Death's Bitter Embrace (#Wattys2015)

Act II, Chapter I: Summons

18 Years Later

My name, my name is Dante Quill, son of the infamous Toby Quill, I don't know why people are so interested in me; maybe it is because I have hair as black as night and natural blood red eyes, maybe it is because I am the son of a murderer, or maybe because I look so innocent on the outside-only my victims know how vicious I am, yes, that's right, victims.

My life can't get any further from perfect, my girlfriend of one year cheated on me with the typical sporty athletic guy, my grades are just over 60 percent and I got fired from my job last week. Life isn't going that well for me at this moment in time and I doubt it could get any better.

I get home and chuck my backpack on the leather lounge suite, then came an accompanying screech;

"Don't throw your bag on the couch Dante!" Mum hisses from the bathroom-that's the first hint that she's had a rough day

I walk to dad's 'meat locker' and greet him with a small guilty smile-I felt guilty because I got 54.65 on my psycholgy test, as I said life sucked.

Dad is sitting at table with two men in Gucci suits, just beside a stretcher with chunks of human flesh. I notice they seem to have a mark of some sort on their forearms, dad waves me over. "What were they here for? Were they here for me? Why did dad have a grim expression administered on his otherwise smiling face?" I asked myself in my mind as I approached the strange men.

"Dante! These men work for someone that used to be a big part of my life, they would like to offer a new job, how's that sound?

"An offer implies that it can rejected, this 'offer' cannot be rejected." Both of the strange men say in sync, like they had just rehearsed it over and over for hours on end.

One of the strange man opens his mouth to talk, but then quickly shuts it, as if he was bound by a secret, by someone, or something not to talk. He opens his mouth once more and this time he talks.

"Dante I believe? You're coming with us to meet the boss, to meet Lucifer." They say like I just broke a major law.

They try to grab my forearms but I quickly dodge them and break both their noses-like nothing ever happened they carry on trying to grasp me, dad nods at me to signal that I go with them.

I give in and I comply with what they want, I apologize for the broken noses and we set off. I get in their car-a Chrysler 300 limo, I could get accustomed to it very quickly, very quickly indeed

We sit in silence as we drove to where we were going which I still had no clue on, the only sounds we heard came from one or even both of the strange men wailing and complaining about their broken noses, sometimes they would do it in sync, sometimes in tandem, one after the other.

As we pull up in front of a large house that could have easily costed over a billion dollars a person walks out and greets us with a friendly smile and a wave to signal us over. He was wearing the same Gucci suit, black with white pinstripe stitching. A thought appeared in my head "Am I becoming apart of a secret service, a really cool spy job that wears suits?" I thought, it was a stupid thought-but what can I say, I am a teenager trying to get away from my life, to something exciting. I was thinking of how stupid it was when I heard a peculiar voice."

"No it's not, not stupid at all."

This caused shivers down my spine, lightning bolts of suspicion crashed through my entire body, I looked around, I looked at the strange men-and they stared back-perhaps it was my own imagination, although this didn't sound like my voice, it sounded deeper, creepier, psychopathic almost.

"Not stupid at all, not stupid at all, not stupid." It repeats over and over, getting softer and softer with each repeat. The voices stopped suddenly when we walked inside the house, as if they couldn't get in, as if they were condemned to live outside waiting for when I return.

I walk in and try to comprehend the size of the house, try to take it all in, we walk down a flight of stairs, yes down, as if this house needed any more levels, but, yet it had a basement. The guards open the gates for me, like I was royalty, the whole drive here they treated me like I was royalty. I walk into the basement and see a figure sitting on a throne of pure gold, flames pertruded from it, the figure was wearing a Gucci suit but this one was white, and had black pinstripes, he was The Boss.