Chapter One

Gone

Dean's eyes snapped open as the alarm blared on the bedside table. His lean torso shot up as his arm shot out to hit the alarm across the room. He let out a growl as his eyes adjusted, his body in fight or flight mode. His pupils still dilated, they scanned the room, looking for the dark shadow that plagued his dreams. As his breath steadied, he realized that the figure hadn't followed him out of his dreams, though he wished it would. Death's sweet embrace would be better than any of this right now.

He threw the covers off of his body, legs swinging around so his feet sat flat on the carpeted floor. His hands came up, heels digging into his eye sockets, making bright lights dance across his eyelids. His mind was no longer racing, but it was still in shock from all that had happened in the past several days. He wasn't dealing well with it. Really, he wasn't dealing at all. He didn't even have anyone to talk to at the moment since he had no idea where Cas had flown off to. 'Cas,' he thought, 'I really need you, buddy.' But, there was no sound of wings in the one bed hotel. The small space was making him claustrophobic now.

"Sammy?" Silence. "Sammy?!"

There was no sound, just pure darkness. There wasn't even the echo of his screaming. Dean and Sam had stumbled into an abandoned warehouse hoping to track down this mysterious shadow like creature that seemed to pop up everywhere they went. Having just stepped in, they didn't realize how dark it would be. Any light that seemed to come in was instantly swallowed by the deep, deafening darkness.

Just like Sam…

Dean stood up, stumbling over to the dining area where a bottle of scotch sat on the table, seeming to call his name. He pulled the top out of the bottle and pressed the cool glass to his lips. He then turned the bottle straight up, letting the golden liquid pour down his parched throat, burning all the way down. Some even managed to escape his lips and slide down his neck, glistening like morning dew as it slid over his bobbing Adam's apple. He pulled the bottle away, almost against his own will, but he needed to breathe. He gulped down the air greedily, hissing and panting. He just couldn't get a grip on reality, but, at the same time, he really didn't want to. There was nothing in this reality that Dean wanted to live for.

Sam was gone. Where, Dean had no idea. He had tried every one of Sam's numbers, though most would either lead him to the trunk of the Impala or they wouldn't ring at all. It was driving Dean mad and making him not think straight. Sammy had always been the brains and when Dean needed him most he was nowhere to be found. And of course he blamed himself. If he just hadn't told Sam about the mysterious shadow that had escaped his dreams and followed them everywhere, maybe Sam would still be here. Boy, did Dean need him here…

Dean gripped the rectangular bottle hard, hoping against all odds that this was all a dream. That he was about to wake up and Sammy would be there in the next bed over, resting peacefully. But Dean didn't wake up from this. He hadn't for the past week and knew he would never wake up from this since every time he closed and then opened his eyes there was no Sam to be seen. Not until he found Sam himself would this all be over, and when he found that shadow creature he was going to rip it apart.

He pushed the bottle to his lips once more and downed the rest of the alcohol, grunting as he threw the glass across the room. It shattered, sending rainbow sparkles around the room. Dean slumped into the wooden kitchen chair, its legs scraping the tile floor. He rested his forehead on his fingers, trying to get his mind to wander. But it just kept coming back to the same topics: Where was Sam? What was happening to him? Where was Cas? What was so Goddamn important that he was ignoring him? He gritted his teeth and clenched his jaw. All this negativity was really beginning to get to him. As great as he was at hiding his emotions, it still got to him. He usually ended up doing something stupid and hurting himself in the process.

Dean was actually contemplating the next dumb thing he could do. He wasn't quite Castiel status in drinking a whole liquor store, but he definitely had binged and drank too much. He had gone through at least three to five bottle of liquor a day this week and threw it up more often than not. And we're not talking sissy shooters either, whole handles of liquor. He chugged one down for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and then some. Sure, he ate his usual burgers, but they were bland. Really, they tasted like nothing. Worse than nothing, like cardboard. He felt no joy in eating his favorite foods and beer did nothing to touch his thirst. He knew nothing would make him feel better until he found Sam.

He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn't hear the rusting of wings behind him.