The story so far:
The Roman, Pt. 2
by TheRomanizer22
Very few Carthagian soldiers were willing to choose to serve Rome, but they also weren't willing to die for an already dead general, so most of them picked up the rest of their fellow fallen soldiers and went back to Carthage. The battle had been won, but not without dire casualties; Gladius was dead, and the Imperial Roman Army was decimated by losing 75% of their soldiers. Castus was going home, but with the weight of the world on his shoulders. "What have I done?? Have I not sealed the fate of my fallen soldiers by handing their souls over to the gods? Dear Athena! What have I done! Strike down thy smite of power for I do not deserve to live while the innocent have perished!" Castus knew that when he arrives back to Rome, it will be with the blood of the innocent fallen soldiers of his army on his hands, and he would be enraptured in what seems like a permanent pensive state of mind, forever trying to wash the blood and memories away. For days and days after his return, Castus kept replaying in his head the last image he had of Gladius: Gladius laying headless in his arms (only recognizable by the emblem on his cape) during the hugest battle ever fought by a Roman Soldier; the Battle of Cannai. Every night, he was reliving the battle in his mind, and thus, he was becoming an insomniac over fear of falling asleep. Soon, this plague of the mind began to take a toll on him, to the point where he was becoming more delusional with the passing of each day. On his good days, he had almost perfect mental clarity; but on his bad days, it seemed as if his guilt was latching onto his sanity with the strength of a vice grip. Soon, Castus' delusions were overtaking him to the point here he pulled out a sword and threatened to behead a 7yr old peasant boy. After he had come to realize what he had done, Castus now knew the dangers of his present state of mind. To protect the citizens from his mental unpredictability, he personally exiled himself to the lands of the south, or modern day, the Moroccan Desert. During his days in the Moroccan Desert, Castus was constantly tormented with delusions and illusions of what his life was like before the battle and what it might be like from now on. As he staggered about the desert with his feet burning and singing from the sand that lay beneath him, Castus began to wonder if the delusions weren't the work of Orpheus, but of Discord and the Furies. After all, it seemed like he was being punished for committing an unspeakable act of crime: letting the innocent perish under false premises. The Furies were known as very unforgiving, unbiased, and very cruel when it comes to judgment of mortal infractions, and you could be plagued with anything from dementia, insanity, or depression to the point of suicide and/or murder. Since the law was currently "an eye for an eye", if you murdered someone (even accidentally), your fate will be sealed by punishment of death. As Castus continued to wander aimlessly in the hot lands of the south, he came a cross what he thought to be a little village. He assumed that, with the way his mind has been tormenting him, the village was simply another trick that the Furies had unleashed onto him as yet another form of punishment. "Gods of Mount Olympus I beckon thee!! Release me from this mental grip you have placed upon my mind! Even death cannot be more torment than this plague of the mind!! By the Gods...I am going insane!!" Castus soon felt that he was unable to trust even himself and his own instincts, so if this were a village full of innocent lives, he was going to place himself as far away from them as he possibly could in order to ensure their personal safety. He was clearly no longer in control of the danger he could bring upon people, and he didn't want any innocents to find out what he had already knew: he had become a danger to the empire and had to be banished from all remnants of society.
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