With The Coming of the Dawn
Summary
The hunters become the hunted when a creature stalks a remote community, and one of the brothers has a choice to make. Will both brothers survive the hunt and the decision of the other?
Disclaimer
Still don't own anything Supernatural, except the DVD, and still waiting for the US one with the extras – sigh. Oh well, I suppose I can still play with the boys at least until the new season starts lol, then I think Kripke might want them back huh?
Author's Note
Um, really worrying now guys. The next few chapters may be a little, well, you'll see….
Thanks for reading and reviewing. Please continue- it lets me know if you are still enjoying this one. :) Holds breath...
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Chapter 15Sam hurried through the forest; the last of the setting sun turning the sky blood red; the mist slowly beginning to rise in wisps around him. His breaths were coming in gasps, necessarily shallow due to the burning sensation already in his lungs. "This was so not one of my better ideas" he thought to himself, beginning to tire quickly. He picked a direction at random knowing the creature was following. It didn't matter which direction he chose so long as it was away from Dean.
"Come and find me you bastard!" Sam thought angrily. He slowed to listen, to see if his plan was working. Even though he was waiting, desperately hoping to hear it, he was still chilled to hear that high-pitched barking in the distance behind him, gaining fast, and his heartbeat started to race for he was now the hunted.
He held his handgun in one hand, filled with 3 of the 6 silver bullets he had managed to make from a variety of Elsie's silverware, and he held his curved blade in the other.
He stopped for a moment to catch his breath and leant against a tree for support. Without meaning to he had headed towards the mill. The snow, which had earlier subsided, began to fall in earnest. Soft, swirling heavy flakes were catching in his lashes and hair, muffling the forest, and reducing both the visibility and his speed dramatically. He turned away from the Mill – if there was anyone out here, he didn't want them caught up in the hunt. He decided to slow further and look for a place to lay in wait for the creature while he could still concentrate.
Ten minutes later he spotted a half concealed hollow off to the right. It had plenty of brush cover and he could see the track upon which he had come. He had left a trail even a blind man could follow. Occasionally he loosened the bandage from his arm and smeared a little blood intermittently, just to make sure. He lowered himself down into the hollow, pulling branches and bracken across to conceal him further.
As he lay in wait, he could hear his father and brother's words still haunting in his mind. Weak, selfish, cursed. "Shut up", he thought, "just shut the hell up!"
"Great, might as well add insanity to my long list of credentials, I'm talking to myself!" He snorted. At least laughing at himself was healthier than wallowing in self-pity. His body was shaking, not only with the pain from the poison and also from the cold slowly seeping through his jeans and t-shirt. Dean's jacket wasn't exactly the warmest, but he wrapped it tightly around himself anyway.
Hope kitty turns up soon or else or else he'll just find a Sam flavoured Popsicle Sam giggled almost hysterically, a Samsicle! Oh not good, he was definitely losing it.
A familiar pain and pressure in his skull quickly sobered him up. "This is so not a good time for this," he mumbled before succumbing to the vision.
In his vision he could see Elsie's house; a figure creeping stealthily down the hallway towards Dean's room.
"Dean", he screamed, somehow knowing that he was still there. The figure put a hand against the wall, and Sam could see a wicked looking knife already dripping with gore, the hand bloody. He could see a crumpled form on the floor behind it. As the figure pushed the door open to Dean's room, light flowed into the hallway highlighting the downed form. "Missouri" Sam whispered, and his heart clenched. The older woman was clearly dead, her throat torn open, her bright sharp eyes now blank and lifeless.
The figure walked into Dean's room and contemptuously flicked its fingers at the protections surrounding his brother and a brisk wind blew the circles away and the candle and incense out. A wave of fluidic flames shot up the walls and across the ceiling and floor. Just when Sam thought that his brother must be engulfed in flame –they simply vanished. Behind them they had left a film of soot-like residue, completely obscuring the protective markers and symbols he had so carefully inscribed.
Dean was unmoving, seemingly oblivious to the danger approaching.
"Dean. DEAN!" Sam was screaming in his mind, helpless to halt the scene unfolding before him.
"Kill him." A familiar voice commanded and a second figure previously unseen by the young hunter silently approached the bed and with a deliberately unhurried movement slashed its claws across his sleeping brother's throat.
Only then did Dean awaken, his hands going to his neck. With eyes wide and disbelieving, he tried to gasp in the air now denied to him. The terrible gurgling, wet gasping sound of his brother suffocating, drowning in his own blood, filled Sam's ears until it was the only sound he could hear. His brother struggled weakly on the bed, still fighting but slowly his gasps ceased and he lay there still, motionless, dead
The first figure reached down and tugged Dean's scarab necklace from around his bloodied and torn throat. The creature eyed it hungrily, "You want this?" That oh so familiar voice asked. He reached up and tied it around the creature's neck. "Suits you". The creature snuffled, sounding almost like it was laughing.
Sam screamed staggering to his feet, his loss and anguish unleashed in a tormented howl that rang out into the night air. Around him leaves and branches stirred, gently at first but slowly building in intensity, a storm gradually beginning to whip up around him. Sam's eyes now blank and uncomprehending failed to see the creature now racing towards him. Although the vision had passed, his senses were overwhelmed by the horror of what he had just seen.
The snarl of the creature finally broke him from his stupor. Only feet away now, it was only a mere second before it was on top of him. Sam raised the gun and pointed it at the creature in front of him. The young hunter's eyes widened. A small part of him had still held out some hope that his brother was alive, that his vision had been just that, a vision, in the future and preventable. That it was the effects of the poison that were stopping him from sensing his brother.
But now as his eyes focused on the blood-soaked necklace around the creature's neck, the realisation that his brother was gone hit him. He crashed to his knees, his arms folding around him, and he began to rock back and forth. The words "Dean's dead, oh god, Dean's dead" reverberating in his mind, "please take it back" he whispered, and a small whimper escaped him as the last of his hope died.
With the loss of his brother, the fight had gone from Sam Winchester. The winds surrounding him slowed, then stilled. The creature hesitated a second, confused by the lack of response from its prey. Sam's normally expressive eyes looked up dully at the creature.
"What are you waiting for?" he whispered. "Just end it". A spark of humanity flickered in the creature's eyes, almost sorrowfully and with a hint of compassion, it struck. With its first strike it slashed deep lacerations across Sam's chest and followed through spearing the young hunter on the other set of claws and pinning him to the tree behind him.
Sam gasped as the pain exploded in his chest and shoulder. He looked down to see the creatures claws buried almost up to the creatures hands. Blood flowed freely, spilling onto the fresh snow, Sam stared at the startling contrast, mesmerised, before looking back at the creature with slowly darkening vision.
"Thank you," he whispered – at least now he would be with his brother and no one else would be hurt because of him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. At first it seemed to be an apology to the world in general but as the creature began to withdraw its claws, to deliver its final blow, it realised that the apology was aimed at it and it momentarily hesitated, confused and curious.
Sam's hand struck out with surprising speed, his blade biting into and amputating the paw at the wrist, the claws still embedded in his torso. The creature howled in disbelief and clutching its arm, it readied to flee when Sam's other hand came up. Somehow still holding the gun, he fired at the creature. Dean would be impressed, he thought fuzzily; the first shot had stayed true and hit the creature straight in the heart, and as the creature fell to the ground. With an uncharacteristically vicious snarl, the young hunter followed through with a second bullet between its eyes. That was for my brother you bastard!
The light flickered and faded from the creature's eyes. Sam had expected it to return to its natural form but it looked as though however it was killed, it remained that way.
"Would've been nice to know who it was," he murmured, sinking to the ground. He crawled across to the fallen creature and reached out and with the last of his remaining strength and yanked Dean's pendant from around its neck, clenching it tight within his fist. It was all that he had left of his brother, and he not letting go, he was never letting go.
Sam's vision was dimming, the pain flowing through him so intense he was close to screaming. The agony of the poison was doubling, the fresh venom from the new wounds combining with those he had absorbed from Dean through the leech stone. The fresh wounds were burning, the fire consuming him. As his vision darkened Sam could not help but think that it was unsurprising that it would be a form of fire that would take him. And Sam welcomed it.
He had left Dean and now he was dead. He could feel it in his soul – he could no longer sense the link to his brother that he had always took for granted like a kind of psychic background noise, always gently humming in his mind. Now there was only silence. The world around him was dark and that much colder; for Sam had lost his sun; his constant. Without his brother, what would he do?
Kill, a new voice whispered in his mind, new but in some way long remembered
As the blood slowly pooled around him, and he finally lost his grip on consciousness, he heard a bark like yelp in the distance. Oh God, there was more than one
A second voice joined him, more familiar, whispering quietly- almost seductively "Surrender and let me in"
Sam mutely shook his head.
"I can help you", the second voice continued
"No-one can help me now"
"I can save you""I don't want to be saved, leave me alone"
"You will die""I want to. I deserve to." God I need to
"I can save your brother""What?" Sam's head whipped up, a faint hope flaring in his eyes.
"I can save Dean""How?"
"How is not important, nor is why. All you need to know is what you need to do. Do you love your brother?"
"Yes" More than life, more than anything.
"Would you do anything for him?""Yes" without question, "I'd die for him"
"Ah. But would you give your soul for him?""Yes", without hesitation.
"Then surrender and let me in".
Sam smiled sadly, how could he refuse?
"NO!" The first voice interrupted. "This one is mine" Sam startled and confused, withdrew further within himself.
"But you are not here, and I am – finder's keepers." The Other taunted."I am closer than you think leech"
The Other swore. He had almost had the young hunter but with the first voice's interruption, some sense in Sam had pulled him too far within himself, and had pulled his mind around him tightly. There was no way in…yet.
"Damn" The other muttered, he had pushed too far. He had a taste for Sam's soul now as well as his powers. Although if he ran out of time, one was better than none at all…
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Well guys, so what do you think……