Page 1 of Thawed Gladiator: Cassius

Chapter One

Cassius

Pain sears through my skull, a relentless throbbing that drowns out all other sensations. Darkness surrounds me, pressing in from all sides. Am I dead? Is this the realm of Pluto, where shades wander for eternity? The thought comes unbidden, a fragment of knowledge I can’t place.

Strange urgent voices pierce the fog like Diana’s arrow through morning mist.

My eyelids flutter, struggling against an impossible weight. A sliver of light cuts through the darkness, growing brighter until it floods my vision. Blinking rapidly, the world slowly comes into focus. Unfamiliar faces hover above me, their expressions are unreadable because they wear masks.

I try to gather my strength to flee, but I’m weak as a newborn kitten. As panic floods my body, a woman speaks, her words as foreign as birdsong. The smell is wrong—sharp and clean where there should be incense and oil. The light above me brightens without flame, a magic I cannot comprehend.

Then, blessedly, a deep voice I understand: “Cassius, potes me audire?” Can you hear me?

Cassius. Yes, that’s my name. The only thing I’m sure of in this sea of uncertainty.

“Ita.” Yes, I croak, my voice barely a whisper. “Ubi sum?”Where am I?

As my eyes focus, I see it’s… Varro. We were on the ship together when… we drowned. Do I rememberdying?

“Varro, is that you?”

Varro, tall and muscular, with intelligent brown eyes, exchanges a glance with the woman beside him. “Tu in valetudinario es,” he says slowly. You’re in a hospital. “Memoria tua…?”Your memory…?

The question hangs in the air, and panic claws at my throat as I search the vast emptiness where my memories should be. There’s nothing—no sense of self, no recollection of my life before my hellish time on the shipFortuna, and nothing after I… drowned in the freezing sea.

“Nihil memini,” I manage, fear making my voice shake. I don’t remember anything.

The woman reaches for my hand. Though I don’t know her, I allow her gentle touch to ground me.

“Purus erit,” she says softly. It will be okay. After urging me not to worry, she tells me her name is Laura. But the concern in her hazel eyes contradicts her reassuring words.

Struggling to sit up, the room spins, making my stomach heave so badly, I ease back onto the bed. Varro’s strong hand on my shoulder steadies me. “Facile,” he murmurs. Easy. He tells me I’ve been still for a long time and my body will need time to adjust.

A long time? How long? Questions swirl in my mind, each one feeding my growing terror. But as I open my mouth to ask, exhaustion crashes over me like the sea waves that swallowed me right before I… died. My eyelids grow heavy, the effort to keep them open suddenly monumental.

“Nunc quiesce.” Laura’s voice seems to come from far away. Rest now. She promises to explain everything when I’m stronger.

As darkness creeps in again, one thought pierces through the fog: nothing makes sense. The world I’ve woken up to is alien, unfamiliar with its masks and bright lights that have no fire and the sickening sweet smell assaulting my nostrils. More terrifying is that the person I am—or was—is a complete mystery.

The last thing I hear before I slip into sleep is Varro’s voice, low and worried. I can’t understand the foreign words as he speaks to the woman, but the tone is clear: uncertainty, maybe even fear.

Then there’s nothing as the god Somnus eases me into the blessed oblivion of sleep, where the emptiness in my mind doesn’t matter. Where, for a little while at least, I can forget that I’ve forgotten everything.

Chapter Two

Diana

The sprawling compound looms ahead, a clash of construction equipment next to an amazing old house complete with two turrets and a wraparound porch. My beat-up Chevy rumbles down the long gravel driveway, kicking up dust that swirls in my rearview mirror. With each bump and jostle, my stomach does somersaults—partly from nerves, partly from the potholes I’m too anxious to dodge properly.

This is it. My shot at… well, everything.

As I park near the old farmhouse, my gaze darts around, taking in every detail. To my left, a massive structure is under the final stages of construction. It must be a barracks. The sounds of power tools and shouted instructions fill the air. To my right,a corral stands empty, waiting. And there, just beyond, is a beautiful red barn that makes my heart skip a beat.

No horses yet. But soon, maybe?

Taking a deep breath, I smooth my blouse—the nicest one I own, bought secondhand but carefully pressed this morning. My fingers brush against the scar on my lip, a habit I can’t seem to break. Quickly, I drop my hand. No use drawing attention to it.

“You’ve got this, Diana,” I mutter, giving myself a quick pep talk in the rearview mirror. The face that stares back is familiar, filled with imperfections—hazel eyes too wide because of my growing anxiety, skin pale despite my best efforts with makeup. My broken nose, never set properly, seems more prominent than ever.

---