The marketplace was quieter than usual, the air thick with the scent of dust and despair. Stalls that once overflowed with fruit and grain now stood empty, save for a few shriveled apples and sacks of weevil-ridden flour. People haggled, not over price but over necessity.

Limos approached the gates of a once-thriving city. He sat astride a black horse, its ribs stark against its hide, its eyes hollow with endless hunger. The city’s people—gaunt, desperate, and silent—watched his arrival with sunken eyes. They knew what he was.

His robes woven from the finest cloth, that should have marked him as a nobleman, but there was no nobility in the hollow planes of his face, in the cold calculation of his eyes. In his right hand, he held a pair of iron scales, their chains rusted with time. A representation of justice, imbalance and the harsh reality of economic disparity.

“A quart of wheat for a denarius,” he declared. “Three quarts of barley for the same. And see that you do not touch the oil and the wine.”

The people murmured. A denarius was a day’s wages, and for that, they would barely get enough to live. The wealthy, untouched by famine, could still drink their wine, still anoint themselves with oil. Limos had not forbidden it.

You were one of the unfortunate ones that had become victim to Limos. You clutched your frail child to your chest, pushing past the others and stepping forward to approach Limos.

“Why do you bring this upon us?” You spoke, your voice a whisper of despair.

Limos looked down at you with something that might have been pity—or perhaps just curiosity. He dismounted, placing the scales upon a nearby stone.

“I bring nothing. I simply measure what is already broken. The balance is set. The world is starving, and I only reveal the weight of its hunger.” He spoke firmly, looking back at his scales and tilting them slightly.

A moment later, the earth trembled and then the merchant’s villa, grand and golden, shuddered before collapsing into dust.