Thirteen
He heard Sam's voice rising on the wind, a plaintive cry stemming from primal horror over what was happening, and yet Dean continued into the darkness that wrapped its arms around him and welcomed him into its company. When he looked at the sky, he sensed, rather than saw, the rising sun that would begin the day of the new moon and ultimately decide whether he lived or died.
It would not be much longer now.
At a speed that no human could sustain for the same distance, Dean moved across the sand with the realization that he needed to return to the cave one last time to speak with the superior pair. He knew what was required of him, and he intended to perform his fatal task to the fullest degree. If he had to kill, then he would kill. He would take the offered body back to the cave, where the new sacrificial blood would ensure the monsters' survival for another month. Then, at last, he too would be allowed to drink of the masters' blood and gain both their immortality and freedom from earthly pains.
He thought back on all that he had been told when the masters had first spoken to him. Yes, he had been older than the abused children they typically saved, but this was something they were willing to overlook. After all, there were no constricting laws for the ages of children they saved. The young were more easily accepting of the idea of salvation from a greater power, and their pain was often the greatest. While the superiors would live forever, their strength was wavering after the continual giving of blood to increase their reptilian numbers. They had chosen Dean to specifically join the powerful ranks that only the two of them had occupied for hundreds of years. In choosing him over a child, they had chosen one to stand beside them, instead of below.
When Sam and Dean had first come to the city what seemed like years ago, the brothers were still recovering from the violent poltergeist attack that had killed the young mother. With the mother's death hanging so heavily on Dean, who had heard her screams from his trapped position in the basement of the home, the present had merged with the past to propel him into his own pain of losing a mother. The creatures immediately sensed the overwhelming pain that suffocated his senses. He was no abused child of his parents. He was an abused child of the world.
So, the superiors sent one of their followers to come into his motel room and steal him away, not counting on Sam to shoot at the one they sent. Even though Dean had not yet looked upon their faces, he was already connected with them, for he sensed their world and deeds when he touched the scale that had been left behind. He heard the children that they had killed crying, and he heard the children crying who had been abused by their parents. The images flooded into his brain and slowly began to nibble away at his resolves to eventually break him down piece by piece. Feeling Dean's immense pain and confusion, the creatures could not turn away again, so they returned for a second time, bringing with them not one, but two followers, in case the younger brother tried to fight again.
The second time, the monsters were able to overpower Dean, who consciously did not understand the favor they were doing him. But their words had already slipped into the cracks of his mind, and while they were still foreign syllables whispering in his ears, the message was already planted within him. The younger brother was knocked unconscious during the brief attack, which was a blessing in its own right as his devotion to Dean was overwhelming and often undeterred. Then, with Dean immobilized as well, they took him back to the cave where they drank of his blood before presenting him to the masters.
The leading pair had then dipped their heads low and drank from the blood of his heart until Dean slipped out of consciousness from the sheer shock of the situation wrapped around him. When he had awoken later, naked and cold, he had been alone in the cave in a small room where they intended for him to stay and heal. However, he grabbed his bloodied clothes and dressed himself before stumbling out of the blackened tunnels into the bright sunlight. It had not been long until he had fainted from the lack of blood and fatigue on the desert sand. Unlike the children who had stayed in the cave to undergo their transformation from human to reptilian creature, Dean had fled—much to the monsters' surprise. Before they could go to him, Dean's unknowing mortal brother had taken him within his own arms and carried him back to the world that Dean was slowly being separated from.
But this was no matter. The seed had already been planted in Dean's mind when they drank of his blood. With each tooth and nail, with each tear and scream, the seed took root when their saliva and his blood mixed. As the time passed, the shadows began to grow until they were at last able to whisper to him during the night. Perhaps he would have been able to fight them before, but with the darkness looping its tendrils in him, he was slowly breaking down to their will.
When Dean returned to the cave voluntarily and left Sam in the middle of the night, the creatures had allowed him to ask questions for hours on end so that he would be able to fully understand the complexity of his situation. It was how he came to learn the truth of the matter beyond Sam's researched assumptions.
As Sam had determined through his readings, there had been killings across the entire country and some farther away that had not been recorded by detailed coroners. If the monsters lived in the North, they were only active during the warmer weather due to their cold-blooded nature. In the winter months, they hibernated far underground and rose during the summer to gather the abused children and offer them a chance at greater salvation. Although there were many smaller bands dotted here and there throughout the states, the two masters of the entire species resided not far from the very motel where Sam now scrambled for weapons of defense.
It had always been the children, the superiors explained, because the children could never fully get past their pain, and no matter how many years it had been, the hurt was always so sharp and so fresh. While adults suffered as well, and the monsters were able to recognize this when they passed the agonized elders, such pain was too clouded and jumbled with the complexities of adulthood. There were ulterior motives, such as wanting the pain for sympathy, deceit, bribery, and other feelings the creatures could not name. A child's pain was only pain.
When Dean had been told this, he asked why, if the creatures only went after children, they had not taken him when he was a child. They had looked away, embarrassed, it seemed, and explained that his father's devotion and love had muted the terrible death of his mother within their family dynamics. With John's protection so suffocating and strong, Dean's pain of losing his mother had only been a glimmer, and the loss of his content father after the death of Mary was obscured by Dean's military dedication to his father.
And then Sam had left with stinging words that reeked of rejection, and that disappearance had pulled away some of the power of the family that Dean had so strongly believed in. But, there had still been John, and even though Sam's leaving was constantly a fresh wound in his side, Dean had continued through the gray mornings and black nights under the assumption that if John were to ever leave, it would not be for long.
Then John left.
And stayed gone.
Sam returned unwillingly only because his girlfriend had been ripped away from him, and he desired bloodshed to fuel the revenge that would quell his pain, not because he searched out his older brother like Dean had searched for him. Sam, however loyal and caring to Dean, did not want to remain in his brother's ways forever, and so his return to California was inevitable.
So, stripped of his father, pressed with his younger brother's eventual departure, and caught in the images of his mother that arose from the previous hunt, Dean was vulnerable and bleeding, ripe with pain.
He had been perfect for them.
Pulling himself out his memories, Dean now paused at the entrance of the cave and looked behind him to ensure that Sam hadn't been following him all this time. Dean crouched and slipped through the entrance, able to see where he was going even in the dark tunnels. His senses were rapidly increasing as time went by, and it would not be long before he was equally as powerful as they were.
He passed by the other lizards who eyed him suspiciously, but they made no move towards him. Even though he had not yet been entirely transformed, they already recognized him as being one of their own. He entered the superiors' chambers, and the leading pair both looked up as though they had been expecting his arrival.
"You have not yet killed," the male said to him.
"I know," Dean replied. "I needed to see you both again."
"We do not doubt your strength," the female responded, looking to the male who stood slightly behind her. "You are more powerful now, even in a remainder of your human state, than many of those who have been completely enveloped within us." When Dean didn't answer, she continued, "Follow me. I think there's something you need to see."
The male gave a glance towards Dean, then turned and walked in an opposite direction, as the other two went down one of the dark corridors. The female led the way, her massive wings gently fluttering as she moved in long, powerful strides with Dean close behind. After some time of walking through the darkness where the water dripped in echoed clips, they entered an illuminated chamber with high rising walls and a curved ceiling. Pale light trickled down from above and cast tall shadows on the walls.
In the center of the room, there was a large structure that appeared to be a crude, alien fountain, taller than Dean with a dark liquid slowly trickling over its sides. The female gave a slight nod with her scaled head in the direction of the statue, and Dean moved forward hesitantly, unsure of what he would discover. Once he was close enough, he was able to see that the level of the liquid was extremely low and probably would not last much longer. When he tilted his head to the side, the liquid flashed red in sudden illumination, and he knew that this was the blood sacrifice they needed to endure.
"We drink from this every morning," the creature said from behind Dean. Her voice was light, unhurried and smooth with a lyrical quality around her words. "We drink, and all that the two of us have created, live another day. If we do not drink, we die, and so all we have created, dies as well."
"Me too?"
"No." She sighed heavily with the admittance of the truth. "You would not die, as you have not drank of our blood yet. You will die only if you do not give us the blood. We must survive one way or another. To humans, killing a crime, a grave injustice of mortality, but it is the only way we will see another sunrise."
"Yes."
"Dean," the female continued, moving closer to him to stand beside him. She smelled of all things natural and wholesome that he had ever known. It was, he realized, the scent of his mother, and the shred of rationalization he had left wondered if this was to pull him deeper to them. "We know that your brother tried to speak to you."
"How did you—"
"We see all that you see, and hear all that you hear. Ever since we drank of your blood, we have been connected to you, and thus know all that you do. As your powers grow, so does our connection with you. It is how we find those that we must kill, no matter how far they run. We saw the conversation between your brother and you."
"My brother is irrelevant."
"Do you still love him?"
Dean turned towards her, eyebrows narrowing in confusion. "What?" His voice was a raspy choke of surprise.
"You are changing rapidly, but there is still part of you that is human. I do not know what this 'love' is, but I know that you humans value it greatly. I know that it has more power over you than anything else on this earth does. It is obvious that he still loves you as his older brother, and he has already decided that if he has to die to save you, he will."
"He doesn't understand anything. Least of all, me."
"Perhaps," she admitted, and she walked closer to the fountain to dip a scaled claw into the blood. When she lifted her finger, the liquid dripped off the end in tiny, bloated droplets that hit the surface and rippled around the edges. "But, as you are strong, so is he. You are not a child, like so many of those we have saved before you. The children had no one who would fight for them as he is willing to fight for you."
"He left our family. He left me." Dean shook his head angrily. "No. No, he is only human. Just a human. That is all."
The female nodded and gazed at the fountain, allowing several long moments of silence to pass between them. She could hear the truth in Dean's words and knew that his mind was already falling under their spell, but there was still a glimmer of the boy who had carried his brother out of a burning building left within. "You do not have much time," she finally whispered. "The sun approaches."
"How long will you give me?"
"We will come for you minutes before the sun rises. If you have the blood, you shall live forever. If you do not, we shall take your own."
"All right."
"Hurry," she replied, turning her back towards him. "We will be waiting."
With that, Dean turned and exited the cave with the knowledge resting on him of what he had to do to see the next sunrise. His morals were twisting away under the pressure of the creatures, and underneath his fingertips, glinting talons had already begun to protrude with deadly intentions. Every minute that passed signaled the closing of his future.
