Chapter 45: What Happened Before Everything?
Chapter 45: What Happened Before Everything?
The Roman countryside rolled past the carriage window in an endless ribbon of green and gold. Farmland, olive groves, the occasional stone shrine to a god Alex didn’t recognize. It was beautiful, in the way old paintings were beautiful; distant, untouchable, belonging to a world that still didn’t feel quite real.
Alex was bored out of his mind.
He’d counted the trees, he’d counted the birds. He’d watched a cloud that looked vaguely like a duck drift across the sky and dissolve into nothing. The carriage wheels creaked beneath him, a steady, rhythmic sound that might have been soothing if it weren’t for the occasional bumps.
Across from him, Ignatius sat in silence, his hands folded, his eyes fixed on some middle distance that might have been thought or nothing at all.
Beside Alex, Gaius was slumped against the carriage wall, his mouth slightly open, a low, rhythmic snore rumbling from his chest. The old medic had been "sleeping" for hours now, though Alex had his doubts about how genuine any of it was.
Alex closed his eyes, letting his mind drift.
He thought about Call To Duty—the new season. The battle pass he’d been grinding before everything went sideways. He’d been so close to unlocking the Damascus camo—three more headshots, maybe four, and he would have had it. The controller in his hands, the glow of the monitor in the dark apartment, the fan humming, the leftover pizza sitting cold on the desk, a can of Coke sweating condensation onto his notes.
He could almost taste it, the grease, the carbonation, that satisfaction of a headshot landing at four hundred meters. The way the controller vibrated in his hands when the kill confirmed. He missed that. He missed the simplicity of it—the clear objectives, the respawns, the knowledge that death was just a temporary inconvenience.
"I’ve been meaning to ask; where are you from?"
Alex’s eyes snapped open.
Ignatius was watching him. Not with suspicion, nor with interrogation. Just curiosity. The quiet, patient curiosity of a man who had been waiting for the right moment to ask.
"I—" Alex’s mouth opened, and closed. His brain, still half in the apartment, tasting phantom pizza, scrambled to catch up. "S– far. Somewhere far?"
It came out like a question. Because it was a question, and he had no idea how to answer it.
Ignatius tilted his head slightly. "Where exactly? I ask because I remember the day I acquired you. You spoke a very strange language. One I hadn’t heard before." He paused. "And I’ve heard almost every language in the region."
The carriage seemed to shrink. The wheels kept turning. The horses kept pulling. But something in the air had changed—a pressure, a weight, the particular gravity of a question that couldn’t be answered with a joke or a deflection.
Alex stared at him. His mouth was still open. His mind was racing through everything he thought he knew. He’d gone to sleep in his apartment, he’d woken up in the arena. That was the story. That was all there was. There was no acquisition, no language barrier, no moment of transition between the old world and the new. Just... sleep, then sand, and then blood.
But Ignatius was telling him there was more. A gap, a missing piece. A version of events that Alex didn’t remember and couldn’t explain.
And the language.
English.
He’d been speaking English when he arrived. Which meant he hadn’t always spoken Latin. Which meant something, or someone, had put Latin in his head.
He’d never questioned it. He’d been too busy surviving, too busy fighting, to stop and wonder why he could understand the people around him. The words just... came.
How did I learn Latin? When did I learn Latin? Why don’t I remember learning Latin? What else did you take from me?
The questions slammed into each other, a chain reaction of confusion that left him gripping the edge of his seat, his knuckles white, his heart hammering against his ribs. His palms were sweating. The carriage suddenly felt too small, too confined, the walls pressing in.
Beside him, Gaius’s snoring had stopped.
Alex didn’t notice. He was too busy staring at Ignatius, too busy trying to find words that wouldn’t come, too busy screaming questions at the corner of his vision where the system UI sat in perfect, indifferent silence.
Did you do this? Did you put Latin in my head? What else did you take? What else don’t I remember? Alex asked the system.
Nothing.
No ping, no flicker, no acknowledgment that the question had even been asked.
Ignatius watched him for a long moment. Something shifted in the Lanista’s expression—not quite concern, not quite pity, but something adjacent to both. He saw a young man who looked like he’d just had the ground ripped out from under him. He saw the trembling hands, the wide eyes, the shallow, rapid breathing. He saw trauma, or what he assumed was trauma.
"You can relax," Ignatius said, his voice quieter now. "Forget I asked. I was only curious." He leaned back in his seat. "Many men come to the ludus with pasts they’d rather not discuss. You’re no different."
He thought Alex was a victim. A prisoner of war. A survivor of some village the legions had burned. That was the assumption he’d made, and it was a kind assumption, a generous one that gave Alex an out.
Alex didn’t take it. He couldn’t. He was still staring at the corner of his vision, still trembling, still trying to piece together a puzzle that was missing half its parts.
Gaius, beside him, had his eyes closed. But he wasn’t sleeping. His breathing was too even, his posture too still. He’d heard every word, and where Ignatius saw trauma, Gaius saw confusion. Real confusion. The kind that came from a man who didn’t know his own story—and was only now realizing how much of it had been taken from him.
The carriage rolled on, as the road stretched ahead. Macedonia was waiting.
And Alex, for the first time since he’d woken up in the sand, realized he had no idea how he’d gotten there.