Nero of the North

Nobody Knows How Good Pizza Tastes

Despite what Rufus and Caius thought, there was a thunderstorm that night, rain poured from the heavens from midnight till dawn and bolts of lightning hit the dry ground from time to time. It caused a couple of fires but no one got hurt and in the end, the night passed normally, aside from one incident.

Around what felt like 3AM, an especially bright streak of light cut through the clouds like a shining blade with a roar of an entire army. It woke me up instantly, despite my somewhat strong sleep. It felt far too close, almost like right outside my window. It made me worried, I didn't even know if there were lightning guards in the first century, so I had the need to get up and check if everything was okay.

Despite the rumble that strike caused, the house seemed to be asleep. Filled only with the sound of rain and a loud noise of Rufus's snoring. Lucia trully was a saint to endure such a torture-worthy cacophony, but I suppose people can get used to even worse conditions. Another white scar tore up the night sky, as I looked through the kitchen window, right at the little plaza which was used by every family in the building as a meeting and relaxation spot.

Quickly, I opened the door leading out to the staircase and left, masking the noise with yet another thunderclap. The stairs led me down and outside. I must have gotten lucky because by the time I reached the entrance, the rain had stopped almost completely. I went out on the wet grass and looked around in the darkness of the night.

At first I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but when my eyes got adjusted to the lack of light I saw a dark streak of smoke, rising from the direction of the hills, not far from the house. I decided to investigate.

The grass was slippery, and I had a couple of close instances of almost falling down, but eventually I peeked from behind a layer of trees separating the houses and the fields. I saw a dark, still smoking, circular spot on the ground, right in the same place where I appeared a month ago. I felt shivers going up my spine and someone's eyes on me. Involuntarily shaking I turned around, trying to find who or what was looking at me but the area around me was empty.

I whipped around when I heard a splash of water behind me. There they or... it was. I saw only a sliver of some humanoid presence disappear into the shadows of the houses of our small neighborhood. I didn't try chasing it and instead quickly made my way home, no longer feeling watched.

I made sure to lock the doors properly and surprisingly - fell asleep pretty quickly, almost forgetting the encounter.

***

"This is probably the best thing I've ever eaten!" Announced Octavia, munching down on a slice of pizza, burning her tongue in the process.

We were sitting on the patio of Nerva's house. He was the most rich out of our group, so his place was often picked as our hangout spot. His parents were also pretty chill with those evening events, as long as we promised to not drink too much wine or break anything too valuable.

There were five of us: Nerva and Caius were sitting on a small marble table, with Octavia currently bouncing in place in the middle of the small paved area, with a hot piece of pizza sticking out of her mouth. Marius stood next to me, leaning on a pillar, and I was putting in a second pizza into a bread oven. I was glad to remember how to make it, even though I wasn't the best at baking and it came out a bit charred, everyone instantly fell in love with the new snack, which should have been invented almost a millennium later.

"And how do you call it again, Nero?" asked Nerva in between blowing at his second piece, to get it to a somewhat eatable temperature. He was a dark,tall, lean man with green eyes and curly hair. His quite impressive musculature was usually well hidden behind long sleeved tunics he wore, to the point where both of us looked almost identical in that aspect at times. But with how he was sitting currently, with his arms exposed - the hours of training were clearly visible. He was a workout nut, and if it wasn't for his genes he'd be probably less slender and more bodybuilder-like.