Dante Sees the Dead

Dante

If there is a God, they don’t give a fuck about the world.

Dante figured this out thirteen years ago, when his dad was killed. One stray bullet during a convenience store robbery. Dad had gone in for a bottle of ketchup because the grocery store was three miles out of the way.

Dante wished that for once his dad hadn’t been so pragmatic.

Ray Graves was a good man. Worked hard. Church every Sunday. Wednesday too, when he could. Paid his tithe even though he could barely afford it with two teens at home and a housewife with fibromyalgia and a pill addiction. He was good. God fearing. And he died in agony with his murder staring down at him.

His older sister Rae had taken it the hardest. Turned to drugs and sex to fill that void losing Dad had created. She’d never recovered from the loss.

Dante stared down at his older sister's body splayed out on the outdated bathroom linoleum.

Now she never would.

The last remaining light bulb flickered over a sink littered with heroin, used needles, a lighter and a burnt spoon. His sister’s head was lolled back against the vanity, eyes vacant and a needle in her arm. The tourniquet, just an old scrap piece from one of her high school basketball jerseys, was still wrapped tightly around her bicep.

Dante felt nothing but cold rage.

His ten year old niece called him at eleven pm, just a half hour ago, screaming incoherently until he got her to calm down. He wished he hadn’t. He never wanted to relive that feeling of nausea, fear, and panic when Beth said that her mom fell in the bathroom and wouldn’t wake up.

“Uncle Dante?” A small voice called through the bathroom door, sniffling, and Dante smacked a hand against it to keep it closed as Oliver, Rae’s youngest, tried to open the door. “Where’s mommy? Let me in! I want my mommy!”

Dante’s throat burned. How do you tell a four year old their mom’s demons came back to haunt her and a moment of weakness led to her death?

“Hey Beth—“ it was difficult to speak through the lump in his throat and his voice was more clipped than he wanted it to be, “—can you take Ollie to the kitchen and get him some juice?”

He heard Bethany pull Oliver’s attention away from the bathroom and soft footsteps shuffled along the old carpet in the trailer's narrow hallway, fading toward the kitchen.

Certain that Beth had Oliver occupied, Dante crouched beside Rae. At least, he tried to crouch. His legs felt weak. They quivered and failed him and his knees smacked the floor. He gripped at the counter to balance his body from flopping over Rae and accidentally knocked the needles off the sink, scattering them all over.

“Fuck.” Dante hissed through grit teeth. He took several steadying breaths and punched the counter. He managed to settle himself after a minutes and reached out a finger, pressing gently in the center of Rae’s forehead.

She opened her eyes with a sharp gasp, an incorporeal version of herself lifting from her body and she looked around until her gaze settled on Dante.

“The hell are you doing here? It’s late, you should be sleeping for work–” she gasped with wide eyes, “shit, I need to get the kids to bed.”

“Rae.” He was shaking his head, voice thick and eyes glossy.

Rae’s light blue eyes glanced around again, then down. She grit her teeth. “Damn it, I wasn’t ready to go yet.” Dante wasn’t certain if his sister was trying to divert his attention or if she didn’t care about the consequences of her death, but she turned to look at him and cracked a grin. “I knew you’d use your freaky death vision on me, even though I always said I didn’t wanna know when it felt like.”

“What happened, Rae?” Dante had to know. “What was so bad that you had to shoot up and leave the kids…”

“Mom died, D. I started using the night of the funeral.”

Dante shook his head, eyes wide and jaw slack as that deep rage still clawed at his chest. “We knew it was coming. She refused chemo a year ago. You could’ve gone to NA. A therapist. Anything but back to the dealer.”

“I should’ve,” Rae shrugged, like leaving the kids behind didn’t matter to her at all, and that churned Dante’s stomach, “you and I both know it was jail or death for me. I was never gonna stay sober long. I dunno how you’ve managed it.”

“The kids–” Dante began, tears running down his cheeks. He wiped them away furiously, trying to hold it together.

Rae looked away. “Yeah. I was never a good Mom, anyway. They’re better off without me.”

“You’re their mother / You’re all they have.” Dante spat, trying not to recoil and remove his finger from Rae. “They need you. Like we needed Mom.”

Rae scoffed, head swiveling back to glare at him. ”All Mom was good for was food stamps and a couple valium. It’s all I’m good for, too. Beth’ll grow up to be just like me, she’s already smokin’ weed. Won’t be long now before she has a pregnancy scare. She’ll do better without me in her life, and you know it. Else you wouldn'ta fought so hard to keep them outta my custody for all them years. It’s over. I’m dead. Whatever comes next is on you, you can have ‘em now. Just like you always wanted. Let me go.”

“Fuck you, Rae,” Dante hissed through grit teeth as a few hot tears fell, his sister looked away from him, “fuck you.” Dante fell back against the door and sunk down, letting his finger fall from his sister's forehead, knowing he’d never see her again as her spirit faded away silently.

He pulled his phone out of the pocket of his hoodie and his fingers trembled as he dialed 911.

Bram

The blaring sound of his phone woke Bram out of a dead sleep. He rose, pushing lifeless bodies of the dozen or so people he’d brought to his suite the night before out of his way carelessly in pursuit of it.

His hand smacked it a few times before pulling it off the bedside table, not bothering to look as he answered the call.

“Whoever you are,” he began groggily, “I could gut you for waking me.”

“I’d like to see you try.” His older sister’s glib, throaty voice floated through the receiver and his head began to pound at the sound. “It’s afternoon in the Appalachians, you should be out searching. We are running out of time.”

“Nonsense. Time is one thing we have in abundance, Karora.”

“Aya—“

“Will be located.” Bram snapped, irritation rising as he looked around, toeing the body at his feet. He glanced around at the room of people he’d brought from the last town.

Not one of them were still alive.

He hadn’t checked their soul color, but by flavor alone he’d bet they weren’t Elohim’s. Hopefully they weren’t, anyway. Bram’s older brother tended to be possessive and the last thing he needed was Elo snooping around and catching him trying to find and release Aya; the only sibling who could challenge Elo’s thus far uncontested reign.

Bram kicked a body out of the bed so he could slide out, stepping on the corpse as he went in pursuit of his bourbon stash, hoping his overnight dinner guests hadn’t consumed it all.

“Don’t get snippy with me. I’m not the one who lost the scroll you detailed Aya’s location on.”

Same old conversation; new day. Bram rolled his eyes so hard he thought they might pop out as he located a nearly empty bottle and downed what remained in a single swig. “I didn’t lose it. It decayed. That can happen with five thousand year old papyrus.”

He’d been searching these hills for three years now. All he wanted was to return to India. His current only child was fourteen years old and he had missed the last two birthdays on this seemingly never ending quest to find fucking Aya, because without her the last life-sustaining planet would fail and the galaxy would collapse. He’d rather like to ensure that didn’t happen. So, search he did.

Despite the majority vote at the last family meeting having been against releasing her.

“Well you certainly didn’t think to update the record.” Rora’s snide commentary was not welcome, nor needed at this time. “Just swallow your pride and go to Tawa. He’ll know where she is— it’s his territory.”

“Absolutely not. He wouldn’t tell me anyway. He voted against releasing her, if you recall?”

“So did Ymir, Kāne, and Izanagi, and we all know why.”

They’re afraid of Elohim. They all were, but the three youngest siblings were scared to a larger extent. Their territories were far less vast and their people less abundant. That’s why.

Frustrated and without a good retort, Bram ended the call and muted his phone with a sneer. He didn’t want to talk to Tawa. Should’ve renamed him ‘Tetchy-Tawa’ eons ago. Their oldest brother was always in a bad mood.

Bram did feel a little worried about hanging up on Rora, though. She gets vengeful when any of them are rude to her, as the second eldest sister and third eldest in general. Bram was in the US. What could Rora do to him from Australia?

The answer was quite a lot depending on how creative his sister was feeling, but Bram was hoping she would just leave him be for now.

Bram rubbed his middle finger and thumb together, then snapped. The bodies in the room disappeared. Off to the pocket reality he’d created for such inconveniences.

After a quick shower Bram was out of his hotel and into the small town. The bite of the late autumn wind felt awful as he walked down the cracked and sunken pavement of the town. He didn’t like the cold, and he was tired of enduring American winters. He wanted to go home.

But until he found his eldest sibling, he was stuck in the States. So he created himself a jacket, slinging it over his shoulders and buttoning it up with haste to combat the chill.

This week had brought him to a small rural community in eastern Kentucky. He’d swept up from the farthest south eastern reaches of the Appalachians and he had farther yet to look if he didn’t find Aya here.

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“I’d kill for a good curry.” Bram mumbled to himself as he wandered into the town proper, typing ‘curry near me’ into his gps. Over an hour away. “Fucking hell.” He rolled his eyes. “Redneck country. No variety.”

He looked up with an annoyed sigh and stopped abruptly, glancing around with wide eyed shock.

“No bloody way.” Bram scoffed in awe. He activated his soul sight, his pupils dilating to cover his whole eye and the glittering brilliance of a thousand thousand stars spiraled within. His jaw dropped. The golden, glowing souls mimicked the steady swirling of the Universe in the chest of every human that was walking along the street. And when he looked, the people in the surrounding buildings glowed golden, too.

He hadn’t seen Sunakian souls in over sixty five million years. Their radiance was more overwhelming than he remembered and his heart sank as a deep, long repressed sorrow hit him full force for the first time in longer than he could accurately recall.

He hit the lock button on the side of his phone and kissed his teeth, narrowing his eyes at the clear blue sky.

“I suppose I’ve found Aya.” He said through grit teeth, willing the raw feelings to kindly go away as he took a deep breath, sending out his feelers to see if Tawa was near, just to be certain. He was. Realization dawned and his head snapped back down. A look of forlorn disgust on his face. “Oh by the stars I’m going to have to talk to Tawa .”

“I like your eyes, mister!” A small girl with a radiant soul grinned up at him, carrying several balloons and bouncing on her toes.

When did that child get there? Bram tried not to recoil in shock, coming up with the best lie he could think of on the spot. “Thank you. They’re customs.”

The child’s eyes got impossibly bigger when he said this and she held out a balloon. “So cool! Do you think you’d want to donate something for our town's flood relief? It doesn’t have to be much. A can of food for the most impacted hollers would help out more than you know. And you get a balloon!”

Bram looked at the balloon, then back at the girl. Her vocabulary was advanced for a child. “How old are you?”

“Why, are you a creep?”

Bram rolled his eyes. “No, child, I’m concerned that you shouldn’t be out here alone asking strangers for donations.” He sighed deeply and crossed his arms. “But, good on you for looking out for yourself. Tell me about this flooding.”

“Not much to tell. Floods drowned a lot of the hollers up the hills this summer. A lot of families were devastated. We’ve been trying to raise money to help with what the government won’t help with. Neighboring countries helped a lot. The state’s pulled together, too. We’re really just tryin’ to help each other out with little things now.”

Bram nodded, unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Tawa should’ve been doing something, especially since his homestead was evidently quite close. Why hadn’t he stepped in? Things were getting curiouser by the moment.

“Tell you what, I’ll write your organization a check.” He put his hand in one of his pockets and softly snapped his fingers, his checkbook appearing with a pen. He pulled it out and started writing. “Then you can get off the street and enjoy your childhood.”

She gave him the information and he wrote down what he thought was a good enough donation, since Tawa apparently wasn’t helping his own people, and snatched her whole handful of balloons.

“Hey!” She shrieked, grabbing for them.

Bram slid the check in her flailing hand. “Go, give it to your boss. Then get off the streets and be a kid.”

“I’m ten . I’m not a kid.” The girl settled, all grumbles and glares.

“Oh I do apologize. You’re a ten year old adult. I don’t run into those often.”

She opened her mouth, righteous indignation in her eyes as she angrily opened the folded paper. Then her jaw snapped shut and her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. Bram saluted and walked off with a smile. She called after him and he turned the corner, vanishing away so she couldn’t catch him.

Aya

Humanity is under the impression that the Creator cares about them. This is a folly.

First of all, thinking that the entire Universe has only one Creator is foolish. In humanity’s defense; they’d been manipulated into believing that. Human kind is a young species, some two to three hundred thousand years old. Most of their kind didn’t make it to a hundred before coming down with a bad case of permanent death.

Second, the Creators barely cared about each other these days. Let alone billions of life forms on this one floating space rock in just one galaxy in the middle of the Universe.

It’s not the humans' fault. They’re malleable to the meddling of greater beings. It’s a design flaw.

Aya thought they could’ve done better when creating mankind. If they hadn’t been so desperate they’d have thought through humanities design a little better.

Of course, she didn’t have much she could say on the matter. She didn’t participate. Mankind hadn’t been her project; they belonged to her siblings. Aya’s project was to create beings that could protect mankind from the harsh elements of the planet, and she’d done so with gusto.

Creating deities in her own image with a portion of her power. A bad move, she now knew.

Aya heaved a great sigh, slumping back in her seat at the local tavern, her incorporeal body falling through. She adjusted so she could at least pretend she was drinking at Roy Davis’ seedy biker bar, grumbling about the woes of life like all the other miserable people around her.

The worst part of her imprisonment was knowing that she’d been set up by her own creations.

Also topping the list was knowing that her siblings had helped her creations set her up.

They had to have. Because all of them were still out there, living their lives unfettered and not one had come to visit or check in on her in five thousand years. It angered her beyond comprehension.

They’d locked her away. Forgotten about her.

All but Tawa, and that was only because she was imprisoned in his territory. She couldn’t project too far from her body and Tawa exploited this by building his home just out of her range. Close enough to talk to her on his terms. But he’d not come outside in almost three decades now.

And there was that time Kāne sent a messenger.

Regardless, they were fools for abandoning her here.

Five thousand years was a long time to consider retribution, and she was likely to be stuck for much longer. Perhaps an additional five thousand.

Aya had always been the most creative of the bunch. What did they think she was up to, hidden away in that dark and lonely cavern?

A man, heavily tattooed, tall, skinny, and around thirty with a low fade haircut slumped into the barstool beside her, signaling the bartender for a drink.

She’d never seen him before, which was odd. Aya knew everyone in the small thirty mile radius she was confined too. Had known everyone for generations.

Nevertheless, Aya glared menacingly at the stranger who’d just invaded her private brooding space.

“Excuse me, I was thinking here,” Aya quipped, knowing full well he wouldn’t hear her, “please maintain a distance of six feet from my person. I don’t want to share my air. Thank you.”

“People are smoking here. People haven’t been allowed to smoke inside buildings since I was a kid. If you’re concerned about air quality, my breathing near you is the least of your concerns.” The man turned, sharp sky blue eyes staring directly at her, comic book villain eyebrows—seriously, how were they so arched? That couldn’t be natural— raised and sized her up like one would an adversary before a duel.

Aya fought to keep her jaw in place.

No one but Tawa had been able to see or hear her in over four centuries. She adjusted her position to make sure she looked normal. Didn’t want to run him off so soon.

“Ah,” Aya’s eyes glittered as the bartender returned with his drink, “this bar has a don’t ask don’t tell policy. Even the police avoid it.”

He turned toward her fully then, beer in hand, an annoyed sneer appearing on his face that made him look all the more menacing. She fought to keep the smile from her face, wondering if he thought he was intimidating. She couldn’t get over his eyebrows.

“I know,” he gestured generally at the air, putting his drink down without trying it, “what’s your reason for being on the wrong side of town?” He glanced at the bar in front of her. “Drink free. You don’t look like the type of person who comes to a place like this.”

Aya supposed she didn’t. Her mind was able to supply whatever needed for her physical projection, so she looked like a modern and stylish lady.

A far cry from the Eldritch horror her body actually looked like at the moment, hidden in a cavern deep beneath the Earth.

“Wow. Judgy. You don’t know me.” Aya chastised, sucking her teeth with a scowl. “But I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

His eyes darkened and he looked away, glaring down at his drink. “Complicated.”

“It always is,” Aya nodded sagely, watching the way his jaw ticked. Something was seriously bothering this guy. “I’ve found talking to strangers can help a heavy heart.” The man scoffed and Aya raised her brow. “Is that not why you’ve pulled me into a conversation? Despite your attitude.”

There was a subtle shift in his shoulders and his jaw ticked a few more times before he deflated, giving up the ‘tough guy’ facade. “My sister died a few days ago. Heroin overdose.”

Mankind had grown increasingly fond of external stimulants in the last few centuries. Especially as industrialization boomed across the globe. They’d lost connection with the planet. With their heritage. With everything that life was supposed to be in the pursuit of what it could be. And they’d achieved relative success. Technology had made life easier for them. They failed to realize that whilst it made things easier, it also made everything more complicated.

It wasn’t a surprise to Aya that people were dying trying to chase something they weren’t aware they’d lost.

Still. Aya didn’t like to watch mankind suffer; yet suffering was a consequence of living.

“I’m sorry for your loss, were you close?”

“Growing up.” He nodded, still staring at his untouched beer. “Not these days. I’ve been… angry with her.”

“I know the feeling. No one can piss you off quite like your family can.”

After a nod and a brief silence the man’s voice was bitter and broken when he spoke, opening up just like she thought he might. “She dropped her kids off at our Mom’s a few years ago. They were both underweight, behind their age group in school, and got scared when men came near. They were doing better with Mom. Then she got sick and Rae got sober long enough to get them back just three months ago. Despite my trying to keep them out of her custody.”

Aya’s heart broke for these children as the man continued to speak. “Mom died two weeks ago. Cancer. I’ve got to try and get the kids, but I have a record. Non violent crimes but I’m a felon nonetheless. Children's services took them for now. Until we can go before a judge. Next week, I’m told. But my lawyer is… not great at his job.” He ran both of his hands through his hair, elbows slamming against the bar. He looked over at her with glassy eyes. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how they’ll pull out of this and not undo all the progress they’ve made in therapy.”

“Never underestimate a child’s ability to adapt. They’re better at it than adults. Be there for them, love them, hear them when they have something to say. Hear them when they don’t say anything at all. That’s all that's required of you. As for the custody issue; the library has every family law book that’s up to date, and the internet has a lot of resources. Maybe do some independent research and present things to the judge yourself, without the lawyer's input.”

He looked up sharply, Adam’s apple bobbing, then his eyes softened and he looked a lot nicer. Now instead of internally laughing about his eye brows she could admire his very nicely sculpted cheekbones.

The man sighed and swallowed, all hostility draining out of him.

“You’re a mother,” he stated, and she nodded with a soft smile of her own, “how many kids do you have?”

“Three. They’re long since departed from this world.” He opened his mouth to apologize and she cut him off. “It’s alright. I enjoy remembering them.”

He seemed to flounder for something to say, and Aya took pity on him. “I’m Aya.”

He latched onto the subject change quickly. “Arabic?”

“Turkish, short for Ayaz. It’s a word meaning ‘ice’ or ‘frost’ which was pretty cruel of my siblings to use it as my nickname but it stuck so here we are.”

He nodded as if this made sense and didn’t ask for an elaboration. “So you’re Turkish? I can’t place the accent.”

Aya waved a hand. “Egyptian. Don’t ask–” she cut him off before he could ask how an Egyptian ended up in rural Kentucky, “--my family is worldly. You?”

“Italian-Native American. Dante Graves,” he gave a little half-wave and rolled his eyes at Aya’s wide grin he rolled his eyes, signaling the bartender, “Mom has- had a sense of humor.”

“I’d say so…” she grinned, watching the bartender approach.

The robust, older gentlemen tossed his drying rag over his shoulder and crossed his arms in front of Dante. The stern stance of an overworked father of five, with the tired eyes to match. This was the bartender, Roy. He didn’t flaunt that though, most people thought he was just the angry guy behind the bar. Aya hoped his kids were well. It had been a while since she’d checked in on the Davis family.

“You’ve been talking to yourself since you got here, son. I’ve gotta cut you off. You need to call a ride?”

Aya was surprised when Dante didn’t seem confused by the barkeep's words. He just smiled at the older man. “No, thanks. It's fine. Apartments in walking distance. I’m just ready to cash out.”

The bartender took his card and Dante turned his head to look at her. “I see you’re not surprised… usually the lingering dead tend not to know they’re dead.”

“Sense of humor indeed. Shamanism?” Aya’s lips twitched when he nodded and she folded her arms over her chest.

“Cherokee ancestry. Mom is– was half.”

“I see. Well, in any case. I am not dead, Dante. Just… stuck.” To prevent a follow up question, Aya nodded toward his beverage. “You didn’t take a single sip out of that drink.”

Dante looked away from her, down to his untouched glass. “I’m in recovery. Four years sober.” His body sagged, fingers brushing the condensation on the glass. Tired eyes glanced back at her. “I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t crack under the stress. The kids deserve better than that. Talking to you helped, so thanks.”

Aya smiled at him as Roy returned with his card. “Anything for my new friend.”

Dante stood, shoving his card back into his bifold wallet. “Oh so we’re friends now?” He laughed, just a sharp puff of air out of his nose. The soft crinkling at his eyes did a lot to make him look less mean.

“You can see me.” Aya crossed her arms over her chest, staring at him with a cheeky grin. “Don’t think I’m just going to let a mortal like you walk out of my life so easily. We’re best friends now. I’ll be around.”

“That feels like a threat.” Dante commented, walking past her with a short wave.

One side of Aya’s mouth quirked up watching him leave.

No, the Creators don’t really care about mankind. But every now and then, against their better judgment, one will get through their cracks and get under their skin.