Hector Hoffman
Location A Stairwell
Interacting With Stairs
Hector's strong, jean-clad legs carried him up the stairs of the DemiDorms, one stair at a time. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten... eleven stairs to the landing at the top of the set, then three steps to turn to the next set of stairs. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine... ten stairs on this second set. This landing had a door, and behind the door was a hallway; Hector chose to push the bar on this door to gain entry to the hallway. Both the stairwell and the hallway echoed with the sound of the door closing behind him.
Hector was somewhat surprised he had yet to run into one of the myriad of demigods who attend the Academy by now. It was almost a tradition for students to bump into one another in common areas before class had started - especially on the first day - so he had ascended the stairs slowly to allow for fate to take its most common turn. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Perhaps it was because he was here an hour before the time most arrive. Perhaps his rippling muscles and rough motorcyclist look were scaring everyone away. Perhaps Ragnarok had occurred and he'd been left alone by the apocalypse. Whatever it was, all that mattered was the outcome, and that was Hector being without someone to chat with.
Oh well, he thought. I guess I will be unpacked by the end of this week for once. This was a strange, new sensation for Hector. He'd never managed to be unpacked before Thanksgiving, let alone before the end of the first week. In fact, the previous year he'd barely unpacked anything before he had to pack again to go home. It was an odd feeling to not have to pack his things to leave, but not nearly as odd as what he was experiencing now, looking down the hallway toward the door of his room. There it stood, merely four meters away, filling him with such familiar and strange feelings at the same time. He knew well what stood behind it, but still felt apprehension as to what he would find within for some unknown reason.
Hector was shocked out of his reverie by a sudden buzzing in his pocket. It was shortly followed by a cool, flowing sound - the music he'd chosen as his ringtone. While a bit long for a text ringtone, he liked it, so he was fine with it running as long as it did. He stood, enjoying the pulsating sound as it flowed into the hallway. I'm giving you a nightcall to tell you how I feel... Once it had finished, he pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the text. His phone, a Samsung Galaxy s4, felt comfortable in his hand, likely due to his years of usage. The phone ran on the Verizon network, using a grandfathered-in unlimited data plan paired with 4G LTE service. As if that weren't enough to distinguish it as a rarity among phones, he had also changed the operating system to Cyanogenmod, providing numerous improvements to the user interface and securing a consistent stream of system updates for the phone. Truly, his phone would be seeing use much longer than most phones were ever expected to live for.
The screen lit up, and a Handcent SMS notification told him that his father had texted him. Handcent SMS was the only SMS application Hector trusted with his texts. It provided exactly as much customization as he desired with the reliability of a long-trusted app. He could easily set up individual tones for important people, vibration patterns, and even choose the color of the notification LED. Plus, the app allowed him to read and reply to texts in a quick-reply dialog window that popped up on top of any app, providing unparalleled convenience in text conversations. It was in one such window that Hector found his father's message, waiting for him to read it.
"I hope ur having a grape ride! Have a good time at school this year, and remember that I loath u!" Hector's father had never been good with autocomplete.
With a sigh, Hector began to write up a reply. His fingers glided lightly across the screen, operating the Swype keyboard like a true professional. He missed only a single letter, but caught his mistake before hitting the send button. He stopped and admired his handiwork for a moment before finally sending the message; while a small, simple task, his attention to detail and perfect clarity stood in stark contrast to his father's frequent mistakes and laziness with text messages, proving once more that demigods were far above the human race. A small smile played across Hector's lips as his thumb inched toward the send button, finally coming to a rest upon it and replying to his father's message.
"Already arrived. Almost in room. Ready to unpack. No other students around. Later." In his texts, Hector was always short of word and thick of meaning.
In a well-practiced motion, Hector pushed the power button to turn the screen off while flipping the phone in his hand. He continued the motion, sweeping both hands toward his left pocket. The index finger of his left hand slipped into the pocket and pulled out, opening the pocket wide enough to easily slide the phone into with his right hand. With the screen facing away from his leg, he ensured that the phone wouldn't accidentally dial a number due to the imperfect design of the screen. Once he had managed to dial his hometown's prison and activate the speaker phone function at a party, which itself made for a great story at parties. However, he expected such things from human-developed technologies. Not all things were created by the children of Hephaestus, and Hector understood it as a simple fact of life. Plus, the solution to the problem was simple enough, so Hector wouldn't be caught complaining about it. He was better than that.
His phone safely and properly pocketed, Hector looked once more to the door standing four meters ahead of him. The time had come. He was ready to enter his room once more, to unpack his belongings once more, to begin the school year once more. Only four meters stood between him and his goal, and Hector was not about to leave it half-finished. The long legs of his tall, powerful body flexed into action, his right leg stretching forward to carry him 70 centimeters closer to his room. The left moved in turn, and another 70 centimeters were now behind him. He was so close now he could feel the cardboard in his hands as he opened his boxes of belongings and began to sort them into their proper places in his room.
With another two steps, he was left only 120 centimeters away from his room. Hectors hands moved to his jacket pockets as he began to search for the key to his room. Where had he left it? Which pocket was it in again? His right hand fished through the pocket of his jacket, finding a case of Altoids within the folds of cloth. However, the key was not to be found there, so he changed his focus to his left hand. Hector's ring of keys to his family's house and cars were within, but his room key was on a separate ring. His left pocket was also a bust! He tried his pants pockets next, starting with the right once again. This pocket, however, was completely empty, as well as being a somewhat tight fit for his hand, so he quickly withdrew his hand. It was then that he finally noticed the odd pressure he felt from his left pocket, which housed his phone. It was strange that he hadn't noticed the distinctive shape of the pressure as he searched his pockets for a lone key on a ring, as he could easily feel the ring shape against his leg. The key, however, was much more indistinct, but the general shape was there all the same.
With a bit of fishing and an emptied pocket, Hector finally had his key in hand. Finally ready to open the door, he took the last step to bring himself within range of the doorknob. With his long arms, reaching the knob 50 centimeters away was a cinch. However, since the angle wasn't quite right for him to get the key into the lock, he decided to take one more step to improve his positioning in relation to the doorknob, placing him a comfortable 20 centimeters away from the door.
This was it. The key was in hand, the door was in reach. All that was left was for him to reach out and grab his future with his own hands. As a demigod, the Fates allowed him to write his own story. They only interfered slightly in the affairs of those less mortal than humans, allowing demigods to live truly free lives. The freedom was exhilarating, and it was endlessly thrilling to know that the future was his to make. Some day students would look back upon Hector's life and wonder what would have happened to him had he not opened that door. However, they certainly wouldn't know, as he was indeed going to open it.
His right hand approached the knob, key held firmly in hand. He inserted the key... but it didn't fit! He tried again, and it just wouldn't go in. Thinking quickly, Hector flipped the key over and tried it that way. Still no sell! He tried once more, hoping it was all a misunderstanding, but it refused to enter. What could be wrong? As he began to panic, he flipped the key once again and made one last, desperate attempt to unlock his room.
Click.
Finally, the key inserted itself firmly within the depths of the lock, fitting snugly within its embrace. It was a perfect fit, as evidenced by the lock being perfectly okay with Hector moving his key within it. The rollers of the lock clutched the key tightly, but the key moved smoothly within, moving swiftly to bring the lock into an open state. The climax was coming... coming...
Click.
The lock gave way, releasing Hector from the hall. The door opened wide and Hector came into his room, finally at home within the academy. Filled with the ecstasy of being released from the hall, he pulled his key out of the lock, its task finally complete. He had spent five years of his life living in this room, and he was quite intimate with its unique quirks. Still, he took a look around the room to survey its contents.
To one side sat three large boxes which held his packed belongings. By the window sat Hector's trusty desk, at which he had written many a long, drawn-out essay for his classes, working late into the night for what he sometimes thought was not enough payoff. It had two drawers, which he normally stuffed with papers, notecards, and writing utensils. It was always good to have everything one needed right on hand where one used them most, after all. The chair was comfortable enough, a fairly standard rolling armchair. Padded arms covered in black vinyl were ready to keep his elbows supported for hours of writing. The taught mesh that served as the bottom and back of the chair allowed the chair to conform to any occupant's body without being permanently shaped, while still providing a cushioned sitting experience. Three levers could be found beneath the seat proper - two extending to the right and one to the left. The frontward lever on the right operated the hydraulic cylinder within the base column, allowing the chair to rise or fall to the occupant's preferred height. The lever behind it ended with a bar that the sitter could use to change the resistance of the back to force - or, more simply, how hard the sitter had to lean back in order for the chair to recline. The lever on the left was a bit less common than the other two among office chairs. By adjusting it, the sitter could change the angle of the bottom of the seat, allowing one to slouch while still sitting up straight in the seat or even to have proper posture while leaning back quite far. Luckily it seemed nobody had changed Hector's settings from the previous year, so he wouldn't need to adjust the seat to his liking yet this year.
Opposite his boxes of luggage sat his twin-size bed. The comforter was decorated with a nebula pattern, standing out magically in the otherwise rather plain room. The sheets beneath were dark blue, matching well with the dark expanses of space that sat atop them. Two pillows sat at the head of the bed, cloaked in the same deep blue as the bedsheets. The bed itself was lifted so that the top of the bed was one meter above the floor. This was to allow Hector to store certain personal effects beneath it for easy retrieval. In a previous year, it had been raised even higher to allow a sofa to fit beneath the bed, which, when coupled with a wide-screen TV he had found at a thrift store mounted on the opposite wall, made for a wonderful game night setup. However, the friends he had enjoyed the game nights with had since graduated, so he left the sofa in a storage unit at a warehouse not too far from the school. The TV remained mounted on the wall, partially hidden behind the boxes he had come to unpack.
Home sweet home, he thought for the umpteenth time since he'd initially been assigned the room. I guess I'll start unpacking with the essentials and just move on from there.
Hector stepped further into the room and made himself at home. He set his motorcycle helmet upon a pillow on the bed, four centimeters away from the headboard and ten centimeters from the edge of the bed, and it sank two centimeters into the downy depths of the fluffy pillow. With a few more steps and a light clink, he had placed the room key on the corner of his desk. His hands and arms now free of their burdens, Hector slipped his leather riding jacket off his shoulders. He caught it just as the collar came even with his hands and, with a flourish, swung it around from behind him to in front of him. He gently hung it over the back of the office chair, causing the back of the chair to lean a single centimeter back, confirming Hector's settings had not been meddled with. Finally, Hector turned to the boxes lined in front of the TV.
It wasn't difficult for Hector to spot the box marked with a large letter E on its side. E for Essential, E for Enlightenment. E for EXERCISE. Keeping his body fit was quite important to Hector, so he made sure he had the exercise equipment necessary for full body workouts. Surprisingly, that came out to very few individual pieces, but the additional modification pieces greatly increased the bulk - and weight - of the set. Hector could imagine the person delivering the boxes straining to lift it before finally gently rocking it onto a cart and wheeling it to his room, making good use of the elevator. Hector, on the other hand, was perfectly fine moving the box without such assistance, lifting it and moving it to the center of the room before pulling off the tape and opening the top.
Looking into the box brought a joyful smile to Hector's face. He'd gone a full day without his beloved exercise equipment, and he had missed it all dearly. At the top was his door frame-mounted pullup bar, which had seen quite a bit of use throughout his years here at Olympus Academy. It was a most wonderful tool that allowed him to forgo searching for places to do pullups, instead turning any door frame into the perfect exercise location in seconds. He pulled it out of the box, got up, and quickly installed it in the door frame leading into the bathroom.
Next in the box was his set of HeavyHands. Similar to dumbbells, the HeavyHands were a pair of weights connected by a bar used as a grip. What set HeavyHands apart from normal dumbbells was the design. The grip bars were coated with a thin, slightly spongy material that made them easier to hold when running. A flat bar of metal extended from the end of the bar, then bent to run parallel to the bar before returning on the other end, forming a sort of knuckle guard. This was enclosed in a foam tube, painted on one side with extremely an extremely reflective silver coat to provide greater visibility of runners with the HeavyHands to cars when in the dark. But the most important feature of HeavyHands were the weights. Hector had a set of weights for the HeavyHands ranging from a single pound all the way to fifty pound pairs. He set about unloading and sorting the weights beneath his bed.
And so the unpacking continued...
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