The Year of Redemption

Chapter 24: Piece By Piece

The light was back. Dean shut his eyes tightly against it. He was standing up. The air felt damp around him, and he heard breathing, but he didn't know where it was coming from. He tried to move and found that his hands were tied behind him, and he was backed up against an earthen wall, with some sort of binding holding him there. He squinted again into the blinding light, unable to open his eyes completely.

Dean looked to the side, where the light was less intense. He opened one eye and made out a shape directly beside him. Gradually, his pupils grew accustomed to the light, and he was able to open them both, provided that he was only looking to the side and not directly at the light source.

Dean recognized the shape next to him as a body. It was chained up against the wall as well, with its hands tied behind its back. Its head was staring forward, towards the bright light. "Where... where am I?" Dean asked.

The being next to him swung his head slowly away from the light, looking over at Dean. "Welcome to Sah Teh Voch Leh," he said, completely devoid of emotion. "Hell of a place to end up. We're the lucky ones, I guess." His attempt at humor was less than convincing. "Make yourself comfortable, probably be here for a while." His voice sounded hollow and somber, like he'd been hopeless and exhausted for years.

We? Dean thought. What does he mean by we?

Dean stuck his head forward and gazed out past the body beside him. His eyes widened, and he blinked hard. There were bodies lined up along the wall for as far as he could see. The light in front of him lit up the faces of each body. They were all looking directly into the source of the light, not moving, not wavering, not even blinking.

They seemed to be in an endless underground cavern. The walls, ground, and ceiling were made of packed dirt and rock. Dean stared at the earthen wall behind the bodies. Each body was backed up against it, its hands tied, its waists bound in chains. For each body, there was a corresponding set of black wings plastered against the earth behind it. The light illuminated each set of wings in vivid detail.

Angels, Dean realized. That's what he meant by we. But what the hell is going on?

Dean strained his eyes into the light in front of him. A series of vivid images lit up before his eyes, as if he was there in the scene, his hands still tied, watching the events unfold.

A town of people turning against each other, gunning down their brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, even their own children.

A demon possessing a teenage girl and forcing her to kill her newborn baby and his father, then relinquishing her just in time for her to see what she's done.

A doctor injecting his patients with a yellow-green liquid which caused them to die slowly, suffering the symptoms of four different diseases simultaneously.

A lush green field with bodies scattered across it, laying on their backs with their black wings flattened on top of the dewy grass.

A lady in her nightgown, screaming as she burned slowly in flames that consumed the ceiling of her son's nursery.

Dean shook his head and looked away. There were tears in his eyes. What the hell is this? he wondered desperately.

Suddenly a lady was standing in front of him. It was the same lady from his dream. Apart from just recognizing her from the dream, Dean felt that she was familiar in some strange, far-off way, but he couldn't pinpoint what it was. For some reason, he instinctively trusted her though.

"Dean, I don't have long," she spoke.

"What is this?" Dean asked anxiously, looking around him at the angels and the light.