How It All Began - The Origins of Dr. Dominic Dantes

Dominic Dantes grew up in a middle-class area of Los Angeles. Given the turmoil of the times and both of his parents being medical professionals, the family kept a relatively low profile overall. There were no extravagant homes or cars, but Dom was never lacking for anything and often had the best of anything he needed. He was taught early on that you don’t need to be flashy, or one of those social media people to make a difference, and that it was often those you don’t hear about making the real impact, and that if you were noticed by the wrong people, you might become one of the Vanished.
 
While he had heard of a few people Vanishing as he was growing up, it was always still more of a problem of others, perhaps his parents shielded him from the worst. Dom did well in school and was able to sneak in some early college classes during high school. He often felt like he had to hold back for fear of standing out and drawing the wrong kind of attention, but that did not keep him from doing well enough in school.
 
He headed off to college where again, he kept a low profile, that fear of being too noticeable might get the attention of the wrong people persisted. It was during this somewhat reclusive time that Dominic met Angela Halliwell while he was studying at the library.
 
Angela was many things Dom was not. She was very outgoing and vivacious and was somehow able to draw Dom out of his mostly solitary existence. She exposed Dom to much of what he had not done while growing up, and mostly just forgetting that the rest of the world existed when she was around.
 
While they spent a lot of time together, Dom was able to maintain his studies, perhaps because he now had a study partner that made him look forward to studying for something more than the knowledge.
 
In 2063 Dom and Angela graduated from college and moved to New York so that Dom could attend medical school. It was during this move that they decided to get married. They had decided to wait a bit on children, as Dom wanted to get through medical school and residency, and that would give Angela time to get settled in her career. While Dom’s studies and Angela’s career took their time, they spend whatever remaining free time together.
 
In late 2070, Dom was approaching the end of his residency and Angela’s career was in a good place, they decided it was time to try for a child. Things could not have gone any better during the pregnancy and everything was looking great for a July baby. In mid-2071, Dom had gotten on the staff of a hospital a fair distance across the city and was halfway through his shift when the blackout hit. Events like this bring out the worst in people and there was a steady stream of people coming into the ER and it was all hands on-deck.
 
It wasn’t until later that evening when he had a chance to take a breath when he checked his phone to see several calls from an unknown number. As he listened to the message left from the last call, an Officer Milton asked that Dom call him back urgently. Hoping he wasn’t too late; he returned the call. Officer Milton answered cheerfully, but when Dom indicated who he was the Officers voice took a very somber tone. The officer explained that during the initial blackout there was a lot of fear and panic on the streets, and that Angela was downtown at the time and that in that panic she was trampled. They tried what they could, but she was pronounced dead on the scene, as well as the baby.
 
Dom’s world fell apart at that moment.
 
While he physically went through the motions of the funerals and family coming into town, his mind was in a daze. How could this happen to her? Who did this? All our plans, gone.
 
Dom seemed to vacillate between bouts of fear and anger. Fearing the future without Angela, and anger at why she was taken from him. He would tell himself these are natural pieces of the grieving process, but the feelings overwhelmed him at times. To help deal with the pain and loss, Dom began to self-medicate.
 
Being a psychiatrist in a prominent hospital, he was able to get hold of some of the more experimental medications from the vendors that have access to such things. These medications did seem to have a noticeable effect on him, and his dreams became incredibly vivid. He had taken them for about a week when the first “event” happened.
 
In the dream, he was chasing down some of those LFER’s, the group who claimed responsibility for the blackout. When he caught them, he made sure they knew the terrors he felt, at least for a short period of time. When he woke up in the morning, he felt physically better than he had in weeks. It was only when he started to move around in the bed that he noticed something was amiss. The sheets and blankets had been badly slashed. Something incredibly sharp went through all the blankets and carved up the mattress, and the wooden post at the head of the bed had been cleanly cut in two, as well as leaving a gash in the wall to match. What the hell happened?!
 
The local bedding company replaced the mattress, that one was no longer really capable of supporting anyone.
 
The next night, on his fresh new mattress, the dream returned, but much more vivid and lucid, to the point it was real.
 
Dom crawled out from under the sheets to the floor, his elongated arms easily reaching the floor, long steel-like talons extending from them. There was no fear in seeing this change, just fascination. He moved on all fours over to the bathroom, like a panther among kittens. He could feel the power in his muscles and with a thought, the claws retracted into strong, meaty hands. When he got to the bathroom mirror, he was a little surprised, but not afraid. His body was an amalgam of forms, taking what would be the scariest parts of creatures and monsters. The metallic claws from a horror movie, the face of a demonic dog, chitinous plates covering parts of his body, most certainly something Dom would be terrified of, if this wasn’t obviously a form of him looking back in the mirror. But now he had the urge to inflict the terrors he had felt upon those that caused it. Unfortunately, he had no idea where to even start looking for these LFER people, they are a secretive lot. This would take time and some consideration.
 
One unusual impact of this, is that he no longer feared the future of life without his wife. That fear appeared to be contained and exuded to others within that other form, that he now referred to as Terror.
 
Not long after, while working with a patient who was trying to explain what was going on in their situation, when he began to experience what they were thinking about. He could see their thoughts before they could put them into words. The longer he focused on the deeper into their mind he could experience. Is this another side effect of those medications? Given other recent events, he faced this change with much more excitement than apprehension.
 
Dom spent the next several weeks practicing his new abilities, which appeared to span the telepathic and telekinetic spectrum, and carefully using them to try and learn more about LFER, with very little luck.
During one of his training sessions, the frustration of not making any progress in finding LFER, in addition to still being angry his wife was taken from him finally caught up with him. Instead of manifesting the invisible field around him, which had become second nature, he burst into flames. His rational mind somewhat faded to the back and his anger burst to the surface and he began to burn everything around him.
 
Things had just become more complicated. While Terror and this newer Rage manifestation were definitely both Dom underneath, the prominent thoughts were those of the manifestation. It was as if these manifestations were a small part of Dom that broke off and made itself anew. He no longer felt the fear and anger as much during his daily life. Perhaps this change allowed him to store up those emotions and release them in a more controlled manner, if turning into a flaming rage monster or terror beast would be considered controlled. This would all take more time to analyze.
 
The next piece came during one of his sessions with a client who was having trouble sleeping. Dom had taken to poking around in clients’ thoughts during sessions, which was actually very helpful at getting to the root of issues. It was during this session that he uncovered that this client was working for an organization called Level 37, which Dom had not heard of. This client also knew that Level 37 was moving against some of the members of LFER. Finally, a lead on who they are and where to find them, perhaps this Level 37 group could get him more information. Dom was able to maneuver the conversation and eventually talk his client into introducing Dom to the organization.
 
Finally, the revenge he sought had a path to tread.