Dunes of Rome

Blood trickled down my forearms from the multiple sword wounds, and dripped into the hot sand behind me, marking my long journey in a staggered line of steaming crimson. The further I grazed, the softer the murderous cheers from the ravenous crowds became, allowing the bewitching, whispering voices to sing their trancing hymns of hope to all of the desert's unfortunate travelers.

The sun was at its highest, piercing the earth with blazing relentlessness. The wind was brazenly slashing its talons across my skin, forcing it to crack, weather and peel, exposing the red flesh beneath. The landscape was sapphire, golden, and endless. The dunes rolled as ocean waves, yet offered no quench. Black snakes slithered back, forth, sideways, and in and out of the dense grains, hissing territorial warnings. Blacker scorpions scurried across the top of the sand, clawing, and slicing at weaker prey, and my ankles if I stumbled too close.

I held my iron wrought gladius in my right hand, for it was an extension of my soul, as well as my only weapon against my enemies. Of which I had many.

I was still the property of the Emperor, a product of Rome, but the catastrophic accident at the coliseum, which allowed six tigers to freely roam the stands, provided myself, and my company of fellow gladiators to escape the city. Many audience members lost their lives in the most brutal ways imaginable, while other audience goers in different sections of the coliseum cheered on the massacre from a safe distance.

The beasts were eventually trapped, and killed, but the unfortunate exodus of thousands of terrified attendees uncovered the coliseums' fatal, foundational flaws. The northern walls of the fortress collapsed under the shifting pressure, claiming three times as many lives as the wild tigers did.

My fortune presented itself in the eastern, gladiator barracks.

After the north wall fell, an enormous chunk of the eastern wall broke free, crushing the Roman guards stationed outside of our barracks. I quickly embraced the opportunity, and escaped the harsh life of a gladiator slave along with seven others.

As we cut our way through the stone city, eliminating any and all Roman guards who tried to stop us, four of us fell to black arrows and iron spears, while the remaining three, myself included, managed to acquire three equally matched horses and swiftly flee the roiling chaos unscathed - save for the wounds we suffered during the gladiatorial games.

Upon our blind departure from Rome, we continued to push our horses south, until one by one, they all perished - horse and rider - beneath the scorching summer sun. After what felt like a week, my horse was finally the last to fall. My plan was to find the coast, acquire a boat, and sail down to Sicily. Unfortunately, my horse perished halfway through scouring a remote desert region near Tuscany, forcing me to continue the rest of the journey on foot.

Several days quickly passed. Then several more passed by painfully slow. I exhausted my food, and water supply, and I had to resort to hunting, killing and eating those black snakes, and scorpions, for protein - at the expense of many harsh stings, and bites.

My hands became plump, indicating that those particular scorpions and snakes clearly injected me with some type of venom. It was a risk I was willing to take in order to stay alive. I knew that the scorpion venom wouldn’t kill me, but I was unsure about the snake venom. What I did know, for a dead fact, was that starvation, heat stroke and lack of water would kill me - slowly and surely - from the inside out.

On the verge of death, I arched my free hand above my eyes, to blot out the sun’s glare, and tried to make sense of my surroundings. Murderous golden dunes pulsated in every direction, without end and without salvation. I was nowhere near a coastline - let alone a port, and there were no signs of human life. No footprints. No wheel tracks. No caravan indentations. Nothing but shimmering sand as far as my eyes could see. I had found my tomb.

I tried to make a pact with Anubis to spare my life, but the keeper of the dead remained silent, and unseen throughout my disregarded prayers. Clearly he had other plans for me. More immediate plans that would have me roaming the fiery, black roads of the underworld.

Then, to the north, just beneath the blood-orange tendrils of the sun, something slithered and began morphing into an impossible color across the horizon. I knew about the trickery of deserts, and how they can create illusions to ensnare desperate travelers, entombing them forever in the sand. But I didn’t care.

Adrenaline struggled to flow through my veins, but it did nonetheless, and I was able to swing my arms harder, moving my legs faster. My heart raced with excitement, and my lungs demanded air to help fuel the new pace. My eyes were wide, and glued forward at the mutating oasis.

The shape finally finished its oscillating transformation, and through the quivering haze of the heat, I was able to see brown tree limbs, and emerald canopies. Dark shadows surrounded the trees, indicating that the landscape had refreshing hollows, and flowing brooks. I was overwhelmed with such blind euphoria, I could even hear birds singing, and voices laughing. I could even hear the sound of horses heaving, and wooden wheels spinning. Chains rattling, and creatures howling.

The sounds of a city.

Running through the sand, sinking into the skin of the desert with each stride, I felt something sharp pierce my shoulder, followed by a tremendous crack to the backside of my head. The oasis transformed again. This time, into blackness.

I awoke to the sound of teeth gnawing on metal, and the blood-curdling hissing of large cats cursing their human captors. My skull blazed with pain from the pommel of the Roman’s sword, and my right shoulder screamed from the black arrow that had pierced it. Craning my neck sideways, I peered through the wooden bars at the traveling caravan of putrid slavers, hauling chests of stolen gold and crates of rotten flesh.

I lifted myself up from the straw-lined bed of the carriage, with what strength I had left, and realized I was not alone in the rumbling cell. There were more beaten, bloodied, and weathered men. Men I recognized, yet men I did not know. Yet, the common thread was plain. They were gladiatorial slaves. The same as me. Property of Rome. Stolen from homes, and families they will never see again to fight to the death for the pleasure of the Emperor.

In the end, I did find my way home. It just wasn’t the home I hoped for.

Engulfed in the desert's parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind.