What most don't know is that the world is dangling on the end of a string.

It has been, since the first rays of sun kissed the skin of the earth.

The string used to be a sturdy rope, stronger than the strongest steel, more indestructible than diamonds.

But over the years, it has grown thinner, falling taught with the weight of humanity and their sins.

The burden has piled up higher than any mountain, crawled deeper than any ocean,

Tendrils stretching farther with each person brought into this world, encompassing every square inch until there is nothing left.

By today the string has worn down to the width of a hair.

Tomorrow it will break

Warning: Very vulgar language ahead

Chapter 14- My Boy Builds Coffins

My father always taught me to kill monsters.

Saving people, hunting things. That was our business. My whole life, he burned the idea into my skin that it was my job to save the world. It took me so long to finally purge that toxic thought from my mind and accept that I couldn't save everyone, couldn't really save anyone, actually. It's kind of hard to find your place in the world when everyone dies in the end anyways. But eventually I realized that some of what my dad had taught me still rang true. Even if I couldn't save those already dead, I could protect their descendents from the creatures lurking in the dark, I could kill off every single one of their kind, I could wipe them out completely. I could save the future from the evils of our world. I could prevent another apocalypse from ever happening again. Monsters would one day become extinct and the world would finally be safe.

But now there was only one monster left, and it was lying unconscious in my back seat.

The world was dead. There was no one left to save.

I had floored it. The car turned so sharply that my head slammed against the window, wheels throwing up a wave of dust as they tried to gain traction. And I drove. I drove and I did nothing else. Because if I took my eyes off the road to glance at the growing pillar of flame in the rearview mirror, if I thought about the thing curled up on the upholstery behind me, if I let her screams fill the holes in my head, I would break. I would break and I would never be able to be fixed again. So I kept my eyes on the road. I went so numb I forgot to breath, and I drove.

Cas healed me. He brought me back from the brink of death, pieced me back together, built me anew with skin unscarred and pale and smooth, not charred by flame, not bloodied and bruised from trying to kill my brother with my own two fists.

He healed Sam too.

My eyes were attracted to the mirror like a magnet. The urge to look back and see the source of the golden glow that lit up the car interior was too strong. But my fear was stronger. I wasn't afraid of the fire. I was afraid of looking up to see Sam staring back at me.

I had no idea where we were going. Away, obviously. Just drive straight until you couldn't smell the smoke anymore. Push the accelerator until you can't hear the screams, until the world fades back to black and the silence settles back over the earth and everything is forgotten. Everything is gone.

"Dean?" Cas's voice was soft, so much smoother than the low growl it usually sat at in those days.

I glanced over at him in response. He was staring blankly out the front windshield, so still it was as if he had never made a sound.

I turned back to the road, careful to avoid a crate fallen across the faded yellow lines.

"It's so quiet." His voice was shaking. "Can you sing something, please?"

It was like the song was on the tip of my tongue, prepared for the moment. Without pause, I nodded and began singing, offbeat and off tune, the song my mother sang to me so many years ago, the song that lulled me into monster-free dreams and left a scar of warm nostalgia in my mind. And as I sang, Cas brought his head to his cupped hands, letting out a long, quivering sigh, and listened in silence.

And I sang until my voice went out.

I had no idea how long it had been. My hands had molded themselves to the steering wheel, having gripped it so tight for so long that I wasn't sure if I could ever remove them. I don't think that I blinked the entire time, not once slumping over in exhaustion, even after the fire had long disappeared from the rearview mirror. I don't think I can ever sleep again.

Cas hadn't spoken a word since he broke down so many hours before. He was frozen in place staring at the dashboard, but I could tell he wasn't there. He wasn't in the car with us. He was sucked so deep into the crevasses of his mind that I was scared I could never get him out. But I wasn't sure if I wanted to.

I jumped so far into the air when the engine let out a low cough that I hit my head on the ceiling. Dazed, I instinctively tried to pull over on the side of the road, scraping against the side of an 18-wheeler before swerving into the middle of the road and sputtering to a stop.

Frantically, heart in my throat, I turned the key in the ignition, pressing down on the gas, but the engine only rattled and choked, failing to turn over.

I probably would have sat there trying until the end of time or until my heart jumped out of my chest if Cas had not put his hand on mine, pulling it off the ignition and forcing me back into reality.

"The gas tank is empty." I could barely register his eyes on mine before his pointing hand directed my gaze to the fuel gauge, which was set pitifully on E.

It took me a few moments of heavy blinking and bated breathing to finally gain my bearings. It was dark. So dark. The fire was nothing more than a faint glow on the horizon, like the ring of sunlight around the moon during a solar eclipse, as if looking at it directly would leave you permanently blind.

Sam was still dead to the world. I was too afraid to look back, but I could tell by his shallow breaths. I kneaded my stiff hands on my thighs and stared out the window at the blank expanse that spread out before us, completely lost as to what to do next. I had been lost since day one, since we cracked open Pandora's box and let the Darkness out, but I always knew that if I could get through the next moment, then I could get through the next hour, then the next day. But now, I wasn't sure I could survive another breath of dead air, let alone the next hour. I had no idea what to do to stay alive anymore. Keep moving? Keep pushing forward? Where? Where was there to go? What was there to escape? What was the point of it all? Why were we still trying?

Cas, though, reserved, calm, all-knowing Cas, he seemed to know exactly that. He opened the door and stepped out with purpose, hands still shaking as he motioned for me to follow. I pushed open my door, heavy feet falling to the ground and hands going to my knees as I pushed back a wave of vertigo. He helped me up, dragged me out with a stern grip on my arm, slammed the door behind me. My vision tunneled as he ushered me forward, all I could see were his feet as mine fell out from under me, but he still seemed to hasten me along, panicked-like, almost. It was only when I looked back to see the slowly retreating form of the car did I realize what he was doing.

I stumbled to my knees as I attempted to release myself from his grip, but his hand was solid on my arm, painful almost, as he tried to yank me to my feet.

"Cas, stop," I slurred, holding up an affronting hand. My stomach was churning and I wasn't sure how much longer I could stay vertical, but I looked up at him all the same, and the terrified expression plastered on his face only made it all worse.

"Cas, please don't do this." I bit my lip to stop it from shaking as I once again looked back at the car, knowing my brother was still in there, tied up alone and cold and unconscious. I turned back to Cas, and his eyes were screaming, pleading desperately with me. "Cas, we can't leave him behind."

Looming over me like a lilting skyscraper, he shook his head, ever so slightly, lips pursed and eyebrows upturned hopelessly. "I cannot heal him. He cannot be saved."

"Don't say that!" I snapped through gritted teeth, pounding my fist against his knee. His grip on my arm slowly lessened until he deposited me on the ground, taking a step back. "We'll find a cure. There has to be one! Cas, we have to cure him!"

"Dean-"

"Goddammit, you son of a bitch, you can't just leave him!" I wobbled to my feet, bearing my fists at my sides. "You can't just run away when shit gets too shitty! You fucking dive in and fix things. You don't leave your brothers behind. You do everything in your ability to save them." There was a pause as I took a few heaving breaths. My next words were just a whisper.

"You don't give up on them, no matter what."

He stared me down for a moment. He looked positively sick. I had never seen him so pale. Wavering on his feet, he let out choked sob.

"Dean, there's nothing left-"

"Yes there fucking is! We can search every inch of the globe for a cure. We can look through every library in every country for a way to gank this fucking ass cloud. We can ask every surviving person who knows what the hell is going on and go from there. There is never nothing left to do."

I was seething now. He was broken. Tired. Done. I could read it in every line on his face, in every wrinkle of his coat. He couldn't keep going. He didn't know what to do. But now I did.

"Come on. Search the cars for gas. There has to be some left around here. I'll look for a gas can. Holler if you find anything." I shouldered off, striding away before he could say anything else.

It took us hours to find anything. There was a gas can in an old pickup about half a mile away. Nothing in it, though. The cars were empty. Not just the tanks, but the insides too. There weren't many cars out there, so I suspected that they must have been been abandoned after they ran out of gas, since there were no exits in sight and I didn't remember ever seeing any signs for gas stations, or anything. Desperate families weighed down with all their belongings must have trudged for miles to find civilization, only to be met with empty towns and rabbids walking the streets. Sucks that they didn't leave behind any canned peas or anything, because I was fucking starving.

Cas had poofed hours ago. Said he was going to search the cars a mile down, but the persistent whispering in my head told me he had left and was never coming back. I couldn't stay out of view of the car, scared that it was going to leave me too. I was growing hopeless. Car after car, coming up with zilch. I didn't know if I could take traveling by foot again. After those weeks of aimless wandering with psychos, running from the impending cloud of darkness, I wasn't sure if I could do it all again, in the dark this time. There was nowhere to go now. Nothing but the dim glow of fire at our backs and the endless sea of nothing ahead. At least the car threw the glare of the headlights on the road before us. I didn't even have a flashlight now.

I had my head stuck in the backseat of a trashy minivan when I heard it. A sickening thump!. I stood up straight, hand bracing myself on the sliding door, holding my breath, praying that I was just hearing things.

But there it was again.

And it was coming from the car.

Our car.

I was up and running in a second, heart beating in my throat again as I-

Everything slammed to a halt as I froze in my tracks.

He was there, in the window, looking at me.

He was awake.

He was screaming.

"Dean!" I could hear him straight through the glass. He was banging his head against it. "Dean, get me out! Get me out!"

His voice was shrill, hysterical in a way I hadn't heard since. . .since I was being attacked by the hellhounds. He was begging for someone to save me.

"Dean! HELP ME!"

I found myself walking to the car, standing outside the window. Whether it was out of morbid curiosity, I'm not sure, but I couldn't take my eyes off him.

"Dean, oh God, please, you have to help me! Get me out of here. Please, oh please. Let me go. I have to get out. I have to get out!" He was pleading as if it were for his life. He would never do that.

"Dean, get me out of here. Get me out before they get me. They're gonna get me, Dean. Dean? Dean, get me out!" He was staring right at me, eyes like a wounded puppy's, tone growing more agitated by the second, punctuated with the cracks of his skull against the window. "DEAN!"

And as he paused for a breath, confusion growing on his face, I could see a thin trail of dark blood drip from his nose.

I fell back in disbelief, hand going to my mouth as I stumbled away, despair twisting in my stomach as Sam suddenly snapped, rage growing in his eyes as I retreated from him.

"Dean? Dean, don't leave me here! Dean, you son of a bitch, don't you fucking leave me in here!" He resumed his banging, slamming his head so hard against the window, I was surprised it didn't break. "You selfish asshole! How dare you fucking leave me in here! You wouldn't save your own fucking brother-"

I was pressing my hands to my ears but I could still hear him. "You'd run off and fuck your angel slut but you wouldn't save me? Your fucking whore ass cares more about scoring it than saving me, than stopping the apocalypse! You know, if I knew you cared this little about me, I would have slit your throat on day one! I don't need your fucking-"

I looked up at the abrupt silence to see Cas knocking Sam out with his Vulcan nerve pinch, hand clamped over Sam's mouth as his eyes closed and his body went limp.

As he let Sam's body slump down in the seat, he looked down at the black blood smeared on his hands, breathing heavily as he finally met my eyes through the window, wilting forward wearily, visibly spent, and I could only stare back in horror.

Hello everyone. Sorry for however long it has been since I last updated. I really don't know. I haven't been having the best year so far. I was very sick for two weeks, and missed a whole week of school because I had pneumonia, and I have spent pretty much every free hour of the last week trying to catch up on all my work. But I am finally all caught up now, and I am feeling a lot better, so I am back to writing again, which I am really happy about. I missed it so much while I was sick. I came up with all these crazy fevered ideas for stories that I never wrote down, and I'm really regretting that, because they could have been really funny.

Also, if you really like apocalypse fics like this one, I would really recommend you read Bluebell by leevass, because it is a fucking amazing story and I love it very much. It's only three chapters in but I am already obsessed with it. It is soooooooo good.

And as always, remember that reviews are like precious antibiotics to a sick person. They will probably die a terrible and easily preventable death without them.