Page 8 of Thawed Gladiator Thrax

My heart aches for him. To be so alone, so out of place. The urge to comfort him wars with my social anxiety, leaving me frozen in indecision.

Thrax lowers his head, and for a brief moment, our gazes meet. I’m struck by the intensity of his stare, the raw emotion barely contained behind that stoic exterior. Then, as quickly as it happened, his gaze darts away, his shoulders hunching slightly as if trying to make his beefy body smaller.

I should say something. Anything. But before I can summon the courage, Thrax turns and leaves the atrium as silently as he entered.

My fingers hover over the keyboard, but the code that seemed so urgent moments ago now feels trivial. How can I focus on algorithms and data structures when there’s a man right here, struggling to bridge a gap of two thousand years?

With a sigh, I turn back to my work. Maybe I can’t find the words to comfort Thrax, but I can give him a voice.

Chapter Seven

Thrax

The strange room they gave me felt too small, too confining. Despite Varro’s assurances that I was free to move about, I still had trouble believing him. I found myself waiting for permission, for orders that never came.

Earlier today, I gathered my courage and ventured outside. Varro had mentioned an atrium that was open to the sky. I thought perhaps I could see one of these impossible flying machines he had spoken of.

The moment I stepped into the open space, I felt exposed. The sky above was vast and empty, a shade of blue I didn’t remember seeing before. Was even the color of the heavens different in this new world?

Movement caught my eye, and I paused. A woman was sitting at a wooden table, bent over a slim silver box. I considered leaving, still not sure I was allowed to wander, especially with a free woman sitting alone, without a male relative.

But something kept me rooted to the spot. She hadn’t noticed me yet, and I allowed myself a moment to take her measure. She was small, with hair the color of rich earth. It had been cut strangely, like a young boy’s, but I found it made her femininity shine all the brighter. It barely covered her nape in the back and curled softly around her face. Her nose was narrow, her lips slim and pressed tight as she worked.

As my gaze traveled down, I noticed the graceful curve of her neck, and, unbidden, an image flashed in my mind—my lips pressed against that soft skin as I breathed in her feminine scent. Immediately, I pushed the thought away. Such dreams were not for men like me.

I forced my eyes skyward, searching for any sign of the metal birds Varro described. If I could just see one, perhaps I could finally accept that two thousand years had truly passed since last I walked upon the earth.

The sky remained stubbornly empty.

At one point, I felt the woman’s eyes on me. When she noticed me, I knew I should leave. Briefly, our gazes met. Her eyes were a warm brown, filled with curiosity and something else… compassion? The thought was strange, but not unwelcome.

With a final glance at the empty sky, I slipped out of the atrium as quietly as I came in.

Now back in my room, I sit on the edge of the bed, my thoughts spinning. Varro and Laura keep telling me I’m free, but freedom is as strange to me as these flying machines they talk about, ones I’ve never even seen. I’ve always been a slave, doing what I had to do to survive—nothing more.

But… the woman in the atrium hadn’t looked at me with fear, contempt, or disgust. There was something kind in her eyes, a softness I’m not used to. For a moment, I allow myself to imagine something different. A life where I’m not defined by my scars or my past.

Such thoughts are dangerous, but not impossible. I am what I am—a gladiator, a man out of time. But perhaps I can be more. Maybe this new world has possibilities I never thought existed.

Sleep won’t come easily in this place where even the air feels wrong. But I’ve survived worse than a restless night. Tomorrow I’ll return to the atrium—not because anyone orders me to, but because I choose to. Strange how such a small decision can feel like a victory in the arena.

Chapter Eight

Skye

Five days have passed since Thrax first appeared in the atrium. Each day, he returns, a silent sentinel gazing at the sky for hours. I steal glances at him over my laptop screen, increasingly intrigued by this man from the past.

Varro has joined me for the past two days, correcting pronunciation in my translation software, but it’s slow going. He explained, in perfect English, that the pronunciation that has drifted to us over the last two millennia has shifted. He’s the only man on Earth—well, there’s Thrax—who knows what all these words sounded like when they were spoken in conversation.

The enormity of my task—to ensure every word in his language is pronounced correctly—is overwhelming. Oh well, one step at a time. I have lists of the most common words in any language. That’s where we’ve started.

Today, as I’m deep in a coding trance, Varro’s voice breaks my concentration when he calls from the doorway. “Skye, Thrax, could you join Laura and me in the conference room?” He repeats himself in ancient Latin for Thrax.

My head snaps up, face immediately flushing with heat. Have I done something wrong? My mind races through every interaction, every line of code I’ve written. Did I miss a deadline? Overstep a boundary? Offend one of these ancient gladiators whose customs areso different from my own?

As we follow Varro, I can’t help but glance at Thrax. His face is impassive, giving nothing away. Has he complained about me watching him? Or is he in trouble, too? The thought of this imposing gladiator being “in trouble” almost makes me laugh, despite my nerves.

Thrax’s gaze briefly meets mine, and I’m struck again by the depth of emotion hidden behind his stoic exterior. There’s uncertainty there, maybe even a hint of the same anxiety I’m feeling.

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