Disclaimer: Fortunately for you, I don't own Supernatural.

Description- AU of Season 4. Dean was never rescued from Hell. He remained in the Pit until he became the thing that he hated the most.

I apologize for any of my grammar or spelling mistakes.

AN: I'm starting the story off with Dean in Hell. The action will come a little later. Right now I'm starting at the very beginning, so hang in there! It'll get interesting. I promise!

Hell.

Just a word, a short four letter word. One used fairly often in many different contexts by countless people as they go through their everyday lives. None of them realizing what the word actually means. Because those four simple little letters don't do the place justice. Not even in the slightest.

Dean screamed, but the leather strap covering his mouth, which filled the dual purpose of gagging him and immobilizing his head, was unforgiving. Desperately trying to control the involuntary screeching sounds that were emanating from his throat, his body began to convulse, his movements hindered by the bindings.

Hell was continuously altering. A fresh batch of souls arrived everyday while others escaped the Pit to possess human bodies and manifest as demons on Earth. Hell was a place of chaos, unpredictable and volatile. It seemed to quiver with electricity, as if one spark could detonate the entire place. There were, however, a few constants.

The blood. He could almost taste it in the air. It was everywhere. Staining every visible surface, pouring out of the bodies of the tortured, dripping off the knives, daggers, scalpels, blades, and other instruments of pain, and pooling around the torturers' feet. The blistering air stank of its heavy metallic scent, almost masking the ever present stench of sulfur that permeated the entire place.

The oppressive heat. Ruby hadn't been lying about the fire. While it certainly seemed to be one of the more popular forms of torture in the Pit, the real fire was not as tangible. Hell itself was a blazing inferno, the flames existing inside the souls of the damned. The unseen fire consumed all in its path, the remnants of the flames unrecognizable. For the tortured, the fire only intensified the excruciating pain. For the torturers, the flames empowered and strengthened them before proceeding to carve yet another soul.

And last of all was the noise. There was the screaming, the sobbing and the pleading of the tortured as their bodies were ripped apart and their intestines were either spilled on the floor or impaled on a large rusty spike. There were the gleeful cackles of the torturers as they found new ways to inflict agony. Lastly there was the ever present rumbling noise which always reminded Dean of a volcano. Like the ground was threatening to give way, all the inhabitants plunging to another even fierier death.

No day in Hell was quite the same, but Dean knew schedule of events that would usually follow.

The day would begin with his body miraculously repairing from the previous damage. Then Alastair would start the ball rolling with a different form of torture each day. So far he had flayed Dean's skin off inch by inch, turned him into a human pincushion using red hot pokers, removed all his internal organs and sewed them back in, extracted his eyes with a pair of tweezers, ripped him into pieces until he resembled nothing more than chunks of bloody flesh. And the list went on and on and on.

Though Dean had lost track of time in the Pit, Alastair never ceased to come up with creative new way to inflict pain. Then the demon would move on to a more familiar form of torture. Dean would lie there immobilized by chains, all the while screaming in agony as Alastair began his daily monologue in a good natured tone.

"You know, Dean," Alastair drawled carelessly, "You could easily end all your suffering. Why make things harder for yourself?" "Really now. What more do you have to lose?" "Your humanity?" he scoffed, simultaneously cutting open Dean's chest, ripping off strips of bloody skin.

"Screw you," Dean gasped, pausing from his fruitless attempt to clear the blood clogging up his lungs. To his irritation, his intention of adding a few of his choice curse words was ruined as the white eyed demon chose that precise moment to rip Dean's tongue out.

At the end of every single day, Alastair would ask the same question. Dean could get off the rack. All he had to do was put more souls on and torture them. Dean violently turned the offer at first, refusing to give in, clinging desperately to his last shred of humanity. But his resolve was weakening day by day.

It was just another ordinary day in Hell when it finally happened. While Alastair embedded the razor into his flesh again and again, something inside of Dean broke. A switch seemed to have flipped in his head, and the agony, if possible, had increased tenfold. Everything, the pain, the noise, the smell, the sheer hopelessness of the place was crashing down on him. Threatening to bury and crush him into nothingness. It was all too much.

"Yes," he whispered, his voice hoarse from screaming. A tear trickled down his cheek at the thought of what he was about to do.

Alastair looked up from his work slowly. His lips curled into a knowing smile as he said, "What was that Dean? I didn't quite hear you there."

"You heard me. I said yes," Dean choked out, louder than before. "I'll do it. I'll put souls on. I'll torture them."

"Are you sure, Dean?" Alastair said grinning. "Won't want you to back out at the last second. You positive? Well, if you insist."

Suddenly Dean found himself standing next to Alastair, his body already healed of the day's torture sessions. Alastair stared at him, his close scrutiny unnerving Dean. It was like the demon was sizing him up. "Follow me." was all he said though, his expression now cryptic.

Elated, the demon led Dean to a woman strapped to a table who watched them fearfully as they approached. Alastair slipped a knife into Dean's hand while hissing, "You know what to do," before backing away, chortling. A detached part of his mind realized numbly that this was the happiest Alastair had ever been during his stay in the Pit while the more human part of his mind was recoiling at what he was about to do. He grasped the blade in both hands.

Dean's hands began to shake as the blade neared her skin. He paused when the point of the knife was almost touching her. She had started to whimper, pleading with him and begging him not to do this. But he had to. It was either her or him and he couldn't allow himself to be thrown back on the rack. He just couldn't. The blade was now brushing her skin.

He steeled himself and plunged the blade as hard as he could into her flesh. Crimson blood spilled from the wound and dripped onto the floor as he made another cut to join the first. Ignoring her agonized shrieks, he stabbed again and again and to his utmost horror realized he couldn't stop.

Blood spattered his face as an unfamiliar and alien feeling washed over him.

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Again I apologize for any grammar or spelling mistakes.