BECAUSE THERE DAMN WELL SHOULD HAVE BEEN
John Stalvern waited. The lights in the hallway flickered and waned against the moonlight. There were Hoplites in the house. He didn’t see them, but he had expected them now for years. He warned Dean Jonson that giving all the dorms Greek names would attract the attention of the Argives and he didn't listen. And now it was too late. Far too late.
John was an engineering student for four years. When he was young he watched the cars go by and he said to his dad “I want to be an engineer daddy.”
But his Dad said “No! You will BE KILL BY HOPLITES!”
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got older he stopped. He had dreams to fulfill, a career to pursue. He thought his Dad was wrong, until he started seeing the signs. An amphora full of wine at his door. A phalanx caught in the corner of his eye every time he walked home alone and stared back into the rustling foliage beyond, beyond the window where the Hoplites were. He tried to tell them, he tried to get them to listen; but now in the Dormitory of Alpha-Sigma-Kappa he knew there were Hoplites.
“Jon ur l8 2 da party.” The message startled him back into animated motion. “were r u!”
John didn't care anymore; he got his keys and stormed out the front door heading towards the campus party. It would be the only safe place in the end.
“Θα πάρουμε το κρασί σας!” said the Hoplites.
“SEND OUT YOUR CHAMPION!” The Ouragos bellowed as he sent airborne the cruel bronze of a javelin. John leaped backwards and raised his arms in defence, awaiting the strike that would surely finish him.
The javelin hit its mark.
The javelin failed to kill John, the thick armour of the mathematics textbook clasped in his grasping hands having saved his life at the last moment.
“No! I must get drunk!” John shouted.
The Ouragos said “No, John. You are the ekdromoi.”
And then John was a hoplite.