It was not easy convincing the police officers stationed at the hospital to stay off the second floor for the night. It was even harder to get Betty and the aides to stay away for a few hours, but in the end, Betty had only agreed part way. The aides would stay off the floor but Betty herself refused and would stay at the desk out of the way. The children here were sick and she would not leave them without help should something happen.

Castiel had set up protective wardings in each of the children's rooms, but then had to leave so the Sandman would not sense him. He would only be a prayer away and he would be watching to make sure everything went as it should. Richard had gone into one of the empty rooms, no protection, and lay down on the bed to wait for the Sandman. Dean and Sam waited at the desk with Betty to make sure the Sandman took the bait.

Reluctantly, Sam and Dean had to fill Betty in on what was happening so she understood the danger and not try and enter the room. She tried to busy herself with her work at her desk, but it was obvious that she was scared and she kept looking down the hall towards the room Richard was in. She was also worried about the kids.

"How long do you think we will have to wait?" Sam asked quietly to his brother who was currently pacing around the hall.

The only sounds that they could hear was that of the machines in the rooms monitoring the patients and from Betty working on her computer. The rain had even fallen to a soft sprinkle and was barely audible. Every now and then Deans shoes would squeak on the polished floor as he turned from his pacing and it would echo down the halls.

"He has not come at the same time any of the nights, so who knows?" Dean looked at his watch and saw that it was almost 2:30a already. "I'm going to walk by the room, make sure everything is okay."

There had not been any noise so far from any of the rooms, but that was what had been bothering the elder hunter. It was too quiet. When he was a few doors down from Richards room, a very quiet and almost inaudible voice reached his ears. He slowed for a moment and frowned as he tried to hear what it was saying. When he was one door away, he could finally make out the words; 'tick tock, tick tock, tick tock' over and over again. When he got outside of Richards room, his eyes flew wide at the scene.

Richard was still on the bed, but his eyes were missing and his guts were hanging out of him and all over the bed, the sheets soaked through with his blood. One of his hands lay on the floor, the talisman they were going to use to trap the Sandman in still clutched tightly in its fingers. Before Dean could shout for his brother, his vision swam and he blacked out, a shadowy figure in the room catching the corner of his eye and he heard laughing as he lost consciousness.

Dean woke up about fifteen minutes later and he knew instantly that he was no longer in the hospital. Or at least he wasn't in the undamaged version. He lay in the rubble of a burned down building, just like all the other buildings around him. Nothing stood over a story high and the sky was black with smoke from buildings that still burned.

As he slowly sat up, he couldn't help but feel like he was in the future again; it looked the same as what happened with the Croatoan virus. Somehow he knew this was different.

As he slowly got to his feet, the hunter rubbed his arms. There was a strange energy in the air and it was making his skin crawl. There was a putrid smell in the air that he knew to be burning flesh and his stomach clenched. That was a smell he would never be able to forget. He smelled it all the time when he was down in Hell. The only reason he knew that he was not in Hell now was because it was too quiet. If it were Hell, there would be endless screams as souls were tortured and screamed to to be set free. Screams he heard up close when he was the one doing the torturing.

Not having any other option, Dean made his way through the rubble and down to the road, pausing to read signs along the way. They confirmed that he was still in Boston and that was the childrens hospital he had just crawled out of. His stomach sank again, this time in worry. Where was Sam and what the hell happened?

"Sam!" his voice echoed around and sounded louder due to the lack of buildings and other sounds around him. "Sammy, where are you!"

"Dean!"

Dean froze in his tracks when he heard Sams voice calling back to him, then he was running in the direction it had come from. He stumbled over pieces of debris as he ran, at one point falling down and slicing his arm open, but he continued on. His lungs were starting to burn from the smoke and from running, but he would not stop until he found his brother. Sam was still calling for him and he sounded like he was in pain.

"Sam, where are you?" Dean was breathing hard now and he still had no idea where his brother was.

His heart pounded in his chest with fear that Sam would stop calling before he found him. That he would be too late to save him, just like before. He had to stop for a moment to catch his breath and only ended up inhaling even more smoke. His eyes were also watering from the burn of the smoke, but he just wiped the tears away.

"Dean, help me!" Sam called again, a loud and pain fill scream following is words.

Dean was off running again, this time faster than before, and he only stopped when he found himself back at the destroyed hospital.

"What the hell is going on!" he yelled in frustration. He had not made any turns, but still had ended up back where he'd started. He kicked the hospital sign and let out another string of curses.

The sky was dark and there was thunder, but there was no rain or lighting. Looking around again, Dean could see a forest in the distance that was lit up as fire ate through it. He still had not seen a single person around, or even any bodies even though the smell of burning flesh was strong. It had become stronger since he'd been awake. There was also a lack of any blood and that worried him rather than give him comfort. Something was definitely wrong here.

As he leaned against the hospital sign catching his breath, he looked up at the sky. Where was Castiel while all this was happening? The angel had always shown up whenever he was in danger before. Was the angel himself in trouble now? Dean called out to the angel first in his head in a silent prayer, then vocally. He yelled until his rough voice became rougher and he went into a coughing fit.

"D-Dean," Sams voice was close by this time, and sounded weak. "please…"

Dean spun around to face the voice behind him only to stumble back a few steps. The hospital was no longer burnt down, but only the bottom level was intact.

"Seriously, what the hell is going on?" Not waiting any longer, Dean ran inside. "Sam!"

He looked around but did not see him right away, so he continued on. He turned down one hall and then another before it opened up again at another reception area. There he found his brother strapped to a rack like there was down in hell, covered in blood, a deep wound in his stomach and some pieces of him missing. There was a tray beside him with bloody parts on it; an ear and some fingers, along with familiar tools of torture.

Dean was at his brothers side in an instant, pulling at the straps, but he stopped when Sam cried out in pain.

"Please...stop, Dean." Sam panted, tears causing streaks to run through the blood on his cheeks. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Dean asked, then his eyes went wide.

He himself was covered in blood, none of it his own, and in his hand he held a wicked knife with a serrated blade. The same one he used when he was torturing souls down in hell. The knife clattered to the floor and he backed away from his brother. He stared at his hands and they were covered in his brothers blood like his clothes and he suddenly had images of himself torturing his brother flowing into his head.

"No! no, no, no! This isn't happening. I didn't…" Dean dropped to his knees, not even realizing he was now kneeling in a puddle of his brothers blood, and grabbing at his head. "Cas! Cas, where are you!" he began yelling again at the top of his lungs. He got to his feet and tried to stop his brothers bleeding, but there was too much blood and nothing to put over the wounds. "Castiel! I need you!"

There was a flutter of wings and Dean turned around to see Castiel standing there, back in his suit and trenchcoat, and looking as he ever did. When he saw the scene before him, he winced in pain at seeing Sam, but then focused on Dean. The hunter was falling apart and if he didn't work fast, Dean would break.

Dean grabbed Castiel by the arm and dragged him towards Sam, tears running down his cheeks. "Cas, save him! Please, I...I don't know what happened." his hands were shaking and his stomach was clenching again. "I think I did this to him. I remember cutting into him…"

"No, Dean."

Behind them Sam was still whimpering and begging Dean to stop hurting him, his voice quiet from weakness and loss of blood. Whenever Dean moved near him, he would flinch away as best he could, but the bindings did not allow him much movement.

"What the hell do you mean, 'no'?!" Dean grabbed Castiel by his coat lapels and shook him. "You better fucking help him Cas, or I swear to God…"

Castiel very calmly put his hands on Deans upper arms and held him in place. "There is no need to help him. This isn't real, Dean."

"What?" Dean turned back to face Sam but the scene was still the same. His brother was still bleeding out and begging for him to stop hurting him. He could taste his brothers blood in his mouth and feel it coating his skin. He reached out and touched Sam again and he felt solid under his hand. Real.

"This isn't-" Castiel was cut off with a flap of wings and when the hunter turned back to him, the angel was gone.

"Cas?!"

Dean went out the front door of the hospital and looked around, but everything was just as it was when he first woke up. When he went back inside, his brother was dead and another body lay nearby on the ground. This one was the nurse, Betty, or what was left of her. She had been carved up until she was mostly just bone and chunks of flesh. The only reason that Dean knew who it was, was because most of her face was still intact. He felt the weight of the blade in his hand again and threw it without even looking at it.

"No!"

Once again Dean ran, but this time he wasn't running towards something but away. Castiel had said this wasn't real, but it sure as hell felt real. The smells were real and that knife he'd been holding had been real too. He could taste the smoke and feel his lungs burning as he ran. He could feel the wind blowing against him. It was too real to be a hallucination.

Then, for the first time since he'd woken up here, he heard a sound that was not Sam. He knew instantly what it was and panic and fear filled him. Then he ran faster, trying to find somewhere to hide but it was impossible when everything was burned to the ground. The growls and barks of the hellhounds were getting closer, and he knew he could not outrun them.

When he rounded the large pile of debris caused by a fallen sky scrapper, Dean slid to an abrupt stop. He came out in what should have been a park, but instead there were piles and mountains of bloody corpses. There were also racks that held more corpses and Dean felt himself shaking when he realized there were three men standing among the bodies, all smiling.

"Oh, Dean, welcome to the party. I hope you don't mind that we started without you." Lucifer stood at the top of the largest pile, his white suit covered in blood. At the bottom on the ground stood Alistair and Azazel, both also covered in blood and smiling. "Did you enjoy slicing up your brother? I must say, I didn't think you had it in you."

"I told you he was born for this." Alistair said almost proudly. "He is my best student."

"He may be good at torture, but he's still a coward." Azazel added, his yellow eyes flashing. "Running away as usual. Though this time he has a good reason to."

Lucifer chuckled and looked down at Dean, smile still in place. "Poor Dean, about to become puppy chow again."

The growls and barking were right behind him now, only feet away. Dean watched as bloody pawprints appeared on the ground as the hounds walked through the gore towards him. He was surrounded, and very much shit out of luck. When a knife landed at his feet, he looked up to see Lucifer with a hand up.

"It's no fun just watching them go at you like a steak. How many can you kill before they kill you?" his eyes moved around the area, counting the hounds. "I'll tell you what. You kill half of them, which is four by the way, and I'll send them back. Then you can help us finish up carving."

There were suddenly new, living, people tied to the racks around the area, all fighting and screaming trying to get away.

Dean quickly picked up the knife Lucifer had thrown him just in time as one of the hounds started attacking him. He yelled in pain as he felt sharp teeth sink into his lower leg and with a growl, he drove the knife down into the beasts head. If they were biting him, he would know where they were, but he couldn't let them keep biting him or he'd be dead in an instant. These dogs did not claw and bite shallow; one mistake and it was over.

He managed to kill two more before he was overpowered and knocked onto his back. He yelled in agony as they tore into him, just like before, going right for his stomach and chest. Soon he could do no more than gurgle and choke on his own blood. The hounds stopped tearing into him and he was alone again, but only for a moment.

"Dean!" Castiel was at his side again, slightly bloody and looking afraid. "Dean, this isn't real! You are not dying!" the angel shook his shoulders and Dean made more choking sounds. "This isn't real! You need to wake up!"

"Always ruining the fun, Castiel." Lucifer was suddenly behind the angel, a look of disgust on his face. "I see I will need make you explode aga-" he was cut off as he was the one to explode into pieces. Alistair and Azazel vanished next along with the screaming humans.

Dean tried to focus on Castiels face, but everything was blurry and he was in too much pain. His eyes fell closed and after a moment, he felt heat against his skin. His eyes cracked open and he saw a bright light so had to shut them again. He was starting to feel dizzy and barely registered the feeling of lips against his own. His pain started fading away and soon Castiel the only thing in his mind.

"Dean, this isn't real. Come back to me." Castiel whispered against the hunters lips before kissing him again.

With a shuddering sigh, Dean went limp as everything went white.