Chapter Four: The Reality

Doctor Clara Evanse arrived for work an hour early – there had been a recent influx of various ICU patients, and she wanted to get a full review of the new arrivals before her shift.

After putting her belongings in her locker, she and a nurse did a walk-through of the new patients. After making notes, both mental and literal, about the patients and their needs, she proceeded to start her shift. As she was heading to follow-up on yesterday's liver transplant recipient, she spotted a man in one of the rooms she had passed.

"Hey roomy." Alice greeted, smiling as she slid up next to her.

"Hey, Alice, what happened to this guy?" she asked.

The nurse looked into the room, and recognized the man. "He was brought in last week. Poor thing. Remember that car accident up by Abrams?"

"Of course, it was horrible." Clara replied.

"This guy, Sam, he's lucky he survived." Alice said.

"Oh god, he was in that?" she asked.

"He has first, second, and third degree burns to his torso, arms, and legs." Alice said, looking into the room again sadly.

"And so he was put in a medically induced coma. Standard protocol." Clara said, not realizing she was nodding at the recollection.

"No, we never got the chance, but perhaps it's best he's comatose." Alice said.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"One of the seventeen fatalities was the man with him, his brother. They were halfway between Chase and Abrams before the accident. Their car caught fire, and the other man burned to death. It's so tragic." Alice said.

"Jesus…I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't wake up. Maybe he saw his brother die, and so the real world would just be too painful." Clara said.

"What's even sadder is he has no emergency contacts, no next of kin…he's all alone. I don't think I could imagine anything worse." Alice said.

Clara's pager went off and she glanced down at the screen.

"Code blue, I've gotta go." she said, hurrying away to the room that was given with the code alert.

Alice gave one last look into the room with the gauze-wrapped patient. "Sweet dreams…"


Sam regained consciousness on the floor, trying to blink away the fuzziness. The room soon focused into view, and he looked around. "Dean?" he called, not seeing his brother on the other bed.

"Let's get a move on, baby brother. Whatever's barbecuing those people in Wisconsin isn't going to wait for us to come around. Up and at 'em."


A/N: So there you go. Loved it, or despised it? Drop a review if you'd like. It'll mean the world to me!