The attack had been coordinted and planed down to the second. Every hunter in the group knew exactly what their individual jobs were in order to accomplish the tast at hand as a whole. Get in, get Dean, and get everybody out alive. That was the goal. Beyond that, nothing else mattered. Kill demons, don't kill demons - it was all symantics, really.

Sadie checked the gun in her hand one more time, even though she'd already checked it more than a dozen times and knew that it was ready to go. Sam did the same, more as a nervous habit than anything else. This was it, the defining moment. Sam was either going to get brother out alive, or die trying.

Bobby took a deep breath as he crouched low with a few hunters he knew well crouching behind him. There were two entrances Sadie had been able to point out in her diagram of the tunnels. Both ways in were about the same distance to the room where Dean was being held. The basic plan was to go in from both ends, hard and fast, pulling out the big guns right off the bat. The first person to get to Dean's room was to get him out of the room and head for the exit. Once outside with Dean, a blow horn of sorts would be sounded and the hunters were then supposed to make for the exits and get themselves out.

Sadie was under no illusions that this plan was going to go off exactly as it had been laid out. She certainly didn't believe that every single person with them was going to just drop their weapons and run once they heard that horn. These were hunters that would be face to face with a small army of demons. They would want to stay and fight - to kill as many demons as they possibly could. Getting the hunters to just abandon that task would be a miracle in and of itself. But again, Sadie couldn't let herself think too much about that. If they got themselves out, fine. If they stayed behind on their own, there wasn't anything she could do about that.

Sam tapped Sadie on the shoulder, pulling her out of the mental fog she'd slipped into. He gave the go ahead signal. It was time to go in. Sadie took a deep breath and nodded at Sam. This was it.

Sam went in first, his eyes scanning the area with every step he took. He flipped down the night vision glasses Bobby had given him. Where in the hell Bobby had gotten those, Sam didn't ask. He really wasn't sure he wanted to know. These were high-tech, more so than he thought Bobby would have been able to get his hands on legally. It didn't really matter where they'd come from, anyway. As long as they worked, that was the most important thing.

So far, they were working well enough. Sam moved tentatively down the flight of stairs. They felt ancient and not very sturdy under his feet. He swallowed hard when his foot nearly slipped on something that had been sitting on one of the steps. He froze then, hoping that whatever might be in the hallway before him hadn't heard that. So far, the hall was quiet. There was no movement at all, no sound whatsoever. They were less than fifty yards away from Dean, and Sam lifted up a silent message to his brother to just hold on.

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Dean sat in the corner of the black room he was in. He really couldn't understand why he was still alive. He knew that he was starving to death, slowly but surely. So why wouldn't his body just give in and die for crying out loud?! He was so tired, but sleep wouldn't come. He was too weak to really be able to stand up and move around now. Again, he didn't know when he'd last had food, but it was definitely long enough. Oddly enough, he didn't feel as hungry now, though, as he had earlier when he'd been throwing up stomach acid every thirty minutes. His throat was still raw and sore from that experience, and his voice was rough when he spoke. Of course, he didn't speak often anyway as there was no one to listen to him.

It appeared to him that the demons that had been pulling him out of the room and beating the living crap out of him had found what they were looking for, and now they'd left him here to die.

Dean had already come to terms with knowing that he was going to die. He'd prayed that if there was a god up there, would the god forgive him and let him go somewhere else this time? He knew that what he'd done during his time in hell was unforgiveable, but maybe this god that Sam so heartedly believed existed would have pity on Dean after letting him die this way. That was really all he could hope for now. He couldn't even begin to imagine going back to hell now.

Dean rubbed his hands together and let his head roll backwards to lean against the wall behind him. He had reached a point right now where no thoughts ran through his head. Absolutely nothing. He'd found that it was much safer that way. If he thought about Sam he would only get mad and start to cry. He didn't want to think about his father and mother, and where they might be now. Would he be allowed to go where they were? He had already had that discussion with himself, more than once.

Now, though, he was just quiet. Everything was quiet. The room, his head, his heart - it was all silent.

Dean closed his eyes and was starting to drift off into a dream world that he'd been frequenting lately. The skies were bright and blue and went on as far as the eye could see. The grass was green and soft and lush beneath his bare feet. The picnic spread out behind him had mounds of food, all his favorites. And the best part of it all, laying on the ground beside him, her head in his lap, was a woman that Dean still couldn't get out of his head, nor his heart. It had been over a year and a half since he'd last seen her or even heart anything from or about her, but she'd always been right there at the forefront of his thoughts. Now, she was beside him again. Her soft hair sprayed out over his legs and her hands held one of his and traced the lines in his palm with her fingertips. "I love you," she said sweetly as she looked up at him.

"I love you, too," he replied as he stared down at her. His smile grew bigger as she placed his hand on her rounded belly and he felt the evidence of movement from the baby she carried.

"How about Brandon and Emily?"

Dean looked up thoughtfully as he mulled the names over in his mind. "Brandon Dean Winchester," Dean said out loud as he tried the name on for size. "I like it." His hazel eyes returned to her sweet face.

"Emily Sadie..." She made a disgusted face and shook her head. "Sounds horrible!"

Dean began to chuckle when somewhere off in the distance a sound he couldn't quite put his finger on rumbled through the air. It sounded like a scream, but not a typical scream. No, it was more than that. There was something unnatural about it, but what really had Dean freaked out was that it sounded so familiar. He was on his feet in instant, holding a hand out in Sadie's direction telling her to be quiet. He listened with everything he had and in seconds, there was another scream. Much the same, but from the other direction.

Dean looked around him, trying to decide what to do when the light began to fade away and darkness took over. "No," he said to himself, but it was too late.

The dream was gone, and Dean was once again plunged into the black hole of the room. His eyes opened but as always, he saw nothing. But again, the scream that had penetrated his dream was heard outside of the room he was in. What the hell?

Dean tried to stand, but his legs gave out beneath him. Something was happening. The scream was the sound a person made when a demon was exorcised out of them. What?!

Without warning, the door to the cell flew open and the room was flooded with an unnatural and somehow dark light. Dean's head felt as though it would explode from the assault of light to his dulled senses. The screaming was more audible now with the door open. He couldn't open his eyes, though, the pain was too intense.

Dean felt it the moment the demon entered his body. It was a feeling unlike anything he'd ever known. He could feel his own psyche being pushed aside as a dark force, heavy and powerful, took over his mind and body.