Twelve
There was darkness. Absolute and still, infinite and encompassing, it was the night of the world.
- - - - -
"Master, they were the only ones who were worth the fight in the end. We will never find a finer pair."
There were the whispers. Unheard by all except the two who spoke, the whispers traveled back and forth. They reflected upon the past events, so tragic and true.
The superior spoke in his genteel lilt, "For humans, they were above many in our years. It was nearly a pity to see them go, but such business had to be delivered."
"You might have spared their lives."
"And why?" Quiet cadence of voice. Controlled and even, completely dissimilar to the raging demon from before. "They were humans no matter how great their bravado and how little their fear. You know we could not have let them live as such. It would have destroyed us all. Destroyed our world."
"It was your decision to make, sir."
There was a pause, a soft sigh in the singing darkness and humming silence. "Dispose of the bodies before decay creeps in. Flesh does not belong here."
"To where?"
"Back with the living. Let the parents bury their children."
"Yes, sir."
- - - - -
The bodies were gently carried to Earth, where they were laid with tenderness beneath a tall tree that cast shadows under the evening sun. The older brother's blood had been wiped away, and the piercing gash through the younger's abdomen was smoothed over. Faces relaxed and eyes closed, they appeared to be sleeping, void of their fatal wounds to all who looked so that their death would forever stay a mystery to their human peers. Their stillness would not be questioned before the next morning, and they would remain in their prone positions until the dawn broke on that fateful day.
The crouching servant rose to his feet and watched the sun sink in the distance. It was a passionate inferno of heat and light, setting with the colors of blood and fire, and the man looked down at the brothers he had returned to their glorious world. While the sun blazed and burned, smearing dark shadows over the tanned and rough skin of these humans he had brought across, he knew that the shade upon their faces would not last forever. As he replaced his hood to cover his immortal features, he thought of how the sun would shine again for these special humans. Selfishly he wanted to steal another glance at the men who did not realize that their hour was quickly approaching, but he was forced to return to his world before his time ran dry as the master would not permit him extra moments for this simplistic task.
The earthly rapture would come soon enough.
- - - - -
In the darkness of the night, a wife flinched against her husband. Arms wrapped around one another, he felt her shudder and his eyes opened slowly to see hers staring back at him in horror. He frowned, creases lining the tender flesh of his forehead. "What's wrong?" he asked, as she released her embrace and climbed out of the bed.
She walked to the window of the room and looked out across the parking lot, flooded with the eerie illumination of a flickering streetlight. The world was still, dotted only by the sounds of crickets and the hiss of the rolling wind. Her husband, now worried, came from behind her and rested his large hands on her shoulders. "Mary?" he whispered. She didn't speak, and her breath rose in hurried hitches, and then fell quickly as she tried to calm her nerves. Underneath her husband's hold, her body shivered in fear.
"They're gone," she finally replied to the window. Her speaking, her breath, made a small cloud of condensation against the cool glass, and she traced the wooden pane with her fingers, outlining the paths of the stars.
"What do you mean?" His voice was low, deep and powerful, but also tender and soothing to his wife, who now had a small tear trickling over the side of her face. The single tear ran down the curve of her smooth cheek before dribbling off the edge of her chin and melting into her nightgown.
"The boys."
"But," John faltered, searching for words to comfort his wife, "they just went away for a little while. Sam…yes. But Dean? No, not Dean. He'll be back."
However, Mary shook her head, golden hair trembling with her body, and she curled her arms around herself, around her abdomen where she carried her sons so many years ago. For a moment, she felt the kick of their fetal feet within her, and the smell of their skin when they were babies. She heard their laughs, but she also heard their cries emerging from womb and carrying them away. Pressing her lips tightly together and holding back her tears, she turned to meet John's eyes.
"No," she whispered, her voice hollow and chilled, "they're dead. Our sons are dead."
- - - - -
The voices, a cacophony of pitches and timbres, chattered amongst one other when they saw the bodies leave their world. Such an event had never been done before, and they knew the laws had been shattered. Most of souls had been gone too long to remember how to be human and had witnessed the scene with only detached shock that an atrocity as such could be occurring now. But, those who remembered their human emotions had wept when the brothers had died, the tragedy that it was, and they were now afraid, not only for the human boys, but for themselves as well. With such rules broken, they did not know what was to happen.
- - - - -
"Did you take them back?"
"Yes."
The man was pleased with his subordinate's answer, and he pressed his hands, washed of the mortals' blood, together as if in prayer. "Good. And they appear human again?"
"As if sleeping."
"Then no one will know that they are dead at all. It may take days for their fellow humans to even notice their presence. After that, their death will be unknown forever." His voice was calm, soothing to the ear if one had fallen into his entrancing intonation. There was no indication that he had murdered two innocents in cold blood not so long ago. "The greatest supernatural event of their times, and they are not alive to solve it. How simply ironic."
"Yes, sir." He was agreeing only because he knew that he was expected to, not because he believed the master's words.
"I hated to see them die as such, but there was no other way to win. You understand that, don't you?"
"While I understand it, there is no truth to be held."
Flash of confusion, perhaps fear in the one who possessed so much power in his world. However, he did not turn and talked to the lands below him, paying no heed to his sudden worry. "What do you mean?"
"No one has ever died here, have they?"
"Of course they have. Every mortal here is dead, as they call such a state."
"That is not what I mean," the gatekeeper answered to the other's back, bowing his head away from the god. He thought of the sunset before he spoke again, that beautiful dazzling sunset and how even more glorious the sunrise would be the next morning. "The soul has never fled the flesh here."
"Normally there are not bodies in the underworld. So for one to be extinguished? No, this is the first occasion."
"Then what of their souls, sir?"
"They will return here. It is the proper order," the god responded. In all his might and brilliance, he could not see where the gatekeeper was leading him and that he had fallen into the ploy of his servant.
"Are you confident in this?"
"Of course. The souls will go to the world the farthest from their bodies—" The god halted his words, realizing the terror that would possibly occur. "No," he whispered, turning to face the gatekeeper, who smiled back at the master.
"Oh, yes, sir." He lifted his eyes to the horror-stricken face of the deity who had committed his own undoing through the shed of two mortals' blood. "They've already won."