Hop Out's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Ten hours before midnight, Hop Out counted his neighbors and found them all alone. He wore his white shirt with HOP OUT stamped across the front. His job, self-given, was simple. Everyone in the building should cross into the New Year together. But nobody had a place to gather. One old frog sat by his window, watching an empty hall. A family upstairs stared at a clock in silence. The countdown was coming, and it would find each of them apart. Hop Out knocked on doors and asked the same question. "Where can we all fit?" No one had an answer. The stairwell was too narrow. The apartments were too small. He walked outside to think, and the cold hit his green skin. Then he stopped. Across the way stood a building shaped like the year itself. Its stone front spelled 2026 in huge pale numbers. A porch sat under the middle digits, wide and flat. He had passed it a hundred times and never really seen it. The front room behind that door looked big. Big enough, maybe. He tried the door. It opened. Inside was one great empty room, dusty but dry. Chairs leaned against a wall. A cracked window let in gray light. Hop Out grinned. This was it. But one frog could not fill a room. He ran back and started knocking again. "Come to the house with the numbers on it," he said. "Tonight. All of us. Bring a chair. Bring anything." The old frog by the window frowned. "Why would I climb down for that?" Hop Out looked him in the eye. "Because you shouldn't count down alone." One by one, they came. The family carried a lamp. Someone dragged a pot of soup. The old frog came last, grumbling, but he came. They swept the floor. They set the chairs in a circle. They wiped the cracked window until the streetlight shone through. The great room filled with voices for the first time in years. Hop Out stood in the doorway under the stone numbers and watched them talk and laugh. He had done it. He had found the spot. Everyone in the building would cross the year together now. Then the lamp flickered. The soup pot went cold. The lights in the room died all at once. Someone gasped. Outside, the streetlight was gone too, and the whole block sat black. The building had no power. Hop Out stared at the dark room full of neighbors he had just gathered. Midnight was hours away. The countdown clock they meant to watch had stopped. He had brought everyone together at last, and now they could not see the New Year come.