I felt like shit. Laying on the course ground wasn’t too good for my aching back. Laying on said ground in only shorts and a tethered t-shirt wasn’t too good for my mind either. Not as bad as a small group of people in weird colorful clothes, gathering around to stare at me though.
I couldn’t move, and the smell of burnt hair was making me nauseous. All I could do was roll my eyes around, trying to understand where I am and what’s happening. This was a mistake and quickly made me feel even more sick. The world around me blurred and I fell into the darkness, as I lost my consciousness once more. Last image I saw was a shiny helmet with a giant red comb.
Something felt alien about the whole situation. My head throbbed with pain, and I could barely remember anything from a second ago. Well, nothing other than my neighbor’s stupid dog, which ran out on the street barking. There was a screech of wheels and white clouds of burnt rubber all over the street. And then…
***
It must have been late, because the room I found myself in, after waking up, was pitch black, with only a streak of moonlight going in through a blocked window. It was enough however to notice that the floor was covered in loose straw and the walls were made out of badly plastered brick. I felt warm and safe under a woolen blanket, which smelled a bit funny, but was thick and cozy, so I couldn’t really complain. I didn’t even know who I could complain to, or how.
Luckily for me, my question was quickly answered by a flickering light of a fire appearing behind the cracks of a badly made wooden door. If I didn’t know better I’d guess I was in some kind of a crack den or medieval museum. But I was pretty sure that there was nothing like that anywhere near where I lived. Either way I was about to finally meet someone, who might shed some light on my situation, and I really hoped that someone had good intentions.
What I saw when the door opened wasn’t something I could have predicted. A rather tall woman in an orange dress, with her head covered in some cloth, peeked inside, lifting the candle higher. She must have noticed my open eyes, because she quickly hid back behind the planks and left, her steps quickly disappearing down the corridor. But in that brief moment, when the flame lit up the room I was able to make a mental note of everything in it.
It was a rather modest room with 2 beds, one of which I occupied. The other one was without a mattress, and it looked more like a table than a bed, but due to its height I assumed that’s what it was supposed to be. In the corner of the room opposite of the slim window, which turned out to be really small, not closed, was a tall tree stump, with short pieces of branches emerging from it in different directions. It reminded me of a coat hanger. Next to it was a chest which seemed to be made out of wood, but was covered in some kind of fabric and leather.
Other than that the room was empty. It felt very odd to me, I’ve never before seen a room like that, but I suppose that just meant I was wrong about the lack of crack dens in my small town.
My thought process was interrupted by another set of footsteps, definitely louder than the woman’s. I instinctively got closer to the wall, covering myself a bit more with the blanket. The straw in the mattress rustled loudly.
The door opened quickly but without too much noise and I saw a tall, muscular man, standing behind it. He was also wearing a dress, with a shirt tucked underneath it. He stared at me, scanning me with his eyes. His expression quickly turned from that of a worry to something almost like a smile. He turned around and took the candle from the woman who completely hid behind him.
“I see you’re finally awake.” He said, in perfect English, but with some weird accent I didn’t recognise. “No, stay how you are.” He added, seeing that I moved a bit.
“You should be resting, you had a terrible accident.” He sighed, seeing my puzzled look. “I understand this might be hard for you to piece together, but for now just know that you are safe, I or my wife, or anyone in this house don’t want to hurt you. We will wait until you get better for you to explain everything to us.”
“I...” I started, but quickly stopped, feeling just how dry my throat was. “Water.”
He once again turned to his wife, telling her something and she quickly disappeared. She came back in under a minute, and gave something to her husband.
“I’m going to come closer and give it to you. Please don’t be afraid.”
I nodded in response, and he handed me a clay cup.
The water, which tasted slightly of dirt, was extremely refreshing. I drank the whole cup in one big gulp, and instantly felt a bit better. The spinning almost subdued, and the pain in my head already felt like a distant memory. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the water was magical, but I already knew the feeling of being very dehydrated and the sweet nirvana of drinking anything in that state.
“By gods you were thirsty. I’ll have to ask Lucia to bring you a whole pitcher now” he laughed a bit, but his wife had already disappeared into the house. Once again she was back very quickly. “My name is Rufus, you are going to live in this room for the time being, until we figure out what to do next with you. We are just behind the wall so call us if you need anything, or if anything happens. Don’t overuse our hospitality.” He added that last part while backing away to the door. He evidently didn’t want to turn on me, in case I had any bad intentions.
“We are going to close this door, don’t be surprised that it doesn’t open.” He crossed the threshold. “No, you are not a prisoner, but we want to keep an eye on you. In case you are some escapee or something.”
He closed the door, but added one more thing: “Your odd clothes were too burnt and tattered for my wife to sew them back to one, so you have some fresh clothing in the chest, I hope you’ve been taught how to dress.”
With the weird noise of some locking mechanism and his steps quickly fading I realized that I was fully naked, with nothing but the blanket covering me.
***
The clothes were a bit itchy, but soft and quite comfortable nonetheless. They seemed extremely archaic. I assumed one of them was supposed to be a loin cloth like from Dark Souls. The rest was a couple of colorful and very long shirts, and a set of sandals. I looked kinda fly. At least I assumed so, because there was no mirror in my room.
I poured myself a cup of the earthly tasting water and sat down on my bed. The weirdness of my situation, slowly sinking in. I was in some sort of a basement, dressed in something that could be taken as a short dress, sitting on a mattress made out of some kind of straw. I took a sip.
"I'm Nero. Well online that is." Said a quiet voice in my head. "I am just a normal man, living a normal life. I have lots of friends who I rely on, and who rely on me. My life was ranging from bad to pretty okay, but I don't feel too bad about it." That's just how life sometimes is. But now I was in a completely new place and I was unsure of everything. I took a breath, trying to clear up my mind as to how I landed here.
The air that entered my lungs was very warm but quite refreshing, with a nice draft coming in through the slit in the wall. Another sip made me realize my stupidity. This room had a window. Albeit small, so not good for escaping, but it could be my look out on the outside world, that could help me figure out where I was being held captive.
I slowly stood up, still feeling like my head was going to explode any second. I didn’t want to faint again, a bit freaked out by the owners of the house, or at least the mountain of muscle looking one, so I took everything slower than necessary. It was a success. I finally reached the window but realized that it is placed taller than I am. I must have hit my head very badly to not notice that, but I quickly corrected my mistake and moved the surprisingly light wooden bed closer to the window. My jaw dropped when I climbed it and placed my face between the cold mud bricks.
I saw rows and rows of both brown, naked brick and painted houses, with red roof tiles. Most of them were at least two stories high and seemed to be a bit crooked and supporting each other. From where I was standing I couldn’t see too much but I noticed two main details that made my heart sink. Over the city, like a giant bowl, towered the top floors of a building I’ve come to know from history classes. The colosseum. With one major difference. The massive hole as seen on the pictures in textbooks was gone. And the whole building was white, without visible bricks. The spherical construction was covered with some kind of roofing.
I was looking at the Colosseum, exactly as it was built in the first century.
I passed out.
