Heaven's Child ≫ SPN

0. Surprise

Eliza || Present Day

"In three miles, exit left," said my only friend and companion, tone sinfully boring.

"You got it sister," I mumbled with no attempt to make the words out of my mouth audible since my companion was a computer box, programmed and forced to tell me where to go.

On the outside, I was driving quietly in the dark on an empty highway, face flat and eyes strictly on the road. On the inside, butterflies and cheap tacos were rioting against my stomach, tempting me to release a homemade smoothie. I wasn't the type to vomit easy, but it felt like that might change soon.

There was no reason to be nervous, I tried to reason with myself, because being nervous meant I was worried that something would go wrong, when I already knew there was nothing that was going right to begin with.

Hope is a vile thing, isn't it? (I philosophize when I am desperate, sue me.) So stubborn, hope can be. (And sometimes, I evoke my inner Yoda.) No matter how many times life beats hope black and blue, there it is again, upright and ready to make me vulnerable, ready to destroy me. And destroy me it would, I realized with a new heaviness in my heart. If this secret magic library wasn't real...

"Oh god, I'm so stupid." I said out loud, for in that moment, I realized a part of me was honestly thinking that there was a secret magic library waiting for me in the forest. Like something right out of the freaking Hobbit.

There was just no place for me in this world, and I needed to stop trying to prove to myself otherwise. Naive, and stupid, and stupid and naive.

"Exist left. Arriving at destination."

The road didn't look any different, but I slowed down anyway and pulled onto the shoulder lane.

"Damnit."

A dirt road peeked from under a jumble of wild bushes and shrubs that were tactically placed there. It was obvious someone was trying to keep hidden; the half dead plants weren't actually planted in the ground. No one was going to notice if they didn't study the area as hard as I did.

"Breaker breaker," I mumbled and turned on my left signal before making the turn. So that just in case I never make it out they would say on the news report 'noble woman who regularly used her turn signals was last seen here.'

Of course, if something actually managed to kill me.

The large tree branch yielded to the spartan tires of my truck—which I was beginning to love. The truck, I mean. I used to hate the monstrous thing, especially because of how it came to be mine, but the more she proved how relentless and god damn badass she was, the more I fell in love. I was never a car person, but when you owned like six items and one of them was a giant truck that kept you warm during winter storms, well, that's just how falling in love works. You feel warm and then poof. Love.

I let the potholed road lead me to a hidden clearing.

At first nothing was really visible, thanks to the three am sky and the army of irregularly scattered trees, but as I got closer, the moonlight took a kindness upon me and the big ugly figure was suddenly there.

I had a brain freeze for a moment, it was difficult to really make out wether I was hoping so hard I was seeing things or if a building was really there. A non-demolished, non-fictional, real-life building. There. In front of me.

I leaned over the steering wheel—and scared myself half to death because I accidentally pressed on the horn—to get a better view.

It was a sad, worn down place.