Chapter Two: Mortala

Mortala - Unrelenting and deadly. Involving loss or spiritual death.


"It's gonna be okay, Sammy… You're going to be fine,"

Dean's words fell on deaf ears. He'd thought of calling an ambulance but had deemed it too slow compared to Baby. If they were to get to the hospital in time, they couldn't stand to rely on anybody but Dean himself. And the faster the young man pushed the vehicle, racing against the clock of time, the slower everything became.

He was starting to notice everything again. The past twenty minutes had been a blur. Dean barely remembered stopping by the teenagers in the halls. But now… every sense was slowly returning to him. Slow and prickling like the crawl of a dozen snakes.

The Winchester could taste rust and rot in the air, and his heart trembled in his chest. Sam's blood haunted the Impala, wafting through the car with sickening power. Dean willed himself to drive faster but couldn't ignore every one of his senses spinning through his brain.

Sight. Dean's eyes whisked around his surroundings… scanning, searching. He was cruising past every other vehicle on the road. Just praying that no cop would even try slowing him down. He'd break a thousand laws -and then some- to get Sam where he needed to be right now.

Sam's body was hunched in the backseat, sprawled loosely across the Impala seats as blood seeped through the flannel around him. His skin was snowy pale and decorated in red petals of blood. The sticky crimson had lapped over his entire body in the alleyway, and now almost every part of the teenager, from hair to fingers to shoulders, was coated in it.

There was too much lost. Dean knew that. Of course, he fucking knew that!

But it didn't matter. This wasn't where Dean would lose his baby brother.

Hearing. Gravel pounded against the Impala's sides and rims, echoing in Dean's ears. The road he was driving on was grossly under tended. Long gashes in the asphalt revealed the town's secret: it was poor and going under. It was a little old town in Nebraska, almost an hour away from major cities. When they first showed up in the place, Dean had given it a max of ten more years before the population took a severe nosedive.

Now he didn't care. Didn't care about the paint getting stripped from his dad's car, didn't care about anything but the labored sounds of Sam's breathing.

Or the lack of labored sounds.

Because the teenager in the backseat had grown silent, and instead of gasps of pain and trembling breaths, Dean's harsh driving was met with heart-stopping silence.

Dean pressed down on the gas further, adding another ten miles per hour to his speed, almost maxing the car out. The Impala thrust itself forward, out of town, and into the outstretch of road leading to the nearest hospital. The wind beat down against the doors and windows, practically pleading alongside Dean for Sam's well-being.

Touch. Knuckles turning white, the young man's nails buried themselves into the steering wheel. This couldn't be the end. But the more the clock in front of him ticked on, Dean felt his heart crumbling into ash. A cough rippled through the car, slipping from Dean's mouth. Only then did he realize he had been forgetting to breathe.

Leather was pressed against his palms, his legs, his back. Dean's left hand loosened from the steering wheel as he ticked the turning signal. Giving whoever gave a shit a warning before pulling down on the right side of the steering wheel and racing into the hospital parking lot.

It was busy, for how small of a place it was.

Cars lined the employee reserved spaces, and Dean jammed his fears out of his brain. They were going to save Sammy. They had to. All Dean had to do now was get his brother inside. The young man slammed his foot against the break as he pulled into the closest parking spot he could find.

Rocks pounded against his car, and Dean could feel the pebbles echoing throughout the interior. He bit down on his tongue -hard- and then scrambled out of the Impala.

The door handle was cold. His brother's body was colder. When the Winchester pulled Sam into his arms, Dean's heart went rigid. "No…" He gasped, his brain spinning. "Sammy, please… no. I won't fuckin' accept this! No fucking way!" And so he shook his brother, just the once, to try and spark a reaction. All Sammy did was flail where gravity took him.

Index finger smoothing across Sam's neck, Dean held it tightly against the bloodied skin. And he waited, ready to count the heartbeats he was willing into existence.

None came. Not even a pity beat to relieve Dean from his horror. From the moment he had grabbed hold of his brother, he had known it. Sam was dead. He'd probably died within the first minute he'd been placed inside the car. He wasn't hospital-could-save-him dead... he was salt-and-bury dead.

Dean couldn't breathe.

Taste. Coppery blood spilled into Dean's mouth as his teeth dug into his tongue.

He choked it down as he numbly pressed Sam's body back where it had been. Without fully remembering it, the young man clicked the door shut and stumbled into the driver's seat. The car tasted of regret, fear, and death.

The car started again, and Dean slowly pulled out of the hospital parking lot. He could see the old woman he almost hit pulling in stare at him with wide eyes as he crept back onto the main road. Her eyes were haunted with a sad knowing. Better to say your final goodbyes in the warmth of home than the ice of a hospital.

Dean swished the blood in his mouth and spat it out of the window.

Smell. Faintly, Dean could smell his brother in the car now that the windows were rolled down and the blood and death could escape outside. He could smell Sam's cologne that had stuck to the walls of the Impala. Could smell the melted gummy worms pressed forever into the seats and floor from the ninety-degree summer only a few days earlier.

Not even Sam getting on his hands and knees and scrubbing at the stains for nearly an hour was successful in getting the scent out.

How long would it take to get the smell of blood out? Dean still refused to admit the severity of what was happening. His pain in the ass little brother wasn't dead. He wasn't driving away from the hospital because they wouldn't let him salt and burn Sam's corpse. The word choked in Dean's throat.

Corpse. His heart chilled.

Anger coursed through his bones, "Take me!" he screamed to nobody. Slamming his back against the seat behind him, the car swerved; Dean almost didn't bother getting ahold of the Impala. At this point, so what if he died too? There was no way he could live without his baby brother. It would be quicker for nature to kill him now than to wait and let his liver or gun take him out.

Dean, before this moment, had never debated taking his own life. But now, driving over a hundred on an empty road with a dead brother in the backseat, it was hard to think of anything else. He wanted to scream. To sob. To burn that fucking school to the ground.

His eyes were misted with tears, and a sob wracked his body.

"No!" Dean howled into the wind, slamming on the breaks. Baby slid to a shaking halt, and burning asphalt flooded the Winchester's throat. "No way in fucking hell! This isn't happening! Do you hear me?" Again, he didn't even bother to care about who he was yelling to. God, maybe, if He were out there. "I'm not letting you take him!"

The young man flung open the door to the backseat. Sam's body was sprawled across the seats, stomach to the air. Dean took a seat beside his brother and closed the door, trapping them both in the back. Rage had settled in his stomach, low and dangerous. Pushing it aside, he wrapped his arms around his kid brother and tugged him into an embrace.

Blood was soaking into his clothes, but Dean only clenched his eyes shut and pressed Sam's head into his shoulder. Tears streaming down his face, the young man buried his eyes into his brother's hair. It was sticky with crimson. "You can't leave me, Sammy…" a broken cry slipped from Dean's mouth, "I can't, I can't do this without you…"

And then, finally, "I'm so sorry."


At first, Sam saw nothing.

After the bloodied seats of the Impala faded into a long stretch of darkness, Sam had known that would be it. He welcomed death, for it wasn't scary or violent like he'd been promised… like he had feared. It was calm... almost peaceful. An end to a far too painful story.

The teenager would fall from his body.

He was supposed to fall for a long time, but instead, his body crashed against the ground. A thin layer of water coated the floor, and his hand trailed through it. The water was warm, and it would only be after he dragged himself to his feet that he would realize it was blood. Whose? Sam didn't know.

His, maybe. Or his victims'.

Sam cupped his hands around his mouth, "Hello?"

The young man took a step forward, wandering farther into the pitch-black he was being covered by. It was heavy and cold, like paint. Nobody responded, Sam swallowed hard. This wasn't supposed to happen; he was supposed to die. Was this Hell? He felt a shiver dig through his spine.

He was dead. He knew that. But where had his soul gone? Is this where everyone who had passed went? Had everything Sam thought he'd known about the afterlife been a front for this horror? Sam tried shouting again, and this time was met with footsteps. He stopped walking. Body rigid with fear, Sam held his breath and tried to focus on them.

They were coming from around him, a single pair, but all-encompassing. And then, gold.

Two gold iris' opened in the darkness and stared into Sam. He fought back a flinch. "Who are you?" The teenager whispered, frozen in awe. The creature in front of him seemed to be of human stature, taller than Dean, with shimmering yellow eyes.

Then it clicked.

Yellow eyes. Anger flared deep inside Sam. This was who murdered his mother. "Stay the fuck away from me!" He snarled, forcing threat into his voice. He was met with… disappointment? A short sigh and then a hum of regret from the demon in front of him. The teenager's fists balled, and he prepared himself to lunge at the murderer.

"Oh, Sam…"

The young man froze. It knew his name.

And so the yellow-eyed demon continued. "I can save you, Sam. You don't have to be scared of me. Your purpose is on Earth, and I can help you go there…"

Thousands of thoughts echoed inside Sam's brain. Confusion was thrown into a fistfight with revenge-filled rage. Horror battling alongside his will to live. Who would he be if he accepted a deal from the demon who he'd spent his life fighting against? And how would he ever be able to live with himself knowing his mom's killer saved him? "I don't want your help." he gritted out.

Another sigh, although this one sounded more of a growl, "You need me, Sammy…" Hands crept alongside his shoulders, pulling Sam into a side embrace, just as if they were old friends. "I can save you. All you have to say is yes. And you can go back to your brother, to your life, to-"

A fist flew through the air, jamming into the demon's jaw.

"I said I don't want your help! If I'm gonna die… so be it! Nothing is worth being saved by you." And maybe it was the tremble in Sam's voice, but the demon refused to give in. The footsteps echoed around Sam again, flooding his senses. Pain seared through his body, and he crumbled to the ground. The bloodied water matted to his body. Sam's skin began to burn and peel away. His screams of pain breached the air. "Stop! What are you doing to me?"

The demon crouched beside Sam, practically breathing down his neck. "I could save you, or you could rot down here for the rest of eternity. In your own special hell."

Sobs ricocheted through the darkness, and Sam's body convulsed on the ground. Still, he clamped his jaw shut. The demon stepped on his shoulder, burying him deeper into the agony-inducing bloodied pool. Sam's mouth filled with crimson, and his screams were muffled.

"Last chance…" taunted the demon.

Sam clenched his eyes shut and forced Dean into his mind. Their jokes, their hunts, their long talks… their childhood. And he knew what to say. "Never. Let me die mother-fucker."

The pain stopped. A new voice echoed through the darkness. Except it didn't belong to the demon this time and didn't come from beside him. It came from above. The words were distant, impossibly distant, but couldn't be clearer.

Yes, okay? Save him! Do whatever you need to do but save him! Dean.

Light flooded Sam's eyes.


A/N: Woo! Next chapter released! Leave a review/favorite/follow if you enjoyed! I love love love hearing from all of you it makes me so happy!