Early June, 238 AD.

Quintus Cinna watched an old couple as they walked down the cobble stone street. The woman carefully held her husband up as they shuffled. They were still in love and the trickling rain didn't delay them. He wondered what that was like.

Years had gone by and he once had a wife. When QC had gone missing, she married another. His daughter and two sons were now dead, bodies never recovered. Thump.

He felt the pulse of Fabricius' villa and decided to step beyond the walls that were closing in and go into the cobble stone streets for a little while. Birds chirped, but they chirped as if they were crying for the heavens to help. Madness was coming. Madness of a nature not seen in Rome for a long time. People were talking in a way that seemed uncomfortable. They hated the two emperors Pupienus and Balbinus. The pulse of the city walls thrummed in QC's heart. Thump.

He turned around to see praetorian guards marching in two lines from a corner coming toward him chanting. They were more open now than they would have been even a couple months ago. Something must have been stirring their bravery. They ought to have been brave, after all, they killed the young emperor Alexander Severus three years ago and appointed a military leader, Maximinus the Thrax as the emperor of the Roman world. The guards kept marching toward him. Each foot thundered power as they continued closer, their swords shinier than how he remembered. He stepped back as the arrogant men in black leather and purple cloaks marched by him. None looked at him. They were the power of Rome. The city buildings continued to pulse around him. Thump.

He needed to step back in to Fabricius' villa and feel safe. Fabricius' people must have felt the change. They had shipped mother out of the city and Fabricius' daughter was requested to leave that night though she refused. Her father was still sick, but doing better. She wouldn't leave until he could. QC looked back toward the old couple who had carefully moved aside for the praetorian guards. Even the old were not safe.