Chapter 2

Blood soaked Sam's shirt as he cradled his brother's body against him, his head bleeding, his legs twisted in an unnatural position, his shoulders hunched in, his breathing becoming more and more labored. Sam could feel the warmth that was spreading across his legs as blood started staining his jeans under Dean's back.

"Dean, you still with me?" Sam's voice shook, his inability to hide the intense fear he felt filtering into Dean's cloudy head. With his eyes drifting slowly open to look up at him, Dean looked but really didn't see him as Sam gently tapped his cheek.

"I'm cold Sam… so cold… hurts to breathe… can't keep my eyes open anymore," his voice was nothing more than a hushed whisper as his eyes closing again now that the lids were too heavy for him to hold up.

"No Dean, stay awake, come on, help is coming, I can hear the sirens, just talk to me until they get here," Sam was begging now, begging his brother to live.

"Sorry Sammy… I should've stopped when you told me to," the last words were spoken in a slur and as Dean's eyes finally shut tight, his body went totally limp against Sam's.

"Dean, oh god, come on, don't do this to me…"

Dean pulled himself up off the ground as he heard the sirens somewhere off in the distance but approaching fast, the flashing lights that were now coming towards them like a beacon through a dense fog. He could hear Sam saying something to him but he couldn't seem to make it out when it came out quiet and garbled. Scanning the immediate area around him, he tried looking in every direction possible but his surveying of the area ended abruptly when his eyes immediately fell on the large, black car crumpled up against the tree across the street. He started towards it as the passenger side door opened, the man inside dropping to the ground and quickly making his way into the trees beyond the roadside before anyone could see him. Dean was intent on following him, until he heard a voice calling from behind him.

"Hello, can anyone hear me?" A woman's voice called out, her eyes seeing Dean in the distance. She started towards him as he turned and started towards her, the two of them meeting in the middle of the road as a slew of police cars, ambulances and fire trucks screeched to a halt all around them from both directions.

The police cars immediately turned to face each other bumper to bumper, closing off the road going both north and south as paramedics climbed from their seats with their equipment in hand. The emergency crews ignored Dean and the woman as they ran past them breakneck speed, some to the car lodged against the large tree and some off in the other direction to the roadside. Dean tried to get their attention and he couldn't stop the confusion that started settling in at their absolute ignorance of his presence. The woman in front of him was crying now, her deep blue eyes red and swollen as the tears streamed down her swollen face. She wrapped her arms around Dean, holding on to him for dear life.

"Hey, what's going on?" He asked her, unable to pull free from her iron grip around his waist.

"I'm so sorry, please, come with me, I need to show you something before it's too late," she choked out through her tears, taking Dean by the hand and dragging him to the mangled vehicle now currently surrounded by firemen and paramedics.

Quickly approaching unnoticed by the workers around them, she pushed Dean to the lifeless body lying on the pavement with blood covering her face and chest as the EMTs working feverishly to force life back inside it. Dean shook his head in disbelief at the sight of the woman on the ground when his eyes immediately fixed on the face of the young woman standing before him, realizing they were one in the same. Even through the blood, he could make out her facial features, knowing now he was looking into the eyes of her spirit as her body lay dead on the ground before him. He tried to pull away from her, but she was strong and as she held onto his wrist in a firm grip, she was obviously refusing to let go.

"That's it, she's gone. Mark the time. What about the other one?" One of the paramedics called as another haphazardly tossed a sheet over the body and pointed to the police that had already starting their investigation.

With her relentless grip still intact, she again dragged Dean across the road where he could see more medics working frantically on another body lying lifeless in the grass, his eyes going wide when they fell on the face of his brother leaning against the huge tree, green faced and trying not to vomit on his own shoes. He didn't want to look at the body laying in the grass as the medical crews tried working life back into that one too, since he already had a pretty good idea what the face would look like when he saw it. Through the tube down the throat, the mask over the face, the brace around the neck and the blood caked on the cheeks and in the hair, he watched in horror as a frantic medic worked hard at compressing the chest of the man lying on the ground and in a state of shock, he finally got a good look at himself, and he was clearly dead.

"What the hell is going on? Are we both dead?" He stared into her bloodshot eyes, the recollection of the car coming at him slowly creeping back into his head as the memory of it hitting him and sending him into the tree replaying like a movie in slow motion his mind.

"I'm sorry, it wasn't my fault. I was already dead," she cried again, her hand still firmly grasped around Dean's wrist as she almost crushed it.

Dean heard a soft electrical whine coming from behind him, then heard someone shouting "Clear," and at that very moment, he felt all control leave his body as his vision started going dark, the feeling of what was left of him being pulled somewhere in the distance one that he couldn't fight. Again, he heard the whine, then the shout. This time, he felt his body slam hard onto the ground; that hand digging into his flesh still clenched tight around his wrist. The pain that flooded back into him was almost more than he could bear as the second jolt hit him. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak, but somehow he knew he was still alive as that pain coursed throughout every muscle in his body and he welcomed it, safely letting his mind drift into nothingness.

"He's back, let's load him up and get him the hell out of here!"

They started scrambling as they immobilized his body and loaded him into the awaiting ambulance, the sirens blaring through the still of the night as they barreled down the road in the dark. Sam sat next to his brother in the back, his shirt and jeans now sticky and stained. Dean's blood on his hands had dried and turned brown and his stomach contents were ready to spill on the floor at any second. Each pothole the emergency vehicle hit threatened to bring them up closer and closer to the floor. He was lost in his own thoughts and almost didn't notice the hand landing on his knee that felt cold and clammy even through his jeans but it did finally draw him back to the present and as he looked into the face of his brother, he was shocked to see Dean's eyes open and staring right into Sam's.

Sam took Dean's bloodied hand in his own and returned the petrified stare, a slight bit of relief finally starting find its way into Sam's nerve wracked body. He squeezed his hand tight, trying to will some comfort and support into his brother, the grasp that was returned as a well deserved thank-you comforted the younger brother just a little. Sam stared into Dean's eyes, trying to figure out just what wasn't right. They were bloodshot and glassy, but something was off. The harder Sam looked, the realization finally sunk in. One of Dean's eyes was its usual soft green color, but oddly, the other didn't match anymore. The other eye was a deep shade of blue.