Carefully, Dean crept through the forest. He eyed every plant like it was poisonous, jumped at every noise. The woods were a dangerous place.
He was on a mission. Get his sick grandfather medicine, and go back home. Simple as that. He remembered the strict words his father had told him when he was preparing to leave.
"Dean, you remember what I told you boy?" His father question. Dean rolled his eyes. Like he would forget in the 5 minutes between reminders.
"Don't talk to strangers, stay away from the north side, don't touch any plants, be home before night fall." He ticked the rules off on his fingers. "I remember dad."
His Dad grabbed his shoulders and pulled him in for a brisk hug, and then sent Dean on his way.
Dean pulled a thorny vine out of the way, using his dull dark red hunting jacket. He skirted around a deer corpse, only pausing a moment to look at the decomposing flesh. But then he remembered that's what he could look like if he didn't hurry up, and briskly walked away.
Dean crashed through the forest for some time more, gathering scratches from his carelessness with the low hanging branches. The trip to his Grandfather's house was about 3 hours on foot, more if you stopped to rest. You couldn't go by any other means of transportation, for the foliage was too thick. It sapped the light out of the air and suffocated the forest in dull shadow.
After a while, and a few more corpses, he stopped to rest a little bit. He pulled his canteen out of his backpack and took a shallow drink out of it. It was a six hour trip there and back, and he needed to save his water. He was about to keep going when he heard a scream in the woods.
He stood stock still for a moment, before the scream sounded again. It was a woman's, high and shrill, full of pain. He took of running where he thought it was coming from.
He rushed through the underbrush, half shielding his eyes so he didn't get blinded by the branches and vines whipping past him. The scream sounded again, twice, before he rushed into a clearing and fell spectacularly, head over heels.
He got up hurriedly and looked around for whatever woman was making the noise, for signs of blood or wolves. He saw nothing. He was standing in a clearing with nothing in it. A perfect circle with no trees, or grass, or bushes. He stood still, listening hard.
The shriek sounded again, filling the surrounding air, loud and shrill and piercing. Dean jumped and looked around wildly, but the scream was coming from every where, and it wasn't stopping.
He fell down on his knees and covered his ears, as it grew louder and louder, and the smell of blood drifted to his nose.
He started yelling, just to try and drown out the wail of agony permeating the air, but his voice was tiny compared to the noise surrounding him.
After a few minutes, he registered the scream stopping. His own voice went on, a tiny mewl in the wake of what had just happened. He stopping screaming and looked up, struggling to his feet and stumbling around.
He was standing in the middle of the clearing, and he couldn't tell which way he had come from. He felt his heart drop to his feet. He stood there, thinking about the scream, and how lost he was, and how much trouble he was in. If he didn't get back to his trail soon, he was going to die in these woods. No other way around it. He was going to die, and no one would know, no one would bury him or know how he dyed or hear his screams as fades out of existence. No one.
He wheeled around, about to pick a random direction to try, and stopped dead in his tracks.
There was a man standing in the clearing, looking at him. "Are you lost?" Asked the man kindly in a deep gravelly voice.
The man was wearing a black trench coat, and a black tie with a white shirt underneath and black pants. His short dark black hair was ruffled, and he had bright blue eyes that seemed kind. He actually didn't seem too much older than Dean himself.
Dean stared a few more seconds before thinking, well, I'm not dead. I'm gonna assume he's safe. But don't trust him.
"Yeah, you could say that." Dean answered, still a little suspicion creeping into his voice.
The young man smiled kindly, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. Dean felt himself leaning to liking the man, but remembered all the times he had heard of people going to the woods and not coming back. He remembered the screams.
"Hey… did you hear… screaming before?" He asked hesitantly. The man looked confused.
"No, I didn't. DId you? Is somebody in trouble?" The man sounded concerned.
"No… I Don't think so. Say, would you mind telling me your name?" Dean asked. He couldn't stop thinking about the screams, but he was working on shoving them to the back of his mind. These were the woods, anything could happen.
"My name is Castiel." The man said, and strided over to shake Dean's hand.
"Dean. Nice to meet you." Dean took Castiel's strong grip and shook it.
"So where are you trying to get to?" The man asked, and Dean got the impression he knew the woods back to front. Even though it seemed like no one could know these woods.
"My Grandpa's. You wouldn't happen to know where that would be, would you? Samuel Winchester's place?"
"Well," Said the man, with a pondering expression, "Tell me what the house looks like, and maybe I can help. I'm not very good with names, you see."
Dean knew that these woods were dangerous, he knew he shouldn't trust Castiel, he knew that anything could happen and anybody could die. But he really wanted to get to his grandpa's house.
"It's green, with red windowsills and kinda big-ish? Right in the middle of some trees. There's barely a clearing around it, easy to miss. If you could just get me to the trail, I'd be fine." Dean said uneasily.
"Oh, I know where that is. I'll walk you to the trail if you'd like." Castiel said helpfully. Dean only had to think for a second before saying yes.
Castiel started walking to the edge of the clearing, and Dean hurried to keep up, easily matching Castiel's long strides with his own. His was a few inches taller.
They walked several more minutes in a comfortable silence, Dean humming a song lightly under his breath for a few minutes but stopping soon. It still felt too cheerful for the woods.
They walked maybe 10 minutes before reaching the light trail, and they stopped on it.
"So you just walk along until you see the old stump covered in black vines, and then you should see your grandfather's house soon after." Castiel pointed down the trail.
"Thanks! You were great. You live near here?" Dean answered gratefully, looking at Castiel.
"Oh, something like that." Castiel purred in his gravelly voice, and Dean could have sworn his eyes flashed with some hidden malice.
Dean kept his smile plastered on his face, and thanked Castiel again. "You get home safe!" He called as he walked away. When he turned back, the trench coat wearing man had disappeared.
He walked for 5 minutes before coming across the trunk covered in black vines. It was huge, and he stared at it a few seconds marveling. He didn't remember it from other times he had made this trip with his father. He felt relief seeing the trunk, knowing he wasn't lost anymore. Thank you, Castiel.
The dark air was filled with the sound of strange birds calling, and eerie bugs chirping. Dean hated the sounds of the forest, nothing ever shut up. It just got louder at night, and the wolves joined the chorus then.
He finally, after 20 minutes of walking, stumbled up to his grandpa's porch. He looked up at the small hutch, and noticed cobwebs in the windows. Next time he was here he would help clean the place.
He knocked on the door before entering, knowing that his grandpa may be too sick to get up, but sat with a shotgun over his lap. "It's me, Dean!" He called into the house.
Silence.
He put his backpack down on the floor, and shivered, pulling his jacket closer around himself. The room was dark, no fire in the grate. He breathed out, and had the suspicion that if there was more light in the room, he would be able to see his own breath.
Something was wrong. Dean just knew, something was terribly wrong.
He grabbed a hunting knife out of his backpack and walked slowly to the other room.
Dean opened the door the the bedroom slowly, not saying a word. He stepped inside, to what seemed a completely normal room.
His grandpa was sleeping in the bed, with the covers tucked up loosely under his chin, and the shade drawn on his one window. There was a small candle glowing on the bedside table beside him, and he looking peaceful in the dim light. "Gran'pa?" Dean asked hopefully. Maybe something wasn't wrong.
His grandpa didn't answer. There was a dripping sound that Dean became aware of, coming from the bed. He looked down and saw a dark liquid was staining the edge of the blanket, dripping onto the hardwood floor and creating a small puddle. He stared in horror.
"What the-" He managed to get out, before his grandfather started to move. His head tilted up, seeming to look right at Dean, even though the eyes were closed. Dean watched, frightened, as his grandfather's eyes bulged under the lids, and red started seeping through. Then, in one violent disgusting spurt, blood poured out of his grandfather's eyes. It squirted out in a red flood, bleeding into the green bedsheets and coloring them red. Dean stumbled back in fear and disgust, yelling.
He watched as the body of his grandpa deflated like a baloon, blood pouring out it's eyes and dripping onto the floor. It's forehead caved in, and the face seemed to be crumbling in one it's self, blood still leaking out of it. Dean still hadn't stopped yelling.
Dean was staring at the body, and it was only then that he noticed someone crouched over it.
He looked at the figure. Black trench coat. Brown hair. Tall.
Castiel stood crouched over the bed, pawing at his grandpa. His eyes black holes in the otherwise normal face. At least it looked normal, until Dean saw his lips were dry and cracked, with a bit of dried blood trailing from the corner.
Castiel was licking the sheets, lapping up the blood. His hands were twisted into claws, tearing at the bed sheets in need. Dean's face twisted, filled with fear and repulse.
He should have known, Castiel was a monster, a monster playing angel to gain his trust. Dean had gotten his grandpa killed, it was all his fault. Castiel was monster. He had to kill him, had to right his mistake.
Dean picked up his knife from where he had dropped it in shock, and ran at the monster. Castiel looked up at Dean with the devouring black abysses, and he was thrown up into the air.
He didn't hit a wall, but he felt pain. Pain all over his body as brick hard air seemed to slam into him again and again. He groaned in pain. I am going to die. I am dying. This is dying.
His vision remain clear, and he watched as Castiel's clawed fingers began prying up the wrinkled skin of the body, bringing them to his mouth and eating them like pasta. In a few seconds, the body's face was devoid of skin, just red and white in varying degrees of bloodiness. Dean gagged, bile coming up from his stomach and splattering to the floor.
Suddenly, Castiel was thrown to the side by something. He crashed to the floor with more force than he should have, and started screeching. Dean was released from the air, and he fell painfully to his knees.
Castiel was wailing, in terrible agony, and black vines of liquid were pouring out of the holes in his face that passed for eyes, trickling into his screaming mouth. Dean watched as the monster writhed in agony, wondering vaguely what was making it do so.
Another figure appeared over Castiel, a white one this time. Castiel gave one last howl, before he turned to dust and seeped through the floorboards in a cloud of red.
Dean stared at the new arrival, still in shock as he watched the man step into and over the remains of Castiel.
Clad all in white, the man was dressed smartly in a suit. He had brown hair and hazel eyes.
"Get...Away...What was that? What just happened?" Dean asked numbly. He looked at the corpse of his grandpa, Samuel Winchester, shriveled like a grape and half peeled.
He realized, this man just saved him. He saved him from a painful death, from dying alone in the cabin in the woods. He owed this man his life. "Thank you. Thank you." Dean repeated, crying a little bit.
The man looked at him, almost in pity. Dean put it down to the traumatic experience.
Dean was about ready to hug the silent stranger when he leaned over, and plucked a strip of skin from the corpse on the bed. He eyed it thoughtfully before eating it. Dean paled.
The stranger made a face. "Ugh. Old meat." His nose crinkled.
Dean's mind went red with fear as the stranger leaned over, and whispered in his ear, " I bet you taste better, though."