My Dear Brother (Supernatural Short Story)

It started about a year ago, my drug problem. It was around the time my brother and I had a hunting accident. I woke up in the hospital... he didn't. At first, I couldn't imagine life without him, how I'd be able to go on knowing he wouldn't be by my side, and knowing I couldn't do a damn thing about it. He was my baby brother, my Sammy. It was my job to protect his ass.

And I failed him.

When I left the hospital a week and a half later, a dozen stitches holding together the gouges in my side, the doctor wished me luck and wrote me a prescription for some painkillers to help ease the pain. He might as well have been writing me a death certificate.

At first it was only a few pills to help me sleep when the remnants of pain crippled me in the dark of night. I'm no stranger to physical pain. It's all I've known since I was a kid. Being a hunter meant having to sack up and dealing with all levels of pain like they were no more than a head ache. I suppose hunters would be used mental pain too, watching just as many of their friends and family members die as monsters they managed to kill. Feeling their own lives slip away with every drop of monster blood spilled.

Knowing that I was the one that had let my brother die was mental agony. It was unforgivable. If I'd been a little bit stronger. A little bit faster. If I'd been a little bit more everything, my brother would still be with me. But I wasn't...

Days passed and turned into weeks. Those weeks eventually became months. The nightly terrors only got more gruesome. It started as watching Sam's death over and over, then gradually everyone else's bodies joined his, soaking in pools of their own blood, eyes wide with fear, mouths stretched wide in silent screams. The physical pain was all but gone, but the nightly battle in my brain was never ending. Instead of lessening the daily dosage of meds, I began to take more and more. It became normal routine to take as many as half a dozen pills a day. Usually they were followed by a glass of hard whiskey in hopes that I would get drunk enough not to dream that night. It never worked.

I've denied that I have a drug problem, time and time again, even to myself. Stuff like that just didn't happen to hunters. We were strong, independent people, tougher than nails. Hunters didn't form addictions. Bobby thinks otherwise, though. I think he's a damn hypocrite. I stopped by the roadhouse the other day. Jo was there at the time, and she actually looked surprised to see. According to her I'd been more withdrawn, keeping to myself and not bothering to answer my phone. It was true, that last part. I knew that if I answered it would just be someone calling to berate me about something I knew didn't exist. Jo refused to pour me a shot of whiskey when I asked her for one and then tried to tell me that if I didn't end my "addiction", it would end me. I proceeded to grab an empty beer bottle from the counter and chuck it at the wall. I left in a hurry, Jo's fearful eyes following me out the door, and ended up back at a motel room a half hour away.

I took more pills that night than I ever had before, popping one after another after another down my throat, chasing them down with  generous swigs of whiskey. The room began to to spin as it always did on nights like this, but this time when darkness took over consciousness, the nightmares didn't come. Instead I woke up in a long tunnel with a glaring light at the end. This must be what death is like. I have to admit it's not quite how I'd planned on going out.  At least, my dear brother, I'll be able to see you soon.