Beginning to End
The room was fairly dark, quiet, and peaceful. Dante and Vergil were both asleep in their beds, the ten year olds resting peacefully. Outside, a storm was passing over the home, and Eva had checked on her children about an hour beforehand, then retired to her own room to try and get some sleep, but she'd felt odd, tense, on edge. It hadn't been a feeling that set in recently either. Despite the calm, quiet evening, something had settled in her mind surrounding the house, the entire atmosphere of things going on that day, and she just couldn't pin point what it was.
The calm and quiet now did nothing to reassure her either. It only made her feel as if this were the possible calm before the storm. She managed to drift however, on and off, in and out of consciousness, silently laying in her room, having odd, random dreams. One of them, as it started, happened to be of Sparda, her childrens father, her love, someone that she missed terribly. She didn't often dream of him, but as the dream went on, she fell more and more into a comfortable sleep.
Down the halls, there seemed to be a chill in the air on the silent winter night. The heat was on, but as if the houses systems had been broken somehow, the chill had set in anyway, drifting down the corridor and across the door to the children's bedroom. Inside, Dante stirred a bit, his face contorting tensely, hearing things in his dreams, things that made no sense.
"Daaante..."
The ten year old sat upright quickly with a harsh gasp, his icy eyes wide with a start that came from a young child's dream. Cringing a little over thoughts of said dream, Dante glanced over to see his sleeping brother, apparently unaffected by the sound he'd made when he'd awoken. The little boy drew his eyes down and to the side, away from his twin's bed, taking a deep, slow breath. He knew he should go back to sleep, but somehow the dream had left an aftertaste in his mouth that made him uneasy, and he wanted to go check on his mother, the way she checked on them when she thought they were both asleep.
The image in his mind of her face smiling from the doorway when she realized they were alright put a bit of ease in Dante's heart as he pushed himself up and went to the door, watching his brother turn over, back facing him. Vergil was sound asleep, so Dante opened the door quietly and left the bedroom.
Dante, stepping into the hallway, immediately noticed the chill. As he walked, his steps slowed more and more, the darkened shadows cast on near lightless walls around him moving as he went, and he stopped and looked back the other way with narrowed brows. Had he heard something? Must have been his imagination. Taking another deep breath, Dante moved further down the hall to his mothers room, and he grabbed the doorknob.
Turning it and pulling the door open, he looked inside, saw his mother laying there quietly, snoozing, and he smiled a little, glad to see her, put at ease almost immediately just by her presence alone. She looked like she was sleeping peacefully, and Dante moved into the room quietly, stopping just so he could turn and grab the doorknob again, but he stopped when he heard the sheets shuffling. Looking back at his mother, she'd lifted her head, brows narrowed a bit, blue eyes squinting.
"Dante?"
"Did I wake you up, Mom?"
"No," she shook her head, "I was having a dream," she added in explanation softly, giving her youngest son a smile.
"Me too," Dante replied, "was yours bad?"
"No, it wasn't. It was about your father actually. Oddly enough, he told me to wake up," se smiled as if the thought that she'd woken up because Sparda had told her to in a dream was humorous to her.
"Will you tell me about it?"
"If you want," Eva replied, patting the spot on the bed next to herself. Dante nodded and went to reach for the door handle, but he stopped when he heard something.
"Daaante..."
Gasping, Dante turned around swiftly to face his mother again, his breathing picking up and Eva shook her head in response, "What is it, Dante?"
As she spoke, in the darkness behind his mother, Dante saw a pair of red eyes opening, gleaming from the shadows, and he pointed quickly, yelling, "Mom! Look out!"
Eva had seen her son react the way he just had before. Sometimes, before demons attacked them, he would get a little scared, though she hadn't heard or seen anything to tip her off beforehand that danger was lurking about. This telltale sign in Dante had helped her on occasion to protect her family, and though she would much rather not see such a reaction in her son, it helped her this time as well. Instinct kicked in. The moment Dante lifted his arm and pointed, Eva pushed herself off of the bed and toward him, escaping the sharp blade of a swung scythe, stabbing down into the mattress she'd been asleep on just a few moments before.
Eva reached Dante and looked back, seeing the smoking robes of the floating demon emerging from the shadows he'd hidden in near the corner of the room, somehow seeming to move through the wall itself, its face veiled in darkness, only those same bloodthirsty red eyes peering down at the two of them from its shadowy hood. Eva clutched Dante's shoulders and pulled him back to the door, wanting to be careful as she knew more demons could be anywhere, the dark creatures having found her family again somehow, and both mother and son heard the next word drawn out sharply in their minds.
"Spaaaardaaa..."
The demonic beast reared back, giving Eva no time to worry about what might be in the hallway, and she pushed Dante through the door as he gripped her hand tightly. As soon as she did, the demon flew in quickly for a slash attack, swinging the scythe it wielded about with a deadly precision, tearing the door which had just swung toward it from it fleeing humans in half.
As the shards from the door flew, the back of Eva's ankle was hit, causing her to stumble forward, onto her hands and knees. Dante stopped and grabbed her as she worked her way up, trying to help her along as much as he could. But Eva quickly shook her head, "No, don't worry about me, Dante, go get your brother!"
But the demon wasn't so easily put off by a simple door, right behind Eva now as she moved with her son, only feeling a slight pain in her ankle from the scratch now cut into it, and as the demon behind her shrieked, Eva's motherly instincts kicked in as she shouted Vergil's name, trying to rouse him from any sleep he might've entered before something horrible could happen to him. But her heart stopped when she heard the unmistakable sound of her oldest son's shout of fear and confusion followed by the shattering of glass coming from his bedroom.
"Vergil!," she screamed his name, "I'm coming!"
Eva's shout was cut short when the Reaper suddenly rammed itself through her and Dante both, knocking Dante away from his mother, both of them falling onto the floor as their bodies were slammed into and wracked with unnatural pain. Cringing from the fall, Dante looked back to see his mother trembling a bit, pushing herself up slowly.
"Mom!"
"Dante, hide!" She yelled the words to him on a stern voice, "Go, now!" She was terrified for Vergil, and knowing that Dante could have easily been next, she had to tell him to run. "I'll get Vergil, just run!"
Eva was getting back to her feet as quickly as possible, ignoring the pain she'd just experienced, watching her son do the same. Behind him, she could see yet another demon heading down the hallway, this one more catlike on all fours with sharp talons lining each finger, pasty white skin, and a leering grin of fangs in its mouth, malevolence in its golden eyes.
Eva knew more were coming.
Dante was about to run to his mother instead of hiding, no matter what she'd told him, when a blade was swung down at him by the Reaper who'd temporarily disappeared through the walls, pushing the little boy over again as he tried to escape the attack. Amidst all of the chaos and confusion, Dante scrambled to get away on his hands and knees, only seeing the demonic cat before him as he pushed himself forward, and would have been cleaved in two by its talons if his mother hadn't intervened.
Eva found a fury within her that very few things could awaken when Dante had nearly been cut down just then, throwing herself at the catlike demon without fear who would try to harm her little boy, beating upon it's body fruitlessly though angrily with her fists. Her intervention managed to allow her son to escape for the moment as she screamed out, "Leave him alone!!"
Dante heard another crash behind him resonating from an unknown origin, gasping as he finally heeded his mothers wishes to hide, running down the hallway and then the stairs, heading to the coat closet. Opening the slitted door, he shoved himself inside of it, and pulled it shut. As he entered the dark space, he turned and looked back through the slits, trying to see, but only able to witness the shadows from upstairs of what movement was taking place there.
"Vergil!," he could hear his mothers cry, followed by heavy footsteps. A moment later, he heard a yell of pain from the woman he called his mother as she came falling down the stairs, landing on her back with a hard thud. The ten year old watched Eva pushing herself back up slowly, only to be pounced upon by the same snarling, catlike demon that he'd seen just a short time before. Dante was frozen in place with fear for a moment, but soon found his mobility as he reached for the doorknob to throw it open and help his mother in the same way she'd helped him.
But her suddenly cried words stopped him in his place, "Dante! Run!...Don't look back!"
Those words stopped abruptly when the Reaper who'd initially attacked them tore through the floor, his blade slicing through Eva's body as if a hot knife through butter, tearing away her words, her breath, but most importantly, her life, in the blink of an eye. Dante was still frozen in place, his icy pupils dilating wide, the only sound following his mother's cries that of his trembling breathing.
Silence. Long and harsh.
"M-mo-om...?"
His voice was barely audible even to his own ears.
"Mom," he said again, his voice a bit higher, "Vergil?"
Nothing.
The shrieks and wails of the demons still hunting uttered Dante's father's name in his mind, not once, or even twice, but again and again. Dante shut his ears as tears streamed down his cheeks, trying to block the name out, but he couldn't stop himself from hearing it, from hearing his own name, curling up into a ball on the closet floor. With each utterance, Dante came to hate the name Sparda even more, never cared to hear it again, didn't want to be Sparda's son, didn't want to have a father, the chaos of the demons hatred filling his mind, making him completely dizzy. All he wanted in that moment was his mother, to hug her tight and run away with her, even his brother, still uncertain of Vergil's fate.
But that absolution never came.
Tears stained the unconscious boys cheeks as the chaos that consumed his mind drove on, his teeth bared tightly, until he'd passed out completely in the closet. It was still dark however when his blue eyes next opened, seeing the door before him, closed, afraid to move from where he was. But even though his uncertainty consumed him, he found his hand opening the door, as if it weren't his own hand, as if his actions weren't his own. Reaching up, applying some pressure to make the object budge, the little boy watched it slowly swinging to, unveiling the room before him with an eery creak of metal from the hinges.
Before him, on the floor, was an empty pool of blood. His eyes scanned the room, but nothing was about. Taking several deep breaths, he somehow made his legs work, somehow made himself step toward the pool of blood, somehow made himself stop. Nothing was certain in those moments, not life nor death, up nor down. He didn't know how he walked, how he breathed, he couldn't explain anything, nothing at all, but the empty ache left in his heart.
"Mom," he whispered, his voice hoarse, looking up the stairs to find her, gasping suddenly when he heard a loud wind and the front door swinging open. It was snowing outside, but nothing was there at the door, swinging like a puppet on a string controlled by the gusting breeze.
Slowly, the white haired ten year old moved to the front door, didn't have to open it, only pushed against the screen, and then stepped outside onto the front porch. In his mind, he could see his mother being attacked again and again, but maybe, just maybe she was outside, looking for him.
"Mom," his cracked voice rasped out once more as tears started to fill his blue eyes, the dread in his heart that he was simply diluting himself on the whereabouts of his mother being other than dead filling his entire heart and body with a weight heavier than led.
"Mom...mom!" he whispered urgently, gasping in his breath, ".......mama...!?"
He found himself at the front porch steps, collapsing down onto his backside, his hands hitting the surface of the porch, adding in question as he began to sob, "Vergil!?"
Folding his arms over the tops of his knees, Dante buried his face in them, shaking as he cried while the cold breeze blew over him, snowflakes landing in his hair, camouflaged by the white color. The howling wind sounded just as empty and alone as he was now, confused, hurt, and scared. Maybe they were both looking for him. Maybe they didn't know he'd gone to the closet to hide. Maybe the snow had covered up their footprints since he'd passed out. Maybe...
A whimper made the nine year old gasp and look up, his eyes full of partial fear and hope, hoping the sound was his family, hoping the sound wasn't another monster. But it was neither. Instead, before him, Dante saw something he hadn't ever seen before, something he was quite unsure of, but that somehow didn't seem to be so frightening as every single thing else surrounding him in that moment.
It was a silvery grey wolf with golden eyes standing in the snow. He was padding from side to side, his face turned toward the boy sitting on the front porch of the home. As if it were pacing, it would stop after walking so far, and then turn back the other way, making soft whimpers until Dante had looked at it. The wolf then came to a stop and tilted its head to the side, bobbing it back and forth.
Dante could see the steam of his breath as he took it in and out of his lungs somewhat swiftly, watching as the animal lowered its head toward the ground, slowly and carefully padding toward him. Once the animal was about five feet away, Dante let his blue eyes look back behind the animal, looking for anything else that might be about, and he then glanced back down.
"W...wolf?" He asked as he slowly pushed himself up, seeing that the wolf didn't move when he did so, only sat back on its haunches and then lifted a paw. Moving in warily towards the creature, Dante reached out a timid hand to the animal's nose. Once within reach, the wolf whimpered and nuzzled his palm, then licked it.
This animal was the only comfort he had in these few moments, the only thing he could cling to in his world of despair. Dante wasted no time, seeing that the otherwise dangerous animal was friendly, and he put his arms around it, hugging it tightly. The ten year old couldn't help his reactions, trembling and cold, an uncertain path laying ahead of him.
A short time later, both of the figures were gone, the front gate of the fence surrounding the home flapping a bit from being opened and swinging shut, a new life beginning.