Sometimes They Forget
"Pain, pain, go away, come again some other day."
"He says it like a mantra," it said in disgust, slicing his skin open from his neck to his crotch with a blackened fingernail, "Over and over and over and over."
"Stupid. Stupid," another said strumming the taught chains like a guitar, vibrating the spikes in his wrists and ankles the great hooks in his shoulder and side.
"Pain, pain, go away, come again some other day."
"He used to say other things. Cry out for his brother, his mother, his father," still another said pushing a burning stick deep into his side, "for God."
Pain, pain, pain, pain," he panted writhing away from the fire until his arms pulled free of the spikes, shredding his wrists.
The wounds healed miraculously and one of them drove the spikes through fresh skin and bone again, blood spurting furiously.
He didn't scream, he only chanted.
"He used to scream until he couldn't anymore, choking on his own blood."
"He doesn't belong!"
They heard and they looked up from the body, craning deformed, twisted, leathery necks, searching with bloody eyes for whoever had spoken out…but there were too many of them.
They had lined up to torment him, many hundreds so it was impossible to tell where the voice had come from but when they looked back he was no longer strung up but sitting slumped against a rock.
The rock was as good a place as any, one of them thought. Fisting up long, gnarled talons it stabbed them into the wound on his shoulder and twisted but he didn't move, only grunted and continued to sit, head bowed, whispering his mantra. Having no where to go he never moved from the rock, surrounded by the crawling masses bent on causing him pain, crushing him, suffocating him day after day, year after year.
"He doesn't belong here!"
They heard the words again and the voice agitated them and they crowded in closer to protect him, like a pride of lions around a fresh kill threatened by hyenas.
"Martyr!"
This time he heard the word and his head snapped up, dead eyes staring ahead and they moved away from him, hissing, snarling, shoving at one another to get away.
"Pain, pain…" he said and lowered his head again.
"He doesn't belong here!"
They scattered like carrion only to return when they thought it safe and a cacophonous roar rose up as they screamed and cried out in anguish.
He was gone.
Sam Winchester shot straight up into a sitting position on the bed, eyes wide, gasping for air, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. He had been dreaming, using forbidden powers, honing his skills, stretching his limitations.
The tousled redhead who had been sleeping peacefully beside him stirred and stretched out a hand and touched his arm.
"Bad dream?' she asked in a sleepy voice.
Sam looked at her for a moment and opened his mouth to ask her why she was still there but his voice was gone. Instead of words blood gushed from his mouth and the girl started to scream.
Bobby Singer had two secrets.
Secret one was that when he had told Sam it was Dean's body in the shroud, he had lied.
Secret two was that he could bring someone back from the dead.