Aha! A "pause" button! Right, I'm going to edit this in a bit here with quotes from various (usually earlier) posts to compile what we've discovered thus far.... please hold. :P So! Very first thing we're told is that a cold wakes Pearl up, which is more than the usual-weather cold. As in, it can't JUST be the outside chill coming in, because [quote='Egon']It's more than just the seeping chill of the season, or the weather-masses that come off the sea.[/quote] Then we find out that any entrances/exits including windows are all ajar... can anyone find reference to any that are actually still shut? Was it a without-exclusion thing, every possible portal is open? For sure Pearl's bedroom window and door (I assume to the hallway/rest of house) are open, as well as the door to her bathroom. And from these quotes: [quote='Egon']It's heavy work, and you have to lean your whole body into the effort[/quote] (in re: window) and [quote='Egon']Your door is ... a big, heavy thing. Original to the house.[/quote], we know it could not have happened unintentionally (the sort of non-intelligent/natural forces which could open that would certainly have woken Pearl earlier). Further evidence that it wasn't just wind/etc.: [quote='Egon']As far as you can tell, everything is in its proper place. [/quote] Further emphasis about portal oddities are that the door is actually making noises, [quote='Egon']Your door is still rattling a little[/quote] and [quote='Egon']It's strange, because the hinges are silent, and the floorboards are silent too. [/quote] So if the door is rattling but it's not the hinges making noise, what was it that caused that sound? Although further sound info: [quote='Egon']by night, it [the house] groans like the ancient that it is, settling to rest after a wearying day[/quote] but [quote='Egon']even rocking your body from side to side, you can't get a single note out of those boards.[/quote] so the floor sound/silence is strange too, it's not just portals. Back to portals, [quote='Egon']your door is gently rocking back and forth.[/quote] even though we've established it's heavy and not normally prone to unintentional movement. Further, we have evidence that things which were closed are now open, but the bathroom door was propped open by a big ceramic frog, so that one started open -and is found in the same state. It hasn't closed. More in a bit as I go through the thread looking specifically for windows-and-doors info.

Alright, cool! I'm just going to copy & paste what I said earlier. Random ideas here, but I think this might be something similar to the colony of Roanoke. From what we know, all of Pearl's family has mysteriously disappeared, (possibly) along with Debbie's as well. We currently (as far as I know) don't know the status of Zach's family or anyone else in the town, even though the walk from Pearl's house to Debbie's was noticeably quiet. All of the bedrooms in Pearl's house that we saw were very tidy, so it's possible that none of her relatives were in any rush to leave (but that's up for interpretation). The additional supernatural touches in Pearl's house have yet to be explained. The colony of Roanoke, for those who might not know or remember, was an English settlement on Chesapeake Bay. All of its 115 settlers had disappeared overnight, and the only thing remaining was the word CROATOAN (the name of a local Native American tribe) etched into a fence post. All of the houses in the settlement had been completely dismantled and there were no signs of struggle left behind. All the settlers had previously been instructed to carve a Maltese cross into a nearby tree if they had been forced to leave. No cross was found, so it might be reasonable to assume they were not in a rush to leave. With all the emphasis on the importance of the town's history and folklore, this just popped into my head. It'd be nice if we got more info that could possibly substantiate my claims a bit more, but I've just thrown all the things I could connect together in here. We'll see if there's actually something to this or not at some point.

I'm interested in the technology. We were able to get the phones working, but why not texts or email? What's so different about them – and what are the limits of what we can do? The Roanoke thing is worth looking into, [url=/users/profile/Vivixion]@Vivixion[/url]. I know it's some nondescript New England town and Roanoke is a little bit south for that, but you make a good point the lack of indication of struggle. Also, Egon mentioned that names have importance, so we should definitely look into that too. [url=/users/profile/Sefria]@Sefria[/url], I'm also intrigued by your observations. It galls me to say it, because I thought it was an obvious red herring, but there are some really weird alien abduction cases that have similar traits to some of the things you've brought up. Weird lights outside, absolute quiet in the house, open windows that shouldn't be open. I don't want to believe it's aliens, but... if the evidence is out there... it might just be aliens.

I think the only phone thing that ever worked was Zach calling one of the other two phones which were right there, right? But I'm bad with phones and current tech, so I'm not the best thing to go into that.... (I also don't know much about alien lore, so I'm just gathering all info possible now, [url=/users/profile/theblackbird]@theblackbird[/url] keep falling behind because Stuff but.... between everyone curious about this, I'm sure we can puzzle out SOME of it!) The Roanoke thing is super intriguing! I might try and track down a book on it from our library next time I get there.