Julius Hour
Prologue & Chapter 1
Prologue
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Chapter 1
Julius Hour ran. He ran in great leaps and bounds. He tried to avoid the rocks and thick brambles under foot, but he could not. He was much too awkward for that. He stopped at the edges of a clearing in the woods. He had to stop; he couldn’t breathe.
“Come on, Julius. You’re almost there!” spoke the voice in his ear piece.
The sudden voice caused him to jump and hit his head on a low hanging branch. He took a deep breath in and counted to three, slowly. I will not yell at him. I will not yell at him. I will not…
“GENIUS, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU TO STOP DOING THAT?! YOU CAN’T JUST START TALKING TO ME OUT OF NOWHERE. You are going to give an old man a heart attack.”
Genius chuckled. “Don’t be such a drama queen, Julius. You are 33 years, 2 months, 1 week, 4 day, 11 hours, 3 minutes, and 45 seconds old. Honestly, that’s hardly old.”
Julius’s jaw dropped to form an indignant “O.” Did Genius really just call me a drama queen?
The chuckling turned to outright laughter. Julius’ face collapsed into a frown.
“What?”
He could hear Genius gasping for breath (as though he needed any) as he spoke: “I can just see your face, Julius — !” His words dissolved once more into uncontrollable giggling and Julius shook his head, exasperated.
A rustle of leaves behind Julius made him still, staring into the expanse of leaves and branches. Genius’ laughter died into silence, white noise the only sound still drifting through the earpiece. Julius scanned the mess of trees, peering at each line and shadow for something, anything but —
There.
He saw a flash of movement, almost imperceptible, and cursed under his breath. He could hear the tut-tut noises Genius was making as he broke into a sprint.
“Now really, Julius, how many times have I told you that it’s impolite to have someone muttering obscenities while you’re trying to have a decent conversation — ”
“I don’t…have…time…for conversation…right now!” he panted, stumbling over a particularly large (and terribly placed) rock. Genius shut up then, choosing to spout a steady stream of encouragements instead as Julius tripped over everything in his path, still somehow managing to keep whatever semblance of balance he had.
He was suddenly on the ground, his cheek making small talk with the dirt as he paused to wonder how he got down here in the first place. But then he heard the footsteps, menacing and large and coming ever closer, and he flung himself off the ground and ran.
He ran, ran despite his flailing limbs and overly-large mustache, ran as fast as he possibly could with all those impediments, ran with Genius’s voice slamming into his eardrums saying “Come on, come on, come on” over and over and over.
His eyes chased the skyline while he roped through the trees, constantly on the lookout for —
“There! There! You’re almost there, I know you can see it, gogogogoGO!”
He put his last smidge of energy into the final sprint, feeling the footsteps behind him thunder and shake the ground. He slammed up the rickety wooden stairs, gasping out “The locks, the locks” as his hands fumbled for the two bolt locks he had put in place for reasons he didn’t understand at that moment. He heard a loud click as the electronic locks opened and tried to relax enough to steady his trembling hands. There was a second where, as his fingers fished at the locks and the footsteps behind him increased in velocity and volume, the air stilled and he thought, for a microscopic second, that this was it.
And then the locks were open and he was falling through the door and he could hear the pounding on the stairs and there were only three stairs —
“CLOSE THE DOOR YOU — ”
He slammed the door, hearing a thud as they smashed into it, the sheer force of it shaking the door frame. He bolted the locks, quicker this time, and he heard a second click as Genius activated the electronic locks once more.
He didn’t allow himself space to breathe — not yet. He still wasn’t safe, even with two bolt locks and at least ten electronic ones on the sturdy wooden door under his palms. He swung the metal door (complete with wheel lock) in the entrance shut in front of the wooden one, securing it with a third door, heavier than the first two combined. [It took him a good ten minutes of pushing the door about an inch ahead and then taking a break before it was in place.]
He then visited the windows, pulling the metal shutters down in front of them and securing their bolted locks. Once all was fortified, he allowed himself a short pause to glance around the small cabin.
Same as he had left it: stylish spinny chair (where a worn armchair would usually find itself in any other home) in front of the old desktop computer (resting atop a shaky wooden desk even he couldn’t part with), off-white rug with far too many patches and holes in it to be socially acceptable, creaky hardwood floors with stains of mysterious (though not always sinister) origin, small kitchen with empty cupboards, a barely-used oven, and a dwindling supply of “food” (if it could even be called that) in the fridge.
He opened the fridge, scanned its meager contents, and resigned himself to a small bottle of water. His earpiece crackled with disgruntled static — Genius, scoffing.
“Really? Water? That’s all you’re going to have? I’ll have you know, there are some perfectly nice pieces of bread in there that you saved and they are still good! I made sure of it. But oh, no, you take the water, of all things, instead of the mostly healthy nourishment sitting right in front of you! If I could leave this house on my own, this fridge would be packed with food, but of course you’re the one with the legs, hm? You know, you really need to think of how others feel about your lack of eating like a normal person!”
Julius rolled his eyes. “I’m saving the bread for when I truly require it, Genius. I need to conserve my energy for more important things like brain power, not digestion. Right now I am perfectly fine for — ”
Loud, strangled static drowned out his words. “For how long, Julius? Exactly 2 days 5 hours 35 minutes and 19 seconds, I’ll have you know! And I am not sitting here just letting you get away with not eating again, no sir!”
Julius wandered away from the fridge, sipping the water nonchalantly. “You do realize you say that same speech, word for word, every day, right?”
Genius grumbled. “You do realize that I’m supposed to be the computer here, right?”
Julius stopped, pointing a finger toward the ceiling.
“Stop repeating my sentence structure. You are perfectly capable of your own speech patterns.”
“Okay, mom.”
Julius glared at the ceiling. “And cease the name-calling. It’s not appropriate.”
Grousing static murmured in his ear as he strolled toward the fireplace. He capped the water bottle and then stood on the two barely-visible hash marks on the ground, looking straight ahead.
“Julius Hour,” he intoned. There was a click, a slight whir, and then a laser scanned his eyes and body. A small ding — the floor opened beneath him and he was gone in a whoosh of air. The trapdoor closed without fanfare and the cabin was quiet once more.
Julius Hour is written by Gina Arnold and Megan Hoins.
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