Animals trapped behind bars at the zoo need to run rampant and free.

Emptiness.

That was all there was.

Nothing but black emptiness.

The only light came from herself, but it was dimming. She looked at her body and noticed the cracks that had begun forming again while the two of them were torturing Alastair all those years ago.

Until the first of many memories began to form around her. Her memories from the past few months. Except, this time, she was watching it outside her body. Like she was having an out-of-body experience.

The first memory she was seeing was the night she made a deal to bind her soul to his. She watched her past self bury the traditional box right in the middle of the crossroad. She was too far away to hear the conversation that led up to the kiss that sealed the deal, but she saw that and the demon grab her hand in his after it was broken. Her past self gasped in pain, and the light trailed up her arm, moving quickly toward the DW scar.

The scene changed to the Bunker that same night. She heard the door open and turned to lock eyes on her past self, noticing how she rubbed her hand over that scar. She glanced down at her body, noticing the light that came from herself had dimmed even more.

Familiar footsteps echoed in the formerly silent Bunker, making her past self's head shoot up and notice past-Dean walking toward her. Her hand quickly dropped from her scar.

This time, she was close enough to hear the conversation. She even noticed the desperation hidden in his eyes, like he was begging her to say she did not sell her soul to make sure that, if he died, she died instead. That desperation was almost very well hidden by anger and worry, but she could still see it even now.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"I just went for a walk. That's it," she lied.

Dean grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and pushed her into the wall closest to the two of them. "Tell me the truth, Aline! I felt like something was being bound to my..." He paused, realization sinking in. "How long do you have?"

She was silent until, "Same amount of time you have, Dean."

"Why did you do it?"

"Why'd you take the Mark?"

That stopped him for a few seconds. "It's a means to an end."

"If it's a means to an end, I'm not letting you go down alone."

"Why?"

"Because I need you."

The scene changed once again, this time to the warehouse where the two of them confronted Metatron for the last time. Past-Sam was trying to pick both her past self and past-Dean to get them the hell outta there so they could get to the hospital. She knew that would not be the case.

"You gotta leave us and get out of here, Sam," her past self said weakly, "before he comes back."

"Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Just shut up and save your energy, alright? Oh, man. We'll stop the bleeding. We'll—we'll get you both a doctor or—or I'll find a spell. You both are gonna be okay," past-Sam insisted, his voice quaking with fear and sadness. He took their hands and pressed them to their chests to keep the clothes in place.

"Listen to me. It's better this way," past-Dean stated. "For me and Aline."

"What?!"

Dean gasped. "Our Marks. They're making us into something neither of us want to be."

"Don't worry about the Marks. We'll figure them out later. Just hold on, okay?"

The scene flashed forward to her's and Dean's last moments. Past-Sam was struggling to carry the both of them, trying to save them like they both saved him countless times.

"Sam," past-Aline gasped out. "Hold up. Hold up."

Aline watched as he sat them both down on a piece of equipment. She walked closer to the three of them.

"We've got to say something to you."

"What?" past-Sam questioned.

Past-Dean rested his hand on Sam's shoulder, but, as he spoke, he moved it to hold his head. "I'm proud of the three of us," he stated. "We both are." He didn't take his eyes off his brother's. "This is who I am," he sang to past-Aline.

"This is who I am," she sang back weakly as her hand grasped Dean's without looking away from Sam.

They both leaned on each other as their eyes closed for the last time.

As the scene changed again, Aline sang, "Take me as I am."

It was surreal seeing her own death, but, for some reason, she couldn't bring herself to care that she saw past-Sam crying and shouting their names. In fact, she felt herself grinning at his broken voice. Another glance down at her body revealed that her light's brightness had receded to the level of an almost-dead flashlight.

The setting this time was the cafe where she and Dean saw the video of Metatron healing that woman who got hit by a car. She found herself sitting one table away from theirs, watching her past self and past-Dean watching that very video on a smartphone.

She remembered that she and Dean had both ordered double cheeseburgers with everything on it and lots of onions (At first, they ordered coffee like usual, but Crowley, of all people, gave them a little speech about wasting the time of the poor waitress). Truth be told, neither of them had been really hungry anymore.

Once the video was finished, they both looked up at past-Crowley.

"When was this taken?" past-Dean inquired.

"A couple of hours ago. Muncie, Indiana," past-Crowley replied.

"What did he whisper in her ear?" her past self asked.

"Exactly."

She watched her past self and past-Dean move in unison, grabbing the laptop and the First Blade before standing up.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're both not gonna eat your food?"

"Not hungry," they both responded simultaneously.

Once the black emptiness returned, she heard a familiar voice echo all around her.

It was Crowley.

"Listen to me, Dean Winchester and Aline Peverell, what you're both feeling right now—it's not death. It's life-a new kind of life."

Aline looked down at her body once more and watched the rest of the light disappear with the exception of her DW scar, which was burning a bright red color.

*~*~*~*SPN*~*~*~*

Crowley stood by Dean's and Aline's unmoving bodies. He had placed the First Blade into Dean's right hand and laid them both on Dean's chest. His eyes flicked between both of their faces, just waiting for the story he'd heard about to come true. It took the two hunters leaving their cheeseburgers back at that cafe to let himself begin to believe.

"Open your eyes, Dean and Aline. See what I see," he continued. "Feel what I feel. And let's go take a howl at that moon."

Just seconds after he finished, he watched as both Dean's and Aline's eyes opened.

But their eyes weren't candy apple green and blue.

They were black.

Predators live by the prey they pursue. This time, the predator's me!