Black Magic

Even before the Universe came into existence, creatures from the dawn of time had already mastered the art of black magic. Before any other being. They used it for trickery, causing mischief and pain to all those around them. No one knows exactly what they want. All that is known though, is there are certain children called 'The Chosen Ones' who rightfully belong to them. And nothing can stop them, because they can take away the air we breathe, electrocute us without even touching us. But that is the way it is, they are part of us, and we are part of them. And they are going to take what rightfully belongs to them. No matter what.

This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but a whimper.

It was 3pm now, four hours had passed since there visit to the hospital. Sam had been quite since, he had been buried in his laptop in total silence except for the tapping of the keys. Dean was watching him in disbelief from the bed, as soon as Sam finished talking to Joshua, Sam hadn't said a word. He looked scared, Dean tried talking to him but it was if Sam had drifted off to another world, another universe.

After another hour of total silence Dean had finally had enough. "Sam?" Sam continued on tapping away. "Sam?" Dean repeated. Still no reply. "SAM!" Sam's head rose from behind the laptop. His face was as pale as moonlight.

"Huh?" He replied.

"Dude, you've been on that thing for hours and haven't told me a thing. What's going on with you lately? You hardly talk to me anymore. Please tell me what's wrong. Do you know what were dealing with." Dean took a deep breath, It's true though, for the last few months Sam seemed distant to him. Dean had tried to find out what was wrong but I guess Sam just didn't catch on.

"Sorry, Dean. I've just been caught up in my research." Sam said, his eyes still glued to the screen.

"Well, yeah, I can see that." Dean got up from the bed and strode over to Sam. "So, do you know what were dealing with?"

"Sam? Sam? What is it? Don't go being all weird out on me again dude."

"It's called a Mara."

No, it couldn't be. That's not possible. "Repeat that again." Dean swallowed hard.

"It's called a Mara. No one knows where they came from, they've just always been around, as far back as i can find. There the reason the word nightmare exists. They make your worst fear come true, take control of it and use it against you. From what I can tell there is no sure fire way to kill it." Sam had put his laptop aside onto the table and now was standing up in front of Dean looking into his eyes; he could see the fear in them, childhood memories resurfacing. Every muscle in Dean's body tensed up, the colour draining from his face. And he had a right to be scared, The Mara still haunted Dean's childhood, the one thing that made Dean afraid to sleep at night, the reason he kept a gun under his pillow.

- - - - -

When Dean was ten years old he saw his best friend from the school Dean was attending. Bradley, his name was. Him and Brad had been best friends for the 3 months Dean had been there. He always knew that when the time came, John would make them move again. They had always been on the road back then. Only staying in each town from one week, to six months.

Brad wasn't a very popular guy at school, he still didn't know why someone like Dean would want to hang out with a nerd like him. Though I suppose he liked the company. Brad was a fairly skinny guy, spiky brown hair that sort of reminded Dean of Porcupine quills and oak brown eyes. His skin slightly tanned; obviously he didn't get out much. At school, you'd always find him in the library studying for a test or revising over work. The only physical activity he did was Karate, only because his mother insisted he got out there and make friends. He was wearing a green and white striped T-Shirt which only just fitted with a pair of blue jeans.

He remembered that walk in the forest all too well; Dean and Brad were walking back from school through Stone Edge Woods, one of the oldest forests in the area. The wind started howling through the dead tree branches, the rotting leaves rustling under Dean's feet. The sky turned dark, the wind was blowing even harder now, Dean was literally clinging to a tree to keep from flying backwards. Though in the midst of it all, there was Brad, untouched. He just stood there looking up into the treetops. Dean looked in the direction were Brad was looking, and what he saw was ghastly. Something from your worst nightmare, they flew down from the tree-tops. Their skin was the colour of the rotting leaves under their feet, the veins bulging out from under the bone dry skin. They had black lips that were as dark as a black hole and claws as long and sharp as carving knifes. Their wings looked dead; you could see where the bones were.

The howling of the wind stop sounding like one continues noise, and more and more starting to sound like a voice, an ancient raspy voice, yet so kind and musical.
"Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."

But they weren't talking to Dean, they were talking to Brad. Who was still just standing there, untouched by the elements.

He turned to Dean. "Dean...I'm sorry, but I have to go, there is a better life out there for me. I don't belong here, I never have."

"What do you mean? Where are you going?" The wind stopped howling, and the clouds were lifting.

"To the Far Place, I belong there; I always have, every night I have dreamt of it. The place is beautiful, no war, everything is perfect. I belong to them Dean. Thank you for always being there for me, your the best friend I could of ever asked for." Tears started rolling down his face. "You have always been there for me. Even at the start when you punched Max Barbell in the face when he slammed my head into a locker. And you didn't even know me then." His face turned back to the Mara. "Thank you, for everything." He ran over to the Mara, tears rolling over his stained face. The Mara turned into these tiny white creatures. Their wings bathed in moonlight. Brad turned back to Dean, who was standing there speechless, scared, frozen with fear. "...Dean I'll be ok. Goodbye." He turned back as the tiny little creatures engulfed Brad in a dazzling white light. Bradley eyes were red with tears, then he whispered back. "I love you." But Dean never heard. Then he was gone.
The woods were silent, no creatures stirred, no wind blew, just pure silence. "..Why Brad, why?" Dean cried and ran home to John and Sammy. Dean didn't look back afraid that he might see those creatures again. Even though as brave as Dean was, and though he had to be strong for Sammy, to keep him safe. But Brad was the best friend Dean had ever had; he was like a second brother two him. But now he was gone, for all Dean knew, those creatures had killed him. 'Keep running.' Dean kept telling himself. 'Don't look back, just keep running.' He still had no idea what just had happened, everything seemed so wrong, so...certain. The way Brad looked at him before he was taken by the 'Mara', he didn't looked scared at all, it was if he had always known what was going to happen. Dean stopped running and collapsed to the ground. "Why!!! How could you!?!" Dean slammed his fists down on the layers of leaves harder and harder until his hands were covered in blood. When he got up, he started running home. And this time he didn't stop,

When Dean got home, he didn't know how to tell his dad what he saw and what happened. I mean, he had seen Were-wolfs in east Texas, Wendigo's in the Minnesota woods, even Kelpies in Colorado. Creatures he could only to begin to understand. But this creature wasn't a demon, or spirit. There were no words to describe it. So when he got home he just explained to John what the creature looked like, didn't tell him about Brad. He just acted if he was never there. But inside he cried, bottled it up, trying to forget it. The next thing Dean knew after telling John about the creatures was John rushing out the door and driving to the woods leaving Dean to look after Sammy. John came home hours later saying there was no evidence to say something was there. Dean knew all too well that what happened was real, that it wasn't something he had just dreamt about. The very next day they were on the road again.

- - - - -

"Dean? Dean? Hello, is anybody in there?" Sam waved his hand in front of Dean's face, trying to snap him out of his daydream.

Dean finally snapped out of it. "Huh?"

"Dean are you ok? You look like you're about to cry" Sam scanned Dean noticing he had been scratching his hands so hard that he had taken at least 3 layers of skin off, blood coming out of the wounds. "Dean! Stop scratching!" Dean looked down at his hands realizing what he was doing.

"What the hell..." Dean went to the bathroom to clean up the blood and put a dressing over it. "By the way, I am NOT about to cry." Dean called out from the bathroom.

"Uh huh, now will you explain to me why you look like scared. Have you seen these Mara before? There's no real description about them, every story is different, some say they are sprits that create nightmares, and others say there a demon."

Dean grabbed a wet cloth and cleaned his face up. After all these years, he had always wondered that same question. 'What were they?' And after all these years he finally knew the answer. Even if Sam didn't know, Dean had actually done research for once in his life, to understand what happened that day, to figure out who the Mara are, and finally he knew.

"The Mara are part of us, part of our world, yet we know nothing about the. So we pretend to know what they look like, we see them as happy, and imagine them tiny little wings that are bathed in moonlight. But they're not. Think dangerous; think something that you can only half see like a glimpse, like something out of the corner of your eye, with a touch of myth a touch of the spirit world a touch of reality all jumbled together. Old moments and memories that are frozen in amongst it, like the ring spinning around a ringed planet, tossing, turning, whirling backwards and forwards in time. They have the power of the elements. Water, Fire, Wind, they can take away the air we breathe, turn the world to ice killing everything in existence. That is what the Mara are Sam, and nothing can stop them. You have no idea what they want.

Sam looked at him puzzled. "And you do?"

"Yes Sam I do!" Dean snapped back. "I know, because I've seen them Sam, I know what their capable of."

"How?" Sam was pushing for answers now, his brother knew something and he was determined to know what.

"I just do ok! Shut up, get out. In fact, screw you, I'm leaving don't expect me back until late." Dean grabbed the Impala's keys off the table and slammed the front door behind him. Sam standing stunned at what had just happened. Something was seriously wrong, he could feel it.