The sky over Ravenna glowed red for three nights.

  No one rang the bells anymore. There were no hands left to pull the ropes.

  Marius sat in the doorway of a half-burnt house, wrapped in layers of wool and smoke. His breath came in little clouds. The street around him was empty, save for the rats, the wind, and a starving dog gnawing on something it shouldn’t.

  He could not remember the last proper meal he’d eaten. A bowl of lentils, perhaps, shared ten or more days ago with his son before he’d vanished down the southern road with a group of refugees. “Only for a few days,” he had said. “We’ll bring back food.”

  Marius no longer counted the days. He counted aches, coughing fits, moments when the world spun around him too fast to follow.

  And somehow, he woke each morning. Still breathing.

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  “Why,” he muttered, “does life cling so tightly to me?”

  There was no answer. Only the soft hiss of distant rain falling on charred stone.

  He had heard, through frightened whispers, that the Eastern Empire had returned. That Justinian had sent generals—men with gold and silk and legions. That they had taken back Rome.

  But Marius had seen what they left behind. Fields salted by marching boots. Aqueducts shattered in battle. Bread stolen before it could be baked.

  These weren’t saviors. They were just another chapter of ruin, written in a finer hand.

  A boy passed by, barefoot, eyes hollow. He didn’t beg—he just stared, like he wasn’t sure Marius was real. Then he moved on.

  Marius closed his eyes and saw the baths again. The steam rising. The laughter. His grandson chasing pigeons in the ruins.

  That felt like another life. Someone else’s.

  He coughed hard—deep and rattling. When it passed, he tasted blood in his mouth.

  “Not much longer now,” he said aloud, though there was no one to hear him. “Let the Empire have what it wants. I’m too tired to carry it anymore.”

  He leaned back against the wall, the fire’s glow flickering on his face.

  He waited for sleep while praying for something deeper.