Written by Jasmine Jiayi Xue from St. James School, Maryland, USA The first pale grey light of dawn seeped through the cracks in the barrack’s stones when Max woke. His back still clung to the dampness of the straw pile—for six months, this was how he’d opened his eyes each day: surrounded by the heavy, rumbling breaths of thirty-odd gladiators and the sharp click-clack of guards’ boot heels on flagstones beyond the iron bars. An air thick with the stench of sweat, rust, an
