[b]JULIUS [color=c9ff7a]GARDENER[/color][/b]
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Julius hadn’t used an alarm in years. At this point, his body was conditioned to wake at the crack of dawn like a farmer to a rooster’s crow. Normally, he was up and out of bed within a minute, with breakfast eaten within five and teeth brushed in ten, leaving the day ready and waiting. 

However, last night had been far from normal. Besides actually attending the party, a rare event in it’s own right, the nights he had spent here so far had mainly consisted of him stretching the drama room’s closing time and eventually retiring early to his room to study and sleep- as opposed to dealing with two head wounds and herding paramedics around the dorms until late into the early hours of the morning. 

And so Julius found himself staring with gluey eyes at his phone screen as the white digits slowly ticked closer to ten. His head was pounding like a kickdrum in a metal band and despite looking deep within himself, his motivation to strip off the cozy covers and face the Saturday morning was nowhere to be found. As he watched, the screen buzzed with an email alert and he squinted at the sudden blinding light. His afternoon script writing lecture was cancelled- the professor had been snowed in.

The pillow caught on his bedside lamp’s cord as he threw it against the opposite wall, dropping the thin steel light clattering against the floor. The pillow merely bounced off of the window. He buried his head in the covers and moaned momentarily before summoning the resolve to leave his cocoon. Bloody Alaska, how was anyone supposed to get anything done when it was this freezing? Even in the heated room he was shivering. Through the window was a magnificent christmas card scene of white snow and heavily laden pine trees. The sun was a watery disk, low in the sky and casting a shimmering light off of the white landscape.

Julius shut the curtains. Gathering some clothes from his cupboard, he pulled a freshly ironed shirt over his head and headed for the door. With a thought, he opened it only slightly and peeked out. Mercifully, Lou and Alex’s doors were closed. At this time in the morning, he was in no mood for conversation- although he would like to find out from Alex what exactly had happened last night at some point. The paramedics seemed to have been right in their diagnosis, in that Alex and the other girl had recovered enough to be left alone by the end of the night.

There was a communal kitchen at the far end of each floor and at the moment, a piping hot cup of black coffee sounded absolutely divine. It seemed unnaturally early in the morning for activity from college students, as the other dorm doors were also closed. The kitchen was as deserted as the hallway. Julius made his coffee in silence, only broken by the whistle of the kettle as it boiled. He took one of the seats scattered around a small table and sipped at his coffee. Someone had left a newspaper behind, and he flipped through the pages in lack of anything else to do. Perhaps later he could head to the library and get a bit of study done for his script writing. For now he was content to sit and stare idly at feel-good stories of firemen helping old ladies’ cats out of trees with occasional sips from his steaming mug.