DANTE - A Walking Dead Character Sketch - Adults Only

This is a grimdark character sketch of Dante from The Walking Dead TV show.

It has multiple triggers, including: torture, filicide, murder, torture, rape, cannibalism, incest, suicide.

This one shot is intended for adults only.

19th December 2002

Cardenas Family Home

Phoenix, Arizona

As he entered the family house, Dante reflected that he was the last of his line. Standing in the living room, he surveyed the familiarity of what had been home growing up. After Luna was gone, he rarely visited his parents. The sight of them only conjured thoughts and memories of her. Dante would ask questions and they resisted. Now they were all gone. The destiny of his lineage lay solely with him.

Upon his father’s death he was granted leave to settle his family’s affairs. Dante had completed his basic training and had recently been deployed to northern Iraq. He dreaded returning stateside.

Now all of the necessary documents were signed, and his father was buried. All that was left was going through his parents' things. Was there anything he wanted to keep? Was it all for charity and trash? Once he was finished, he could return to the comfort of strict order and constant distraction that the military afforded him.

Having exhausted his review of the other rooms, he at last entered his parents’ bedroom. Dante hesitated to cross the precipice. His palms sweated as he stretched his jaw.

He considered: Dare I open and look through my parents’ drawers? Is that something people do in circumstances such as these? Or is it still an invasion?

They were gone. He would do as he liked.

Stop asking questions.

His mother wanted him to let it go. Luna’s suicide nearly destroyed him. Dante had been consumed by confusion and guilt.

She was only eighteen. Excited to have moved into her own place. Every time he spoke with her, she told him of joy. Her smile had not changed. Her eyes had remained bright.

Her embrace that last time she said goodbye had remained the same.

Loving, true. Pure.

His father remained silent, as if Luna had never existed. A year later his mother had died in a road traffic accident.

Dante opened his father’s bedside table, and there it was. Luna’s journal. Was this the answer to the question that he had been asking?

Memories of young Luna clawed rapidly to the surface of his mind–

Luna crawling unscathed beneath the blackberry brambles emerging with the sweet ingredients that forged their mother’s pies. She was a gruff beast, unshorn and shabby and full of bilious pride. A tomboy. For a year she insisted that everyone call her ‘Sam.’ Even her big brother. And so Dante did. He had always loved her dearly.

Daisy had been the family dog. A mongrel terrier who had rounded out their trio as they terrorised the neighbourhood. When she died, the loss was crushing for Luna. She couldn’t bear the thought of putting Daisy somewhere so lonely as in the ground. He sat beside her, his arm around her.

She won’t be alone Luna, we’ll bury her beneath the tree. And the tree will love her and hold her amongst its roots. And one day, when she is ready, Daisy will rise and she will be the branches that you climb. Daisy will always love you, as you love her.

Luna nodded, comforted. She watched as Dante dug the grave and together they had placed Daisy to rest.

As Dante read the sad volume that told the terrible truth of Luna’s life, he wondered why his father had kept it. His father had been the one to find Luna. He must have taken her journal then. He could have burned it. Was he so monstrous that he enjoyed reading it? Or had he wanted to leave Dante the truth–The terrible answer to his question?

Dante read in Luna’s own delicate script about how ever since she was small, their father had crept into her bedroom and preyed upon her. Their mother had known all along. Finally she had managed to get away.

Of course, she never actually got away. Because by the time she left she had been incurably poisoned, her spirit cleaved from her. So desperately she had attempted to find and mend her heart.

Until one day, she simply could bear it no more.

Tucked within her journal was an envelope, still sealed.

For Dante.

So she had left him a letter after all. He hesitated to open it, so afraid of what he might read. At last the letter was unfolded and held within his shaking hands.

Dante,

Know that I have always loved you. Forgive me, please love me still. I like to imagine that one day I shall be the broad and loving branches of a tree. That I shall reach toward the sky and speak with the language of the wind to those who would listen. I know that you would hear me.

Hear me always, Dante.

I love you,

Luna

16th November 2004

Three days after Fallujah’s Hell House

Fallujah, Iraq

As the man was guided to sit upon the chair he murmured weakly, "shkran lak." thank you.

He was naked, blind folded, his wrists and ankles cuffed. He was sweating profusely, and as he sweated, it drew with it the blood from his many wounds. A torrent of bodily fluid gradually traversing the length of him and spilling, pooling upon the floor beneath him.

Dante pulled a chair forth and sat opposite him. The insurgent recognised that the allowance of the chair, the momentary peace and relaxation, was a final kindness. So he thanked his captor. There would be no more. He was already dying, his heart was slowing. He hadn’t pissed in over twenty-four hours. His kidneys were failing.

Even his brain was signalling his impending death. There were errant memories he had long since forgotten that billowed up from long ago. Beautiful memories of when he had been just a boy. Small succulent reveries that his mind offered in place of reality.

In place of the man who sat directly before him.

Dante felt there was perhaps a scrap or two more he could wring from the asset before he expired. Giving him the ‘mercy’ of the chair would facilitate such an extraction. If there was nothing more to be gleaned, then it was an opportunity to practice his craft, to refine his methods.

True mercy came from a place of love. A rare gift, indeed. Most mercy was a lie. Something unseemly, spread thickly upon another in an attempt to conjure a conquest. As a rule, people were low. They were devoid of honour, or even the desire to ascend to its glory.

He leaned back into the hard chair, the front legs lifting off the floor as he did so. Stretching his arms above himself, he yawned.

Dante had a natural gift for this work. His superiors had taken note early on. He enjoyed it, which both pleased and distressed his fellows. While he recognised the truth of his own sadism, he attached no shame to it. It was natural. Inherent. And therefore, how could it be wrong? Soon he would begin his medic training. The irony of becoming a doctor pleased him.

His initial gravitation towards the field of medicine was to improve his ability to manage interrogations. Still, he hoped that eventually when he returned to civilian life, he could embrace the art of healing genuinely.

Dante had mused about being a doctor in his youth and Luna had always encouraged him to take it seriously. If he was to live, then he would strive to live with purpose. There could be no grander purpose than to honour Luna’s memory and her wish. Perhaps he could let go of his darkness and embrace a new beginning. Perhaps he could change.

In time he would see.

Dante leaned forward in his chair, the front legs snapping sharply against the concrete floor causing the prisoner to spasm briefly in sudden fear.

“Sanabda min jadidin?” We’ll begin again?

Dante watched the asset’s head lower in preparation for his final moments. He would die horribly. The only choice Dante would marginally afford him was the duration of his agonal demise.

29th April 2010

Emergency Department Raleigh North Hospital

Raleigh, North Carolina

The nurse knocked on the on-call’s door with a rapid, anxious tap. Dante would be pissed. She paused and checked her watch, 0240. Fuck. She had promised to give him a full hour. She shook her head.

“Fuck. I’ve got no choice.” She knocked again and still no answer.

Lucy opened the door. Dante was passed out. Her guilt surged. He had been working this shit-show for twenty-four hours straight already. She shook her head. Having flipped on the light switch, she approached him and leaned over. Her voice was low, yet firm, “Dr. Cardenas, Dr. Cardenas–I’m sorry–”

“Fuck,” he checked his watch, still reclined. “Lucia, you promised me a full fuckin’ hour. You told me you were the kinda’ of girl who didn’t break her promises–”

“I also told you that if I fucked you we would speak professionally to each other while at work, doctor.”

Dante slowly sat up, rubbing his face. “Yeah, oh yeah, I remember that. Sorry. What’s goin’ on?”

Lucy was the kind of nurse you thanked God for when you saw she was working the same shift as you. She could manage practically anything, and she kept the ship afloat no matter how many holes were in the hull. He knew that if she was waking him up it was important.

“We have a patient in resus, they’ve been coding him for thirty+ minutes, an eighty year old with multiple co-morbidities and I think Dr. Devers just needs a little reassurance that he’s done all he can do. It’s traumatising the family at this point.”

Dante nodded. “Yeah, yeah, okay. I hear ya.’” He stood up and stretched and followed Lucy out and down the corridor. Devers was a good doctor. Just really green and struggling with the concept that sometimes doing more was doing harm.

As Dante approached the resus room he saw the family first. The woman, whom he guessed was the wife, had both of her hands up to her mouth, a look of profound sorrow and distress. He imagined it was her son and daughter on either side of her also looking on, equally anguished.

“Dr. Devers, may I be of assistance?”

Clive looked at Dante with an expression of relief and began to rattle off the patient’s presentation. “This is an eighty year old male who had a witnessed arrest at home about forty minutes ago. Paramedics responded promptly and found the patient in V-fib. They were able to restore sinus rhythm with two shocks and then upon arrival here he crashed again and remains in persistent V-Fib, despite multiple shocks, epi, and a drip of amiodarone. Past medical history of two MIs with twenty cardiac stents and–”

Dante leaned in and kindly whispered, “Dr. Devers, he’s not going to come back, and I know you mean well, but you’re killing the family, huh?”

Clive swallowed, and then nodded. “I should call it.”

“I think so. You’ve done all you can, you have, Clive. Gotta’ let ’em go.”

The code team looked to Dr. Devers and their faces relaxed when at last he made the call. “Time of death, 0246.”

As the team removed the tubes and equipment, Devers went out to the family. From the foot of the bed Dante could hear Clive say all the appropriate things.

We did all we could do. So sorry for your loss. Is there anyone we can call for you? We have counsellors. You can spend as much time with him as you want.

Lucy walked into the resus room and stood beside Dante.“Thanks for that. I know technically it wasn’t an emergency, but for the family I think–”

“You were right to get me, Lucia. No worries.” Dante turned to leave the room.

Lucy’s voice was restrained, yet shocked, “Jesus. He’s alive, Dante–”

Dante turned and watched as Lucy approached the patient who was now writhing on the bed, she hit the code button, “It’s okay Mr. Benson, we’re here for you.”

As Dante rapidly stepped forward to assist, the patient suddenly sat up. And without hesitation, he took hold of Lucia and ripped her throat out.

07th June 2012

Roanoke Elementary School

Roanoke, Virginia

The disgust Dante felt was impossible. The disgust for himself. How could he have not known? How could he have let it happen? He fucked her even as he thought he might vomit.

I deserve this–

He held Grace’s neck down against the desk with a firm and unyielding hold. Periodically he kicked her legs wider.

“Meet me,” he would demand.

She arched her low back as severely as she could to accommodate his thrusts. Her cries echoed off of the walls of the large school room. The same mummified apple sat in a bowl near the edge of the desk since the last time they had done this. Dante began to fuck her harder, making the desk jump. He wanted to knock that fucking bowl off the desk.

“Tell me.”

“I want this. I want you–”

Dante did not finish, he never did. He withdrew and stepped back and kicked her harshly to the floor. He wiped his cock dry with her T-shirt and threw it at her. Then proceeded to put himself away and zip up.

She stayed on the floor, knowing not to get up until he told her explicitly she could do so.

His opening line: “You cooking dinner t’night, Grace?”

She began to cry. Dante sat up on the edge of the desk. “I love to watch you cook me and the others a fine meal. Yeah. I’ll never forget the way you stirred the spoon. You actually licked that fucking spoon, didn’t ya’ Grace?”

She yelled out, wailing. It was alright. The others would never come to help her. And if they did? Well he would enjoy that, too. If they were human, Grace wouldn’t even be alive. They made vile explanations. They whispered their bitter condemnations in the dark. He didn’t know why he stayed with these people. Dante had begun to believe he felt more lonely in their company.

“Yeah ya’ did.” He shook his head, smiling humorlessly.

“I never told you this. But I was stationed in Iraq. I used to torture people. I actually thought that I was a sick fuck. I know, Grace, laughable. I was playing fucking marbles.”

“You Grace. You play chess. The Game of Kings. I know you won’t understand this. But you are teaching me to play chess, too. The minute you handed me that divine bowl of soup–You were teaching me. Every fucking mouthful was teaching me.”

“What did ya’ call her…?”

“Stop. Just stop.”

“Ssh shh. I’m trying to remember. Canned chicken? Everything tastes like chicken.”

“Tell me her name again, Grace.”

Dante watched as she shook her head. He grew angry and leapt from the desk. Standing over her he prepared to beat her should she refuse to say the child’s name. “You’ll fucking say her name, Grace. Say it–”

“Elizabeth.”

Dante pulled out his flask and held it high. “To Elizabeth,” he took a swig of whiskey. Making his toast, his heart broke for the child again.

He remembered finding her remains with horrible clarity. Grace had bludgeoned her to death. Had Elizabeth seen it coming? The ill curiosity was something that gnawed at him. He couldn't bring himself to ask.

He had been afraid that the answer might break him.

13th May 2014

Blue Ridge Mountains

Wayneboro, Virginia

He had been on his own for over a year. Just him and his pack. He had come across three or four people as he mindlessly trekked. But having found them unworthy, he had dispatched them. In honour of the lessons learned from Grace, he had eaten them as well.

Slowly he had been travelling through the Blue Ridge Mountains. He was deconstructing himself. Purposefully shedding his humanity. He had briefly wondered if his consumption of human flesh had tainted him.

Was he now akin to the Wendigo? Did the beast wear his skin and ravage amongst the trees and the wild?

Am I still alive?

One evening as the sun recklessly plunged his eyes fell upon a grand tree. Its trunk ancient and fearsome. Pitiless. He shucked his pack and timidly laid his hands upon it, slowly he had moved closer, until he settled his ear upon the wood. He could hear and feel the tree breathing, his fingers clung to the grooves of the thick bark.

He so admired the tree.

You are alive.

He had stripped naked and dug into the dense carpet of the forest, desperate to sleep beside the grace of the tree. At first he had been cold, but then he had felt the pulse of the tree’s blood beneath the earth, simmering within its roots and granting him warmth and comfort.

There was the feather of wind which softly rounded through the trees. She had stroked his forehead, he felt her breath whisper along his cheek. The blade had etched so comfortingly against his throat. His eyes remained closed. Dante had believed he was dreaming, yet he ached desperately for it to be real.

He extended his neck and his heart filled with the forgotten burn of hope. He believed it was the tree’s branch that was promising him his release. "I am ready. I am grateful. Luna, please forgive me. I’m sorry that I have lingered here so long. I have been lost."

The sharp blade then receded from his throat and he heard the rustling of the brush and felt the dappling of hands and fingertips. Alpha, naked, straddled him. Her cunt sweet and wild slipped along the length of him as he steeled. Her hand encircled his throat as she demanded his depth. The leaves rustled angrily to be so disturbed.

At last Dante’s eyes had opened as she continued to demand his sex. His hands and arms were paralysed and remained at his sides. He was so afraid to touch her. Her icy blue eyes were too large and too calm. The creature was devoid of hair, and she was covered with a dried, cracked icing of mud rendering her nearly invisible amongst the surrounding nature.

Was she the Wendigo? Had she leapt from his soul? Was he fucking himself?

Each brutal, tainted plunge of her sheath weakened him. She continued to buck and to carve, until at last he felt the terrible spasm of his cock. He had never come, that it had not been his own will.

The blessed Wendigo then spoke to him. Her whisper was a spell.

“You must linger, fair beast. You must serve me as you would this tree. I’ve tasted you now. You are like of my like, you are like of my kind. I have come to welcome you home. I am your Queen, consent thy will to me.”

Dante wept, and sitting up he had timidly reached to embrace her. She had allowed him to do so, remaining still and firm as stone. Her eyes were cast over his shoulder into the deep wood. After a time her hand cradled the back of his neck.

“Ssh, shh, now. Allow your heart to be still, to be silent. You are no longer lost.”

At last she had led him forth through the woods. He had followed.

Was she leading him past the mortal veil?

Eventually they came to a thicket. She bade him to lie upon her nest and she lay beside him, holding him as he trembled. Alpha’s hands had stroked through his long hair, petting him soothingly. The prayers she whispered in his ears gave him comfort.

“I am alive, then?”

“Yes. Sleep now. You are safe. You are home.”

In those early days Alpha had kept him near. As she had fed him from her own hand, Dante had been nourished. By the river, she had bathed him, and he had been clean. She spoke to him of the Whisperers’ customs and tenets and he had belonged.

Time was an ether, through which he fell and followed.

The strength of his mind and body grew fearsome as he came to know himself without regret. Eventually memories of his old life became thin, the frail husks of leaves rendered transparent as they rot beneath the forest floor.

Except for his beloved Luna.

At last he lived beneath the grace of her boughs. The forest echoing the hallowed chime of her spirit. Dante listened daily to her whispers. And when he was alone, he would look up–

“Luna, I will hear you always–”