Song Remains the Same

Chapter 40: Wide Awake

"I never meant to wither; I wanted to be tall.
Like a fool I left the river, watched my branches fall."
- Lights

Five Days Later

She stood in the graveyard alone. Skeletal trees dotted the scenery, their limbs shivering in a ghostly breeze. Half-rotted wooden crosses quietly stood every few feet. Crow cries echoed over the dismal, cold scene. She thought she heard Sam and Dean calling, but when she listened hard, all she could catch was the harsh whistle of wind. It felt hollow here.

Trying to get her bearings, Alex was left to notice how everything seemed to become two-dimensional and blurred at her periphery. Nearby a large hole loomed in the ground—an open grave. Her legs seemed to have a mind of their own because they carried Alex there without a coherent thought. She got to the edge and peered down into the void. At the bottom of the deep grave, two lifeless bodies lay, their glazed-over eyes staring up unseeingly. And when she recognized them as her brothers, she stumbled back in horror. Into someone.

She whirled to find herself staring into the face of Sam—but it wasn't Sam and she knew it right away. He was cold, soulless, evil, dark, strong, and taller than he'd ever been. Bigger, too. It was Lucifer, she knew it on instinct. He smiled at her jeeringly. She backed up immediately, only thinking get away from him now, forgetting where she stood. She almost fell back into the grave when the heels of her shoes sank into the crumbling dirt at the edge. She flailed backward and Lucifer caught her by her arms. His grip was bone-crushing. He smelled like smoke and ash, and she saw the reflection of orange light dancing in his eyes. With panicking shock, Alex looked down and saw that the ground beneath his feet was on fire. "You could have saved them," he told her in a velvet whisper—Sam's voice—his eyes were frigid and his mouth twisted up into a sneer. "But you didn't." The flames underneath his feet were spreading out like water might flood flatlands—and the entire graveyard which had been so cold a moment ago was now engulfed in blistering heat. Alex screamed, but no sound came.

"Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter..." He leaned terrifyingly close with a dark smile that was impossibly gleeful. "I win." And Lucifer let her go with a shove. She screamed silently again, falling back, trying to catch hold of something, anything. She fell for what felt like miles before she landed hard on her back. Heavy, burning cold dirt began to rain down. Despite a valiant struggle, Alex was stuck in place, and all she could see was Lucifer smirking down in victorious contempt while wearing Sam's face. Around him the world was burning, even the sky. Alex could hear screams of dying people who she hadn't been strong enough to save. The dirt that fell onto her was dense, and each clump that struck was like a kick to the gut. Her eyes burned out of their sockets, her chest was tearing apart, she was roasting to death and freezing solid even as every limb in her body dissolved. She gasped for air, screaming no, no, no!

"No!" she shouted. Her eyes snapped open even as she rocketed upward breathless, disoriented, panicked, and in the dark. It came back to memory as her wide eyes adjusted and her heart continued to race: Bobby's house.

The sheer terror began to abate. It had just been a dream. Another vivid, shocking, terrifying dream. She wasn't in a graveyard—she was in the attic on the bed there. She must have fallen asleep as she lay in the last place she and Cas had been together.

Her feet hit the floor as she sat up. She held on tight to the edge of the bed, leaning over her knees. Feeling demented as she reeled, Alex put a shaking hand to her forehead, telling herself it was okay. None of that was real. But the images remained so vivid, burned into her mind's eye. It had felt so, so real. She could still see Lucifer smiling cruelly as he wore her twin's face. She could still feel the obscene heat from the inferno he'd spawned. Her heart was still racing sickeningly fast and she shut her eyes, just trying to steady herself.