Alexandria (ONC entry)

Prologue: Agata's Alexandria

48 BCE

Fire. Fire, screaming. Flames, crawling up the beautiful pillars of the library. Her library. Of course, the Temple to the Muses wasn't just a library; it was an academy, and a research center as well, but she loved the library most. Her vision was blurred and tinted with red. Agata Milas stared, her cheeks smeared with soot. Someone ran into her, bumping her shoulder, not stopping to apologise but instead stumbling from the carnage that was taking place in front of them. Yet Agata stared, her face lax, as if the nerves were being burned along with the years' worth of unmatched knowledge stashed on the shelves of the burning library.

Hundreds of thousands of papyrus scrolls, all gone up in smoke. No, not all of it, Agata thought, her grip around the few scrolls she had managed to save tightening. She looked down at them; they were her favourites. She had been reading them for the hundredth time when the first flaming projectile hit.

Agata had known immediately that something was very, very wrong. She and the library connected like that. She knew each and every one of its nooks and crannies, had sat on each and every chair in all thirteen lecture halls, had trailed her fingers over each and every shelf containing their treasures. The scrolls. Agata liked to believe that the library had been built specifically for her, that all the scrolls that had been delivered to the Scribes, and that they then had meticulously copied, word for word, and that now rested alongside their sisters had been laid out there just for her. For her to read.

Agata talked to the library, when she was positive nobody could hear. She had whispered to its walls and its columns, murmured her worst fears and her deepest secrets for all scrolls to hear. She liked to imagine that the scrolls whispered back by opening up to her, by laying out their own secrets in exchange for hers. Agata believed in exchange. She believed that it was because that she had talked, given everything, that she always managed to find the scrolls she needed, that it was why she felt such a connection with the enormous Mouseion.

She took a breath, immediately bursting into coughs because of the smoke and soot flying in the air. The black specs danced around her, riding the wind and teasingly winding themselves in her hair, staining her clothes a dark grey, sticking to her clammy skin. Agata ran a finger along her arm, smearing out the ashes even more in the process. She wondered if these ashes had once been her beloved scrolls, now lost forever, destined to travel with the wind to destinations unknown until...

Until what? What would happen? Where would the black flecks finally settle down? Would they drown at sea, only making it to the harbours a couple of stone's throws away? Would they travel with the wind to faraway lands, the lands Agata had only read about and could merely dream about visiting? Or would they go home, settle on their own scribes' shoulders after a long voyage over land and sea, changed forever by the events of life but in essence, remaining the same.

Agata supposed she would never know.

When it became too hard to breathe, she finally turned and let her feet guide her to... she didn't know. For now, she allowed herself to follow the crowd of panicked citizens, all speeding away from the fires and towards safer land. Agata supposed that was what she wanted, too. Safety. But she felt oddly empty inside, as if her emotions had scattered in ashes and were now riding the wind to destinations unknown. Just like her scrolls. Just like her love.

For hours and hours, Agata walked. Her mind was a blur, clotted up by the ashes and the soot and the smoke. Every time she closed her eyes, the horrible image of towering flames filled her vision. Agata didn't remember separating herself from the crowd, but she must have at some point because suddenly she was alone. Alone, with solely the trees and the flowers and far, far away, the Nile for company. She walked until her feet couldn't carry her any more, and then she forced them to do it more. She only stopped for a drink at some springs, to keep her energy up. She thought about praying, but who would she pray to? Her Gods had not answered her prayers when she had been forced to watch her first and only love go up in flames. So Agata did not pray. No, she did not pray.