"Bobby, I gotta get in there, gotta help him somehow. Help me get into his head, we can use that dream mojo stuff, anything, I don't give a damn what it is as long as I can fix my brother."
"Dean, boy, I'm willing to bet my life that there's stuff in there that you don't want to see, Sam doesn't want you to see."
"I'll pay the price."
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
He's in the passenger seat a car on the beach, not the Impala, but a minivan, doors and windows and skylight open wide. Wind ruffles his hair, but it doesn't feel good, it feels dangerous, like a storm is brewing. Feels weird to be in the passenger seat, not the driver's, but he supposes that this is Sam's head, so Sam drives.
Clouds roil and twist overhead, and the car's engine ignites by itself, the wheels turn and the car begins to move. Very slowly, barely inching along. The radio screen lights up, but instead of displaying a list of channels, it's flooded with yellow. In the dim light, the screen stares out at him like a yellow eye, inhuman and cruel. Static fills the air, crackles and bursts and snaps. It's then that he notices the quiet-pure quiet, deathly quiet. Grey waves crash and rise and crash again on the beach, lapping at the sand, but the ocean is silent, no birds sing, no thunder growls, no lightning sizzles, nothing.
Out of the static, a voice emerges, starting so low that he can barely even hear the cadence, then gradually, ever so slowly growing in volume, like the fade-out at the end of a song playing in reverse.
"Boys shouldn't play with Daddy's guns.
"Boys shouldn't play with Daddy's guns.
"Boys shouldn't play with Daddy's guns.
"Boys shouldn't play with Daddy's guns.
"Boys shouldn't play with Daddy's guns.
"Boys shouldn't play with Daddy's guns.
"Boys shouldn't play with Daddy's guns.
"Boys shouldn't play with Daddy's guns.
He grows cold, for he recognizes this voice, recognizes it all too well, and now the yellow eye of the radio seems to glare at him, to shout at him, and suddenly the voice rises to a shriek,
Boys shouldn't play with Daddy's guns!
It's a screaming, wailing, shrill wail and his hands rise up to cover his ears, and he's sure that if the window's weren't down they'd be broken by now, and it's still rising and he can't take it
and it's gone. Just like that, no ringing in his ears, no churchbells in his head, undiluted silence.
The static is gone too, and with a final flicker, the yellow-gold of the screen is flooded with scarlet, and the classic noise of an old video game, when you lose, echoes through the car.
Wah wah wah wa-oa-oa-oa-oaaaaaa.
A female voice makes him jump.
"I'm sorry, you lost the game, would you like to play again? To ask God for another chance, say 'yes.' If you would like to end the game, say 'no.' "
He recognizes this voice, too, and for a moment his breath catches in his throat and tears prick behind his eyes, because it's been much too long since he's heard his mother speak. There's a pregnant silence, and he feels that he's expected to make an answer in order to move on, although god knows what he's supposed to do now. He decides to make his own answer, the most basic and important choice he knows.
"Take me to Sammy."