Background Challenge: Schooling Who: Dante and his father What: Lessons. Where: The Basement When: Twenty-three years ago. Warnings: Violence. Child Abuse. Murder. Prompt: Schooling.
The hands that raised, trembling, before him were not recognizable to him. Dripping with fresh gore, there was something thick and gelatinous chunked under the nails. The fingers twitched and trembled uncontrollably. They had been boys’ hands, once.
They could not have been his.
Yet when he made a fist, so too did the madly spasming digits curl in on themselves; a sound like rushing water filled the empty silence between his ears as he looked frantically between these two alien hands. Killer’s hands. Hands that had been a boy’s, once.
The sound of the door being opened registered dimly at the edges of his consciousness, and it was only when he heard the sharp, commanding sound of his name that he slowly dragged his focus up to meet the cold, blackened stare of his father’s eyes. “…Sir…” his voice was a whimper, small and afraid. The man was unmoved and stared down at him without sympathy, a minor glimmer of disgust the only identifiable emotion on his stoic face.
“Stand and address me.”
His hands still extended away from himself, the small boy rose slowly, unsteadily to his feet. He was small for his age, a scrawny, shivering naked boy of nine years... His dark, unruly hair and sharp features mirrored those of the tall, imposing man who commanded him now. Pain surged through the fog of his disorientation, and his body screamed in rebellion of the movement; he swayed as gray crept in at the corners of his vision, remaining upright by sheer willpower alone- he did not dare disobey his father.
“Wha…what happened…?”
The older man chuckled, a mirthless, cold sound. “You did well. Better than even I suspected you would. It was quite a show. Of course, you certainly took your time about it.” This last was laced with undisguised agitation, and the boy flinched and struggled to remember. His confusion was apparent, and the man gestured impatiently to something behind him.
It took a moment for Dante to know exactly what it was he was looking at. For a moment it resembled little more than a giant pile of silly putty, pink and misshapen. It was not long before he realized this was not the case. It was a body. Or what was left of one, anyway. It looked as though whoever it had been had been forcibly pounded into a fine paste… only one foot had remained intact, and it rested a considerable distance from the rest of the pulverized corpse. Dante faltered and dropped heavily to one knee, gulping around the rusty wave of nausea that rose like bile in his throat. “Stand up,” his father barked again, and so he did, his breath hiccupping from him in convulsing gasps.
It all came back to him at once.
The door had closed them in. He had been alone with a thin man, one who looked unkept and dirty, like he was familiar with living outside. I’m sorry, the man had whispered, and then he had been on Dante, raining blows down on his small body with his hands and feet. He had grabbed him by his hair and smashed his head against the stone wall so hard that he had seen stars. He had begged for him to stop. He did not know what to do except curl in on himself and try to block some of the attack, openly screaming for his father, his mother, someone, anyone, to make this stop or at the very least explain why, why this was happening to him.
If they had wanted him dead, surely there was an easier, less painful way than this?
And then it had happened. With the sharp crack of his ribs he had felt the beast come on, fast and ruthless as always. Had felt his muscles roil and rip and expand. Had felt his body grow, taking on strength and power no boy or man could ever rightly possess. And with a roar of rage he had grabbed the man. He had grabbed his assailant and had ripped him apart. Literally. His flesh was there, still clogged beneath his nails.
“I-?“ his voice was a squeak, the unspoken question lingering in the air between them. He did not need to ask. He had done this. Him. He was horrified when the room blurred behind a veil of unshed tears, more so when his father made a revolted sound in his throat. He hung his head in shame and misery to try and hide his shameful tears, his hands slowly coming to wind together, fingers desperately squeezing as though to wring the blood from his flesh.
“Enough of this sniveling,” his father snapped, impatient with the grotesque display. He would not be so easily fooled. Not after what he had just witnessed. “You should be proud."
He shook his head slowly, barely coherent in his horror and shock. “Pl-please…I didn't... I don't-“
“Your new teacher will be here tomorrow to begin your lessons. You clearly need them. Next time I don’t want to see that pathetic display you put on tonight.” The older man turned abruptly on his heel, making his way to the door as condemned realization crept into the boy’s awareness. His hands were now desperately, violently scrubbing at themselves.
“Please… please…” the boy whispered, his voice increasing in volume and urgency each time the word fell unheard against his father’s decrees. The handsome man stopped at the doorway to regard the boy one last time, looking him up and down the way a breeder analyzes a prized stallion. "Please, father," he tried one last time, but there was nothing but contempt on the man's face.
“This is what monsters do, Dante. Remember that.”
The door slammed shut on the grievous sounds of Dante's misery.