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Their faces came to him sometimes. They slid across one another, like oil over water - melding, shifting - always there but NOT. Like now... It could be Sam, or Bobby, or even Dad - any number of people - but experience told him to not trust this. He found it hard to trust anything - his sanity least of all. That is always the first thing to go - and one of the last things you were reminded of before there was nothing left. He had seen it - had felt it. Felt it trying to re-hinge itself as it all slipped away - there was nothing beyond the black. It was almost a comfort that there COULD be an end to it all. A reprieve if you will. But in many ways, that was the biggest secret to any torture - if it was continuous, you got used to it, got complacent. When it stopped...well, that was -
"-when the fun begins, isn't it, Dean?" Now it was Bobby-Sam-John-Bobby - flickering, flickering, in and out and around themselves - not like oil on water now - more like flames. Well, ordinary flames, anyway - there was no describing what laid in wait in The Pit - and the flames were the most benign things there, surprisingly - but ordinary?
Not by a long-shot.
He felt his head turning, though everything in him screamed to resist - focus on the road, the sky - anything, anything, anything - but he was as helpless before the force of it, like a beach was against the tide. There was no resistance, that was the illusion, they let you keep most of your illusions and your delusions - made it more fun in the end. And this? This was just -
" -that break, that halt to the torment? That's when the fun really starts - it's all in the anticipation of it." Glee, pain, heartbreak, joy in that voice - voices, actually - like the 'vision' couldn't make up its mind today. He was made to face It, neck feeling like it was being ground to powder as he still steadily fought to maintain control of his own actions. Not yet - he wasn't ready yet - this was suppose to be his time, he wasn't suppose to go back yet - please not yet!
He tried once to burrow further into his mind - the one place they couldn't quite reach - but he had learned early that to do so was not wise. Being flayed alive and your entrails ripped out and fed to you was nothing compared to the pain they could inflict in your mind as they hauled you back to 'reality' - steely, blood-flushed hooks sunk in and pulled and pulled and pulled and no matter how you screamed, clawed and dug in your heels - you would come out, it was just a matter of time, really - and time was no object there.
Of course, even when you did come back to 'yourself' it didn't mean the fun had stopped. And it certainly didn't mean that those 'hooks' came out - oh no, that would take away the joy of it all. Keeping them in only assured that you -
"-are listening to me?" Sam/Bobby/Ellen/John queried, the nauseating shift and settle of the voices, coalescing into a visual scream of vertigo as the faces flipped one over the other, blending and separating at violent speeds, the road itself almost protesting as it blurred and wavered all around him.
" I'm...I'm listening." He answered breathlessly, trying not to vomit in his own lap or on the -
car - remember you are in the Car - she's a bitch to clean if you get blood or puke on the
- upholstery - the stench took weeks to fade.
" Good, good-" A rumble-shock of Sammy's and Dad's voices blended then shook apart - cascading like salt through a shaker, before settling into a humming in between - their faces fighting for dominance against the canvas of reality. Dean's gut clenched again, a sliver of a headache sliding between his eyes as a barely registered pain amongst the cacophony of other hurts, physical and otherwise.
" You don't want us to have to get your attention again - do you?" John-Sam grated, a chill of depravity and sorrow-joy coloring his/his voice. "You didn't like it so well, last time, if I recall..."