The Empty Child

Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me. I don't get anything monetary out of this.

~.~

Benny didn't much care for small towns. Small towns meant that people learned his face and voice, remembered his mannerisms and picked up on the fact that there was something wrong about him, something unnatural.

Small town folk, Benny knew, picked up on the different natured much more easily than big city folk. It came down to the simple fact that in a small town everyone knows everyone, and everyone takes close attention to get to know anyone who appears new.

And if what seems new gives off an unsettling vibe, color in the eye drastically different from any color they'd ever seen on a human or maybe their scent is stale-they pick up on the different or maybe their sense of self-preservation kicks in without them knowing it.

The animal in humans wants to find higher ground away from the flood, to burrow themselves away from immediate danger because they sense the predator. And they don't even know it.

Beacon Hills is a small town located in California. There is an abundance of trees and a sparse amount of people, all of whom have seemed friendlier than the times would allow. Its like stepping back into a time where people were genuinely polite. Its almost unnatural. Its different from anything he's seen since he's come back from...that place.

He's rented himself a modest little room in the towns only motel. The old woman behind the counter had genuinely smiled and thanked him for his business as she took his money and handed him his key.

No questions asked when he informed her that no one was to go into his room in the morning. Of course she might have assumed he wanted to lie in. The sun didn't kill him but damn if it wasn't aggravating.

"Now what...are you?"

There is an angel statue in his room standing just to the left side of his bed. The gray stands in stark contrast to the drab browns of the walls and furniture and to the mauve bedspreads. He nears the angel, stands just a foot away from it and peers.

It's alive. He's sure of it.

"What are you...?"

He blinks.

~.~

There's a knock on the door. Sam and Dean jut up from their beds, hands flying to their weapons, instincts kicking in even at four in the morning. They stare through the hazy darkness, the only light pouring into the room through the blue moonlight shinning in through the window.

Dean is nearest the door. He casts Sam a look, indicates with his hand to not move or to be quiet (Sam does both) as he quietly moves off of the bed and walks quietly towards the door.

Whoever knocked is still there. They knock again, three harsh rapt to the door, the sound reverberating through the walls of the tiny motel room.

Dean's hand touches the knobs, he unlocks the door and opens.

Only he's welcomed by nothing. He takes a tentative step outside, holding back the urge to shiver at the sudden breeze. His bare foot hits something. A package.

"What the hell." He plucks the package from the ground and makes a hasty retreat inside the motel room.

Sam is sitting stock still and looks just about ready to behead anything that so much as looks at him funny.

"Package." Dean says as Sam reaches over to the rickety bedside table to get the light on. The bulb casts an orange bright hue.

"Who from?"

"I dunno." Dean says as he lifts the package. There's scrawl written there, Dean's full name (even the detestable middle name he and Sam do not talk about.) "Its...for me." He says hollow toned as he stares at the other name there. One he is very familiar with. "Huh..."

"Who from?" Sam asks again.

"Don't worry about it."

"Think it's safe?"

"Leave it." He answers tossing the package on the small table in the kitchenette area. The contents don't so much as rattle. "Whatever. Look just let's get back to sleep."

"But the package"

"Drop it Sam. Its safe, its fine just leave it."

It's after Sam is asleep that Dean even allows himself to get up and take the package outside. He wonders how Benny had found him. Wonders why the package looks so old so nearly falling apart. He shivers against the cold of the night, already sliding himself into the Impala. His leg dangles out of the car and rests on the cement drive as he stares at the package in silent deliberation.

Dean huffs an annoyed breath, opens the package and finds himself holding an old gas mask in his hand. It's heavy in his hand and the red glass at the right eye is cracked right through the middle. Weird...

There is a stack of old black and white photographs which he observes only vaguely, all seem nearly identical. It's all landmarks and blimps in the air and people dressed from a different time. He stops suddenly as his hand touches a piece of flimsy paper-a letter he sees is written in blood.

"Benny, you stupid son of a bitch, what did you do."

~.~

He only blinked and somehow that damn thing that damn angel had sent him to...well he wasn't sure. There were battlements, the stench of smog and rotted wood and smoke lingered in the air with something else, something dead. Benny reaches into his pocket for his phone but finds his hand comes up with only a wad of cash and keys to the car he'd borrowed just that afternoon.

'Great. Just perfect. I'm stranded somewhere without a phone.'

"Dean," He lets out a humorless laugh. "let's just hope that thing wasn't sent by your angel. Wasn't much of a fan of mine-"

He's being watched. He feels eyes on him, can hear the gravel under its foot as it walks towards him. Impossibly light. He turns around, certain that this person must need his help, at the very least it has got to be either a very small woman or a child lost in the midst of wherever he landed. It's a posh neighborhood turned battlefield.

What he sees has him floored and what he hears...he picks up on how wrong the figure is when it nears him and into the very low light coming from the moon above. He feels how bad it is. He stares directly into the glass goggles where the eyes are hidden beneath and he realizes, without cowardice but with a sudden compulsion, how quickly he needs to flee.

"Are you my mummy?"

It's a young man, freckles at the neck. American. He's an inch or so taller than Benny but young, if the red jumper and converse sneakers are anything to go by. Maybe late teens or early twenties. The gas mask makes the kids voice muffle just a bit but he's sure he heard him right. He's asking for his mother, but the tone is wrong.

He sounds like a very small and frightened child.

"You're mommy?" Benny takes a step back. "Can't say that I am."

The young man takes a step forward and Benny scents the air. The kid smells like sweat, deodorant, laundry detergent and-

'Wrong.' His mind supplies. 'This kid smells wrong. Dangerous.'

"Are you my mummy?" The kid walks forward not so much as stumbling over the pieces of debris he is now walking over, completely unaware of his surroundings.

Benny turns tail and runs. Call him a coward for it if you want but something there is something wrong going on.

He sees others with masks as he runs. They stumble through the darkness hands lifted with clawed fingers, shadows playing on the ground as an overhead a siren sings, their voices muffled. Speaking all at once almost lost in the sirens cry.

"Are you my mummy?"

~.~

Muse: ...um...Update! With Benny! Review don't hate me and is anyone gonna send me their guesses on who is was Benny saw? Pretty easy to figure out!