Dante Edwards. 19.
Most people his age would be worrying about things like which new phone to get, or if they’ve got the latest console. But Dante? No. He was… different. How do we know? Well, we’ve got to go back a couple of years, to the year 2514.
We start off at his home, in Texas. Dante was always a trouble child. With two sisters, he was always left out of the games, and being a middle child didn’t help with the attention he wanted. At 4 years old, Dante lost his mother leaving him, his 7 year old sister Natasha and 1 year old sister Amber with their very strict father, who was determined to whip them into shape. The girls were easy to keep control of, but Dante was different. Toddlers throw tantrums, and so did he. But, other kids would get tired after an hour or so, but not Dante, he would wreck the house and continue until Natasha would talk to him, or Amber wanted to play.
At the same time, he’d be at school. He’d never talk to anyone apart from his older sister and barely did any work. His father was called in many times to discuss his attitude in class and ways they could change it, but it was hopeless. When Natasha left middle school to go to high school, Dante and Amber were left. Amber would play with her friends and that left him all alone. Three years he spent, just walking around the school in total silence. Looking down at his shoes and minding his own business. At 9 years old, he got into his first fight. It was with the school bully, Jake Anderson. He’d tormented Dante ever since he joined and really got onto his nerves.
The day was like any other. The bell rang at 9:00, and Dante had Maths first in the day. He loathed Maths, just as much as he loathed school. Why? It was partly because he had the worst teacher ever, “Ms McCollum”. It was also because he had to sit next to Jake. They started doing worksheets, with the whole class concentrating hard and Dante was just sitting there, with his feet up. The teacher had come over to talk to him.
“Dante, do your work. If I have to say this one more time, you’re getting a strike. Three strikes and you’re out.” Ms McCollum commanded with a firm and slightly angry voice.
“Don’t care.” Came the reply from under the hood of his dark sweatshirt.
“Do it now, this is the last time I’m saying it to you.” She said, getting slightly annoyed at his arrogance. Jake saw this as an opportunity to get under the skin of Dante a bit before break time.
“Yeah freak, do it now.” He said, teasingly.
“I said I don’t care.” Dante said, tilting his head to look at Jake through his long, dark brown hair. Ms McCollum tried to stop Jake from getting involved, but it was of no use.
“Do it for your dad, I bet he’d be proud if you got something right” Jake replied in a blatantly sarcastic voice.
“Be quiet, I’m not telling you again.” Dante stated angrily.
“Or how about your mum? I bet she’d be proud of all the answers you get wrong”. The words that Jake had uttered drove him off the edge.
