{LOADING…}

Green text against the night sky.

{MEMORY FUNCTION COMPROMISED}

Floating in a timeless abyss.

{SYSTEM REGISTRATION COMPLETE}

What does that mean?

{WELCOME TO HYSTORIUS}

Nessa opened her eyes to the dusty walls of an underground locker room. That’s what it had to be, with wooden benches against the walls where a bunch of tan jocks sat like pigeons on a telephone wire.

            What a bizarre dream.

            “Hic sunt dracones,” one of the men was saying to a group. The strange words had a roughly Italian sound, but Nessa couldn’t place the language with any real confidence. Making up dream languages…that was a new one.

            At the words, the group of rapt listeners paled slightly. Their eyes went wide with worry as they shot glances at one another and shifted on the bench.

{LOADING LANGUAGE MODULE}

The text appeared in Nessa’s vision, sudden and neon-green. She jumped, blinked, turned her head. Nothing cleared the words from her sight.

{DOWNLOAD COMPLETE. STANDBY FOR INSTALLATION}

The mother of all migraines slammed into her head. She might have made a noise. Might have gasped. All she knew was that one moment her butt was on the wooden slab of a bench and the next she was doubled over with her knees in the dirt and her head in her hands.

“Hey. Boy.” A sandaled foot appeared in her peripheral. “You having some sort of fit?”

“Good as dead,” said another voice; the words met with a round of laughter.

“We should use him as dragon fodder.”

The searing pain ebbed, throbbing for a moment before dissipating entirely.

“You hear me, boy?” The first voice again.

Nessa didn’t have time to respond before the man gave her shoulder a rough shove with his foot, sending her to her side. That, finally, snapped her out of whatever ‘fit’ she’d been having. She caught herself and pushed to her feet.

“I’m not a boy!” She had to crane her neck to look the man in the face, but like hell was she going to let this dream-conjured asshole get away with that.

He sneered down at her with contempt.

“Orion!” The shout came from farther down the tunnel, where light was spilling around a corner. “What are you doing? Get your ass on deck!”

Nessa didn’t dare to look towards the shout. She kept her angry eyes on the man in front of her, sure she was about to be pummeled, but to her surprise he turned heel and made for the light. It was only in watching him retreat that she fully registered what he was wearing. Roman-like armor, leather with the skirt-thing. He was tall and tan and muscular and he stalked towards the end of the tunnel like a beast about to be let loose for a hunt.

Which, she supposed, was rather accurate.

She was dreaming about gladiators.

“Where are you from?”

Nessa turned towards the row of fighters. All of them were the same shade of tanned bronze with some form of leather armor covering their chest. Some of them had helmets sitting next to them. They were all speaking the same language and she realized that she understood it as well as if it were her native language. Latin? That wasn’t the language's name for itself. Lingum Historiae. Latin-like at the very least.

“Haven’t seen clothes like that before.”

“I have.”

“You have shit for brains, is what you have.”

“Your mother fucks goats.”

“Your mother is a goat!”

Nessa edged towards the light, not wanting to get caught up in whatever brawl was about to start. She might have a hard time backing down from a fight, but they were always verbal. She’d never punched a person in her entire life, let alone been punched. Well…aside from her younger sister that one time…

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The memory was foggy.

But she knew if they thought she was just a strangely dressed boy, with her short hair and loose fitting clothes, that they would probably be more than happy to treat her like a punching bag. And if she said she was a girl…that might be worse.

Cheers pulled her away from her thoughts. Loud cheers. And stomping. The ground sloped upwards as she walked along the tunnel and when she turned the corner, squinting against the light, she saw the lower half of an arena.

This was easily the most elaborate dream she’d ever had.

She could even smell the dust and the heat and an iron tang on the breeze that wafted into the channel. Could feel the shift of sand through the soles of her shoes. The cheering was so loud that it reverberated in her chest.

A roar, loud and reptilian, unlike anything she’d ever heard, tore through the noise. Instinct forced her feet to a halt. Some kind of primal fear raised goosebumps along her arms.

Cheers, screams, screeches. A man yelled.

In the small view offered by the tunnel’s opening, a body tumbled to a stop.

No, not a body.

Half a body.

“I’d like to wake up now,” Nessa whispered as twenty feet in front of her the upper half of that asshole called Orion spasmed, blood leaking from his torn torso. It soaked the ground in a dark puddle, reached the slope of the tunnel and began to trickle downhill.

The crowd cheered louder than before. There was the sound of metal on metal. A strange whump whump noise…as if something with wings were beating the air as it flew.

An excited man appeared in the opening, just a silhouette against the sunlight, but he sidestepped the dead man and paid no mind to the fact that he stepped in the trail of blood.

“Excellent. Excellent,” the man was muttering as he approached, clearly deep in thought. Then he noticed Nessa. His eyes narrowed for a moment as he considered her appearance and then his face broke into a smile. “You, boy!”

Nessa frowned. Sure, her hair was short, but did she really look like a boy?

“You’re eager to prove yourself. I can tell. Yes, I have an eye for it. Well, now’s your chance. Where’s your armor?” He came to a stop in front of her, the draped fabric that made up his clothing stopping at the knees. Was that a toga? Nessa wasn’t sure.

“I don’t have armor,” she said. By which she meant I’m not here to fight.

He looked at her for a moment. “Brave. The crowd will love you. Let’s go!”

Roughly, he grabbed her forearm and pulled her towards the light. Towards the dead body and the sounds of whatever creature he’d died fighting.

Nessa should have resisted. Could have pulled her hand free. But curiosity had always gotten her into trouble. Curiosity and her inability to keep her temper in check.

Warmth touched her skin as she allowed herself to be pulled into the light. Something heavy – the hilt of a sword – was shoved into her hand.

And then she was pushed into the arena.

The sight was overwhelming; bright and noisy and real. Her mouth dropped open as her head tilted back to take in the sheer size of the colosseum. Rows upon rows of seats filled elbow to elbow with the excited crowd. They screamed when she appeared, stomping their feet and yelling too loudly for her to make out any words. Their cheers were utterly terrifying. A mob of people gathered on mutual bloodlust, excited to see people torn to shreds.

And then she saw it.

Hic sunt dracones.

{Blue Wyvern Level 12}

The words appeared in her vision again, sitting just above the dragon which was leashed to the center of the arena via a massive chain connected to a thick, metal collar. The links rattled and groaned as the beast struggled to fly away, it’s long blue neck craned towards the sky. It paid her no mind, intent on its own escape. Nessa stood there in her baggy jeans and her gray hoodie and her sneakers with a sword too heavy to lift with one hand and just stared at it.

Frozen.

“Hey!”

Nessa turned. Saw the toga-clad man who’d dragged her into the arena waving his arms, trying to draw the dragon’s eye in his direction. Which was also her direction.

With serpentine grace, the dragon tucked its wings to its cerulean sides and turned. Vertical pupils slit in large orange eyes focused on the two humans standing within reach. The only things it had to take its rage out on.

Time to run.

Nessa dropped the sword, useless for its weight, and sprinted back towards the opening. But it was too late.

“What are you doing!?” she screamed, slamming into the iron bars of the gate that had lowered at the tunnel’s entrance with the man safely on the other side.

“Give them a show!” he said with a smile. And then he retreated back down into the shadows and around the corner, where the other gladiators (the ones who had armor and could probably hold a stupid sword in one hand and a shield in the other) waited for their turn.

Nessa spun around. Pressed her back to the bars as the dragon snaked towards her, mouth ajar with fangs longer than she was tall.

“Just a dream,” she muttered. “Just a dream. Just a dream.”

The creature roared; a horrible shrieking sound that had her covering her ears and closing her eyes against the blast of its breath. Red-tinged spittle hit her clothes, her face, her short brown hair. It gnashed it’s teeth, a low sound rumbling in it’s chest.

{LOADING LANGUAGE MODULE}

The words popped up behind her closed eyelids.

{DOWNLOAD COMPLETE. STANDBY FOR INSTALLATION}

Her eyes shot open. “WAIT!”

An icepick jammed itself into her brain.

The ground rushed up to meet her. Everything faded to a dull murmur; the dragon, the colosseum, the crowd, all of it was drowned out by the pain. She came-to in a heap on the ground, the headache fading just as it had the last time. But this time the words around her weren’t coming from men.

“—INSOLENT HUMANS. YOU THINK TO CHAIN ME?! ME?”

The guttural hiss wasn’t something Nessa could replicate with her human mouth, but when she spoke she found strange words on her tongue. “I didn’t chain you,” is what she meant to say, but the syllables came out as: caith ni dourthim, with rolled r’s and everything.

Too late. She was too late, again.

In her agony, she’d fallen. And in those vital seconds, the dragon had already moved for her. It either didn’t hear her or the words she’d spoken held no meaning for it.

Wake up.

Dreams are supposed to end when you die. You’re supposed to jolt upright, covered in sweat, but safely in bed.

So why wasn’t she waking up?

The crowd went absolutely feral, roaring with excitement. Nessa heard it in the vague, far off way of a person skewered on several dragon fangs as she was lifted off the ground. Shaken like a rabbit in the jaws of a dog.

YOU HAVE DIED. (6/7 LIVES LEFT)

RETURNING TO LAST CHECKPOINT.