It was harder and harder for Sam to keep the dreams a secret. It felt like the more he fought them, the more difficult they were to drive away. Sam couldn't help the fact that almost any moment of sleep he grabbed ended in a nightmare. Sam knew that Dean was concerned, but he'd been able to hold him off a little. Dean still thought the dreams were about Jess. In a way Sam wished they were.

Sam suppressed a shudder as he stared out the window. The last time this had happened the dreams had foretold Jessica's death. In a desperate attempt to hold on to some semblance of a normal life Sam tried to ignore the warnings, hoping that if he didn't give weight to the dreams they wouldn't come true. Now he knew how wrong he was and he was determined not to let it happen again. He couldn't lose Dean; not like that. This time he would be prepared.

Sam pretended to stare at the scenery flying by outside the window; in actuality he was replaying the scene from his nightmare. It wasn't difficult; the images were etched in his memory. Dean was tied to a table in the middle of a small room - Sam shuddered when his brain translated the image of the table and came up with "alter". Surrounding the table (not alter, alter implies sacrifice) were neatly ordered piles of wood and kindling. Every time he had the dream when Sam realized Dean was trapped in the center of what would become a bonfire his heart started hammering in his chest. He couldn't let Dean die like that…but in his nightmares it happened every time.

The thing that snatched Dean was hiding in the shadows beyond him. The dialogue they exchanged was never anything Sam remembered; he supposed that talk was less important than action. In the dream he never got a good look at the creature who was threatening Dean; it seemed to have a human shape, but never came far enough out of the shadows for Sam to be sure. It didn't matter to Sam anyway – he was far more focused on determining how to free Dean than subduing the creature. And he thought he figured out something important.

These dreams that haunted Sam were not run of the mill nightmares; there was something more to them, something prophetic. And because they were coming from somewhere inside himself, Sam found that the more he investigated the images in the dream, the more power he had over them. He could see the images of the room and the people in it, but he could also step outside himself and see what he was doing as well. It was when he did one of these "out of body" investigations that he realized that he was holding a weapon when he entered the room; he knew in his heart that that knife was the key to freeing Dean. But it wasn't a knife he recognized, and he had no idea where he was going to get it.

Unbeknownst to Sam, as the miles slipped away on the highway and he examined the messages from his dream, he had fallen into a true sleep, and the dream had started again.

The woods around him were silent. The creature had passed this way probably more than twenty minutes ago, and the animals that lived in the forest still hid in fear- it took a powerfully evil creature to cause that great a disturbance.

Sam tightened his grip on the hilt of the knife in his right hand. He was close; he could feel it.

The ramshackle wooden house in the clearing had a feeling of decay and long disuse. Dean was in there. Sam approached cautiously, but he wasn't expecting any surprises. The big trap was at the center, and he was walking right into it.

Without knowing how, Sam knew to head for the basement. This all had such a familiar feel to it. His pulse started to quicken. The hilt of the knife became slick in his sweaty palm. He headed for the small room at the rear of the basement; his path lit by sporadically placed candles.

Sam hesitated in the doorway – before him was the scene of him worst nightmare. Dean was tied to a table in the center of the room. All around the table lay stacks of wood and kindling. It occurred to Sam that all of the broken furniture he'd walked past in the house was just as combustible as the wood surrounding Dean; the whole house was a firetrap…and wasn't that the point?

Sam wanted to run, he knew what was going to happen, and his overwhelming fear of fire had him quaking inside; but he would not give in to his fear. He tried to work up some bravado while he exchanged words with the creature hoping to buy himself and Dean some time so he could get closer and free Dean from the ropes that bound him.

But he wasn't fast enough. He wasn't smart enough. The creature calls his bluff, drawing an ancient sword, not to use on Dean, but to call up the fire. Not the warm and comforting yellow and orange blaze of a marshmallow roasting fire; no, this was a white-hot, incandescent fire instantly consuming all of the wood surrounding Dean.

Sam is frozen in fear, unable to move away from or toward the flames. The creature whispers something, but Sam cannot make it out over the roar of the fire. He can hear Dean yell to him, but all he can do in response is scream his brother's name. "DEAN!" Dean's cries become frantic and anguished as the flames consume him.

In the dream, though not when he wakes, Sam understands why he cannot leap into the fire to rescue Dean; the leap calls for a sacrifice – not just of the body, but of the soul. On a level he's never tapped into Sam understands that the fire will change him, and accepting that change is more terrifying than death itself. It's the one part of the dream he needs to take with him, but he never does.

Sam jerks awake careening forward. At the very last second he stops himself from screaming Dean's name and manages to make it more of a guttural yell. A familiar hand from the left side of the car grabs Sam's left shoulder.

"Sammy? You okay?"

Sam doesn't acknowledge the childhood nickname; he's too consumed with trying to calm his racing heart and control his breathing. He just nods and leans back against the seat with his eyes closed. I have got to find that knife.