The room was dark, except for the silver light of an oversized moon streaming in through a shattered window. A young child stood in its path, with tousled brown hair that rustled with the wind, his shadow looming ahead of him.
The boy’s gaze was fixed upon a single object on the floor. A woman’s shoe, white, but spattered with something that glistened red in a sudden flash of lightning.
Just beyond the boy, and his shadow, and the shoe, was a door, slightly open. Barely an inch. The boy knew he should go to it, but couldn’t seem to get himself to move away from the only source of light in that dark and empty house. Even as he stood there with his fists clenched, as if trying to will the very sun into rising in the middle of the night, the faint light around him began to grow even fainter. With terror writ large on his tearful face, he turned slowly towards the window, only to watch the last of the storm clouds blot out the moon, leaving him alone in the absolute dark.
The thought of crying out for help didn’t even strike him.
There was no one left to call out to.
Dante woke up with a start, only to let out a gasp-turned-hiss as the sudden move twisted something at his side. Heart thudding furiously, he tried to blink away the pain, his mind simultaneously registering the light of a soft lamp burning beside him. His first feeling was one of overwhelming relief. Quickly followed by confusion. He didn’t own a bedside table. Come to think of it, the bed he was in was a lot softer than he was used to as well.
He tried sitting up again, slower this time, exhaling gratefully when he managed to do so without feeling like his insides were tearing. Wincing at the returning memories of the previous evening’s encounter, and berating himself for his foolishness, he glanced about him, taking in the room that was both familiar yet not. Spacious, but still barely furnished, with the large bed he was occupying and two small tables on each side of it the only real pieces of furniture. There was an armchair by the window, but it looked like it had been dragged in from elsewhere. He then noticed the glass of water by the lamp, – what he assumed was water, anyway – and grabbed at it gratefully. He’d just finished gulping it down when the door opened (with an audible click, noted Dante), and Ruilian walked in.
“Oh, good, you’re awake”
“Hi”, said Dante, sounding just as sheepish as he felt in that moment.
“Hi, yourself”, said Ruilian, walking up to his side and shooting him a wry smile. “We have got to stop meeting like this.” He paused for a moment, forcing Dante to tilt his head up to look at him, before carefully sitting down on the edge of the bed so as to not shake it.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay.”
Ruilian raised one shapely eyebrow before shooting a pointed look at his freshly bandaged side.
Dante flushed and waved it away. “It’s nothing. Just got into a scuffle. Umm, sorry for the trouble.”
“A scuffle”, repeated Ruilian, in a voice so mild that Daniel wasn’t sure if he was imagining the underlying fury. Damn. He couldn’t even blame Ruilian. Dante was quite furious with himself too. Of all the places he could have dragged himself to, why did it have to be this door? And it didn’t help that his memory of the previous evening was disjointed at best. The last thing he remembered was knocking on Ruilian’s door. He had been pretty certain he had passed out immediately after. Now he wasn’t so sure anymore.
“Yeah… I… Sorry, but I don’t remember much from last night…” He trailed off, suddenly feeling unfairly small, as he often did in the older man’s presence. I am a Police Officer, he reminded himself. Graduated with the highest score the Academy has ever seen. Promoted twice in a year. Have the highest arrests second year running.
But somehow, under Lian’s withering glare, none of that seemed to matter.
Something in his face must have reflected how he was feeling, because Lian’s face abruptly softened before he turned away, staring into the light of the lamp.
Dante followed his gaze. That lamp was lit for you, his brain supplied helpfully, even as he struggled with piecing together what had happened last night. He remembered how much you hate waking up in the dark.
“You showed up here, just after midnight, slurring. I thought you were drunk.”
Dante felt the blood rushing to his face. “Sorry.”
It was Ruilian’s turn to wave Dante’s words away. “Don’t worry about it. Makes us even.”
Dante looked up at him sharply. “How?”
Ruilian seemed taken aback at the intensity of Dante’s question. They stared at each other for a moment that slowly seemed to stretch out too long.
Ruilian was the first to look away, “I suppose you wouldn’t be interested in telling me how you got that?”
The Revolution Breathes Fire 