Dante Noire Pt.1

Dante finally settled into a little studio flat on the lower east side of downtown Bane City. Well I don't know if settled is what you would call it. However, he made the most of his dismal situation. An old beaten wardrobe was already in the room. Paint and varnish mostly removed from the borderline decrepit curio, he placed his fine silken suits and vests inside. He then turned to his bed and stated aloud, "This will just not do..." The bed was wrought iron with part of the bottom frame rusted through. The mattress had tattered holes through the fabric exposing rusted heavily used springs. Next to this atrocity of a bed was a side table that matched the wardrobe in not only style but in depreciation. The room was lined on two sides with floor to ceiling windows covered in dusty and barely considered translucent at best. The ceiling was high and flat. Paint was chipping at the corners. The whole room had been painted an eggshell white. However, with its current state it does not appear it was painted this century. The paint chipping revealed an aquamarine color underneath. "Completely unflattering," Dante murmured, once again, aloud. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling by its own electrical cord with a pull string attached.

Dante thought to himself that while he wasn't given the best circumstances he will make the best out of it. That is when he noticed a small envelope on the tattered night stand. The letter had the word "Dante" written in beautiful calligraphy on the front but no other wording. Obviously Dante assumed it was to him and opened it. Inside was $3000, an address, and a small note that said, "this should get you by for a minute." A wide grin appeared across Dante's face and he knew exactly what to do.

Dante went into the bathroom, gagged when he saw its current disarray and filth, promptly returned to the "Living" area and left. He kind of enjoyed the state of the furniture gave the room a very "rustic" feel. However, the state of the walls, ceiling, and bathroom disgusted him. He was used to the finer way of life. Even though, in training, his father made him live in the woods for 2 months with no food or spare clothing. All he had was a knife, some fishing line and a perfectly pressed 2 piece suit. Dante promptly walked to the local corner hardware store and purchased several rolls of black and white baroque patterned wallpaper, some white ceiling paint, some black paint for the furniture and several different types of industrial type cleaner for the bathroom. He returned to his flat and spent hours upon hours cleaning, painting, and hanging wallpaper. He decided to leave every other window pane dirty as to appear to create a checkerboard pattern on the windows like a frosted effect. It worked well. From outside it appeared intentional. When the first light of dawn broke through the freshly cleaned class of his eastern facing windows, Dante was tired, beat, and exhausted. Fresh mattress and sheets applied to his bed, he fell back with his eyes closed.

He opened them again not five minutes later and there on the freshly painted ceiling was a man. Wearing a vintage 1950's pinstripe suit and fedora, the man was doing a spider crawl with his head facing Dante. Dante bellowed at the man, "get off the ceiling; I just painted that!"
The man replied, "you talkin' to me?"
Dante stated, "Is there anyone else here?"
The man was floored or I guess in this situation ceilinged. He appeared to float down towards Dante slowly and asked, "you can see and hear me?"
Dante replied, "it isn't as strange as you may think. There are many more like me. My name is Dante. Who are you?"
The man floated down to a chair and Dante sat up on the edge of his bed facing the chair with the corporeal figure. The man said, "I'm Seth, I think. But even if that isn't my name you can call me that."
"Alright, Seth, what brings you here to my room?" Dante asked.
Seth replied, "this used to be my room years past."
"Then why are you still here?" Dante continued to ask.
"I don't know." Seth stated.
"Well then I guess we'll have to figure that out," Dante said with confidence.
"But it will have to wait for another day because right now I'm going to sleep and tonight I have tickets to see a fight. Some guy named John or something of the like is fighting and I overheard at the hardware store he is a Russian not to trifle with," Dante continued. Seth then began to look out the window and with a sigh appeared to turn to dust and scattered about. Dante fell back, rolled over and kicked his shoes off. He then closed his eyes and fell into sleep.