Summary: The world is harsher when viewed in shades of grey. A brief look at the Winchester's transition into the hunt.
Disclaimer: Kripke and CW own Supernatural and the Winchester boys. No Crossroads deal will make them mine.
In the beginning there had been no hunt. There had been the family, the three who would someday become the hunters, and the woman; the wife, the mother.
In the beginning there had been nothing extraordinary. They had been happy, had lived their lives oblivious to everything that went on beyond the black and white of their world, oblivious to the shades of grey that lurked at the corners of vision. He had worked, provided for his small family, and had each day come home covered in grease and sweat and had been so bone tired that he often fell asleep before the television set, but still he had smiled at the sight of his wife and their two children.
And there had come the fire. He had at first thought that the scream that still tore into his dreams these days had been a dream itself. He remembered the blind panic he'd felt at hearing that dream that had pulled him from his sleep and sent him running to the nursery and the source of the sound, panicked that maybe his wife had gone to check on their youngest, their little Sammy and found him still and not breathing, had been able to breath easily for several second to find the room empty of his wife and the baby awake and cooing quietly to himself.
And then he had turned around. Felt his heart stop at the sight of Mary pinned to the ceiling, blood welling at her stomach, had felt the burn of the blood that had dotted his hand, and then watched the woman he loved, the mother of his children, burst into flame, taking almost everything with her.
The image of his beloved Mary burning on the ceiling was forever burnt into his mind, the feel of her blood on the back of his hand stayed there no matter how clean his skin was, and it was these two things that kept him sure that he wasn't crazy, had kept him believing that something other than an electrical fault had killed his wife, left him and his children without her. It was the children that kept him living, and for them he would find out what had killed, murdered, Mary, and he in turn would return the favour.
In the beginning there had been no hunt, but fire had burnt the painting of black and white, and revealed the shades of grey.