A fallen angel signifies great change. For if a mighty and divine existence is usurped, it is time to weep.
"Hey. You ok man?" A child said.
He used his foot to poke at the body of a man who was laying flat on the ground. The man's two angelic, snow-white wings were doused in a crude shade of red.
The man slowly opened his eyes and shifted his head from facing the ground to facing the boy standing above him.
"Where… am I?" The man asked.
"Nowhere." The boy responded.
The man squinted his eyes in confusion.
"In the middle of a field. Who are you?" The boy added.
"Me?"
"Yes, you. Also, how'd you get these wings?" He pointed at the man's back.
The man looked at the wings sprouting from his shoulder blades like it was the first time he'd seen them. Then, a searing headache occupied the man's head, making him wince and groan in pain.
"Hey, are you ok?"
"I'm fine… ack." The man winced again.
"Just wait here, I'll get help." The boy said with a worried expression on his face.
"No!" He grabbed the boy's ankle and held on tight. "I don't have long. Please. Listen to me."
"Al… alright."
"I failed. We, and by extension, you, have been deceived all along. He was not who we all thought he was. We all failed to defend what was precious. The day of reckoning presented itself, yet we were powerless to stop it."
"What are…?"
"Listen!" The man snapped again.
"Take this, I don't know how much it will help you. But please, take it." He ripped a feather out of his wings, wincing in pain as he did so. Then, his shaky arm brought the feather up to the boy.
"It is your only choice. Do not be deceived. Everything is not as it seems."
With those words, the man took his final breath. The ashes his body crumbled into were scattered in the wind. Just as suddenly as he appeared from the mid-autumn sky, he disappeared into the yellow foliage.
"What?"
The boy clenched tightly onto the feather, while he looked at the scene unfolding before his eyes in absolute terror.
Though, eventually, while still in a stupor, the boy began walking home. His head hung low, his gaze following the dirt path lining the road back to his house.
He shut the door behind him with enough force to snap it off its hinges and took a series of deep breaths to calm himself down.
"What just happened?"
*
As he stood in front of a mobile home situated in a trailer park, Dante took in a deep breath to prepare himself before stepping up and entering.
He took yet another breath and opened the door.
"You're back." His father who was sitting on a couch in his boxers welcomed Dante home.
"Yea." He responded.
His father shuffled his newspaper before speaking again.
"Well, you seem to be fine. Go help your mother in the kitchen."
"But I just got back from the-"
"Don't make me say it again, please. If the doctors didn't think you were well they wouldn't have let you leave." He shuffled his newspaper again.
Dante did as he was told and walked into the kitchen. The room itself was tiny, with only the bare essentials and a horribly distasteful brown-yellow tapestry that it shared with the whole house.
"Ohh look who's back! Dante, my sweet child. Be a dear and take over for me, will you? My back is killing me and I have to look after your siblings too."
Dante looked around the place as though trying to look for an excuse.
"Sure." He ultimately replied.
He tried his best to cook something for his family, yet with no real cooking skills, the meal wouldn't be much.
When it was time to eat, his family, consisting of him, his mother, his father and his 2 sisters and 3 brothers sat down around a small table. None of the siblings were old enough to help their parents, making him the only person that could help.
His parents knew this. That's why they made him do most of the chores around the house, and whenever he'd complain, they could just guilt him by saying that without him they wouldn't be able to take care of everyone and that if he truly loved his siblings he'd do whatever was asked of him.
Of course, Dante knew this all too well, yet there was nothing he could do.
"Mommy! This tastes burnt." His sister said.
Dante's mother took her daughter's plate and looked at it.
"Oh, dear. Maybe it's because I let Dante do it. I'm sorry, but you'll have to eat it, we don't have any more." She explained.
"I don't want to!" She started throwing a tantrum, and soon, all the other siblings joined in.
"Yea this tastes yucky!"
"Make us something else!"
Both parents tried to quiet them down but to no avail.
"I'm done." Dante sighed and got up from the table before his parents could say anything.
He retreated to the back of the trailer where his father kept his things.
Opening the hatch, he reached in and felt around for a while in the darkness.
"Ah! Here it is." He said as he pulled out his dad's handgun.
He looked at it for a bit, and then ran into the nearest field, somewhere where he wouldn't be heard.
Sitting down on the short green grass, with the gun resting on his lap, Dante took one very long look at it before suddenly grabbing it and placing the nozzle against his head.
"Yea I won't shoot myself in the head." He sighed as he redirected the gun to aim at his palm.
Holding the gun firmly against his open palm, he gulped down a lump of saliva, beads of sweat began forming on his forehead, and his hands began to shake.
Closing his eyes shut, he pulled the trigger.
Yet, the gun did not fire.
"Oh, the safety. Haha." He fiddled with the gun and then aimed it back at his palm.
He pulled the trigger again, only this time, the gun fired, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of his hand.
"AAAAH" He screamed out in pain.
He rolled over, clutching his arm while gritting his teeth to distract from the pain.
The pain soon disappeared though, and as Dante looked at his wound, he noticed it was completely healed. He also noticed an interface pop up in his field of vision.
[Quest completed.]
[Reward: Bubble (Shield gift)]
[Hidden quest completed: Shoot yourself.]
[Reward: Tesseract(Artefact)]
"Cool."
Dante stood up with the intention of trying out his new abilities.
His open hand made a sweeping motion through the air, as though his body already knew the movement, and a semi-sphere resembling a bubble formed around him.
"So not only do I have infinite regeneration, but also a defensive move? Am I a tank or something? Also…"
Dante looked at his second reward, and as though it read his thoughts, the system provided him with information about the artifact.
[Tesseract: An immensely powerful object capable of stealing away a person's consciousness and placing it in another realm. The type of realm created is up to the user's imagination.]
"System, I want some powerful abilities not some abstract artifact from god knows where."
Again, the system responded to his command.
[Quest: Join the bureau.]
[Reward: Gift(Unknown type)]