“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 hung my head down.

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

It took me by surprise. 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, a 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 become part of their lives. And not a 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 stopped me from doing anything sudden and I simply stopped right in my tracks, observing every 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.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I’ve overheard it.” He simply admitted.

We were standing about two meters from each other, unmoving. He seemed to be just as uncomfortable as I was, and also weirdly shaky.

“Yes… I’m Nero. Who are you?”

“I’m Cesar.” I almost laughed, seeing this person lie to me like that.

“I know you aren’t from here. Tell me your real name.” His eyes turned into slits for a second, after which he took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry… I don’t have a name.” That’s weird.

“That’s weird.” I said out loud, before I could bite my tongue.

He seemed weirdly scared by that. We stood in silence for a moment, scanning each other. He was about a head shorter than me, as I assumed at the racing course - but he seemed far shorter when frightened. He was trying to hide in plain sight.

“I’m sorry. I just… I’m stressed, I don’t know who you are and what do you want.”

“I know.” He looked down at my feet. “You are one of the first people I saw when I got here and you look so different. I assumed…”

I nodded in understanding. “I’m from the year twenty twenty three. ”

“Twenty thirty.” He answered quickly, seemingly unsure how to continue from here.

“Why are you following me?”

His eyes focused on my face again. He gained a couple of centimeters by straightening up. He held his fists down by his hips and took another big breath.

“I was hoping you could help me get out of here.”

“Oh…” I hated being the bringer of the disappointing news. “I’ve no clue how to.”

He nodded slowly. “I figured, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” He sighed. “I’m so sorry for following you… I didn’t know how to begin and you were always around people…”

“Yeah I understand… I-” The sound of a sword being pulled from a sword guard cut the air. And caused both me and Cesar to look at the people who joined us.

“Nero are you okay? Did he do anything to you? Why didn’t you yell when you caught him?” It was Nerva, pointing the iron right at the ‘shadow figure’s’ chest. He started backing away but Caius jumped out from the bushes on the other side and caught him. They made an ambush. I was proud and also irritated for not listening to the plan. They were supposed to intervene only if something bad was happening.

“Yes I’m okay.” I moved between the blade and Cesar. “It’s okay guys, he is harmless. Right?” I looked at him and he quickly nodded.

Nerva seemed a bit irritated but also relieved.

“That’s good… But we deserve an explanation right? I’m not going to put away my sword until I am sure there is no threat.”

“But maybe let’s not talk about this here where everyone can see.” Said Caius, clearly not comfortable with holding Cesar hostage. “Let’s go to my house.” He decided and everyone followed.

***

When we reached Caius’s house we realized in just how bad Cesar was.

He needed a shower and a clean set of clothes, which Lucia and Rufus provided, after explaining the situation to them. Of course substituting the time travel part with calling him an orphan. I didn’t want to freak them out more than it was necessary, but neither of them seemed to believe us. They did however agree to let Cesar stay under the condition that they would throw him out if he was to do anything weird or bad.

Soon after everything was arranged we gathered in my room which turned out to be far too cramped for six people, but nobody complained. He told them the same things he first explained to me, adding that he died when escaping captivity. That shocked everyone, could this have been a criminal? What other reason could there be for someone to escape? He quickly denied it, explaining that it was more of a family matter. We took his word although no one allowed themselves to trust him.

It took an hour of convincing everyone, but finally Cesar had a new home and was supposed to follow me everywhere. He was against that at first, but realized quickly that he can’t gain anything by opposing our decisions and so he settled and agreed to become my roommate and a companion for the time being.

It was around midnight when everyone decided to go to their houses. But Marius wanted to talk to me about something first.

“Nero. I’ll be honest. I didn’t believe a word he said.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “Do you?”

I took a moment to answer, weighing all the options and judging his story for the third time today.

“I feel like I must believe him… Yes it does sound outlandish but so does my story.”

Marius shook his head and fixed his hair.

“If you do, then I do too, brother.” He answered, smiling at me.

I couldn’t help but smile back.

He left soon after, once again telling me to keep an eye on our new guest. And that was exactly what I intended on doing, but first I had to get one more answer. I directed my steps towards Caius’s room.