Gladiator's Longing

A timepiece that recorded the gladiator's days in the bloodstained Colosseum. To him, it counted down the days on his long road to freedom.

The gladiator crafted this hourglass himself. He would flip the hourglass before each battle.
When the hourglass stopped flipping, the gladiator had long since died in a pool of his own blood.

The gladiator would put this hourglass aside before entering the arena.
When the fight had ended and the crowd started to cheer for him, the sand in the hourglass was still flowing.

In the gladiator's final fight, he faced a young girl.
In her eyes, he saw both the timidity of a young girl and the ferocity of a young lioness.
From his steps, the girl saw the unbreakable shackles of age that the gladiator wore.
It was a fight like the old gladiator had not had in years. Fierce, yet satisfying.
But the fight ended in a flash. The sword plunged into the gladiator's heart, and the sand in his hourglass crawled to a stop.