Dante's End

The first thing Dante noticed as he dragged himself into the shadowy room was the sound of flies. They seemed to try to invade him, bouncing off his skin and his eyes, getting caught in his ears and nose, slipping into his sweat-drenched clothes. If Dante had the energy, he would have been jumping and screaming and trying to pull himself from the swarm; as it was, he could bring himself to do nothing but close his eyes. He did not even have the energy to lift his arms to protect his face.

The incessant buzzing that slapped his ears as soon as the door was opened was combined with the smell. Rot, decay, death; morbid death. The smell brought the memory of a dead cow, with it’s eyes gouged out by flies. Back on the farm, he could smell that cow long before he could see it and the smell came gradually, but this acrid blast struck him strong and hard and he gagged on the smell, or the flies; he was not sure which one.

As soon as Dante’s gagging forced his mouth open, the flies filled it and he spluttered and choked for a moment before slamming his mouth shut. There were still a few flies locked between his jaws and he even felt the disgusting oozing of one’s innards over his bottom teeth. He spat feverishly, blowing so at to not let any more in.

The insects’ violation forced Dante to find the energy to cover his face. He stood there for a moment, on the brink of collapsing, breathing heavily against his limp and sweaty hands, the revolting acrid air invading his every pore and lung. He almost felt the death itself pump through his body. He wanted to vomit, to push it out, but he had lost last night’s crude meal of rabbit long ago. Instead, Dante stood there, the flies’ relentless attacks from all sides almost being the only thing holding him upright.

Dante already had a vague understanding that no one would be in there, but he could not assemble his muddled mind to distinguish the reasoning behind that conclusion and the death-scent that consumed him. It was too hard for him to think straight, even without the roaring buzz of the flies.

Dante instantly regretted risking a glance around the room as flies whacked against his eye balls. From the glance he caught, barely a second long, he observed that the little light that seeped through the windows was cracked and then completely lost in the mass of wretched insects long before it hit the ground. The flies were a solid cloud of darkness, an entity that hung in the air, hand in hand with the morbidity of the death that surrounded Dante.

Dante stood there for an indeterminable amount of time, looking for a scrap of energy before blindly taking a step forward, skidding along the stone floor, slippery from what he knew was blood. Once he took that first step, he continued, partially because knowing that to stop would mean he would have to find the energy to move again and partially because if he tried to stop, he knew his feet would continue skidding along the shadow-veiled crimson liquid and he would fall flat on his backside.

If Dante fell, he would not be able to get back up.

After a few moments, Dante skidded into a block of some sort, the edge hitting his shins and dragging a sharp gasp from him in exchange for a mouthful of flies. As he fell forward, the block meeting his legs and gut, despair consuming him, he felt the upraised stone hit his ribs, causing a sharp pain to crackle across his chest. A moment later he heard a clank and felt the rush of wind, carrying the swarm of flies with it.

Not understanding why, Dante rolled over languidly and fell off the block, onto the bloody floor. Now the light was unobstructed by flies and Dante had to squeeze his eyes shut and allow time for them to adjust, while he harshly sucked in the odor of decay,  finding little sustenance in the air, the ache of his chest and his shins strongly felt and his clothes and hair soaking in the blood he lay in.

After what seemed like eons, Dante opened his eyes and forced his head up. Looking around, he noticed that, not only was the floor masked in red, but the stone walls were the hosts of horrid gore. Limbs and organs were nailed against the walls, leaving dripping trails of crimson to the floor. A finger here, a heart there, tendrils of innards, Dante was too dead to feel the horror that surrounded him…or perhaps he was simply accustomed to it.

Rolling onto his stomach, Dante dragged his body along the floor, his forearms slipping through the blood that now caked the back of his head and clothes.

Dante heard but did not distinguish between silence and the steps that had been echoing down the hallway clearly since the flies had been sucked away, just as he did not distinguish the crude blade that pierced his already-dead chest, moments later. He did not even notice the darkness that pulled him down to his final rest as he faded.