My first month in Rome was quite challenging. Nobody trusts someone who just appeared one day, and burnt half a hill, as if he was hit by lightning. Even fewer people want to trust someone who refuses to talk about his past and has a “northern” accent. But the family of Rufus: him, his wife Lucia and son called Caius; accepted me as their own, while telling everyone around us that I’m the son of one of Rufus’s business associates. I even got to know Caius’ friends, who welcomed me to their group like I was born in Rome. Or even from their time.

Living in Rome wasn’t as hard or unpleasant as I thought at first. Of course the first two weeks I spent thinking and in deep depression, considering that I might have just lost everyone I ever knew, my whole family and friends, my home. And that I might never get back to my own time. But after that first feeling of desperation and lack of sense in my life I realized that sulking all the time will only bring me more pain and will lead to my demise in the year 45th of our era. Which didn’t seem like a very enticing prospect.

Later two weeks I spent getting to know people and working most of the day to earn coins for the room. Even though Rufus assured me it wasn’t necessary I felt compelled to do so anyway. I didn’t want to be an ungrateful guest, who eats their food and sleeps under their roof and all he offers back is a mystery of where he comes from.

Work was extremely hard at first, it took me a week to understand everything, and to actually get somewhat good. It was back-breaking labor, but at the end of the day I felt some kind of satisfaction from the work, and it even started showing outside my mind, as I gained a couple of pounds and my skin got more tanned. It was very much working for me, making me at least somewhat accept the situation I got in.

Every day after work, when the sun was still above the horizon I was meeting friends of Caius. They were extremely nice and helpful, and didn’t seem to be bothered by a tall stick suddenly joining their group. We had lots of fun, running and pretend-fighting in the poorer areas of Rome. I even got to know that part of the city quite well, to the point where I wasn’t too afraid to walk alone. Even though I got mugged once.

I got integrated into the family life at Rufus’s house and even cooked some meals, which they thought were exotic and interesting, but very good. I tried to help as much as possible, to repay their kindness.

It wasn’t all good however, two days ago we got into an argument when Rufus finally mentioned something about religion. My answer, that I was atheistic, didn’t sit well with them at all, and I got worried my good life was coming to an end, but luckily they eventually agreed that it’s better that I’m atheistic than if I were to worship some northern gods.

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That’s how the last month passed, full of work and acclimatization to the new reality I’ve found myself in. But it wasn’t all ordinary life (as ordinary as getting sent back in time to ancient Rome gets), there was some weird vibe in the air. Every couple of nights people were being found dead, with scorch marks all over their bodies. They also seemed to have no families or anyone knowing about them prior to their deaths. Maybe more people who got sent back in time?

Sometimes things seemed to just appear in odd places, entire buildings rearranged, but no one seemed to be bothered by that. At one point I was pretty sure I heard a car, but I couldn’t find the source of the sound. The weirdest of those events was probably the first building I noticed after coming here. The Colosseum.

From what I remembered from history lessons, it was built after the great fire of Rome, supposedly caused by Nero, but… The current emperor was Nero and from what Rufus told me there was no fire yet. Meaning that it shouldn’t exist, and yet I could see it from the window of my tiny room.

It didn’t escape my attention that none of the people I met knew what “English” meant and yet all of them spoke it fluently. From the reaction I’ve gotten from people it seemed like it was me who talked in latin. I also spent some of my free time on trying to find out what’s going on here but that wasn’t working at all.

Eventually I also got back to thinking about my previous life. And I was able to uncover from the fog of my memory, more details of my last day in the XXIst century.

I remembered that hell-hound, an ugly chihuahua called “Dot”. That day it was also barking at everything that moved even slightly, from falling leaves to birds and cars. That day however, the “dog” wasn’t closed properly and it managed to escape its prison. It immediately in its genius ran out on the street full of cars and I got excited. Could it be? The end of that hellish creature?

I have only myself to fault for what happened next. No one should be happy about a chihuahua’s death, because it brings bad luck. Or at least a rubber hose right in front of your feet, which worked like a perfect trap for my clumsy self and caused me to fall face first from a small patio right on the soft grass of my garden. And onto a rock which very unluckily was placed right where my forehead hit the ground.

I felt the pain of the hit and then woke up in Rome.

I had to start a completely new life, after I wasted the last one on something more akin to a rat than a puppy. Serves me right.