It is early in the morning on a warm day in Roman Italy. Sixteen-year-old Tiro gets the water, makes breakfast, and works in the kitchen - like he does day after day. Tiro is a slave. He can never be free, never eat when he wants to eat, or sleep when he wants to sleep. But today is different. He is going to Pompeii for the first time. He is excited, but it is AD79: and on Mount Vesuvius, near Pompeii, very bad things are beginning to happen...