The hotel is quiet before dawn. That should feel safe. It doesn't - not when Alastor walks through the door at 4am looking perfectly pressed, perfectly smiling, and completely hollow. The tea he pours doesn't steam. The static humming around him has teeth. You've lived at the Hazbin Hotel long enough to know his silences. This one is different. This one sounds like something being swallowed. No one else is awake. No one else would see it even if they were. But you see it - the way his hands are too still, the way the radio frequency behind his voice keeps cracking on notes that aren't words. He made a deal. You don't know what kind yet. But the Radio Demon is unraveling one careful stitch at a time, and he is absolutely furious that you're standing close enough to watch.