Descent to Darkness

Not Some Kind of Hero

Chapter One

Not Some Kind of Hero

I am Dante F. Domino. I know with a name like that, you may think that I am some sort of badass, or some motorcycle ridin', leather jacket wearin', cigarette smokin', gun slingin', man with a beard and aviators. Those words were chiseled in my mind. None of them were true. I owned sunglasses and that was about it.

On a day like all of the others, my parents were fighting over some detail about Christmas. My young mind couldn't be bothered with the issue, and I never really liked them fighting. It always escalated into them just screaming threats and obscenities to each other.

I escaped to an alter ego of mine. He was an explorer, and he was brave. Most of all, he didn't listen to the yelling. I snuck out the back door and continued across my own personal archeological site. It was a field that had just been tilled up for some vegetable, but for some reason they had never been planted. Years before, I had gotten lucky and found old bottle caps and sometimes the bottom part of mason jars.

"I don't like when they argue," I said in my regular voice. Typically, my alter ego didn't respond. He was more of the silent guardian type, but this time he spoke up.

"It will be okay. Just don't listen to it. It can't affect you if you don't listen." Caught off guard, I tripped and landed on my face. I stood up and kicked the rectangular rock that was protruding from the ground. When I kicked it, it flipped out of the dirt.

The rock, as it turned out, was a leather bound book. The gold embossed cover still gleamed in the sun, Dracula. It was a major find. I fell back on my butt and pulled it into my lap. On the inside cover, it was signed by some guy, Bram Stoker. I had never in my entire life been more excited to read a book.

Except, it had been in the elements for too long. Every page was just a blurry black smear on a yellowing page. It was sort of a cruel foreshadowing that the book had no words. I could have read up and known what to expect. Really, I never got the liberty to read that book, or any copy of it for that matter, yet I still loved that book. Maybe I thought that in some way, because Dracula and Dante were so similar sounding, that maybe, just maybe, that Dracula was some kind of hero. Children can be so naïve.

Yet, I was at the point where I just needed something to believe in, even if it was the faceless title character of a blank book. Being the kid that I was and my home life not being exceptional, I definitely needed something like Dracula to believe in.

I went on with the rest of my day normally like something bad wasn't going to happen. When I came back home, my parents were in separate rooms working on the hobbies that they only worked on when they were angry. My mom made dinner, and I went up to bed. I gently tucked the book onto the shelf shortly before I tucked myself in.

It was one of those days where I could stay wrapped in my blanket forever. I remember being totally at ease, hoping that I got that game I wanted in the morning. As my eyes closed, the book fell to floor with a heavy thud, causing me to jump to the cold wood floor. Wiping sleep from my eyes, I picked the book up, and set it back on the shelf, but I let my hand rest on the spine.

The book was warm, the door was open, and I felt a little uneasy. That didn't stop me from lying back down in my bed and falling asleep. Again, children can be so naïve. I remember in that one moment that I was very happy with my life. It was also one of the last times that I remember being warm. Warmth was a strange thing that I had come to expect, but neglected until I could never have it again. My dream was lost to the years, but I could only imagine it was about sitting close to a fire, singing camp fire songs with my parents while opening Christmas presents.