The path north was getting harder and harder, the people had to avoid towns and roads in order to avoid the Roman armies. Without shelter, with food getting scarce, the weather getting colder, this nightmare was ongoing. People dying, one by one, either starving, illness or due to old age. Adpetentia broken, sad and now with a giant void in her heart. Going through the motions emotionless, surviving day by day. Hippos by her side, silent, confused, awkward and unhelpful to her in any way, didn’t know what to do with himself. Whatever purpose he thought himself to have, kept slipping through his fingers. He still had hope, in his heart, she was still alive, and if there was someone he could protect, it was her. But she was fearing for their lives, thinking that this was just a mistake, and now, a regret.

Flowers, hugs, kisses and passion, were the weapons Hippos was trying to use to cheer Adpetentia up, to see her smile again, to fill that void in her eyes ones again with life. It was the fight of grief against love, in the heart of a young woman. Fruits, love, songs and poems, were things he tried to make her heart skip a beat again, and fill the cold heart of hers with warmth again. It was the great war between pain and joyfulness, that was taking part in the soul of a young woman. Whether the boy was doing these out of a sense of love or purpose was something he didn’t know either. Food, silly faces, jokes and tricks, were things he used to try and make her laugh a bit, to fill that hole left there by trauma. Yet as he failed, he heart grew colder, as days past, their path was getting slower and slower grey.

As they found in a morning, a forest on a hill, from which you could see in the far distance a settlement, they laid down to rest, eat and sleep. Tired, hungry and sleepless, they had all fallen asleep. Man, child and elderly, all sleeping peacefully. With the fun keeping them warm, with the grass as a bed. Cockroaches, ticks and worms, crawling over them, but not one of them was bothered. A cold snot of a dog was sniffing them, one of the women woke up screaming. The dog started barking and biting, Hippos jumped up and with a strike between its eyes, had killed the dog. People started waking up in terror, some died from the scare. Until they got their things together. The Roman soldiers got to them. Killing the men, that tried to fight, the women screamed in terror. Hippos tried to jump and fight, he was gruesomely murdered. The women were all raped, but Adpetentia had fled, when Hippos jumped ahead to try and save her.

And in Creetus…

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