FIC: Dreams Of Dragon's Fire
Characters: Sam and Dean
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1809
Summary: Sam's lost, and nothing is as it seems.
A/N: I am back, finally! This story was inspired by a gameplay that I watched on YouTube recently, which in turn was inspired by a short film. The title is from Metallica's song "Enter Sandman."
Dreams Of Dragon's Fire
Awareness comes back with a rush, everything in sharp focus. There's an insistent, repetitive buzzing beside Sam. A mobile phone on the passenger seat. The Impala's windscreen is cracked, spiderweb patterns across the glass. Sam reaches over, picks up the phone. The buzzing stops. The screen is shattered, the display showing only red and black in scattered lines. Something wet trickles down Sam's forehead, and when he touches it, his fingers come away red. Someone is crying. There's a woman lying some distance ahead of the Impala, making some weak attempts to crawl away. Sam puts the phone down and gets out of the car. He can't make sense of what's happened. From the look of things, he's deep in a forest. How did he drive the Impala out here? The trees are thick behind her.
"Hey, are you okay?" Sam calls out.
The woman looks back at him and starts wailing louder, renewing her attempt to get away.
"No, no, it's okay."
Sam takes another step towards her.
"Stay away from me!" she cries.
"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you," Sam says.
He glances around. The wind seems to have picked up. The woman has gone quiet now, stopped trying to get away. Sam approaches carefully and crouches beside her. The moment he grabs her to roll her over he realizes something is wrong. It flips over quicker than he anticipated in a sudden, terrifying moment and it's sand, falling apart in his grip.
Sam's back in the Impala and the phone is buzzing again. His heart is still racing. He hesitantly picks up the phone. The buzzing stops, the phone showing the same red broken screen. The woman is crying again. Sam's hands start to shake and he swallows, looking at himself in the rearview mirror. Get it together, Sam. The phone rings, still in his hand, and he flinches. Amongst the red and black of the shattered screen, the "answer" button is just visible. He presses it and slowly brings the phone to his ear.
"Hello?"
His voice shakes.
"Sam, can you hear me?
Dean's voice sounds far away but a feeling of immense relief washes over Sam anyway.
"Dean?"
"Can you hear me?"
"Yeah, I... Dean, I don't... something's wrong."
"Just hold on. You're gonna be okay."
There's a click and the line goes dead.
"Dean? Dean!"
Sam shivers. He's got to find a way out of here. He gets out of the Impala. The wind through the trees makes an eerie moaning noise and it almost sounds human. The hair on the back of his neck stands up. Through the trees to the left of the car, he can see a building. How did he not notice it before? As he approaches it, it becomes clear that he won't find help there. The two-story building is derelict, the windows boarded from the inside. He can hear a strange staticky noise coming from it though. It's his phone, sitting on a window ledge. How did it get here? In a blink, it disappears and with it the static. Sam's stomach lurches uneasily and he looks over his shoulder, feeling suddenly like he's being watched. There's nothing there. He walks around the side of the building, looking for a door. A new sound begins and it takes him a moment to place it.
"An air raid siren?" Sam mumurs in confusion.
There's a weird pulsing sensation, where the world seems to skip away for a moment, a bright flash, and then the wind picks up. Instinct drives Sam back towards the Impala, but before he can get there, everything turns dark red. It's like a sand storm. He can barely see anything. The siren stops, leaving only the sound of the wind rushing through the trees. Somewhere in the distance, something screeches. Were those footsteps behind him? Sam tries to quell the rising panic as he keeps walking forwards. He's pretty sure the Impala was in that direction. Something crawls towards him, out of the red and without even knowing what it is, Sam feels some primal surge of horror. The wind and static and his heartbeat in his ears reach a deafening crescendo, and then everything stops. Everything. Time is frozen around him. He backs away. Instinct tells him to run and he listens. He can just barely see the Impala through the trees.
He's back in the Impala again, his heart still hammering from his sprint, although he doesn't remember actually getting to the car. The phone is in his hand, buzzing again. He presses answer.
"Hold on, Sammy."
"Dean, where are you?"
"I'm right here."
Sam's hands are shaking and he nearly drops the phone.
"Where? I can't... I can't see you."
"You're okay, Sam. I've got you."
Click. The woman is back, lying on the ground, wailing.
"Dean?"
Sam gets out of the car. Again. He has to get to a road. Find help. Find Dean. He starts walking. The shadows from the trees suddenly seem to move across the ground, faster, faster. Sam looks up and sees the sun is tracking rapidly across the sky. It spins around him, not sinking or rising but instead just running in a circle. The wind whips around him again, the strength of it nearly pushing him over.
"Wake up, Sam!"
Dean's voice sounds like it's right in his ear.
"Dean?" Sam yells over the roar of the wind.
There's nobody there.
And just like that, he is back in the Impala once again. Only now it's dark outside. The car's interior is lit up with a strange red glow. Sam can't tell what the source is. The radio clicks on by itself, playing static. There's a gun on the seat beside him. He reaches for it.
He's standing beside the Impala and he can hear screeching. No, crying. It sounds like a child.
"Hello?" he calls out.
In the darkness, he can see two flashing orange lights. He doesn't have the gun anymore. Steeling himself, Sam walks towards the lights. The crying gets louder. It echoes through his head.
"Who's there?"
As he gets nearer to the lights, he realizes with a horrible sinking feeling that it's just the Impala with her hazard lights on. Fear scatters his thoughts. He's never getting out of here.
Time jumps again. He's back in the Impala. The radio is blaring static. The strange, echoey crying carries on. Sam's heartbeat thumps in his ears. And then there's Dean's voice again.
"Wake up. Sammy, wake up."
Fear threatens to drown him. He can't catch his breath.
He's standing at the front of the Impala, the blinking lights nearly blinding him. The noises continue, getting louder. The trees are bending down towards him. The world is spinning and going darker. A man appears at the edge of the clearing, the flashing lights just barely illuminating him. He's holding a folded umbrella and blood runs in rivulets down his face. Between one flash and another, he dissolves into a pile of blood red sand. Sam breaks. His knees give out and he collapses to the ground.
"Help me. Dean, help me. I can't... I can't get out."
"Easy, Sam, easy."
Dean's voice is so close. An anchor in the storm.
"I'll get you out, Sammy. Just hold on."
Everything goes blindingly white and then black. Then silence.
"Sammy? Are you with me?"
Sam feels weird, floaty like he's not quite there.
"Think so," he mumbles, weak and slurred.
Everything is soft and quiet.
"Thank god," Dean murmurs, relief clear in his voice.
Details start to come into focus around Sam. His back is braced against a large tree, Dean's hand on his shoulder. Beyond that, trees tower above them, the sunlight barely filtering through the branches. It looks so much like before that it sets Sam's nerves on edge again. He tenses and his body lets him know immediately what a bad idea that was, muscles feeling stiff and sore, like he's run a marathon. Dean squeezes his shoulder a little tighter. But at least the pain seems to pull Sam further back into reality.
"Easy, Sammy. You hit Baby's windscreen pretty hard. You got a bit of a concussion and some bruising but you're lucky. Nothing broken."
Dean's voice is soothing, low and soft.
"How are you feeling?"
"Uh, kind of weird," Sam says slowly, "Head's fuzzy. It's getting better though. Did you get the...?"
His mind refuses to release the name of the creature they were hunting, stubbornly keeping it just out of his reach.
"Ole-Luk-Oie," Dean says helpfully, "Yeah, I got it."
Dean looks back over his shoulder though, as if he's just making sure it really is dead. Sam's skin prickles.
"Can we get out of here now?" he asks.
"Okay, yeah, just..."
Dean helps Sam to his feet. His legs feel rubbery, equal parts too heavy and too light. The sudden change in altitude also sets his head pounding, and he's suddenly dizzy. Dean steadies him.
"I've got you."
The Impala is in sight already, parked on the side of a dirt road at the edge of the trees, and Sam feels so much relief. He stumbles to the familiar vehicle on numb legs, his arm across Dean's shoulders.
"Front or back?"
"Front."
Sam somewhat clumsily folds into the front seat of the Impala, his bruised body complaining at every movement, closing his eyes as his head pounds nauseatingly. The door shuts with her signature squeak-groan, as softly as Dean can manage. Sam opens his eyes slightly to watch his brother, through the spider-web cracks in the windscreen, cross to the other side of the car and get in. Sam breathes. Slow and steady, relishing the feeling of safety.
"You good, Sammy?"
Sam nods, forces himself to look forwards, stop staring at Dean. The car rumbles to life and Dean carefully navigates her down the narrow road towards civilization.
"How did you find me?" Sam asks.
"What do you mean? You didn't go anywhere, Sam."
Sam swallows.
"Oh. Uh, yeah. Of course."
Of course. It makes sense that the terrifying world Sam found himself in wasn't real.
"The Ole-Luk-Oie got to you," Dean explains, "You were out for a long time, dude. You kept calling out, talking nonsense. I couldn't get you to come out of it until I finished putting that freaking thing down."
"It felt real, Dean," adds Sam, with another shiver, "But everything was weird. Glitching. Time kept jumping around, like a loop. I thought I'd never get out."
Dean glances away from the road, meets Sam's eyes and smacks a hand lightly against his chest.
"I got you out, though. Told you I would."
Sam lets a tired smile crease his face.
"Yeah, you did."
He's grateful when they pull out onto the main road and leave the trees behind.
END
A/N: Ole-Luk-Oie is taken from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, a Danish story of the Sandman. Although generally the stories portray the Sandman as benevolent, I have twisted it a little here.
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1809
Summary: Sam's lost, and nothing is as it seems.
A/N: I am back, finally! This story was inspired by a gameplay that I watched on YouTube recently, which in turn was inspired by a short film. The title is from Metallica's song "Enter Sandman."
Dreams Of Dragon's Fire
Awareness comes back with a rush, everything in sharp focus. There's an insistent, repetitive buzzing beside Sam. A mobile phone on the passenger seat. The Impala's windscreen is cracked, spiderweb patterns across the glass. Sam reaches over, picks up the phone. The buzzing stops. The screen is shattered, the display showing only red and black in scattered lines. Something wet trickles down Sam's forehead, and when he touches it, his fingers come away red. Someone is crying. There's a woman lying some distance ahead of the Impala, making some weak attempts to crawl away. Sam puts the phone down and gets out of the car. He can't make sense of what's happened. From the look of things, he's deep in a forest. How did he drive the Impala out here? The trees are thick behind her.
"Hey, are you okay?" Sam calls out.
The woman looks back at him and starts wailing louder, renewing her attempt to get away.
"No, no, it's okay."
Sam takes another step towards her.
"Stay away from me!" she cries.
"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you," Sam says.
He glances around. The wind seems to have picked up. The woman has gone quiet now, stopped trying to get away. Sam approaches carefully and crouches beside her. The moment he grabs her to roll her over he realizes something is wrong. It flips over quicker than he anticipated in a sudden, terrifying moment and it's sand, falling apart in his grip.
Sam's back in the Impala and the phone is buzzing again. His heart is still racing. He hesitantly picks up the phone. The buzzing stops, the phone showing the same red broken screen. The woman is crying again. Sam's hands start to shake and he swallows, looking at himself in the rearview mirror. Get it together, Sam. The phone rings, still in his hand, and he flinches. Amongst the red and black of the shattered screen, the "answer" button is just visible. He presses it and slowly brings the phone to his ear.
"Hello?"
His voice shakes.
"Sam, can you hear me?
Dean's voice sounds far away but a feeling of immense relief washes over Sam anyway.
"Dean?"
"Can you hear me?"
"Yeah, I... Dean, I don't... something's wrong."
"Just hold on. You're gonna be okay."
There's a click and the line goes dead.
"Dean? Dean!"
Sam shivers. He's got to find a way out of here. He gets out of the Impala. The wind through the trees makes an eerie moaning noise and it almost sounds human. The hair on the back of his neck stands up. Through the trees to the left of the car, he can see a building. How did he not notice it before? As he approaches it, it becomes clear that he won't find help there. The two-story building is derelict, the windows boarded from the inside. He can hear a strange staticky noise coming from it though. It's his phone, sitting on a window ledge. How did it get here? In a blink, it disappears and with it the static. Sam's stomach lurches uneasily and he looks over his shoulder, feeling suddenly like he's being watched. There's nothing there. He walks around the side of the building, looking for a door. A new sound begins and it takes him a moment to place it.
"An air raid siren?" Sam mumurs in confusion.
There's a weird pulsing sensation, where the world seems to skip away for a moment, a bright flash, and then the wind picks up. Instinct drives Sam back towards the Impala, but before he can get there, everything turns dark red. It's like a sand storm. He can barely see anything. The siren stops, leaving only the sound of the wind rushing through the trees. Somewhere in the distance, something screeches. Were those footsteps behind him? Sam tries to quell the rising panic as he keeps walking forwards. He's pretty sure the Impala was in that direction. Something crawls towards him, out of the red and without even knowing what it is, Sam feels some primal surge of horror. The wind and static and his heartbeat in his ears reach a deafening crescendo, and then everything stops. Everything. Time is frozen around him. He backs away. Instinct tells him to run and he listens. He can just barely see the Impala through the trees.
He's back in the Impala again, his heart still hammering from his sprint, although he doesn't remember actually getting to the car. The phone is in his hand, buzzing again. He presses answer.
"Hold on, Sammy."
"Dean, where are you?"
"I'm right here."
Sam's hands are shaking and he nearly drops the phone.
"Where? I can't... I can't see you."
"You're okay, Sam. I've got you."
Click. The woman is back, lying on the ground, wailing.
"Dean?"
Sam gets out of the car. Again. He has to get to a road. Find help. Find Dean. He starts walking. The shadows from the trees suddenly seem to move across the ground, faster, faster. Sam looks up and sees the sun is tracking rapidly across the sky. It spins around him, not sinking or rising but instead just running in a circle. The wind whips around him again, the strength of it nearly pushing him over.
"Wake up, Sam!"
Dean's voice sounds like it's right in his ear.
"Dean?" Sam yells over the roar of the wind.
There's nobody there.
And just like that, he is back in the Impala once again. Only now it's dark outside. The car's interior is lit up with a strange red glow. Sam can't tell what the source is. The radio clicks on by itself, playing static. There's a gun on the seat beside him. He reaches for it.
He's standing beside the Impala and he can hear screeching. No, crying. It sounds like a child.
"Hello?" he calls out.
In the darkness, he can see two flashing orange lights. He doesn't have the gun anymore. Steeling himself, Sam walks towards the lights. The crying gets louder. It echoes through his head.
"Who's there?"
As he gets nearer to the lights, he realizes with a horrible sinking feeling that it's just the Impala with her hazard lights on. Fear scatters his thoughts. He's never getting out of here.
Time jumps again. He's back in the Impala. The radio is blaring static. The strange, echoey crying carries on. Sam's heartbeat thumps in his ears. And then there's Dean's voice again.
"Wake up. Sammy, wake up."
Fear threatens to drown him. He can't catch his breath.
He's standing at the front of the Impala, the blinking lights nearly blinding him. The noises continue, getting louder. The trees are bending down towards him. The world is spinning and going darker. A man appears at the edge of the clearing, the flashing lights just barely illuminating him. He's holding a folded umbrella and blood runs in rivulets down his face. Between one flash and another, he dissolves into a pile of blood red sand. Sam breaks. His knees give out and he collapses to the ground.
"Help me. Dean, help me. I can't... I can't get out."
"Easy, Sam, easy."
Dean's voice is so close. An anchor in the storm.
"I'll get you out, Sammy. Just hold on."
Everything goes blindingly white and then black. Then silence.
"Sammy? Are you with me?"
Sam feels weird, floaty like he's not quite there.
"Think so," he mumbles, weak and slurred.
Everything is soft and quiet.
"Thank god," Dean murmurs, relief clear in his voice.
Details start to come into focus around Sam. His back is braced against a large tree, Dean's hand on his shoulder. Beyond that, trees tower above them, the sunlight barely filtering through the branches. It looks so much like before that it sets Sam's nerves on edge again. He tenses and his body lets him know immediately what a bad idea that was, muscles feeling stiff and sore, like he's run a marathon. Dean squeezes his shoulder a little tighter. But at least the pain seems to pull Sam further back into reality.
"Easy, Sammy. You hit Baby's windscreen pretty hard. You got a bit of a concussion and some bruising but you're lucky. Nothing broken."
Dean's voice is soothing, low and soft.
"How are you feeling?"
"Uh, kind of weird," Sam says slowly, "Head's fuzzy. It's getting better though. Did you get the...?"
His mind refuses to release the name of the creature they were hunting, stubbornly keeping it just out of his reach.
"Ole-Luk-Oie," Dean says helpfully, "Yeah, I got it."
Dean looks back over his shoulder though, as if he's just making sure it really is dead. Sam's skin prickles.
"Can we get out of here now?" he asks.
"Okay, yeah, just..."
Dean helps Sam to his feet. His legs feel rubbery, equal parts too heavy and too light. The sudden change in altitude also sets his head pounding, and he's suddenly dizzy. Dean steadies him.
"I've got you."
The Impala is in sight already, parked on the side of a dirt road at the edge of the trees, and Sam feels so much relief. He stumbles to the familiar vehicle on numb legs, his arm across Dean's shoulders.
"Front or back?"
"Front."
Sam somewhat clumsily folds into the front seat of the Impala, his bruised body complaining at every movement, closing his eyes as his head pounds nauseatingly. The door shuts with her signature squeak-groan, as softly as Dean can manage. Sam opens his eyes slightly to watch his brother, through the spider-web cracks in the windscreen, cross to the other side of the car and get in. Sam breathes. Slow and steady, relishing the feeling of safety.
"You good, Sammy?"
Sam nods, forces himself to look forwards, stop staring at Dean. The car rumbles to life and Dean carefully navigates her down the narrow road towards civilization.
"How did you find me?" Sam asks.
"What do you mean? You didn't go anywhere, Sam."
Sam swallows.
"Oh. Uh, yeah. Of course."
Of course. It makes sense that the terrifying world Sam found himself in wasn't real.
"The Ole-Luk-Oie got to you," Dean explains, "You were out for a long time, dude. You kept calling out, talking nonsense. I couldn't get you to come out of it until I finished putting that freaking thing down."
"It felt real, Dean," adds Sam, with another shiver, "But everything was weird. Glitching. Time kept jumping around, like a loop. I thought I'd never get out."
Dean glances away from the road, meets Sam's eyes and smacks a hand lightly against his chest.
"I got you out, though. Told you I would."
Sam lets a tired smile crease his face.
"Yeah, you did."
He's grateful when they pull out onto the main road and leave the trees behind.
END
A/N: Ole-Luk-Oie is taken from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, a Danish story of the Sandman. Although generally the stories portray the Sandman as benevolent, I have twisted it a little here.