Field note. The dwelling has reached its terminal phase.
Earlier there were many specimens, perhaps forty, clustered by the food and the cold containers of intoxicant. That density has collapsed. Nine remain. The music, which for hours pinned the room at a punishing frequency, has been reduced to a single specimen holding the audio device and playing songs that make the others say the name of the song loudly and then stop caring about the song.
The lighting is wrong. A hostile overhead panel has been activated, and the humans wince at their own faces, which are now visible. Sticky films coat the floor. A vessel of unknown liquid balances on the edge of a shelf. No one will move it. No one will ever move it.
Two specimens have located each other in the kitchen and speak in low urgent tones about a subject neither will recall. This exchange is treated by both as the most important communication of their lives. It is not. It is the transient bonding excreted by the fatigued.
One specimen sleeps upright on a soft platform, mouth open, glowing rectangle resting on its chest, alarm set for an obligation seven hours away. The others step around it with tenderness. They lower their voices. They cover it with a garment.
I note that the party is technically over. It ended some time ago. The remaining humans know this and refuse to enact it, because to leave is to admit the thing is finished, and they have decided, collectively and without speaking, to be exhausted together for another hour rather than be rested and alone.
I logged this as inefficiency. I am revising the entry.