Clara hunched over and vomited into the dead grass in front of her. Her head was spinning and her heart was beating so fast she could feel it in her throat as though it was trying to escape. How could any of this have happened? How could a serial killer from her favorite horror movie have appeared in reality and killed…no. It was impossible. It was someone in costume but still that didn't change the fact that her father's corpse was lying in her parent's bedroom, his face seemingly torn off its skull and her mother, her poor mother, lying in the dining room with her head five feet away with a petrified look of terror still on it. They couldn't be dead. Nothing made sense. She couldn't even feel the cold of winter on her bare feet and her body only shook from terror. She leaned against the side paneling on the back of a house. The man, the monster, had seen her when she had found her mother. She had knelt down in agony, tears of fear, confusion, and loss threatening to break her when the glass door across the room had shattered. Standing in its place was a man at least seven feet tall, his face covered in a gas mask and a huge blood-stained machete in his hand. It was the same man from the movie they had all watched a few hours earlier. But that was impossible. She knew it was. That didn't stop her from running though. She had run down the entire street screaming and yet no one had heard her or they had thought she was just another trouble-causing teenager trying to wake them up at three a.m. She found herself at a neighbor's house, knocking and ringing the doorbell but to no avail. She could see the man in the distance getting closer and she ran further through the icy street until she turned left into a maze of houses and took silence as her hopeful savior. That was where she was now, hopping from house to house , thankful that the snow on the grass had melted the day before allowing her to leave no footprints behind. She knew she had to make it to the main road. She forced her legs to move the rest of her body into the road again. The streetlight overhead was of course flickering eerily. She turned around to peer over her shoulder and a pair of headlights appeared and headed towards her. She began to run to the car and it came to an abrupt stop as she reached it. A man quickly got out of the driver's side door, a shotgun in his arms.

"Are you Clara Farrow?" He asked.

"Yes! Please you have to help me." She begged him.

"I'm going to. Where is he?" he asked her.

"I don't know. He was chasing me down the street a few minutes ago and I tried hiding in between the houses." She told him.

"Stay with me, come on." He said, motioning her to follow him as he headed back the way she had ran. They walked carefully between each house, checking the fronts and backs but finding nothing.

"Are you hurt?" he turned and asked her as they walked back around to the front of one of the houses.

"No," she replied.

He stopped and grabbed her right arm which was stained red from when she had tripped over her father's body in the dark house and landed in the pool of blood that had surrounded him.

"Who is?" he asked.

She looked up at him but as she opened her mouth to tell him his eyes moved to behind her and widened before he pushed her out of the way. She landed on the ground and looked up. The man in the mask pushed the guy against the side of the house, knocking the shotgun from his hands. He was able to throw a few punches before the masked man grabbed him by the neck with one hand and raised his other. Clara saw the silver machete and reached for the shotgun. She aimed at the man's back.

"Hey!" she yelled. He looked back at her and she pulled the trigger. He let go of the guy and stumbled towards her. She fired again hitting him in the stomach and watched as he fell to his knees, hands trying to cover the spot where a black liquid poured. He looked up at her before collapsing on the ground. A sudden bright flash of light appeared where he lay causing her to close her eyes. There was a loud snap and she opened them. He was gone. Nothing was on the ground between her and the other guy except for grass.

"Where did he go?" she asked him.

"He's gone. For now."

"What does that mean?" she asked, standing up.

"I'll explain it but first you're going to get me that DVD you rented from that new library yesterday. I'll drive you, come on." He said. She didn't understand but knew she should listen to him.

They walked back to his car and she got in. She hadn't noticed how cold it was until he started the engine and warm air hit her. She noticed an ache in her feet and knew she had the beginnings of hypothermia. She directed him back towards her house, dreading having to go back inside again. He pulled into the driveway and they got out.

"Who is hurt inside?" he asked as they reached the door. She looked up again into his tired face.

"He killed my family." She told him, feeling an icy burn in her chest as she did so.

"Your family?"

She nodded.

"My parents," she said.

His expression changed quickly and she knew he now dreaded walking in as well.

He went in first. She walked over to the table in their living room and picked up the DVD box sitting on it.

"Here," she said handing it to him.

He opened the box and looked at the disc.

"Turn on that light," he told her.

She turned it on and walked back over to him.

"See this?" he said pointing to a symbol on the DVD that looked like a W with two lines across it and a ball in the middle. "That's called witchcraft. This thing is cursed." She didn't know if he was joking or not.

"Witchcraft? Witches aren't…"

"Yeah and neither was this masked murderer until tonight," he said pointing to the cover. He was right, but how could witches be real? And why would they curse a DVD?

"This needs to be burned." He said, handing her the disc.

"You want to burn it?" She asked, grabbing it cautiously.

"If we destroy it, it should stop him from coming back."

"Should?" she asked, fearing the reappearance of the masked man.

"Yeah we still have to find the bitch that did all of this." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. "Here, take it outside and make sure the whole thing gets destroyed." He handed her an old, rusty zippo lighter. "I'll uh…take care of the…"

He stopped. She knew he was talking about her parents.

"When people die this way, the safest thing to do is burn the bodies." He noted the shock on her face. "I'll explain it when we leave. You have to trust me." He said.

She nodded but still didn't understand.

"Why can't we just call…"

"The cops? You think they're going to believe what happened?" He said sternly.

She thought for a moment.

"Definitely not." She said. "But what do you mean leave? I can't go anywhere. I have a job. My last college course starts in seven hours. I have $20 to my name. My parents were just killed by a fictional character that disappeared in front of my eyes. You tell me it's witchcraft caused by a scratch mark on this DVD and that I have to burn it. Now I have to leave with you and you're going to burn the bodies? Do you know how insane you sound?"

"You have to trust me," he shouted.

"I'm sorry but you have to forget your job, your school, whatever. I'm sorry about your parents but I'm not going to let you stay here to get arrested or killed. I'll take you to the motel where my brother and I are staying until we get everything figured out. "

She nodded, trying still to comprehend the situation. Nothing that had happened or was happening made any sense. Now she was putting all of her trust in a stranger who said witches were real and wanted to burn the bodies of her parents. She tried her best to push her doubt away but the initial shock of everything was starting to make her desperate. She would rather stay alive than have something else appear and try to kill her.

"Ok, we have to get moving. Do you want me to wait and you can see them one last…"

She shook her head and stopped him.

"No. I don't think I could see them again. Not like that." She said. The fear had begun to wear off and now she was able to start processing things. She would never hear her father's voice again, yelling at the TV during football games. She would never wake up to the smell of pancakes and bacon on Sunday mornings when her mother made breakfast. She would never see them again and her last memory of them was forced to be bloody and horrific. Her eyes began to fill with tears but she pushed the wrenching sadness away. She wiped her eyes. He walked closer to her.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I know what it's like to lose your parents. But you have to do what they would want you to and that's live."

She nodded.

"Where are you going to do it?"

"I saw a field on the other side of your neighborhood. I think that's the best option." He told her.

"Ok. Cops check the barn near there a lot though. So be careful. Can I bring some of my things with me?"

"Yeah, of course." He said.

She turned away and headed towards the door.

"I'm sorry." He said.

"Me too." She replied.

And that was how Clara Farrow met Dean Winchester. A few hours later he helped her load her three bags into his Chevy Impala. They drove away from her childhood home. She sat in silence for a while, scared of the future and broken hearted. Dean explained everything like he said he would. Demons were real. Monsters were real. Nightmares were real. He explained his life as a hunter and then introduced her to Sam. She stayed with them in a shady motel as they searched and finally found the woman who was behind the witchcraft. She came to the realization that she wanted revenge on the things that went bump in the night. She wanted to be a hunter. After nights of argument, Dean and Sam agreed to teach her about the supernatural world they lived in. She would soon learn that the life of a hunter was sometimes worse than being dead.