The fingers of Aeden's left hand scrabbled blindly over the slimy rock walls of his new prison, desperately searching for any purchase or break, but there was none. Looking up, eyes opened as wide as they would go, he could just barely glimpse a dim navy circle contrasted against the pitch black. But perhaps it was just his imagination.
When he fell, he had landed hard on his right shoulder, and his arm now hung uselessly at his side. He was sure it was aching something fierce, but in the pool of all the other bruises and cuts that blanketed his body, he couldn't pick it out.
His feet stumbled and slipped over stones. Stones that crunched and gave way when he stepped on them. Not stones. Aeden was grateful he couldn't see, but the blindness gave no comfort to the nausea building in his stomach. He'd seen Lord of the Rings. He knew what crunched like that. Fear rose like bile in his throat, and he doubled over and retched.
He dropped to his knees, trembling and crying.
Help, Aeden whispered to whoever could hear. He was sure no one could, and even if they did hear, who would come to help? Help.
Hello, Aeden. The melodic voice seemed to come from the very air around him, and it was accompanied by a teasing, sweet smell, like a nice perfume. Aeden blinked and looked around for the source of the voice.
From out of the darkness to his right came a woman, also barefoot, also in pajamas, although hers were a flowing white night gown. She had long blonde hair which seemed to float around her face like a halo, and she smiled warmly at Aeden, the way he imagined a grandmother would. Her light washed over him in pleasant sort of way, and brushed the fear back to the crevices of his mind.
"Who are you?"
My name is Mary. Sweetheart, you need to be strong.
"I'm scared," he told her honestly. "I just want to go home."
And you will, came the sweet voice. But first you must find them.
"Find who?" Aeden asked. "Gabriel wouldn't tell me."
The woman only continued to smile as she approached him. When they stood only a foot apart, she held out her pale, luminescent hand, and Aeden took it and immediately felt warm strength flood through his veins like hot chocolate, and together they began to climb the sheer sides of the pit.
Lightning flashed overhead, followed by a deafening crash of thunder as Aeden crawled on his hands and knees onto flat ground. He raised his eyes, and up ahead was illuminated a massive craggy mountain, rising straight out of the trees only a few hundred yards ahead. Aeden turned to Mary, but she had vanished.
And then- Go to the mountain, her voice urged him.
Aeden sprinted for it, all injury forgotten, sure that if he could only reach the top he would be able to spot his quarries. He ran and ran, losing track of time, and came to the base of the mountain just as a sickly pink tinge began to color the edge of the horizon, illuminating another complication. The mountain was comprised entirely of jagged, razor sharp peaks that jutted out at every bizarre angle. There was no way even the most experienced mountaineer was climbing that thing.
He looked up to the peak, barely visible now, once more feeling the hopelessness begin to press at the barriers of his mind. He'd never climbed anything more challenging than the ropes at the playground. How could he summit this monstrosity? There was another crack of thunder, and rain began to fall thick and fast, icy bucket-fulls of drops hard and sharp as diamonds. Even the rain hurt here.
And yet through his barely open lids, Aeden saw, a few yards above him, Mary again. She stood, alone and unharmed, almost seeming to float over the injurious rocks. She smiled and Aeden, and beckoned. Aeden took a deep breath, seized hold of the nearest outcropping with his good arm, and pulled himself up toward Mary.
Though he clambered over the sharpest edges, nothing cut him. There was not a scratch, not that he would have been able to tell them apart from the motley assortment that already riddled his body. Mary drew him higher and higher, until he stood, sweaty and shivering, at the very summit, balancing on a razor thin peak. He squinted as he surveyed the dead land below him. Behind was the forest, but ahead was an endless wasteland of rolling, rocky hills, scattered with debris and the gruesome corpses of a thousand terrible monsters. He stared and stared, but saw nothing.
There, whispered Mary. She pointed with a single delicate finger in the direction of the rising sun, and Aeden saw two jewel bright pinpricks of light, which flickered on and off, like the dying fairy in Peter Pan.
"Is that them?" he asked, turning to Mary.
She nodded slowly, pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead, and vanished. Now all that was left was to get back down the mountain.
Filled with new vigor, Aeden slid and scrambled down the opposite mountainside, oblivious to the numerous scrapes and bruises he sustained.
At long last, he reached the rocky foothills and began the staggering hike west, for in Purgatory, that is the direction the blood red sun rises, when it decides to rise at all.
The lights had seemed so near the base of the mountain when he'd stood at the summit. They couldn't possibly be this far out. Was he lost again? Please don't let me be lost again.
"Once I rose above the noise and confusion…" he sang under his breath, which came in exhausted gasps now. "Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion."
His dad didn't have a particularly good voice, nor did he sing particularly on key, but that had never fazed him or Aeden very much. Every night for the first six years of his life, Mom and Dad had tucked Aeden into bed, kissed him goodnight, and then Mom had left and Dad had seated himself at the foot of the bed, making the springs creak in their familiar way, adding accompaniment to his rendition of an old song from the seventies, sung, apparently, by guys who had hair longer than Mom's. They hadn't done that for awhile, at Aeden's protests that he was too grown up, but still, on rare occasions, he could hear Dad singing it under his breath when he thought no one was listening, and it still gave Aeden immeasurable comfort.
"Carry on my wayward son," he hummed, "there'll be peace when you are done. Lay your weary head to rest, don't you cry no more."
Oh God, he just wanted to lie down and rest."
oOo
"I'm sorry, Dean." Cas' voice was so soft as to be almost inaudible, but at the sound, Dean raised his weary head a fraction of an inch.
"Why?"
Cas shook his head, eyes fixed on his hands. "I saved you from Hell only to drag you to a place a million times worse. We're going to die here."
They sat slumped, shoulder to shoulder, against the rough wall of a craggy bluff, both completely exhausted. And then over the screeching wind…
"Dude, do you hear Kansas?"
Cas frowned. "I don't understand. Kansas is a state, not a sou-"
"No, no. The band."
"I'm afraid I still don't understand."
Dean sat up a little straighter, listening hard. "Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man," he sang along with the unseen voice. "Though my mind could think I still was a mad man… Dude, there's definitely someone out there."
In an amazing feat of strength, Dean pulled himself to his feet and peeked around the edge of the bluff, but saw no one.