At long last! The chapters are up!

I'll be the first to admit that these first few chapters are going to be a little confusing. I promise, though, I'll try to answer all questions.

Next update: Tuesday, July 28

Enjoy! ;)

~Christianne

Nicole POV

A few hours later, I pulled into the driveway of the duplex my older brother rented for me. I put my Toyota into park, grabbed my sweatshirt and bag, and held my lanyard in my teeth as I walked up the steps to my door.

My brother, Gabe, picked out my college apartment before I even had a chance to see it. I laughed when I first saw it; it was a church.

It was a smaller building in the historical part of New Haven, built in the mid-1800s. Until the 1940s it was a church. It'd been a multitude of things since then; a little store, a day care and a bunch of other things that Gabe listed off, but I didn't listen too. A few years ago they built a wall in the middle and made two 1,100 square foot apartments. Mine was in the front of the church; there was a metal spiral staircase that led up to the small loft bedroom in the steeple. Gabe had plans to change all the stained glass windows with plain glass, but I liked them. I'd gone out of my way to get a bunch of white stuff for my apartment; that way I could see all the colors shine through the stained glass.

As I was unlocking my door, I heard movement in my apartment ; and it wasn't Sammy. I rolled my eyes and pushed the door open. "You know, most people call when they're going to show up in someone else's home." I called, dropping my stuff on the little table next to my door.

"Don't act like you're not happy to see me!" Gabe called from the kitchen. Gabe lived in Wisconsin; where we grew up. He wasn't technically my brother, but he was as close as I was gonna get and better that I ever could have imagined.

When I was 9 I came to live with his family; Gabe, his brother Chris and their parents Greg and Olivia. Chris was overseas now; he was in the Army. Greg and Olivia died a few years ago in a car accident. So, it was just Gabe and me, and I was fine with that.

"Yeah, well, I never really am." I sighed. A happy bark sounded from the kitchen, and I happily got onto my knees to catch my dog when he crashed into me.

"Hey boy!" I said as I tried to match his enthusiasm. I think I did a good job; his big paws were on my shoulders and he was licking my face. "Jeez! Sammy! I know you missed me but down boy!"

When I moved into this place four and a half years ago, Gabe was a little concerned. He was always a little over protective. The day he was supposed to leave, he brought this little ball of black, white and reddish fur; the tiny puppy that would grow up to be my 135-pound Bernese Mountain Dog. I named him Sammy.

I scratched his ears and belly, gave him kisses and a tight hug before I stood up. Sammy trailed after me as I went into the kitchen. Gabe had completely raided my fridge and cupboards. "What are you doing?"

"Making a kickass sundae," Gabe said, very concentrated on the chocolate syrup that he was drizzling over the four scoops of ice cream. There was already a ton a sprinkles, nuts, gummy worms and marshmallow fluff on it.

"Really? Cause you know what I think it looks like?" I asked rhetorically as I leaned against my kitchen island. He glanced at me; eyebrows raised as he waited for my answer. "A big, heaping bowl of diabetes."

Gabe just rolled his eyes and threw a gummy worm at me.

"Hey, so, wanna hear somethin' weird?" I asked, grabbing a spare spoon from the counter and digging around the bowl until I found actual ice cream.

"Uh, only always." Gabe chuckled. I rolled my eyes; I should have known better. Gabe had always been interested in weird crap. The summer before my senior year of high school, he took me on a road trip through the midwest. We didn't stop at any museums, Mount Rushmore or anything normal like that; it was twelve days of mystery spots, bigfoot sightings, haunted hotels and 'possessed' hot dog stands.

Then again, I was pretty weird in some aspects, so who was I to judge?

"So, I'm sitting in the Most Horrible Awful Terrible Class Ever-"

"Wait," Gabe cut me off, a hand up. "Most Horrible Awful Terrible Class Ever; that's that class about the beginnings of the universe, right?"

"No, Most Horrible Awful Terrible; that's the one about the constitution or whatever," I said, frowning. "Anyway, I'm just sitting there, and I hear this voice."

I was going to continue, but Gabe had this really weird look on his face. He looked both impressed and terrified at the same time.

"Hey, Gabe," I called lowly. I grabbed a gummy worm and threw it at his chest. It bounced off and hit the table. I could feel Sammy pacing around my feet before he laid down over them protectively. "What's with you?"

"Oh, nothing..." He trailed off, shaking his head.

Gabe stayed the night on my couch. A cab came to take him to the airport Friday morning, and we hugged goodbye at my door. I had classes to get to, or I would drive him myself. He had been weird the rest of the night, and he just about broke my ribs when we hugged goodbye. Since he flew all the way here, I hoped he would have stayed longer. But he said he had stuff to do back in Milwaukee.

"Well, what do you think Sammy?" I asked, sitting on my front steps as Gabe drove away. I reached up and scratched behind his ears. "Was he being weirder than normal, or are we just desensitized to it?"

Omniscient POV

It was only a few days after Dean was raised up from the pit, and they were already neck deep in a case.

"Yeah, we're at Jed's. He looks even less worse than Olivia. What about you?" Dean asked into the phone as he and Sam went down the steps of the white house (which had seen better days).

"I checked on Carl Bates and R.C. Adams," Bobby said on the other end. "They've redecorated...in red."

Dean turned to his brother and made a gesture across his throat; they were dead. "What the hell is goin' on here, Bobby? Why did a bunch of ghosts suddenly wanna gank off-duty hunters?"

"I don't know, but until we find out, you guys better get your asses to my place."

"We're on our way." Dean said, then snapped his phone shut as he got in the driver's seat.

A few miles from Bobby's, Sam pulled into a gas station. He put the nozzle in the car, pressed a few buttons of the pump, and ducked down to look at Dean through the windows; his head was lolling out the window. He was out. Sam stopped off in the restroom.

He was leaning over the sink, washing his hands. He was careful to keep his gaze on his hands, not the reflection in the mirror.

After Dean 'died' four months ago, Sam had been wearing his necklace; the one with the little brass-colored pendant. He'd also been wearing a second necklace for the past three months. Whenever he looked at it, he felt guilty.

Suddenly, it got cold in the grimy, dirty bathroom. Sam could see his breath come out of his mouth in white puffs. He turned off the water, and gave one more breath just to see if it was his imagination. It wasn't.

Sam tucked the necklace back in his shirt as he looked up to the mirror. The two oval pendants were cold against his chest, but he was focused on the frost growing over the mirror. He reached up, and swiped his hand across the mirror.

After the frost was gone, the reflection of a person could be seen behind Sam. He gasped, while the rest of his muscles froze.

It wasn't a threatening person, it was just the last person he wanted to see.

"Hi Sam." They said in a casual, cheerful voice. Sam turned to look at them; he was greeted with an indifferent smile. "Long time, no see."

Sam's face was a mask of painful guilt as he look down at the person across from him.

The door swung open. Like they were made of dust, the person shifted into particles and disappeared as the door swung through there they had been standing.

"Hey, speed it up." Dean said, giving the door a good slam. He'd been yawning and rubbing his eyes as he snapped at Sam, so he didn't see the look of horror on his brother's face.

Sam took a second to compose himself before he followed his brother back to the car.

The Winchester brothers were unable to reach Bobby all night; Dean floored it to the salvage yard.

"Bobby?" Dean called out in a hushed yell. Both brothers had sawed-offs at the ready as they searched the first floor of the house. Dean found an iron poker on the floor, and signaled Sam to check outside while he took the upstairs.

"Bobby?" Dean yelled through the upstairs. His head jerked to his right when a door slammed shut. Then, all the doors at the top of the house started to slam shut; all except for one.

Dean cautiously approached the door. "Come out, come out, whoever you are..." He taunted.

The room turned cold just as a feminine voice spoke. "Dean Winchester...Still so bossy."

Dean turned around to see a familiar face.

"Don't recognize me? This is what I looked like before that demon cut off my hair and dressed me like a slut." Meg. It was Meg. Her hair was darker and shorter, her shirt, jeans and face were streaked with dirt, and she looked mad.

Dean raised his shotgun, and Meg playfully put her hands up. "It's ok. I'm not a demon."

"You're the girl the demon possessed." Dean realized.

"Meg Masters," she clarified. "Nice to finally talk to you when I'm not, you know, choking on my own blood."

She took a few steps closer, her hands up like she was trying to calm an animal. "Seriously...I'm just a college girl...Sorry, was a college girl."

"I was walking home one night and got jumped by all this smoke. Next thing you know, I'm a prisoner...in here." Meg tapper her head. "Now, I was awake. I had to watch while she murdered people."

Dean lowered his gun an inch. "I'm sorry." He said simply.

"Oh yeah?" Meg countered in a soft (but still angry) voice. "So sorry you had me thrown off a building?"

"Well," Dean started. "We thought-"

"No!" Meg cut him off. "You didn't think! I kept waiting, praying! I was trapped in there screaming at you 'Just help me, please!" You're supposed to help people, Dean. Why didn't you help me?

"I'm sorry." Dean said again.

"Stop saying you're sorry!" Meg yelled, throwing a hard punch at the end. Dean was thrown into the wall next to him.

He groaned from the floor and began getting to his feet. "Meg. Meg..." He was cut of by a kick to the chin.

Meg kicked the sawed-off behind her, and looked down at Dean.

"We didn't know!" Dean insisted.

"No..." Meg trailed off, squatting down next to Dean. "You just attacked. Did you ever think there was a girl in here? No. You charged in, slashing and burning."

"You think you're some kind of hero? " Meg asked.

"No." Dean answered. "I don't."

Meg grabbed his collar and yanked her closer. "You're damn right."

Dean noticed a mark on Meg's fist while she yelled at him.

"You have no idea what it's like to be ridden for months by pure evil...while you're family has no idea what happened to you!"

"We did the best we could-" Dean was cut off when Meg threw him to the floor and kicked him again.

"It wasn't just me, Dean. I had a sister." Meg said as Dean tried to right himself. "A little sister. She worshiped me. You know how little siblings are, right? How they'll do anything for you? She was never the same after I disappeared. She just...she got lost. And when my body was lying in the morgue, alld broken and beat up. You know what that did to her?"

"She killed herself!" Meg yelled, kicking Dean in the ribs. "Because of you, Dean! Because all you were thinking about was your family, you're revenge! 50 words of Latin sooner, and I'd still be alive...My baby sister would still be alive."

"Nikki..." Dean panted, looking up at Meg from his knees. "Nikki...She tried to save you."

Meg laughed once. "Yeah...Yeah, she did...Bobby singers made her stop. You could have kept her going, Dean. You could have made her heal me!"

"She was killing herself healing you," Dean snapped, glaring at Meg. "She would'a died."

"Then she should have!" Meg yelled. "Nikki was nothing but a witch, Dean. A witch only interested in saving herself!"

Dean gave Meg a harsh glare; she stepped way over the line with that one.

"You bi-" Dean's swearing was cut off by another kick.

Grunting and groaning, Dean managed to haul himself through the only open door at the end of the hall while Meg leaned casually in the doorjamb.

In his crawling and scuffling, Dean got the pistol out from his waistband. He cocked it had pointed it up at Meg.

"C'mon Dean," Meg scoffed. "Did your brain get French-fried in Hell? You can't shoot me with bullets."

"I'm not shooting you," Dean growled. He raised his aim and shot the iron chandelier. It fell on top of Meg, turning her to dust.

"So, they're all people we know?" Sam asked.

"Not just know." Dean corrected. "People we couldn't save." At the words, Dean saw a look of guilt cross Sam's face. Bobby also glanced towards Dean.

"Hey, I saw something on Meg." Dean spoke up again. "Did she have a tattoo while she was alive?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't think so."

"It was like a-a mark on her hand-almost like a brand." Dean mumbled, reloading his shotgun.

"What did it look like?" Bobby asked, flipping through one of the large, leather-bound books on his desk. Sam scrawled the round mark he saw. He showed it to Dean, who nodded.

Bobby grabbed the pad, and began searching through his bookshelves. All three men turned around when the radio turned on, playing nothing but static. Dean cocked his shotgun.

"We gotta move." Bobby said, taking a few armfulls of books. He gave some to Sam and Dean.

"Whoa," Sam said as he took the books. "Uh, ok. Where are we going?"

"Some place safe, you ijit." Bobby snapped.

"Hey," Dean said, looking at Sam. "Where's your sawed off?"

Sam frowned and looked towards the kitchen. "Be right behind you." Sam said, giving his books to Dean. He took the iron poker with him, and entered the kitchen.

Sam had the poker at the ready as he pushed the door open. He began looking for his sawed off, holding it tightly.

He leaned down to look under the table, and he heard a soft giggle; he could see his breath in the air.

Slowly, Sam stood and readied the poker over his shoulder.

It was the same person who showed up in the bathroom.

Her dark, curly hair was springing up and floating over her shoulders. Her tanned skin had a healthy glow and her eyes were bright. She was wearing one of his shirts, and her bare legs were dangling over the kitchen counter on which she sat.

She grinned at him, and raked her hair back, revealing the round brand on her neck. She crossed her ankles and swung her legs a bit.

Sam's heart broke out into a sprint, and his grip on the poker loosened; he wasn't going to be able to make himself hit her with it.

The young woman sighed, and put her hands behind her on the counter to lean back a little. Sam could see flashes of her heather gray panties (the ones with the little pink bow on the front) where the shirt rode up, same with her bra under the barely-buttoned shirt.

She flashed him a warm, slightly mischievous smile before she spoke.

"Sam-Not-Sammy."