The Fourth Realm
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Mary trailed her hand idly in the cool water, leaning back lethargically against the tree-trunk that grew on the bank next to the slow-moving stream.
This was her favourite spot; here was where she passed most of her time, although Time was an abstract notion to her now, for she had no idea if it was hours, days or millennia that she inhabited this place.
She lifted her head to look around; the panorama was immutable; the colours yellow, brown and russet dominated the landscape, the leaves looked ready and ripe to drop from the trees, but they never did.
She had tried winding one of her hairs around a single leaf just to see if it ever did fall but each time she came back, leaf and hair were still in the same place; then she had tried pulling the leaves off one by one, but each time she returned everything was as before.
She sighed but she knew she should count herself lucky to be here; she could easily have ended up in Hell.
When she was burning so agonizingly on the ceiling in baby Sammy's nursery, that's where she thought she was destined.
After all, she had made a deal with a demon, but seemingly the fact that she hadn't actually sold her own soul to him, kept her from going down to the Pit, so she had finished up here, in Limbo, where the souls whose sins weren't evil enough to deserve Hell and those whose virtues weren't worthy enough to merit Heaven ended up; in this fourth realm of eternal Autumn!
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Funnily enough, as she came to find out, it was sparsely populated; Heaven and Hell claiming the majority of souls, but she wasn't going to complain.
It might not be New York at rush hour but at least she wasn't writhing and screaming on some demon's rack, although it was what she deserved. She had sold Sammy to Azazel, if anyone should have gotten a one way ticket to hell, it was her!
The day her ghost-self had seen Sam in their old home in Lawrence, she had tried to let him know how sorry she was for what she had done to him, but Sam hadn't understood why she was apologizing. He didn't yet know what Azazel had in store for him.
How he had grown, she remembered fondly, he had become such a handsome man, no longer the baby she had last glimpsed in the crib; and what of Dean, her first-born, her little blond angel; she had hardly recognized him.
She had been so proud when she had seen them that day, so glad to see them together, looking out for each other. She had felt the love that coursed between them and she had gone into the afterlife a little happier for having known.
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She wiped away a tear with the back of her hand and pulled herself up. It wasn't as if she had anywhere else to go, Limbo was just an eternal wandering; like the Israelites in the desert, never arriving at a destination.
But then she enjoyed walking!
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Now and then she would run into one of the other souls; they were friendly enough; all well aware as she was, that their destiny could have been much worse.
Some of the souls she met had been tricked into making a deal with a demon, not understanding what they had gotten themselves into.
Their souls had been dragged to hell, but the fact that they has been tricked, got them a reprieve and they were relocated here in Limbo.
She smiled; they were the happiest souls around for they had actually had a taste of Hell's torture, and they thanked their lucky stars that they had gotten out. One was a boy she had met before she married John, the day she had made the deal with Azazel.
She had been happy for the youngster that he had avoided Hell.
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John! The thought of her husband made her heart beat faster.
She hadn't seen him that day in Lawrence; he hadn't been with his sons. She recalled how she had spent days crying for the fate of Sam and Dean when she first got here, but eventually even the tears had dried up.
She had no idea if they were still alive.
Could be they had been in Heaven for centuries now for all she knew. She only hoped that her beloved sons were anywhere but in Hell, for just the thought of her babies being stretched out on some filthy demon's rack made her want to vomit up food that she had never eaten since arriving here.
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She pushed the terrible image from her mind and quickened her step.
She glimpsed a figure in the distance coming towards her. She wondered if it was someone new, maybe just arrived from Earth who could give her more recent news of that world.
The figure grew ever larger on the horizon and when she managed to make out its face, she stopped abruptly, torn between happiness and tears; the face was as familiar as her own.
He smiled roguishly as he had all those years ago when she had fallen so impetuously in love with him.
"John." She breathed his name like a prayer, as two strong arms pulled her into a rib-crushing embrace.
"Mary," was all he said as he buried his face in her wealth of long soft hair. "Mary, my love, finally, I've found you."
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TBC