A mountain sleeps beneath Pompeii.
No one in the city believed it was awake. Lucius didn't believe it either. He is just a pickpocket squatting by the pool, his fingers are faster than his eyes, and he never steals from the poor.
Later he met a girl wearing a purple robe. Her name was Claudia, and her surname was Augusta—three generations back, she was related to the emperor. She saw through his hands in the market, but she didn't call anyone. She gave him a silver purse, engraved with roses, and three copper coins in it.
He said, "I'll take you away."
She said: "You live in a broken house with three tiles missing, and the dog in the yard is lame."
"It's old," he said.
That was seven months before the fall of Pompeii. The mountain is still smoking. No one saw it.
Later he signed a gladiator contract and his back was covered with scars. She broke off her engagement and was kicked out of the house. He became a slave in the quarry, looking up to see the smoke from Vesuvius growing thicker day by day. She brought him bread through the iron fence. Later, the mountain turned over.
When the ashes fell, the whole city was running. Only he ran back against the crowd, running through the collapsed square, fallen columns, and volcanic ash covering his knees.
He found her. The whole street collapsed behind them.
She held his hand, her nails digging into his palm, and asked breathlessly: "Why are you back?"
"I didn't lose you," he said. This was the only word in his life that he didn't lie.
Pompeii will die. They won't.
