When Dean came to, he was in the dark and the cold. But it wasn't like anything like he had ever experienced before. He took a deep, shuddering gasp as the burning in his throat set in. Completely on instinct his hand shot out and dirt fell onto his face. The implication of this took only a second to set in. He had been buried alive. While this was a pressing concern, every second that Dean was in the ground the pain in his throat became worse and worse. It had been intolerable at first, but now it seemed as though the fire would overtake his entire body. His senses seemed to be in overdrive and because of that he picked up a scent. Something about it seemed familiar to the last piece of his conscious mind before the smell overpowered him and he began to claw at the dirt before him. Thankfully he didn't seem to be very deep as his hand broke the surface and felt the night air in only a few agonizingly slow minutes of digging. By the time he had freed the rest of his body he was acting only on instincts. He followed the scent and by the time he regained control of his body and his senses it was too late. Blood was splattered all over his mouth, dripping down his chin, and staining his shirt. He removed the blood bag from his mouth and made to throw it away, but his instincts were too strong. He bit into it again, fighting to stop drinking even as the coppery liquid trickled down his throat. Only when the bag was empty did his body finally let him throw it away. He fell back on his butt and looked down at the carnage he had wrought. He ran his tongue over his lips without even considering the action and winced as his fangs cut the soft flesh. "What the hell is going on?" he asked of no one in particular, glancing back to the hole he had just crawled out of. A thought occurred to him in the next second. He got to his feet and turned in a small circle. "Sammy? Sam?" he shouted.

"What's going on over there?" a voice that was definitely not Sammy's answered back irritably. A few moments later a gray-haired older man came walking around the corner, a cane assisting his movement. Dean glanced down at his blood-stained shirt and then back to the slowly approaching older gentleman wondering what the hell he would say about his state. When the man finally got to Dean he was breathing slightly hard and a thin sheen of sweet was on his brow. "What are you doing here at this time of night, young man?"

"This time of night?" Dean asked, looking around. It was clear to him, perhaps early morning. "What time is it?"

The old man checked his watch. "Half past one," he said. "Now, what are you doing here?"

Dean glanced around at his surroundings and he very quickly knew where he was. "You know, just, uh, visiting." he gestured vaguely to the gravestone behind him and the old man's eyes softened at once.

"Ah, yes. Were they friends of yours?" he asked gently. "Terrible shame what happened to them."

"Yeah, good friends," Dean said, putting on his best sad face. "Thought I would stop by and say hello."

"Well, I suppose I understand that," the old man nodded. "I'll let it slide this time, but visiting hours are from eight to six for future reference. And would you mind keeping it down some? This is a place to pay your respects, not shout at them."

"Roger that," Dean said, nodding in understanding. He bade the old man farewell and watched him go, unhappy with the way his throat burned slightly when the wind sent the old man's scent running back to him. He turned back to see the names of the people he had used in his alibi, intending to apologize. The words never came. Two black marble gravestones were there, both of them clearly very new, side by side. The one directly behind Dean had been the very grave he had dug himself out of, the one next to it remaining untouched. They bore the same ornate handwriting etched into the stone the precursor 'Beloved Son and Friend' on both stones. The names on the stones were Sam and Dean Winchester. Dean was momentarily stunned before he fell to his knees at Sam's grave and began to dig. His hands bit deeply into the cold dirt and, despite using no tools, he made quick work of the dirt. When his fingers brushed against the smooth wood of a casket he grabbed the edge of the lid and quite simply ripped it open. Inside, thankfully, there was nothing. Just a simple cream-colored coffin lining.

Dean pulled himself out of the grave and took a seat by the dug-up grave. He took a moment to be thankful that Sammy was not inside the coffin before he began to worry about where he was. "What the hell is going on here?" he muttered to himself as he stood up. He briefly considered filling the grave back in but decided against it. Empty or not, filling in a grave that had Sam's name on it was something he was not capable of. He left the cemetery, hopping easily over the fence and heading off in the opposite direction of the place he had awoken. There was a lot of information to be had.

Several hours earlier and dozens of miles away, Sam had awoken as well. Thankfully he had not been underground, but he was in the middle of a seemingly massive forest. The sun had been in the midst of its descent when he had woken up on the forest floor, thoroughly startling the birds in the trees. Like Dean, his senses seemed to have been heightened. He had tried to find his way out of the forest, listening intently for any signs of civilization, but none had been forthcoming. Hours passed as he wandered through the forest ignoring the fact that, as it grew darker, his body grew hotter and his senses seemed to dial up to an even greater extent. When the sun set it was nearly intolerable. He had long since shed his shirt and pants, both of them slung over his shoulder as he walked. The sounds of the forest were deafening. He could hear every scratch from every squirrel and bird within five hundred yards of him. His eyes picked out every single detail of every single leaf that fluttered to the ground. His sense of smell was nearly enough to overwhelm him in of itself. In the distance a wolf howled and Sam had spun around and begun walking towards it before he knew what he was doing. Only when he realized what he had done did he shake off the desire and continue in the direction he had been going. But still, something deep inside of him pushed and begged for him to go to the wolf.

The pain began when the sun had finally gone down. "The hell is happening?" Sam, out of breath as pain wracked his body in bursts, asked. The wolf howled again, closer now, and Sam felt an odd desire to call back to it. He tried to think back to what had happened before he had woken up, but the pain seemed to be meddling with his memory. He knew who he was and that he was not where he belonged, but anything beyond that was lost in the shroud of misery. He kept moving, pushing through the pain, as it got darker. Just when he thought that he was doomed to spend the night in the forest, curled up in pain, he saw headlights in the distance. "Hey!" Sam called tiredly, "Hey!"

He heard voices a moment later and he could easily hear their words. "You heard that too, right Alaric?"

"Yeah, sure did," the one, apparently called Alaric, said. "Who the hell would be out this, especially this late at night?"

"I'd say someone from the pack, but I don't recognize the scent or the voice." The other voice said gruffly. "Probably some punk kid that got lost."

"Might as well find out," Alaric sighed and called, "Who's there?"

"Me," Sam said, staggering into the clearing as another painful tremor coursed through him. His breath came in gasps now and his clothes fell from his grasp as he went to his knees, the pain causing him to retch. "Please help me, something's wrong."

"Alaric…" the unnamed man said slowly, going warily to Sam's side. "This kid is Turning, you smell him right?"

"Yeah, I do," Alaric said gravely. "Must be his first. Hey kid, do you know what's going on?"

"You don't need to shout," Sam said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "I think- I think I'm sick or something."

"You aren't wrong," the man laughed quietly, shaking his head. "Well, he's lucky. He's got that much going for him, running into us like this. Listen kid, I know it hurts. We all went through the first Turn. Stop fighting it, trust me it will be over a lot faster."

"Stop fighting what?" Sam asked, groaning in pain as another wave of agony crashed against him. "What's happening to me?"

"Long story short, you are Turning into a werewolf," Alaric told him softly. "We can exchange questions later, I'm sure you will have a lot. We have some too. For now, we will help you. But Bat is right, you can't fight it. Well, you can but it won't end well trust me. The Change can't be fought off, it is going to happen. Be a whole lot easier if you give in."

Sam groaned again and tried to listen to their advice, the pain just as bad as anything he had ever felt, and immediately regretted it. He felt the bones in his arms and legs extend and break, fresh waves of hell burning him from the inside. "I thought you said it was easier," he snarled, his fingers digging into the ground as he pushed himself to a sitting position.

"Oh, it's easier," Bat assured him. "Once the Change is over the pain goes away. First one is always the worst, I don't even feel pain when I turn anymore. A few minutes of hell kid, that's all it is. We'll help you through it."

Seemingly of its own accord, Sam's body followed their advice and gave in. The older men were right. It hurt. A lot. He felt his muscles snap individually and his bones break and reform themselves into a new shape. Each time that he thought that the pain couldn't get worse his body proved him wrong. This happened over and over until Sam quite suddenly blacked out and knew no more.