"Again," the man spoke.
She didn't want to do it again. Her feet felt as if they would fall off at any point in time. Her breath had turned into quick rasps. She wasn't sure if she could even do it again.
This was a younger version of the woman who called herself Seventeen. This was a broken and weak version who knew nothing about fighting against the word.
So, she did it again. Her fists and feet met that of another girl's around the same age as her. They were fighting, blood flowing out of the other girl's nose. This wasn't uncommon. If you didn't come out of the ring without some sort of injury, you were considered weak.
The girl's name might have been Charlotte. It didn't matter to Seventeen. All that mattered to Seventeen was that she comes out on top.
But... no. That wasn't her name. Seventeen wasn't her name. It was something else, a name she couldn't describe. It was on the tip of her tongue. What was it again?
"Stop," the man ordered. Seventeen felt like she had just woken from a dream. The girl, Charlotte, was beneath her. Her nose was not just bleeding now. It looked to be broken.
Seventeen looked at her hands. The skin was bloody and broken. She quickly got off the other girl as the instructor moved closer to the pair.
The instructor tsked at the sight of Charlotte. "Such a weak little girl," the man sighed. A gun quickly found its way into his hand as his eyes turned to the color of a midnight pool.
A gunshot rang throughout the room, and there was even more blood on Seventeen. It wasn't just her blood, but Charlotte's blood was on her, too. She felt disgusted by herself, like she could throw up.
This wasn't right. Why was she here? When did she get here? How did she end up like this person? Her parents... her parents would've hated her if they could see her now. But where were her parents?
It took a little too much time for her to come to the realization that she was the reason she didn't know where her parents were. She was the one who pulled the trigger. She killed them. Their blood was on her hands-
"Seren, I'm proud. You've come so far in your training. I feel your soul is almost tainted enough to pass the final initiation. You have enough sins on your head, at least," the instructor praised her. Her name hit her like a brick.
Seren
Seren
Seren
"Seren!" she gasped out as she sat up straight on her bed. The blankets pooled around her as she breathed heavily. Seren felt as if she was suffocating, and she threw the blankets off of her.
Blankets fell in heaps on the ground as Seren stood from the bed to begin pacing the small room given to her by the Winchesters in the Bunker. It was small, but it was protected. If she tried to escape, the boys would know almost immediately.
A sheer panic had gripped Seren within those few seconds. She was just Seventeen for weeks, and now she was Seren. But who was Seren?
Seren was a girl being trained by demons. Seren was a girl who destroyed others to build herself up. She punched and kicked at a simple order. She wasn't always that Seren, but she had become that Seren.
The demons. That's why Crowley came for her. He came back for her. He wasn't done with her yet. She had so much to do. She wasn't in Hell and that was an issue. But why was it an issue?
What did she need to do to escape that panic?
Everything felt so dark. She couldn't breathe, and she ran into her desk. The lamp fell off of it, shattering into pieces on the floor. In her panic, she stumbled over them. The pieces cut into her skin. It was just like when she used to use a knife to cut into other people's skin.
Tears ran down her face as blood ran down her feet. She finally fell to the floor, and she felt pieces of lamp cutting into more of her body.
It felt like another eternity before someone came rushing in.
Dean crashed her door open and stopped at the sight before him. He'd never seen Seventeen like this before. He knew she was probably broken, but not this bad. After all, that's all Seventeen was to him. She was Seventeen, a girl with no memories.
It did not take long for that to change. It took milliseconds, actually.
Through all the panic attacks Dean has denied having, he knew how to identify one. She was gasping, curling in on herself. He saw the blood smearing on the floor with lamp mixed with it. He immediately dropped to the ground, trying to get her out of the glass.
"Seventeen," Dean said, his voice soft but stern. He touched her shoulder, and she almost immediately retracted her body from his. She further cut her skin.
"No, no, no," she kept repeating, a constant mantra coming out of her mouth. The word began to come out faster as more tears came out. She felt her stomach churn, and she knew the contents would be joining the mixture on the floor soon.
She kept cursing herself for letting this happen. She was such a fucking dumbass for letting this get this far. Now Dean knew she was a weak little girl in need of comforting. God, she was so ruined. She should never have let this happen-
"Seventeen," Dean repeated, this time gripping her shoulder so she couldn't roll away further into the shards. He had to get her to regain focus and control of her body. Then, he'd get her out of the lamp shards. After that, it was just a matter of cleaning her wounds.
Right now, it was dealing with the panic of Seventeen.
"No!" she cried out, curling into herself further. She began to shake her head quickly. "That's not my name! That's not my name!"
She was practically screaming by this point, and it had Sam running into the room. His face softened at the sight of Seren, curled up and so vulnerable.
"Sam, help me," Dean said, trying to get Seren out of the lamp shards. Sam quickly knelt on the opposite side of Seren as Dean, both of the boys lifting her up.
Seren struggled in their grasp, trying to escape their grip. Both of them had stern holds on her body, however. She kept struggling until they managed to get her into the bathroom where they gently set her inside the bathtub.
Once her skin met the cool material that composed the bathtub, Seren immediately shrank into herself again. How could she let herself do those horrible things? She did all that just to survive.
This didn't feel like surviving, however. She felt as if her entire world was crashing down on top of her, suffocating her. The weight of the world did not lessen its load as it crushed each and every one of her bones until she was nothing but a crumpled mess.
She felt cold water splashing on her face, and she wanted to feel as if she weren't drowning anymore. Slowly, she felt as if she could breathe again as more and more water stuck to her face. The sweat that stuck to her skin was washed off with the cool water that was quickly turning colors as the blood dispersed through it.
Dean wanted to do something else. He wanted to assure her that it was okay. But he couldn't. He couldn't remind her of the good life she had been living because he didn't know anything about it. He didn't know where she came from. The only place he knew she came from was a parking lot that he found her in. There was no story of Seventeen's for him to recite.
"That's not my name," she yelled again as the water level rose. It now covered everything up to her mid calf, and Sam turned the water off. Dean continued to splash cold water on her overheated skin in an effort to get her to cool down. The water was also there to help her cuts that sliced over her skin in several different areas. Sam knew that some of them would need stitches.
"What's your name?" Sam asked gently, kneeling beside Dean. He had gotten tweezers from the medical kit inside of the bathroom, and he began to dislodge lamp shards from her skin.
Seren whined slightly at the feeling. Her body felt like it was torn apart, both on the inside and the outside. She struggled with a bit as she tried to find her name inside of her mind again. "Seren," she finally rasped out. Her voice was so hoarse when she used it so quietly. Her throat felt raw from all the screaming she did, and her body finally felt tired.
All she wanted to do was sleep, but she couldn't. Now, she was in the cold water that was ironically making her feel like she wasn't drowning anymore. It was a situation in which she couldn't explain. She never would be able to explain it.
Both brothers shared a look. How did she remember her name? They were both questioning if she had just begun to imagine things in her state of hysteria. They wouldn't be surprised. Maybe she had been possessed by a demon and that was the demon's name. Perhaps a demon had abandoned her body in a parking lot for Dean to find.
"Seren," Dean repeated, and she slowly nodded her head. She whimpered in pain more as Sam pulled out a large piece. Sam set it with the rest of them in a small, wet and bloody pile next to the tub. The water had turned a completely different color by this time.
Dean swallowed a little before continuing, wondering how much she had supposedly remembered. "What else can you tell me about yourself, Seren?" he asked, saying her name with a little more emphasis to show that he understood that that was her name.
At the sound of his question, Seren shrunk in on herself. He knew her name, but she couldn't tell him her story. He'd hate her, kick her out. He'd feel so betrayed by her, she couldn't-
"Seren, can you tell us anything else about yourself?" Sam questioned, taking a break from pulling pieces from her skin. She licked her bottom lip before shaking her head no.
Both of the boys knew she was lying. She was too hesitant before shaking her head no. Her eyes still leaked tears, however, and they were screwed shut. Her entire face was contorted by the way she was pressing her eyes closed.
Gently, Dean placed a hand on her shoulder. His rough and calloused hand met her burning hot skin. "Can you open your eyes?" Dean asked gently, rubbing soothing circles into her shoulder.
She didn't hesitate this time, and she only shook her head no. Even through her eyelids, the lights were too bright for her eyes. She felt as if she was back on a lab table with the fluorescent lights hanging over her drugged body... no no no no not again.
The tears started with a new effort, and she began sobbing at the thoughts of the cuts and the surgeries that were "needed" and suddenly the cold water felt like metal and she had to get out.
"Sam!" Dean yelled, struggling to keep Seren down as she thrashed around in the pool of water. The piece of lamp that he was trying to pull from her skin had lodged in as she moved her legs around wildly in the pool.
They both held her down, Dean trying to soothe her into stopping. It took around two minutes for her to finally stop, and it was only after they had drained the tub.
She was shivering mess inside of the tub, some of her blood still leaking out into it. Quietly, Dean began to hum a tune as he tried to distract Seren from Sam pulling pieces of lamp from her legs again. It took nearly five minutes for her to stop shivering. Still, Seren felt nauseous from all that she's managed to remember. At any point in time, she felt as if the contents of her stomach would be leaving her.
She pushed it all into the back of her mind, however, and focused on Dean's voice as he hummed a song neither of them really knew.
It took nearly an hour for Sam to get all the pieces out, wash the cuts out with rubbing alcohol, and put bandaids on the ones that were especially bad. Dean had started to help out for a little while, putting bandages on her upper body where she needed them.
Her shirt had long been removed for the simple reason that it was in the way of getting to her cuts. They had to cut it off due to the fact that Seren refused to take her arms from her sides for long periods of time.
Now, Seren laid in her bed, staring at the wall. Thoughts of the panic attack induced more panic, so she wiped her mind of any thoughts or feelings. She felt like a clean sheet of paper as she stared at the wall.
Maybe not a clean sheet of paper, she mused. A clean sheet of paper is crisp, clean, and white. Seren was torn and ripped, crumpled to the point of no use. She was not a clean sheet of paper. She was simply an unused one dropped to the ground for people to step on.
Seren didn't make much noise, either. She knew that at least one of the Winchester boys was sitting outside of her door. She knew they would insist it was for her own safety. Seren hated the feeling of having to be defended from herself. It made her feel weak and vulnerable, a feeling that wrenched her stomach.
She turned in her bed again. She couldn't sleep. Perhaps Dean would sing her another song. She laughed at the thought. After all she's put them through, she'd ask them for nothing. Especially something that seemed as intimate as that.
Five minutes later, there was a knock on her door. Seren called out for them to come in, her voice still rough and scratchy. Dean opened her door, leaning on the frame of it. Seren simply waved at him to come in, not wanting to use her voice.
"You feeling better?" he questioned, concern written all over his face. Seren simply nodded, and she had to clear her mind of the panic attack again. She wouldn't be weak in front of him.
Dean simply nodded, and he turned to go back out. There was no point for him to be there if she wasn't going to talk. That ruined the purpose of him being there in the first place.
"Wait," Seren called out, damning herself for using her scratchy voice. The tone of her voice didn't feel like her own. Her own voice would never be as desperate as the one she was using now.
Dean turned his head back towards her, and she felt herself almost crumble beneath his green eyes glistening in the pale lighting of her room. She didn't want it to be completely dark in there for fear of another... incident occurring. An incident, that's what she would call it. It would no longer be a panic attack because Seren does not panic. If she panics, she dies. It was a simple rule.
"Yeah?" Dean asked after a long period of time. Seren felt guilty for stopping him. He had more important things to do than listen to her, after all. She was nothing to him.
"Nevermind," she whispered, her eyes going blank as she turned on her side. She did her best not to mess with the multiple bandages on her body.
Dean didn't argue with her, and he simply left the room. He didn't know how to talk to her about this, and he felt it was too early to bring up her panic attack so soon.
For now, it'd be best if she just slept.
A/N i didn't edit this, but i did make it more than 2500 words, so i hope that makes up for it. i'm really trying to find more inspiration for this story because apparently people like it? thank you so much to all of you that are reading this and enjoying because it honestly makes my day to see that more people have favorited and followed this shitshow of a story.
also, i'm thinking about starting another fanfiction. it'll be released after i finish seventeen, but i wanna get an early start on it so i'm not going on month long hiatuses. the four fandoms i will write for are harry potter, heroes of olympus, avengers, and supernatural. it's gonna be a sadder story, i just wanna know if anyone has a preference to which fandom they want.
thank you again to everyone reading this!