"What a night to be out," Dante muttered, pulling his red hood lower over his face.
It was around one o'clock in the morning. Not a single soul was on the road, with only the street lights casting a pale glow on the pavement.
Dante strolled casually, hands jammed deep into his pockets. He wore a red anorak jacket, white leather trousers, and red sneakers that tapped rhythmically against the concrete.
A heavy drop of water hit his cheek. He stopped and looked up at the black sky.
"Great. Rain," he said, speeding up his stride.
After a few minutes, Dante pulled up in front of a gigantic iron gate. He stood staring at the bars before reaching out to knock.
Before his knuckles made contact, the gate swung open on its own.
Dante squinted, peering into the dark compound. He stepped inside cautiously. Standing in front of him was a stylish duplex with smooth stone walls and high windows.
He took another step onto the property.
BANG!
The gate slammed shut behind him with a sudden crash.
Dante spun around and rushed back, grabbing the iron bars with both hands.
"Hey! Open up!" he shouted, pulling on the metal. He yanked over and over, but the gate didn't budge.
"Damn it!" he grunted, letting go.
He turned back toward the house. Every step across the yard made his skin prickle. Reaching the front entrance, he skipped knocking entirely. He turned the handle, pushed the heavy door open, and stepped inside.
He left the door wide open behind him—just in case he needed a clear path to run.
He failed to realize one obvious detail: with the front gate locked tight, escaping the house wouldn't get him out of the compound anyway.
The sitting room was spacious and furnished with plush couches and sleek glass tables.
"Everything seems normal in here," Dante whispered, scanning the dark corners.
He cleared his throat and called out, "Anyone home?!"
Silence followed, broken only by his own voice rebounding off the high ceiling. Hearing his words bounce back through the empty house turned his anxiety into sharp panic.
His knees weakened. He took a fast step backward toward the open doorway, ready to bail.
A freezing gust of wind whipped across his face from deeper inside the hallway.
Run! his mind screamed.
"Forget this!" Dante yelled.
He turned and sprinted back into the yard, racing toward the locked gate.
He was five feet from the iron bars when the air tore open behind him. A purple rift split space, pulling him backward into thin air.
"AAAAHHH!" Dante screamed as the pull dragged him inside. The rift snapped shut, leaving the yard silent again.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Dante slammed hard onto a floor he couldn't see.
"Argh!" He pushed himself up, clutching his bruised side.
He held his hands in front of his face, blinking repeatedly into the dark.
"What's going on?! Where am I?!" he shouted into the blackness. "I can't see anything!"
The gloom was absolute—so thick he wondered if his eyes had ceased to function entirely.
"Look at you," a deep voice rasped from the dark. "Squeezing your eyes tight, as if light still matters in this place."
Dante spun on his heel. "Who's there?! Show yourself!"
"Show myself?" The voice chuckled softly, vibrating through the floor beneath Dante's boots. "You stand in my domain, little one, yet you demand I present myself to your mortal eyes?"
"What domain?! What are you talking about?!" Dante yelled, his hands curling tight as he turned in circles. He couldn't pinpoint where the sound originated; it seemed to speak from inside his own head and from the air surrounding him.
"Curious," the ancient voice murmured, amused. "The great seer prophesied a child born to break the realms, a monarch who would place his foot on the necks of gods and mortals alike. And yet... you stand here completely oblivious."
"Monarch?" Dante stammered, his terror yielding slightly to sheer confusion. "What seer? Who are you?"
"I am the god of the dark realm," the voice replied, its tone chillingly indifferent. "And you are the child born to claim what was broken."
"Claim what?! What am I?!" Dante demanded, taking an uncertain step forward into the void.
"You will understand when the time is right," the entity said, its voice growing distant. "For now, awaken."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The heavy blackness began to dissolve, peeling back like smoke to reveal a harsh, bright sun overhead.
Dante shielded his eyes until his vision adjusted. He stood on a desolate plain of cracked gray stone stretching to the horizon. Not a blade of grass lived here. Just endless, shattered rock.
'I thought it was night, Dante thought, staring up at the sun. Was that darkness swallowing the sky?'
A dull ache started in his chest, low and throbbing.
Dante frowned, touching his ribs. "What..."
The ache turned into a searing heat that spread down his legs and up his neck.
"Argh!" Dante dropped to his hands and knees, gritting his teeth as sweat dripped onto the stone.
Underneath his clothing, black, ink-like lines bled into his skin. They crept slowly up his right leg, weaving over his hip, across his shoulder, and down his left arm like living vines.
The heat burned hotter. Dante groaned, trying to push through the pain as his red anorak, white trousers, and sneakers tore along the seams, falling away in ragged shreds.
A dark, shadowy mist began oozing from his skin, rising in faint wisps. The black marking on his shoulder flared, and a single wing made of swirling dark aura pushed outward from the left side of his back, fanning wide into the air.
Dante gasped for breath. His vision in his right eye blurred before turning pitch black—filled with dark energy that spilled tiny tendrils of smoke past his eyelashes.
Slowly, his feet lifted off the cracked earth. He floated two feet in the air, suspended by the dark aura wrapping around his torso.
The pressure built inside his chest, expanding until he couldn't contain it any longer.
"ARRRRRRRRRGH!" Dante roared at the open sky.
The energy erupted from his body in a heavy shockwave. The ground directly beneath him shattered, spider-webbing across the rocky plain into deep fissures. The burst of dark aura shot upward, swallowing the sunlight and turning the sky back into pure pitch black.
Dante hovered in the middle of his own darkness, gasping, as the sheer force of the power threatened to tear his mind apart.
Then, out of the deep shadow, a voice called out to him, clear and urgent:
"Dante, wake up! Wake up, Dante!"