I feel like a ton of bricks has been dumped on me. I groan and slowly open my eyes. Looking around me, everything is dark. I can barely make out anything except the vague outlines of shapes. I try to push myself over, to sit up. It's harder than I'd thought it would be, but not impossible. My muscles are all sore like I've been running for hours or something, but all I can remember is entering the general store and getting separated from Dean and Lindy. And wasn't there a voice?
"Dean?" I call out cautiously, slowly climbing to my feet.
No reply. I look around the floor nearby and search my pockets, and although everything I brought with me seems undisturbed, my flashlight is gone. I vaguely remember dropping it. Still, despite the fact that I hurt all over and don't know where I am, nobody seems to be here. So, I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, until I can make out some of the shapes close by. When nothing continues to happen, I carefully move forward, exploring this dark room. There are shelves along the walls with old, dusty objects on them. The floor seems to be dirt. I keep one hand on the wall and move along the perimeter of the room until I reach the spot from which I started. I take stock of what I know and begin to suspect that I may be in the cellar of the store, the one with human fingernail scratches along the underside of the door. But where's the demon and where are the people?
"Sam…" a voice whispers in my ear. I spin around, but no one's there, "Sam…"
I can't help, but demand, "What? What do you want?"
The voice seems to chuckle, then takes on a different quality. Now the voice that whispers in my ear is hauntingly familiar, "Sammy…"
I freeze when I hear that voice. I don't want to turn around. I'm afraid that this time there will be someone standing behind me and that I know who it'll be. But I can't seem to stop myself. It feels like a dream as I slowly turn around, one of the millions of dreams I've had since I was a baby, for as long as I can remember. I turn around and standing behind me is my mom.
"Mom?" I ask, afraid to move lest I cause her to disappear.
She looks beautiful. Just like she looked in the photos of her that Dean used to show me when Dad wasn't home. She's really pale, though. Like she hasn't seen any sun in a long time. Like she's sick or something.
"Hello, Sammy." she says and her voice sounds far away, like a whisper.
I feel like I can't move and like I may explode at the same time. Part of me wants to run over to her and hug her and part of me wants to keep my distance, knowing this must be a trick. My mom is dead. A demon took her and she's not coming back.
"Nothing to say to me, Sammy?" she asks, the corner of her mouth twisting up in an amused smile that reminds me of Dean.
I shake my head, not because I don't have anything to say to her. God, I have so much to say to her! I never even got to know her. But, I'm speechless and my emotions are threatening to overwhelm me.
"That's okay, Sammy. I have something to say to you." she says and suddenly the smile on her face disappears. She suddenly looks furious, "How could you?"
"What?" I ask, surprised. What is she talking about? Almost without knowing it, I take a step back from her in her anger.
"How could you kill your own mother?" she demands, her voice suddenly surrounding me like a scream coming from everywhere at once. I resist the urge to clamp my hands over my ears.
I'd been expecting something like this from the demon, but to actually hear her say it is too much. I shake my head vehemently, but tears are already leaking from my eyes. She couldn't possibly think I would do that on purpose, could she? I start to deny it, but her eyes burn at me, stealing the words from my mouth. She's more than a head shorter than me, but I feel like somehow she's towering over me. I feel like I'm only a kid again.
"I almost died to bring you into this world, Sam, and this is how you repay me! I will burn forever because of you!" she screams at me.
"Mom, I didn't mean…" I start to say, trying to make her understand, but she cuts me off and really I'm not sure if I believe the excuse myself anyway.
"You were a curse from the beginning, Sam." she growls, glowering at me, "A curse on me, my family, and everyone else you touch. Don't think I don't know about Jessica."
"Jessica…" I can hardly say her name, it hurts too much.
"How could you, Sam?" she repeats the accusation, "After you knew what happened to me, how could you let her get close to you? You let an innocent girl burn forever just because you were lonely. You knew, and you let it happen anyway."
I keep shaking my head, but her words sting like a whip and bring more tears to my eyes, making her image blur before me. What she's saying isn't true, it can't be. I would never let anything bad happen to Jessica if I could have stopped it. I didn't know. I didn't know it would happen again.
But no matter what I tell myself, the doubt is there. It's always been there. I'd had nightmares about what happened to Mom right before the demon took Jess. Why didn't I think to go to her, protect her?
"You're a curse, Sam. You've never been anything but a curse. All you've ever done is bring pain to me and my family." Mom yells and she's crying, too.
"I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't mean to." I tell her, unable to deny what she's saying, but wishing against all hope for her forgiveness anyway.
I reach out to her, but she backs away, hissing "Don't touch me. You're not my son."
She keeps backing away and as she does so, she's fading away. I cry out to her to stop, afraid that she'll disappear and I'll never get another chance to beg her forgiveness, but she won't stop. She keeps backing away until she's gone.
I can barely keep standing, I have to put a hand out against the wall to support myself. I've always been afraid that what Mom said is true, but I haven't let myself think about it. What if I am a curse? What if I keep causing the people I care about pain and suffering and death? What if Dad dies in his quest for vengeance with this demon that killed Mom? That would be my fault, too, since it's my fault that the demon came after Mom. And Dean, Dean would never let Dad go after it alone. He'd get caught in that fight, too. I'll be the cause of death for my whole family. They would have been better off if I was never born. Mom would still be alive and they'd all be safe. The demon never would have targeted the Winchesters if I hadn't been born. There's something wrong with me.
"Sam?" a new voice quavers.
I shake my head again, not able to bear facing her, too. Not Jessica, not now.
"Sam, why won't you help me?" she asks, and she's suddenly in the room with me.
She's lying on the floor, engulfed in flames. But the flames don't seem to be touching her skin. She looks perfect except for the fact that she's on the floor and she's crying in pain despite the fact that she's doesn't look to physically being burned. She has one hand stretched out towards me. Immediately, I reach out my own hand to her, but the fire sears my flesh. I can't stand it and have to pull my hand back.
"Sam," Jessica cries, disappointment clear on her face, "I needed you and you weren't there. You left me."
"Jess, I'm sorry. Dean needed me to find Dad." I tell her, dropping to my knees as close to her as I can stand.
"I needed you, too, Sam. Was I less important? Didn't you care about what would happen to me?" her voice holds real desperation and confusion. I don't know how to comfort her, to make her understand.
"I didn't know, Jess. I thought you were safe."
"Don't lie to me, Sam." she snaps, suddenly turning angry despite her tears. The fires burn hotter, leaping higher. I back hastily away from the growing flames, "You knew about the demon. You knew I was in danger being with you. But you never told me!"
I don't know what to tell her. I didn't think I could tell her the truth. I should have told her. All I can do is keep shaking my head and wish with all my heart that I could take her place.
I feel like my heart is shattering inside my chest. It's hard to breath.
"Sam! Sammy!"
"Dean?" I ask, feeling my hopes rise a little at the possibility of my brother finding me.
Dean appears out of the darkness, standing right where I had seen Jessica burning. I wonder if I've been hallucinating.
"Sam, get up! What the hell are you doing?" Dean snaps, grabbing my arm and hauling me to my feet, "I need you. Where have you been?"
"Dean, I saw…" I start to tell him what happened.
"No time." Dean interrupts, "I think I found the thing that killed Mom."
I let Dean pull me after him, noticing as we run through the gloom that I'm not actually in a cellar, I'm in a house somewhere. Dean is leading me upstairs. He lets go of my arm to draw a gun and I follow suit. I still feel like I've been hit by a truck or something, but I somehow have the strength to do anything Dean asks of me. We reach the second floor and Dean leads me into a nursery. And there it is, the dark figure I see standing over me in my nightmares. Its eyes glow with an unnatural light and it smiles when it sees us. Dean shoots at it, but it dematerializes into a dark mist before forming again after the bullet has passed through. It raises an arm and Dean goes flying into a wall. His gun drops to the floor as his arms are pinned down against the walls. I move to help him when the demon raises its other arm and I find myself flying back to hit the other wall. I can't move any of my limbs and my feet aren't even touching the floor. The demon is still smiling as it walks over to me.
"Ah, Sam. I've been looking for you." it tells me, "And now I think you're starting to realize what I've been meaning to tell you: you're my boy, Sam."
I try to yell at it that it's full of shit. I try to deny it, but I can't even shake my head.
The demon grins even wider as if it's sensing my denial and finds it amusing, "You're evil, Sam. That's why you killed your mother and your girlfriend. That's why you've brought all this pain to your own 'family.' And that's why you belong with me."
I catch a glimpse of Dean over the demon's shoulder. He's looking at me like he's never seen me before. I want to yell at him for looking at me like that. But I can't, the force pressing me against the wall is too heavy on my lungs for me to speak. All I can do is look at Dean looking at me like I'm a monster. It's the same look I saw on Mom's face when she said I wasn't her son and on Jess's face when she screamed at me for not telling her the truth. And as bad as it hurt to see Mom and Jess look at me like that, it hurts worse coming from Dean, the brother that practically raised me, the one person who knows me better than anyone in the world.
I try desperately to scream, at Dean, at the demon, at anyone. I can't accept what they're telling me. It can't be true, yet I'm finding it harder and harder to deny. If Dean could believe that about me…
I can't fight the panic that is swiftly rising in me, making me gasp at what little air I can get and causing me to feel dangerously close to passing out. I squirm in the demon's supernatural grip until darkness obscures my vision.
I open my eyes and find myself still seeing darkness. But it's different this time, different and familiar. It doesn't take me long to recognize the cellar. I can also tell almost instantly that I'm not alone. I can feel the presence of other things down here. I can hear breathing, crying, and, suddenly, screaming. I quickly get to my feet although I feel exhausted and follow the screaming to its source. I locate a huddled mass of a person on the other side of the room. I can still hardly see, but when I kneel down next to this person and put my hand on their arm, they look up at me and I recognize one of the girls from the newspaper articles on the disappearances. I assume immediately that the other people I'm hearing must be the rest of the missing people.
"Hey, it's okay." I tell the girl, trying to comfort her.
But she's looking at me like I'm a monster, too. She starts screaming again and trying desperately to get away from me. I let her go, feeling kind of stunned.
"You can't help them, Sam. They know you're just as bad as I am…" that insidious voice from before seeps into my ears, chuckling like it did before my mom appeared.
"That's not true!" I snap because if I know anything, I know that demons lie, "That wasn't my Mom or Jess or Dean!"
"Still not convinced? Let's go through this again, shall we?" the demon says and I feel like something is pulling on parts of my brain, taking from it, "How many times must we do this, Sam?"
I wonder in a fleeting moment before the scenery changes and I'm plunged into a new scenario how long I've been down here with this thing doing this. I've lost all sense of time. All I know with any certainty is that I can't go on like this forever. I feel like something inside of me is breaking and when it finally snaps, something horrible will be released. And truthfully, I'm terrified of what that might be.
