Present 6

"Where are we?" Sam asks, fighting the urge to pull his shirt (which is thankfully no longer Hawaiian) up to cover his nose.

"Melbourne" Dean answers.

"Melbourne?" Sam may not keep up to date with all of current events, it becomes easy to fall behind when you're as old as he is, but it would have been hard to miss hearing about the new bacteria that's been ravaging Australia for the last couple of months. He looks around him and takes in the overcrowded hospital corridors, filled with dying patients and not nearly enough staff to see to them all.

"Don't worry" Dean reassures him, "you're still immortal for the moment."

"Why are we here?" Sam asks. He'd be slightly ashamed to admit it out loud, but he desperately wants to leave. The sheer scope of the human suffering that surrounds him hangs almost as heavy in the air as the smell.

"We're here for her" Dean says, pointing at a worker in a full anti-contamination suit.

"Who is she?" Sam asks.

"She's a nurse. She moved here from the Philippines three years ago. When she gets off work today, she's going to head back there to visit her family." As Dean talks, he moves closer to the busy nurse, who Sam is starting to suspect, can't see or hear either of them. Nevertheless, when Dean lays his hand briefly on her forehead as though checking her temperature she shivers as though someone has just walked over her grave. "Unfortunately," Dean continues, "she is now infected."

"They'll catch it at the jetport" Sam says, trying to reassure himself, "that's what the microbial scanners are for."

"Machines malfunction" Dean replies.

Sam thinks about what this means and starts to feel sick himself. "Why are you doing this? This will kill thousands of people."

"Hundreds of thousands" Dean states dispassionately.

"Then why?"

"Asia's population growth is out of control; it needs to be dealt with."

"So, you introduce a new Black Death? A new CoViD? Why can't you just lower the birth rate or something?"

"I'm Death Sam, I'm not God. I can't make that kind of change, not on a large enough scale at least."

Sam shakes his head in disbelief. "I can't believe you. I can't believe you would do this. This will rip families apart, destroy entire countries! All the evil we used to fight, Azazel, Lucifer, Crowley, Dick Roman. If you do this, you're just as bad as any of them."

"Sam" Dean says, finally looking at him again, "I've done it before. I've been doing it for over a hundred years. All of that evil you mentioned, we got rid of it, and because of that humanity is thriving. Overpopulation is one of the natural consequences of that. In a way, I created this problem, maybe that's why I was chosen to be the person to keep it in check."

"No," insists Sam. "It was my brother who did those good things. Not you. You're not him. I lost him."

"I'm sorry you feel that way" Dean says, turning away and the next time Sam blinks, he opens his eyes to darkness.