Chapter 4 – The Devil You Know
"Why didn't you try to find a goddamn flashlight, Sam?!"
At the sudden sound of the voice yelling in his right ear, Sam started, almost tripping over the chair by the desk in surprise. Recovering quickly, he shot a glare at the man-shaped fallen angel beside him as he realised that Lucifer had made a comeback.
The hallucination gave him a reproachful glare in return, and then his eyes turned upwards and he raised his hands in mock apology. "Sorry, dad, didn't mean to take your name in vain. Well, actually I did, but Sammy…" He then turned his gaze back to Sam and looked at him in annoyance. "Why didn't you do what I told you to?" He looked weirdly like a pissed off parent scolding their child.
Sam didn't answer him. "Glad you've showed up again," he snarled sarcastically, "I was lost without you constantly yelling in my ear."
Lucifer huffed. "Well if you'd done what I told you instead of just running off wherever you felt like, maybe you would have avoided that unpleasant little trip through the ceiling. If I have to yell to get it through your thick skull then I will: I'm trying to help you. Do what I tell you and you might just make it out of this."
"Yeah?" Sam challenged, suddenly brandishing the note at him. "Then what's this? What have you done to Dean? What are you trying to make me think you've done to Dean?"
Lucifer just shrugged. "I don't know. You're brother's not got anything to do with me."
"Quit pretending you aren't the one who's doing all this Lucifer, and just tell me what your game is." Sam had advanced closer to the angel and was towering over him, his tone angry as he tried to demand answers, but Lucifer just stared coolly back. Trying to intimidate the source of all evil on Earth who was only just an illusion in the first place was the most pointless thing Sam could have attempted.
"This has got nothing to do with me, Sam," he replied, sounding quite bored. "There's something else at work here, and I actually quite want you to survive it. It wouldn't be much fun if something else tried to take you away, so your choices are to listen to me, or face up to something worse on your own. Now which is it gonna be?"
It's a trick, Sam kept telling himself. He's lying. But it was hard to believe that with any certainty when he had so much to lose. Now Dean was involved (possibly, at least) and if Sam didn't try and doing something about all this then his brother was at risk too. Why or how the Devil was helping him, Sam didn't know, but nor did he think he could handle this on his own. Not in his current state.
Sam shook his head as he tried to think. "Then what's going on? How do you know what it is if it's got nothing to do with you?"
"Your subconscious has figured it out," came the casual reply, "And I'm just your subconscious finding a way of expressing it to you, if you wanna believe that. So you'd better listen to me when I tell you you need to find a flashlight."
This still didn't make sense, but Sam decided to hedge his bets and play along. "Alright, fine," he agreed, "Where? And what am I gonna use it for when all the lights are still on?"
"That won't last," the angel replied darkly. "The power's gonna go soon. Why don't you try the desk drawer?"
He said the last sentence in a much brighter tone before stepping out of the way to let Sam reach the drawers, and Sam looked at him a little uncertainly before following his advice and opening the top one in the desk. It was almost empty except for, as predicted, a single flashlight, and next to it a couple of batteries rolled along the bottom of the drawer as Sam pulled it open. Before picking the items up he cast a glance at Lucifer, who was giving him an 'I told you so' look.
"Yeah okay, fine," Sam conceded reluctantly, checking that the flashlight was working before slipping the spare batteries into the still damp pockets of his trousers, along with the slightly scrunched up note. He was about to shut the drawer again when he noticed there was another item hidden away at the back, and he reached in to pick it up and examine it. It was a small steel key, the right size for any ordinary sized door, and had no label to indicate what it was meant to open. "What's this for then?" he asked Lucifer.
The only response he got was a shrug. "I don't know. You might want to hold onto it though. It could be useful."
Sam glared at him, wondering how the angel could somehow know exactly where to find the flashlight, but was being determinedly unhelpful when it came to explaining what the key was for. Not granting him a response, Sam slipped the key into his pocket too, agreeing that it probably would be useful later on.
He was about to try exiting the bedroom now, continuing his search for a way out of the strangely empty hospital, but just as he walked past the hallucination to try the door, Lucifer had something else to add. "Don't worry about drying out, Sam. There's going to be more water later on, and you won't like what's in it."
That sounded cryptically ominous, and Sam was about to express his annoyance at how vague and unhelpful the Devil was being, but as he glanced back round to tell Lucifer to either explain what he was talking about or just stop talking, it seemed that the illusion had vanished again. Sam wasn't sure if he was pleased about that or not.
He turned his attention back to the door and tried the handle, but it stiffly refused to move, not turning enough to get the door open. Sam was almost about to start panicking at being trapped in a locked room again, but then he remembered he had the key. He supposed it would make sense that it was for this room. He fished in his pocket for the metal device and then tried it in the door, relieved to find that it turned easily with a click. That appeared to have worked then. Although he'd already found its use, Sam then took the key from the lock and pocketed it again, considering the possibility that it would be a universal key for many of the doors in the hospital. If that was the case, he would almost definitely be needing it later.
Sam then re-tried the handle, this time relieved to find that it opened smoothly, and pushed the door cautiously open, wondering what would be on the other side. As the door swung open, it was revealed that beyond it there a hospital corridor, as Sam had expected, but he hadn't anticipated it being almost pitch black. The only light allowing him to identify the hall was that streaming in from the room behind him. "Okay then…" Sam muttered softly to himself, feeling fear begin to creep up his spine again. He wasn't afraid of the dark, but this was most definitely unnerving. It seemed that Lucifer had been right about him needing the flashlight.
Raising the flashlight in question and gripping it in his left hand, Sam switched it on and then shone the beam out into the darkness in front of him. It cast a small, dim circle of light into the darkest spaces of the hall, but it was better than nothing. Armed only with his faint light source, Sam cautiously took a step beyond the threshold of the door.
The moment that his foot hit the floor on the other side, a strange sensation came over him. It was almost as if he was weightless, feet glued to the ground while the rest of his body tried to rise up, and there was a whistling sound ringing in his ears. Panic quickly washed over him, and a moment later, his already darkened field of vision cut to absolute pitch black.
