Nero of the North

The Truth

"So let me get this straight." Octavia finally spoke up, after taking a long sip of water from her cup. "You... Died and... Got moved? Here?" She talked slowly, and without any mocking tone, but it made me feel judged.

I nodded in response.

"And you think that this... Someone might have been as well?" Probed Caius further.

"Yeah... Him and the bodies, and everything weird people have been finding these past weeks." I explained again.

"That sounds absolutely mad. You know that?" joined Nerva.

"I know. You don't have to believe me, but that's the truth."

"The whole truth?" Caius finally looked at me. I was expecting to see disappointment on his face. The whole time I was talking he didn't turn towards me even once, and now he had his usual expression - a soft smile. I took a moment to reflect on everything that happened and all that I knew.

"Yes." I hanged my head down.

"I see... I understand now why you didn't want to tell it to us." Marius finally spoke up and walked over to me. He put his hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry."

It took me by surprised. What was he sorry about? It was me who made all of them question reality and was the reason this was happening in the first place. I should have been the one saying sorry and trying to make it up to them. And yet here he stood before me.

"I'm sorry for assuming the worst." He hugged me. It was a weak, unsure embrace, but It was enough to make me finally let all the bottled up emotions up. I felt tears streaking down my cheeks and my hands automatically gripping him stronger. My mind was full of thoughts, jumbled mess which seemed to speed up every second we held each other. I couldn't separate any single idea and when he finally spoke up again it took me a moment to come back to reality. "But now we have to figure out what to do."

I let him go and wiped off the tears, trying to slow down my heartbeat. I looked around the room. My friends had anticipation plastered over their faces, staring at me, waiting for me to say something. Suddenly I felt relieved and sure.

No longer was I just a "new one". Now I've truly became part of their lives. And not single one of them refused me that.

"I... I think I have an idea."

***

It took a lot of convincing but eventually they all agreed to my plan, although Marius kept insisting that I must be crazy, and Nerva tried pushing a sword into my hand. Eventually I left his house defenseless. We all knew that I was the only one, that the shadow figure was following. I saw him the most amount of times and neither one of them ever saw him, when not in my presence.

So I was both the trap and the bait. I was to walk alone towards my home and we were hoping for him to appear. In the meantime Nerva and the rest of the group would be following me from a distance and I was supposed to scream for them if any trouble arose.

I almost did just that, when the person emerged from one of the bushes midway from the home. Something about him though stopped me from doing anything sudden and I simply stopped right in my tracks, observing every his move. It was still dark so I didn't see any more detail about him, other than that his clothes were in even worse condition than at the horse races.

"Are you... Nero?" He asked. His voice took me aback, it had an accent unlike anyone here and sounded a lot like modern American English.

"How do you know my name?" I asked after a short pause, quickly realizing the stupidity of asking a stalker where he got your name.