Disclaimer: Supernatural © Eric Kripke
Notes: Inspired by the short story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, this AU is set in a world where humans co-exist with angels, vampires, demons, werewolves, etc.; however, there are no supernatural/magical elements. Each "monster" from Supernatural canon are all separate distinct flesh-and-blood humanoid species. Artistic licence was taken with how each species looks and behaves, with various nods to Supernatural canon.
Warnings: Violence, Torture, Sexual Content, Mental Health Issues, Implied Child Abuse, Implied Alcoholism, Blood Drinking, Serious Injuries, Medical Procedures
The spirit gone, man is garbage.
— Yossarian, Catch-22
Promise me, Dean, Sam whispered as Dean strained to reach the snare looped around his ankle. He hooked his hand around his injured knee, taking several deep breaths before bending it down and heaving his torso up. The movement did nothing for his aching head, a wave of dizziness making his vision swim in and out. But he pushed past it, blinking away the sweat and black spots in his eyes as he used his free hand to reach for the switchblade in his boot.
It took some wiggling to free the blade. It snapped open when he pressed the button on the side of the handle, and he tested it against the wire first. No luck. It just wasn't strong enough to cut through steel. With a grunt, he moved onto option two, skimming the blade along the wire until he reached the metal clamp that held the snare loop together.
It wasn't easy to wedge the knife between it and the wire. The more he moved, the tighter the snare's hold seemed to get. The tree branch he was hanging from creaked too, almost as if warning him. He ignored it, concentrating instead on the slow twist of his blade. His hand started to burn as he pushed against the handle. But the pain was worth it when he felt the clamp start to give.
"Come on, come on," he hissed through gritted teeth, more black spots filling his eyes. "Come on."
When the handle snapped clean off the blade without warning, it flew from his hand before he realized what had happened. It was long-gone by the time Dean tried to figure out where it had went, his stolen gun the only thing visible in the mud below. The knife itself was stuck in the clamp, impossible to move; he earned himself a nick on the finger when he tried. "No, no," Dean moaned, looking up the snare again. Frustration got the better of him, and he started clawing at the snare loop, trying to pry it off that way. "Come on!"
He had to get out of this trap, he thought frantically, tugging on the wire again. After everything he gone through to get to this godforsaken island — after finding out Sam could be alive — he was not getting trapped in this trap! He had to find Sam and get him off this island — this island Dick Roman brought the people he abducted to so he could hunt and murder them. And if that meant he was going to gnaw off his own leg to get free, he would do it.
After he tried to hurl all his weight down to break the tree branch — and nearly blacked out when the the jolt of the wire went through his hurt knee — the solution came to him. The trap was simple in construction: Almost like a pulley system, the wire was attached to a large log on the ground, which was used as a weight to hold him in the air. With his own body used a counterweight, it kept the wire rigid and impossible to take off no matter how he pulled at it.
But if he could get rid of his weight and loosen the wire up, Dean thought, it would be malleable and easy to work off his ankle. There was only one way to do that however, and he let out a long breath before lifting up again.
It wasn't easy climbing the wire. It was thinner than a rope, and hard to grip with his sweaty, trembling hands. Equally hard was bending and lifting his knees to caterpillar his way up, his bad knee shooting spikes of pain up his body when he had to straighten out and bend again to pull himself higher. His abdomen protested too, lungs burning and heart pounding a mile a minute.
The climbing paid off. By the time he heaved himself onto the branch, the wire had loosened against his ankle and blood was returning to his foot. He had enough energy left to slip the snare off before he sagged against the tree trunk, utterly exhausted.
Everything hurt. Blood and sweat trickled down the back of his neck as he fought off the urge to close his eyes and sleep — and that, along with his nausea and dizziness meant he was dealing with a concussion. (But given how hard he smacked his head on the ground when the snare had snatched him into the air, it was no surprise.) Thankfully, nothing seemed broken or sprained; it was only his injured knee that wasn't getting any better, now popping in a way he knew was bad. When he gingerly touched it through the tear in his jeans with his cold fingers, it was warm and felt swollen — yet another bad sign.
Years of medical training told him he risked ruining his knee for good if he went back to walking and running around on it, but it was going to have to make do. Concussions, injured knees — none of that mattered as long as Sam was on this island.
His brother had been here for six months, trapped with no hope of rescue, dealing with human-sized snare traps and God only knew what else. And on top of all that, there was Dick and his demons, hunting people — hunting Sam. His brother easily could have been snared in one of these traps too, fighting to escape as Dick drew closer, ready to add Sam's head to his trophy collection...
No. Dean fought off a shudder at the thought of the trophy collection. No, Sam was alive. Dick had underestimated his brother if he thought Sam would be easy to hunt down and kill. Sam was smart. Sam was crafty. Sam had shit to fight for and a family to get home to. And when Dean found him, they were going to take down Dick Roman together, like they should have from the start.
And then Dean was taking his baby brother home, where he belonged, even if it fucking killed him.
First, however, was the issue of locating Sam, but Dean had put together a good guess the second he found out his brother could still be alive. He looked over to it then, the lightening sky revealing tree branches dusted with snow as well as his destination on the horizon.
The mountain.
Its snow-crowned peak towered over hills of rustic red, orange and golden forests shrouded in thick fog. It was on the far south side of the island — the furthest point from all things Dick. That made the mountain a place with the most tactical advantages. Dick and his demons hadn't said they had killed Sam, just let him go — and since Sam hadn't escaped off of the island, Dean knew he would have tried to find a place to lie low. The mountain itself was one giant hiding spot, and the forest and river below would provide food and shelter materials. That was what Dean would count on if he had been trapped here, and he knew Sam would too.
Dick was the only unpredictable factor in all this, but Dean knew if anyone could outsmart a psycho who murdered people for literal sport, it was his baby brother.
Dean scanned the rest of the horizon, curious. He hadn't been able to see the island from the mainland, and satellite images and maps only showed him so much. But what information he managed to pull seemed accurate. There, at the mountain's heart, the large river that Dean knew coursed through the center of the island was formed, flowing into the ocean to the northeast. To the southwest was a bay that Dean was using as a rendezvous point, near a meadow and lake that took up most of the west side of the island. It ended in another forest, and from his vantage point, Dean could see tree tops like spears blanketing the northwest of the island in snow-covered green. He could also see the coastline where the ocean churned a murky blue-gray, lashing against steep cliff sides and rocky beaches that bordered the entire island.
To the northeast, there was a small secondary island right off the coast. Though Dean couldn't see it through the trees, that was where Dick's lodge was. It looked like a fancy resort only seen in magazines, and included a harbor and dock that Dean had infiltrated to get to the island. That was also near various inconspicuous-looking buildings, one of which Dean now knew housed Dick's underground prison.
Its only exit, a large bunker door built into a rock face and hidden by foliage, led out to the main island. It had sealed shut tight after Dean stumbled through it, but he hadn't really cared about getting back in. He had trying to put as much distance as he could between him and the prison, but the moment he had slowed down to get his bearings was the moment when he had tripped the snare.
Dean looked back toward the mountain. Getting to it was going to take time, and a lot of it with his bad knee. The island was nearly twelve miles in length and twenty-six miles across, so he was looking at a full day of traveling. And that was all assuming they didn't find him first. He was going to have to just avoid Dick, and while staying ahead wasn't much of a plan, well, his 'escape onto the island' really hadn't been one either.
I'll just make it up as I go then, Dean thought as he pushed off the tree trunk.
Climbing down the tree was as much fun as climbing the wire, knee and head not really up for the task. But he made his way down without slipping or his knee giving out, only then to run out of branches, finding himself with solid trunk only. He was still a good ten feet off the ground, and Dean braced himself before sliding off the branch.
It wasn't as bad as he thought it would be, as far hitting the ground and falling right over into pine-needle strewn mud went. As his knee spasmed, he wheezed out a curse to keep himself from crying out in pain. Thankfully it faded quickly, but he still had to suck in several gulps of air before he could lift onto shaking arms.
He noticed his footprints and specks of blood on the ground, realizing that they were visible tracks and scents that could lead straight to him — something that he was going to have to worry about going forward. He would need to cover his tracks before he moved on too, and he made a mental note before looking around for his weapons.
His switchblade was a goner, but his stolen gun lay nearby. Dean prepared himself for the task of standing and retrieving it. He got to his knees, muttering under his breath, "On your feet, soldier, on your—"
It was then he saw the angel.
