Dante’s life was nothing short of average at first. Days turned to weeks turned to years passed in a middle class home, beneath a wearied roof and a tired family. They weren’t bad people, as much he maintains. Mother was a librarian, and father an accountant. Both were well meaning people, and they treated their three children as if they’d hung to moon. When Tyler had wanted a car, he’d gotten one. When Clarise had asked for a tattoo for her fifteenth birthday, ‘no’ hadn’t even been considered an option. And when Dante wanted a motorcycle it was ‘Sure son. We’ll find the money.’ All in all life was honey; a slow, sweet drip to the bland taste of adulthood that lay before them all. But Dante was a spitfire, restless and devious. Though his parents treated him well, he had a knack for causing trouble. It wasn’t for attention, or even for recognition. It was out of boredom, and spite, and the sincerest form of disgust for how dull things always were.
It had started when he was young and he set blaze to the neighbor’s shed. Minimal damage, but pesky none the less. Then it graduated to petty thefts at nearby corner marts. It was fleeting, but it was entertainment and that was what mattered. It wasn’t until he was held at gun point at seventeen – the wrong place, the wrong time, he assure his mother – that things really clicked for him. Because it wasn’t about adrenaline either. It was about change.
The car was a piece of junk and nothing more. Just something off a used lot he’d purchased with the money he’d saved at his part time job at Chuck E Cheese. And the incident – well that was impulse. The argument had been the first in a while. Father had made a mistake at work, and it had caused ‘important issues, son.’ But of course, ‘Nothing we won’t work through.’ Still, mother’s voice was raised; Father and Clarise in the back seat – driving lesson interrupted – trying not to yell as well. And when the bend in the way came, forest looming just aside the jut in the road, Dante had thought it might be fun not to turn. Just to see, to see what happened. Off the road they went, straight into the trunk of a large oak, and that was that.
Dante woke up in a hospital a week and a half later, sat through nearly a year of physical therapy, and then was released into the care of authority hired psychiatrists he’d already been seeing. The questions were always the same. ‘Why did you do it?’ ‘Do you miss them?’ ‘Had something happened prior to the accident to cause you to feel it was the only course of action?’ The boy, nineteen by then, let them believe as they liked. Anti-depressants came and went, as did the occasional sedative when he broke a rule without really thinking about it. As far as Dante was concerned, if they wanted to believe that it was a suicide attempt, then they were more than welcome to. The trouble that would come with having to explain that he was simply unsatisfied – not angry, not sad, not vengeful, just bored – was more than he wanted to handle. So he accepted his admittance to Broken without much argument, ready to make what he could of his time in the place; expectations low and hopes non-existent. And though he hadn’t expected to be impaled by another patient the third day of his institutionalization, he can’t deny that the change in state isn’t pleasant.
Dante doesn’t find being a demon, or even simply dead, much of a burden. His new-found abilities are amusing in the least, and help to pass the rest of his days. He’s fond of conversation, and of picking people apart piece by piece until they bend to his will. There’s no investment in the relationships because he doesn’t want there to be. Which makes it easier to tear them all down one by one when the time comes. His problem has never been that he can’t connect, merely that he hasn’t found anyone he wants to connect with. Even his family was too dull for his taste, love them as he might have – he isn’t sure. Though, perhaps his chances of finding that someone are limited, as he’s not really looking for them. He’s just passing the time.
His problem has never been that he can’t connect, merely that he hasn’t found anyone he wants to connect with. Even his family was too dull for his taste, love them as he might have – he isn’t sure. Though, perhaps his chances of finding that someone are limited, as he’s not really looking for them. He’s just passing the time.
