Dante Valentine's Story

The darkness turned into a bright white light, his eyes still closed. He didn't want to move, since he was supposed to be dead. Yet he could tell that he wasn't outside anymore. Perhaps he had been moved by a homeless person into a creep room. With his luck, he would. He cracked open his eyes and immediately regretted it, the bright white light flooding his eyes faster than they could adjust. He quickly shut them and groaned. What a terrible way to start a... Joss frowned, his eyes still closed. He wasn't sure what day it was, something that slightly annoyed him. When he fell, it was almost midnight, if he recalled correctly. White light usually wasn't around in the dark, so he was either at the doctors office or in the middle of the next day. Both of those scenarios sounded terrible to him.

He finally decided to open his eyes once more, and they adjusted a little more to the complete whiteness of the area. He finally snapped them wide open, and instantly swung his hand out to smack whatever may be in front of him, like it was an instinct. When he discovered nothing was around him, he slowly sat up, lazily grabbing his head. It was then that he noticed two things about himself: For once in a long time - at least, he thought so - he didn't have a cig in his mouth and he was awake and/or sober. That was something else. The second fact was that as soon as he grabbed his own head, his hair getting tangled in his fingers, he instantly retreated as if his hands were too cool to the touch. As if he were scared of his own hands doing something to his body. While he grabbed a new cig from his back pocket (they weren't squished somehow... YAYAY!) he started thinking about this new found realization. Why the hell do I have the urge to keep my hands away from myself? It's not like they are diseased or something, are they? He lit a new cigarette and puffed annoyed, tired of thinking in such a stupid way. He cracked his neck and sighed, turning his neck to get a better glimpse as to where the hell he was.

White and foggy. Looks like not much has changed... It was still white out, but not with snow, and a heavy fog was settling down on the area. Yet, even with such a fog that covered the area, he could make out people around him. Were they victims of some psycho as well, or were they just unfortunate to be in the same place as he was? He narrowed his eyes to get a better idea of who was around him, and something hit him. Not physically, but emotionally and psychologically. He could instantly recognize each and every one of those poor chaps surrounding him, and yet he still didn't know who the hell they were. There was a guy standing near a one of few pillars, and he was instantly known: Little Dovey, Joss smirked, the kid with the goggles. Then came a girl, Aqua as he called her, since her name was completely ridiculous and stupidly hard to pronounce. A kid was tapping her on the shoulder, and Joss once again smirked. The little Priest, the nickname that Joss new Relic by. Of course these people had their normal nicknames, but some of them didn't always fit, like Relic was 'Light' or Aqua was 'Typhoon.' Utterly silly.

After that, there were people on the ground that Joss new as well for some reason. There was that little annoying Lulu, the odd Amoretta - he called her Rose sometimes - and then Zy. Zyay. Ef it, just call her Zana.. His mind grumbled to himself after struggling once again with weird names. What is up with people naming their children incomprehensible and damn annoying names?! Sure, my name is supposed to be Azrael, but I tell people my name is Joss. One syllable, not annoyingly confusing.. The longer words that he needed to describe the situation were starting to get to him, and he cussed under his breath. Now that he was on a rant, he might as well not stop. It came to him that also everybody around him looked like a child, yet he knew differently. They were mostly 1 to 3 years younger than him, but he stood about a foot taller than almost all of them. What was up with that?!

His head swiveled once more, and caught sight of something. While Aqua and Snow kid Dovey were grabbing weapons of some form, he noticed that nothing around him seemed to click with him. Until he saw two gloves, the right once white and the left one black. They caught the light, giving off a dull shine, as if they had been used but still gave the impression of newness. He also noticed that when he looked back once more, both of them were black. He slowly stood up and paced his way there, taking slow strides of laziness. Even after all that had happened, he didn't need to get all excited or hurried. When he finally reached the gloves, he knelt down and picked them up without much thought. Sure, the last time he touched something he fell into oblivion, found out things about his past and yada yada, but honestly, he couldn't care less if he did fall into another coma. Probably get him out of the blinding whiteness of this place.

He slipped them on and they both turned black, fitting snuggly around his hands. He touched his arm this time, slightly shocked at how easily they moved with his hands and even felt like they weren't even there most of the time. He finally turned his attention to the woman in all white, who wasn't that far away from where the gloves had been sitting. He made no noise, no sound towards her, just nodded his welcome and turned to the real reason why he was here: He knew that the person behind the pillar (he wasn't doing a very good job of hiding...) held some form of knowledge on him. His past was in fragments instead of blank now, remembering weird ceremonies, terrible parenting and piano recitals. And his scars, oh damn them. They were the most awkward thing to show somebody by accident when he rolled up his sleeves (which he did mostly every day.) So many of them, making him look like a damn emo, and even along his legs! They were ribbons of scarring, not one or two but dozens of them, freaking people out all the time. Didn't help his 'try not to attract attention' attitude.

He slowly approached the pillar, ignoring the lady with the big-ass sword now, giving Dovey kid a blank, uninterested look. The only reason that he called almost everybody around him a kid was that most of them looked not a day older than 13. How was he supposed to take them seriously when they didn't even look their age?! Worst part was that Dovey was probably the next oldest of the group of them besides himself. "Hey. You, Dovey kid." He said, completely bored now with the situation. He just wanted to leave, and he probably couldn't until after getting his life straight, which was a slight pain. He continued his walking until he was about 6 feet away, to which he stopped. He seemed to tower over the dude, even if he was only 6'3''. Okay, maybe saying only was a slight understatement. He motioned with his head towards the guy behind the pillar, whom he was instantly known as Jack. Joss knew only 2 things about him: Respected, yet slightly creepy weird.

"Mind getting dude behind you to explain?" Joss mumbled with a cigarette in his mouth, which he took out and puffed while he waited Dovey's response.