Hunter Unknown

When Night Falls

Quick question, would any of you want me to add audio to these chapters? I could also make it an audio book by doing this, so if you are interest in this please message or comment and let me know.

WARNING⚠: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SUBJECT MATTER THAT SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTURBING. CONTENT MAY BE A TRIGGER. DISCRETION IS ADVISED.❌

These six months have been a roller coaster for me. I never asked for help, ever. I did not want to involve myself with other hunters more than I already had by making their files. That being said, if I am being honest with myself, I am glad Sam and Dean found me.
My life has taken on a renewed purpose. My focus is back to where it needs to be when hunting, no longer questioning why I even hunt. I know my place here with Sam and Dean, what my job is. Due to my superior foresight, I am responsible for coming up with exit strategies and backup plans for the more intricate hunts. Of course, I help Sam study through mountains of lore too.
Although they trust me, Sam and Dean have told me to stay out of some of their more personal matters for my own safety. In the beginning, this is why Dean didn't want Sam to ask me for help. Dean's biggest fear is having another life on his conscience. Even though he was not responsible for their deaths, Dean feels guilt for those including Bobby, Jo, Ellen, Rufus, and others.
At first, all I knew was that for some reason Sam and Dean said they weren't feeling well or like themselves. Now I know Dean is under the effects of THE Mark of Cain, as in the oldest and arguably the most powerful curse known to any being in heaven, hell, or on earth. Sam is making himself sick by worrying constantly about Dean and when not hunting, searching non-stop for a panacea. As for me, I have my own demons.
I don't know how I got from my place of reminiscing on my bed to now standing in front of the bathroom sink. Looking into the mirror, the face I saw staring back hardly seemed my own. My greatest fear had become reality, I am just like her. I fear it is only a matter of time before I move from self-destruction to hurting others.
In the day time when Sam, Dean, and I are hunting, looking for a case, or just hanging around the bunker, everything is good, great even. I laugh at Dean's dumb jokes, talk with Sam about whatever, take my turn getting food, and occasionally we all sit down and watch a movie. However, when night falls, when Sam and Dean both return to their rooms; all hell breaks loose. A battle begins between myself and the presence within me. I can feel the wall cracking, getting weaker every night. More and more nightmares flood my mind, but now they don't just wait for my mind to be unguarded in sleep. Truth be told, sleep isn't something I do much of anymore. Nonetheless, these horrifying visions have seeped through the walls of my subconscious attacking me at times like this.
The room I once was immensely greatful for has become an evil entity of its own. It is the place of my silent torment. Where unspoken horrors of the past reach out their ghostly hands to taint the present with their putrid rot. The intensified autrocities of past are accompanied by the presence I can feel trying to escape the barriers I have placed it behind. I can feel a scratching attempt being made to break through and take me over.
With the knowledge that letting go will only allow whatever it is to consume me, I have taken a destructive route to allow for rest while still keeping it contained. Perhaps it is this method that has enabled it to gain a foot hold despite my efforts. For while I rest in a chemical induced paradise of numb sleep it is possible that this foreign entity within me has taken this opportunity to scratch away at the proverbial cement of barriers.
Every night it's the same story; I reluctantly return to this room to await the coming battle. However, now I make more pre-emptive attempts to keep the hauntings at bay. Over the course of six months I have resorted to not only increasing my already astounding alcohol consumption, but also taking sleep aids on particularly dreadful occasions. As I said things have gotten out of control. Now with the threat of day time attacks on top of the nocturnal, I have started my mornings off with a shot or two of vodka and a thirst for any hunt to distract me from the mess I have become.
As I stand here looking at the stranger before me, I know I have to release the things that have continued to gnaw away at my insides. After years of silence and secrets, I have to let some of it go so that maybe, just maybe this presence will ebb to the manageable nuisance it once was. Maybe if I let go of some of the darkness, light will come in turn.
Before I knew it, my knuckles were wrapping on the door across the hall, Dean's door. Suddenly, I began to panic, unsure if I was ready to let go of the things I have held so close to me for so long. What will he think? Will he even care? Although these thoughts circled my mind, the cold and ominous feelings coming from my ajar door had me ready to run as far away from it as possible, even if it meant spilling my guts.
All of this happened in a millisecond before Dean opened the door, filling the open space with his body casually resting against the door frame and arm still gripping the door's edge.
"What's up?" He asked, not expecting what would occur afterwards.
"Can I come in?" I tried not to let my voice give away how frantic I felt as I glimpsed over my shoulder making sure there was not anything really chasing me. In response Dean stretched his arm straight making the door open more. Instead of ducking under his arm I quickly pushed the door further, yanking it from his grip. I basically ran into the room and sat on the edge of his bed running my hands over my face and studying the floor.
"What's eating you?" He walked away from the now closed door, stopping halfway before crossing his arms and looking at me expectantly.
"I have to tell you-some thing. I don't even know where to start."
"Okay...Well how about the beginning?" He retorted with confusion and dry humor.
"There are things I didn't tell you or Sam. You know about the fire, but you don't really know what happened-the whole story. You know I became a hunter, but you don't know why or how. I didn't lie I just- didn't tell you details. I have never told anybody and-"
Instead of interrupting with anger like I expected him to, Dean came and sat about a foot away from me. I sighed with frustration, knowing this would take a while to get through. With a deep breath, I started again.
"She was always terrible, my mother, from as far back as I can remember. When I was little she would always get mad at the littlest things. She'd cuss at me and call me names in a language I now know was Latin. She never was right, but as I got older it got worse. I remember the first time. I was eight, I spilled something and she slapped me in the face. It only got worse from there.
I did everything; I cooked her meals, cleaned the house, you name it I did it. I was supposed to be homeschooled, but I had to teach myself. She never left the house. She watched television constantly, sat in her chair and waited for me to bring her her pills and dinner. Sometimes I would change her dosage or put something in her food to keep her somewhat sedated. It never occurred to me that I could have killed her. I hated her, but I thought that it was normal. I didn't know there was anything better.
As I got older and she got worse, I began to read more books and realize that there was so much more to the world than what I was experiencing. I started to daydream about freedom. She had books and groceries delivered to the house so neither one of us left. I don't even think the neighbors knew I existed.
Anyway, my room was the basement. It was dark and damp, but it was mine. I used to draw and place them on the walls. My bed was just a box spring and mattress on the floor with a string of lights above it and a lamp set on top of a stack of books beside it. When I wasn't taking care of her, I stayed in the basement because she wouldn't go down there.
As the days went on I began to continually thirst more and more for something new. I needed out, but I had no way. I didn't know anyone on the outside, I had no means of leaving. My mother, if you can even call her that, grew worse. She was evil. She told me how it was my fault, whatever it was, and how she hated me. She'd sit in front of the television and get drunk, and unless she passed out she would get even more evil. She'd throw bottles at me, knock her dinner tray from my hands then insist that it was my fault. I'd quietly clean the mess and imagine I was somewhere else. Sometimes I'd tell myself that the next time would be the last, but I don't know what I thought I was going to do." As I took a pause to prepare myself for what I was about to tell him, I realized that Dean was quietly taking it all in which I was ever grateful for.
"Over the years she brought me down with her. She became crazier and well, I guess I did too. I had always believed in heaven and hell; angels and demons; and God. I strongly believed, and still do, that everything happens for a reason. Every night I prayed for an escape beyond just books and tablet drawings. Eventually, came a breaking point.
I was standing in front of the stove preparing dinner when she suddenly appeared in the doorway from the living room. She rarely ever walked about the house, but there she stood staring at me with a look I will never forget. It was a look of pure hatred, like she was going to kill me without even laying a finger on me.
She slowly went to the knife drawer and grabbed a large eight inch blade. I watched her intently, never taking my eyes off of her. In a knowing panic, I asked her 'What are you doing?'. She never replied, but merely turned to face me with knife in hand. As she made a quick movement toward me, sealing her intentions, I swung the hot pot making contact with her knife wielding hand. I ran around the other side of the island toward the basement door, but she blocked my path.
Although she now was weaponless, I knew to be afraid of her from so many previous episodes. I ran to the stairs which led to the second floor that we never used. Halfway up the steps she yanked me by the ankle. I turned over to face her, but this merely gave her the opportunity to begin strangling me. I drew my knee up and kicked her off of me before making a run for the basement again. Just as I opened the door to begin my descent she returned my kick sending me rolling down the fifteen steps. I don't know how long I lay there in the dark crumpled at the bottom of the steps, but I'm sure I was suffering from a few broken ribs and some broken bones in my hand. This was the final straw for me, I knew she'd never forget this. That was the first and last time I would fight back.
I heard the television on once again, so I went upstairs and grabbed the knife she had left on the floor. I returned to my room where I begged for one last time a way out. As I sat between my bed and the wall with knees drawn up, I prayed repeatedly for forgiveness. I have never prayed so hard before that I cried and felt like I was going to be sick. Finally with one last prayer for forgiveness I ran the blade along my left wrist, then the right. I sat thinking of the freedom and peace I wished I could have. I watched the blood drip then pool on the cool cement floor. Things started to feel a little less real from the blood loss, then I saw a blue and white light more bright than I thought possible. This was followed by an indescribable figure and voice which said 'Do not be afraid for I am an angel of the Lord. I am here to help you.'. I thought surely it was a hallucination or else I was in heaven, but it reached out and grabbed my wrists. It felt like electricity was humming through every one of my cells and exiting the slits in my wrists." As I said this I removed the leather cuffed bracelets from my wrists and showed Dean the white yet almost blue scars of two hands wrapping around either one of my wrists.