A Supernatural Experience

Chapter 5

The young woman opened her eyes to the darkness that engulfed her, unsure at first why she was awake at that moment. Then the ringing in her ears began.

**

Sam sipped at his coffee as he typed away at his laptop, searching page after page on the internet for answers to their mysterious visitor along with the strange events going on around the world.

"Look at this, Dean," he said, breaking the silence that hung between them over the last few hours as he slid the opened computer across the table to his brother, who was surrounded by books of all different sizes and ages.

"Seven murders, just in the last hour! And not just here in the U.S. We are talking a worldwide pandemic of people with intimate bonds killing each other. Mothers and children, fathers and children, wives and husbands, the list goes on. It's crazy out there."

Deans finger scrolled through the pages as he skimmed across highlighted headlines with growing trepidation. His brother was right, it wasn't centralized to just one area, like most of the cases they dealt with. Peru, India, Japan, England... the list went on and was growing by the minute with constant updates to the various news websites.

Raising his eyebrows and bringing his hands to his face, Dean shook his head.

"I don't know, man," he murmured, pushing the laptop back over to his brother before getting up from his seat. He went into the kitchenette that was attached to the lobby, leaning over to open the fridge when he heard a shriek through the walls.

Dean sat up quickly, his need for another beer forgotten as he raced around the corner and down the hallway to the door where their visitor was supposed to be sleeping. Sam appeared seconds after him and they opened the door cautiously, guns drawn against any threat they could find on the other side.

Instead, as they threw on the lights, they found the woman curled in a fetal position with her hands covering her ears, shrieking again and again with tears rolling down her face.

Dean ran over to her, dropping to his knees to get to her level while setting his weapon on the floor beside his legs. He reached over and took her by her arm, trying to pry her hand from her ear to get her to listen, thinking maybe she was suffering from a bad dream. God knew he had enough of them himself to know what she was going through.

Instead of moving her hand, she held it tighter against her head, crying out as she opened her eyes to meet Dean's green orbs staring into her wild purple ones.

"She hurts! She screams! Can't you hear it?? Can't you feel it??" the woman yelled into Dean's confused expression as he held onto her, barely able to withstand her cries against his eardrums.

"Who? Who is hurting you?" Dean asked, yelling to get her to hear above her own voice.

"Make it stop, make it all stop, PLEASE!" She yelled again, curling herself tighter into a ball and squeezing her eyes shut as she wailed once more.

"Dean, what the hell?" Sam cried out above her screams to his brother, who released the woman and sat back, unable to do anything but watch in silent horror as she suffered.

"I don't know, Sammy," he turned to Sam and gestured to the doorway where they could talk and hear one another.

"We still have those tranquilizers in the first aid kit, right?" Dean asked Sam, knowing full well his brother knew the inventory of their hideout better than anyone else. Sam nodded immediately and Dean took off, leaving Sam to watch helplessly as the girl cried out. Before long, though, she began to quiet her cries, still holding against her ears but no longer shrieking as though someone was flaying her alive.

Sam walked cautiously into the room and found himself in the same space his brother was just moments before. He touched her elbow, and the woman opened her eyes to Sam's concerned face. He helped her sit up as she took a few deep breaths, her hair, already mangled and knotted, plastered itself against her forehead and face from the sweat and other various liquids that poured out of her face during her hysteria.

Sam handed her a rag with a glass of water. She used the rag to wipe down her face and took a sip from the offered glass.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Sam asked gently, as was his way always.

"She passed over, searching for me, crying out and—"

"I got the..." Dean flew into the doorway with a small bottle of clear liquid and capped syringe in either hand. He stopped dead still when he realized his tools were no longer needed.

"Who?" asked Sam, turning from his brother's abrupt entrance to face the woman once more. "Who did it to you? Who was it?"

"My... my—"

"Her mother," came the answer in the grave voice of Castiel who had appeared beside Dean.

At those words, the woman collapsed against Sam and began to unleash a torrent of tears as she spilled her pain and anguish against his flannel-clad chest.