I watched the tracks I left in the dirt, wondering momentarily how fast they'd be erased. This was my out, and I'd taken it. Not that I'd had many people to say goodbye to.

My father hadn't even bat an eyelash at my retreating form. Did he know? How could he have? Yet the alternative was too much to take. Maybe he just didn't care.

I glanced at my cell phone, longing for it to ring. The one time it had I had prayed it was my best friend Alli.

It wasn't. It was a wrong number.

I guess I had pretty much ruined any chance of her forgiving me with my parting speech. I couldn't even drudge up enough guilt right now to care.

The sun beat down incessantly. Ninety-five degrees. Yet no humidity in sight. I wrinkled my nose at the thought, I was probably turning into a raisin from the inside out. Summer in Kansas this time of year should've rained humidity down upon us. I should be breaking a major sweat. Yet only a few small drops clung to my brow and at the base of my neck.

I swatted at them every few moments.

The train tracks under my feet slowly started to rise out of the mounds of dirt once engulfing them. I smiled wryly at the odd feeling of traction under my converse.

"This way to Hell, Carrow. You're on the right track." I muttered to myself.

I talk to myself. It's not an endearing quality I am told. My best friend, well, my ex-best friend would roll her eyes on repeat every time I replied, "Oh, nothing." To her asking me, "What did you say?"

Come to think of it she spent a lot of time rolling her eyes at me.

When the small store ahead rose up out of the waves of heat like an oasis I didn't know if I should let myself stop or keep going in penance.

It'd been a solid six weeks since I'd killed a man, felt his soul rip from his body and didn't even try to stop it. Six weeks of torment. The first two were spent in denial, the next contemplating death.

Feeling the cold muzzle of a gun pressed to your temple does things to your mind, clears it of anything foolish and forces you to face reality in the most raw ways.

It wasn't that I thought I didn't deserve to pull the trigger when I'd put the gun down. It was that I knew that was too easy a punishment for myself. I deserved to suffered. The way he did.

Dean Winchester. Even inside my own head the sound of it was horrible. I looked about as if a crowd would form, whispering his name as they dragged me away.

The worst part hadn't started showing up until week five. When bits of his memory had started surfacing inside me. First within dreams. Then flashes started plaguing my waking life too.

Packing all I owned in a small backpack, once I knew I didn't deserve anything, was easy. Saying goodbye to a life I never let myself get invested in, even more simple.

You never really learn how much you had until you let yourself come to terms with never seeing it again. But I'd give it all up, spend an eternity in Hell, just to find a way to get his soul back.

"And do what with it?" I mocked myself. His body was gone. Dead and buried.

I hadn't allowed myself the grief, yet it swam off shore in my mind, waiting for a chance to sneak up and drown me. Dean Winchester was dead, body six feet under, and it was my fault.

I had his eyes plastered to inside of my eyelids. It's why I never slept. Whenever I closed mine I was forever gazing into his. Green depths swallowing me whole. Blaming me.

I never needed to sleep again. Daylight swaddled me, scorching my throat with its heat and scratching my corneas with each grain of sand I kicked up.

Step after step. It never ended.

I didn't know where I was going. I didn't need to. My destination wasn't on this plane. I could only hope someone took pity on me and ended me soon. I couldn't do it myself, I was equal parts sadistic and equal parts weak. I wanted to die, but selfishly wished for it to happen at an others hands.

When my phone finally rang I was well past the gas station I hadn't let myself enter. Water? Who needs water in this heat?

I fumbled with the buttons, pushing more than one before getting the send button on the fourth try.

"Yes?" I croaked into the receiver.

"Stop walking." The voice sounded muffled, as if it was coming across a universe of static.

I squinted into nothing as my feet obeyed the odd command. "Who is this?"

"I think you should know. You killed me after all." My heart lurched at the words. But I didn't have time to respond before his face stenciled into the space in front of me, ratcheting off the heat waves like an electric current.

I dropped the phone in the sand at my feet. Dean's figure rippled again before settling on a solid form.

My eyes widened on his and I could tell instantly that he was surprised I could see him.

"Finally." He said, his voice rough and a bit angry. "I have been screaming at you for what felt like years."

I felt my mouth moving but no sound came out. I tried to focus on how I had last seen him, crumbling to the sidewalk like a rag doll. The man that stood in front of me now was anything but a rag doll. He was a good foot taller than me yet it wasn't the height that had me unnerved. It was the stance he now bore, as if he was prepared for a fight. Was I a threat? I looked down dumbly at my mussed clothes and dirty sneakers.

His lips formed a hard line and I couldn't stop myself from returning the frown.

"You need to help me." He looked down at my phone on the ground and made strange gesture as if he wanted to reach for it himself. "Pick up your phone. You have to call my brother."

I squinted past the sweat forming a haze over my vision. What was happening? Had I passed out? Was I dying of dehydration on the side of the road somewhere?

"I-I might be dead." I said stupidly. He looked taken back but merely shook his head and took a step towards me. I flinched at the gesture. After all the times I'd wished for him to haunt me just once more, this was too much.

"Hold up your hand." He barked impatiently. My hand moved upward towards him of almost its own accord. He slid his fingers across my skin and I instantly felt chilled. Yet no skin touched my own. I blinked at the non-contact.

He shook his head firmly. "If you were dead, I would be able to touch you. Feel you." Something dark flashed in his gaze and I tried to swallow past the dry dust in my throat.

He nodded at the ground again and my eyes followed his this time. I snatched at my phone suddenly as if it might be beyond my grasp at any moment. The whole moment left me feeling utterly stupid and I wasn't about to accept it. My whole life had seemed to be one freak show after another. I wasn't about to welcome this one with open arms.

I ran headlong back towards that gas station. Pills to swallow, a knife to cut my wrists, a gun! I needed it all now. Anything to end this train wreck before it crashed and left me bloody and bent.

There are some people who can live with anything, no matter the cost to themselves. I am sadly not one of those people. I wish I was, I truly do. But it's just not who I am, when the worst comes at me, I start looking for the nearest exit sign.

Now was one of those times.

My feet couldn't carry me faster. My throat burned. Sweat stun my eyes.

Still in the distance I could hear Dean's voice like a mosquito in my ear. I heard tone and texture but couldn't make out a single word. Maybe I didn't want to. Maybe I couldn't face reality.

Somehow I reached the store. Somewhere in the back of my mind I realized it had been abandoned long ago. Some time later I had a piece of dull glass in my hand I had broken off from the edge of an already busted window in the back.

Pain flashed pleasantly down my wrist as a small trail of blood welled up behind it. Immediately I knew the cut wasn't deep enough. I clenched at the glass harder, ready to end it here and now. Ready to join him in that cold world he'd touched me with.

I repositioned the glass shard at the top of my wrist and with all my might pressed down into my skin.