THE RISE OF THE VETERES

THROWN BACK INTO ROME

Elena and Helen chattered away as last night's dream stuck in my head. Elena and Morgan were after someone - someone related to Kronos - and from what they said, someone who they could trust to protect them, enough to consider seducing. Yet, Elena didn't follow through...

"Yiannis?"

Helen waved to me. I was so lost in thought that I didn't realize how far behind I was. I waved back and ran towards them.

"Sorry, I was thinking about something. Did the two of you see anything?"

Helen shook her head. "The last few days, we haven't encountered bands of monsters. Does it mean we're getting closer to an exit?"

"Possibly. It'd be nice if it were true."

Elena nudged me. "It could be true. But it's also a sign of something dangerous ahead."

I looked at Elena. Her smile was in stark contrast to the past few days. I sometimes caught her sobbing alone. Had Morgan threatened her? Had she already retaliated?

I looked at Elena again, imagining the things Morgan could have said and done to her. I watched her smile disappear, radiating warmth no more. I watched tears flow from her eyes - coerced, afraid, miserable.

I returned to the present, still dazzled by her smile. Can I protect it?

I was too scared to ask, and let myself get lost on answering the question. 

Elena jolted me back to the real world. "You'll fallen behind. Is something wrong?"

I shook my head. "Sorry, was daydreaming. Don't mind me."

Along the way, we saw sunshine.

We caught up with Helen, but we also found ourselves surrounded by monsters. There were doors behind us, and they slammed shut. What was different was that the beasts weren't gunning for us. They sat on rows of seats in what seemed to be a coliseum. We were in a monster arena, currently preoccupied with a match.

A man was fighting an amphisbaena, a quadrupedal, serpentine creature with chicken legs and two heads at each end. Despite how they looked, the beasts were great diggers, and that's what it started doing.

The man barely dodged the head that popped out of the ground. He managed to slice it with his sword but it simply regenerated. It started spewing poisonous goo, something the man blocked with his shield. Before he could cut its head again, it went back into the ground.

Th monsters in the crowd jeered the man. "Fight, fight, fight!" they shouted as they pelted him with stones. "We want blood!"

The amphisbaena kept at its tactic of surprise attack from below. The man kept dodging, but he was clearly exhausted now. This was where the audience threw all the stones they could, knocking him to the ground, the amphisbaena licking its lips.

The monsters roared. While they didn't say it, I knew they wanted blood. There was even monster staff keeping their fellow beasts from descending on the man, who stared agape at his foe before he noticed me, tears in his eyes.

Before he could even say it, I cut off both heads of the amphisbaena. Some in the audience hopped down wanting to fight, but the staff knocked them out cold.

The man tugged my ankle. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you, thank you." I would've smiled, but I realized that he looked famished, even malnourished. How did he end up here?

A roar reverberated throughout the stadium, piercing my eardrums. When it faded, I saw something very bizarre. Or someone - a humanoid monster with three heads and three combined torsos.