they all hear their own hutt's bell ring.

Channelwood doesn't have a big bell. That would make too much sound. The little bells are just enough sound to alert individuals while not making a big sound. Big sounds risk discovery by Robotnik, after all.

Maverick looks at the bell in the orphan hutt. Then to Pyrus. "I'll be sneaking there first, in case it's a trap."

In reply to Emerald Haynsworth (msg # 1):

JB was so deep in sleep that an Atom Bomb would land on his head and he wouldn't feel a thing.  So would it be a surprise when it's the little bell sound that woke JB up?

"Why do I get the feeling that somethings not right?"

the rabbit jumped out of bed sword in hand and on ready to fight . It took him a couple before realizing it was the summoning bell. he blushed and was glad noone saw this as he turned the sword off before yawning and throwing on the clothes he had off. something felt off but he wasnt sure what.

  Joe does this crazy thing where he checks his watch on the way to the Mess hall.

  Maybe Johnny turned on the bell because new people unable to resist the urge of new things to press?... Nah, that wouldn't be annoying enough to be true.  Aquarias has probably frozen over again or something.

"Um... I'm guessing because there probably is something wrong, Johnny," Lucky answers, "That's the silent alarm for emergency meetings.  I don't hear any laser fire yet, so that's a good sign.  But we should all stay as quiet as possible until we find out what's going on."

He turns an endearing smile toward Timothius' adorable surprised look and offers both of them a hand-up from the bed.

"Aw, do we hafta sneak, Mav?" Pyrus objects, "I wunna know what's going on now.  And wouldn't we be hearing the folks closest to the meeting hall screaming by now if it were a trap?"

Peeking out the window at the dark sky, Pyrus yawns for being wakened out of bed so early.

"I'm hungry too."

Like Meiou, Mittens jolts out of bed, ready for a fight.  But unlike Meiou, she's not the least bit embarrassed about it and stabs at the air in a couple places in hopes of hitting any unseen enemies in the room.

To Emmy she gives a "what the heck?!" look.  "That's uh...  different.  It's still dark out.  Do you always wake up so early with a breakfast bell?  Or is it that the sun failed to rise?!  Dun dun duuuun!  This is it!  The day of DOOM!"

Mits sings,
"Dies iræ!
dies illa!
Something something.
Something something!
Latin words that mean we're all doomed!"

Mittens sadly does not own a watch.  Broke the first.  Lost the second.  Gave the third as a gift.  The fourth talked to much.  Etc.

Maverick says, "If I were evil, I would slit throats so people couldn't scream. Then I'd ring the bell to bring all those trusting folk straight to me. I'll be sneaking. What you do will be up to you."

Maverick does still have nightmares. Mostly about being marched off to the roboticizer. His mind constantly thinks of ways he would capture or kill freedom fighters, so he can at least say he thought out all the ways he could think of and prepared for them.

Emerald starts walking and says in a quiet tone, "It isn't the breakfast bell. It's the "we're having a meeting now" bell. Which means something bad is happening. But it also means, if you talk, keep it very quiet."

Emerald has a pocket watch. She checks it, sees the time, and closes it, figuring it can't be 8am already... (which is what Joe sees on his watch)

Timothius gives a helpless shrug to Lucky and follows him to the Mess Hall.

Katy is waiting at the Mess Hall and is standing on a table in the center of the room, looking around and waiting for people to show up.

Once everyone has showed up, Katy says, "Alright everyone... we can speak in normal volume, but normal only. No raising voices. I'm holding this meeting because I've been awake for a couple hours now and the sun has showed no sign of coming up. I have a watch and a backup timepiece. They both say it's 8 A.M. already. I know they are not lying because I stayed up until 2 A.M. and woke up to both of my timekeepers saying it was 6 A.M. There is no reason my watch would skip forward so far, and I feel fully rested. I checked several other timekeeping devices throughout Channelwood, including the old waterclock, and all of them agree on the time. Sorry to say, but something is keeping us from receiving sunlight."

JB didn't have a watch, and even if he did, he didn't get the chance to synchronize it to anything, so he took Katy's word for it.  "What about the sky above us right now?" He asks.  "Do we still see stars, or is there anything covering us?  If it lasted this long, I think we can rule out an eclipse."