Reclamation

Out of the corner of his eye, it flickered. Broken, poorly maintained and abhorrently neglected.

It was a street light.

He leaned against a gray wall at the end of the street. It was very late, and all the shops were closed. Their glass facades were backed by black. Absently, he wondered if they were black because of their dark interiors or if they were black because they reflected the dim, empty street.

A flicker drew his eyes to the street light again. It cast rogue shadows of unknown derelicts of the street, and when its bulb failed, the rogue shadows were swallowed into the night.

The bulb of the street light came alive.

Shadows crept along the walls.

The bulb failed again.

Shadows swirl into the abyss.

He lit a cigarette, a lone light against the darkness that pervaded the street. He waited silently; nervously.

He inhaled sharply. He exhaled calmly.

Smoke, seemingly fluid, dissipated from his mouth and nostrils. It was a gray phantom that accompanied his lone figure in the street.

Nothing seemed to move along the street. He took longer drags of his cigarette.

There was a sudden patch of darkness in his panorama of the street. It was followed by another blinding, sudden burst of darkness. The street lights, one by one, were being extinguished. In a race of extinguishing lights, the street was slowly being swallowed up by black. Eventually, the street laid there, stationary, and engulfed in the dark.

There were only two patches of light remaining: From a half-smoked cigarette, and from a dying, flickering street light. The very same one he saw out of the corner of his eye.

He did not move - he could not. The sudden exodus of light left him immobile, on edge.

The flickering street light stopped its palpitating luminescence, and came to life. A hooded figure, clad in white, stepped under it.

The man watched the newcomer, compelling himself to not tremble and surrender to his growing uneasiness and fear. Despite his trepidation, he tried to peer into that white hood, to see the face of its wearer. Alas, that face was hidden in shadow.

"Dante..." called a voice from under the hood. It was a male voice, clear and eloquent yet forceful.

Dante looked up at the hooded figure, who was facing him from under that street light. His cigarette dropped from his mouth as his jaw dropped in shock. "Who are you?" he shouted towards the street light across the street, mustering aggression.

"Dante, it is time. It is time to reclaim your place in this world." The hooded figure waved a gnarled hand in Dante's direction.

A sharp pain burgeoned in Dante's wrist, and when he looked down at it, he saw streams of blood flowing out of a deep gash. Dante bled, but did not scream.

He was stronger than that, he told himself. But whether he screamed or not, the hooded figure did not judge him any differently. It was there to set him apart.

Both knew that it did not have to come down to this. But it did.