Switched

Chapter 4: Beyond The Looks

The ambiance in here was morbid. It felt like a death cloud was hovering everyone around the halls, as if reapers were moving in silence, taking people's lives now and then. Standing between those four white walls and hearing subtle beeping noises or muffled cries, Sam was sitting on a chair right in front of Dean's and Alice's hospital beds, elbows on his knees as he was looking at them both. Rubbing his neck with one hand, he hopelessly tried to clear his voice from all the anxiety it contained, which kind of failed.

"Guys, you can't do this to me," Sam spoke to them without any replies. Although he hadn't find any pulse earlier, both of them somehow were still alive, plugged to those big machines. No doctor could find the exact diagnosis or even elaborate on what could have happened. Sammy was worried to death that they weren't ever gonna wake up, but he had hope that they would, cause Winchesters always did and will always do. Everyone in here was trying to find the rational answer to it all, but deep down, in his guts, Sam knew this had something to do with the case.

Since he wasn't there when it happened, he tried replaying in his head every small details he could have missed. Something rather important must have slipped through his hands. Their bodies were found in the middle of all the statues, so it was hard to know which one out of the five was the guilty one. Then, a thought popped into Sammy's mind like a flash. Earlier, when Alice was arguing with Dean, she mentioned the fact that she had read about similar statues in John's journal before.

He got up and picked Alice's bag up the floor, placing it on one of the tables in the room. Going through her stuff, Sam knew he would eventually find it because Alice always kept it with her ever since John passed away. It probably had a deeper meaning to her than the boys, so Sam made her the one in charge to keep it safe. Eureka. With one hand, Sam grabbed the journal and pulled it out of the bag. Having it in his hands felt rather strange. Just the fact that he hadn't picked it up often since John's death made it feel like it was some kind of forbidden book. Yet, Sam felt as if his father was there to guide him through all of that and that reassured him.

The loud noise of the pages quickly being flipped stressed Sammy a little bit. This journal was probably his only lead and he knew he didn't have any time to waste. He searched inside it, roughly reading every word as fast as he could. Then, a couple of pictures of the statues popped up near the middle of the journal. There was a lot of them and they weren't all the statues that were surrounding his siblings. All least, he could narrow it down to five suspects rather than over a hundred. Next to their names was written important informations to know, like the kind of side effects that could distinguish one from another. Each statue had its own thing, like the Scarred statue would leave a big mark of a dark secret on a visible part of somebody's body that would lie in front of it. Though, there were some things that could prevent it from happening. If the person were to say that secret within 48 hours, the curse would be lifted. The only way someone would know they were cursed were the side effects, which happened to be written next to each statue. Sam's finger slid down the whole page, flipped to the next and repeated the process until he saw the key words 'nosebleed', 'unconsciousness' and 'dizziness' inscribed in black ink. He then proceeded to read the full description.

"The Extra Corpus statue is the representation of an ancient God of Witchcraft that was famous for his twisted and sick pranks he played. The effects of his pranks often led to nosebleeds, dizziness and unconsciousness. This statue's name is in latin, which means 'outside of body'. At first, everyone thought the pranks were only astral projection, but this didn't make sense since this God wanted to teach a moral through his pranks. Usually, he would take two unconfirmed soulmates [soulmates are never 100% official] and switch their bodies so they could walk through each other's shoes and learn to give the other a chance."

After reading that, Sammy didn't know how to feel. He got up on his two feet and walked around the room, thinking. That was a lot of informations to take in at the same time, but at least he was relieved that they weren't dead. So, apparently, Dean and Alice were soulmates? Asking himself, he nervously laughed out loud to calm
his nerves, making the nurses that were walking by question Sam's sanity. At first, all of it seemed ridiculous. How could a statue think that switching people's bodies would help them? To Sam's ears, it sounded like a catastrophe. Already exausted of having to deal with them arguing on a daily basis, he couldn't imagine his life with a Dean Alice and an Alice Dean.

Knowing for a fact that the two of them wouldn't be capable of finding a solution, Sam sighed and apprehended all the work it would take to get them out of this situation. He couldn't even think about how they would react to all this. Walking over to his brother's bed, he frowned and sported a sympathizing smile. "I'll get you out of this, Dean, like I always do," Sam spoke.

Behind his back, Sam heard a parched throat getting cleared. He turned around and inspected the room with his eyes, but no one was found other than the three of them. Looking out the windows and in the hallway to find where that noise could have came from, Sam frowned. Then, from one of the bed, Alice's dry voice broke the silence.

"Sammy?" the voice called. "Please tell me why the fuck do I have tits?!" Alice asked, freaking out and looking at herself like it was the first time she had ever seen that view.

Sam knew it wasn't Alice that was laying before him, cause even behind her blue gaze, he could see Dean through them like crystal clear. Seconds later, Dean, left without any answers from his brother, glanced over to the other bed where his actual body was laying, turning his head back at Sam, confused.