Chapter 3 Options

[Ithiel Dragon]

He recognized the smell of the antiseptic first, that cold sterile smell that all hospitals seemed to have. Dean had always hated it. Hell, he’d always hated hospitals in general. Probably because he’d spent way more time in them than he cared for.

Like the time Dean had gotten a concussion when he’d been thrown into a grave stone hunting with Dad, he’d been ten years old and the hospital staff had thought his Dad had done it, abused him, and his father had to smuggle him out of the hospital. They’d had to leave town that very night. Or when he’d nearly gotten his liver ripped out by a hungry black dog, he’d needed something like twenty stitches, but that was ok, because at least it hadn’t gotten Sam instead. Then of course there was the time he’d been electrocuted and his heart had nearly given out, if it hadn’t been for Sam…

So, yeah, he hated hospitals, which was why he didn’t understand he was dreaming of one now. He had to be dreaming because… because it couldn’t be real. He was a prisoner. He was a slave. There was no way he could have escaped the demons. No way… so it had to be a dream or hallucination of some kind.

Dean had truly believed that the first few times he’d woken. Weak and disorientated he barely remembered his own name much less trusted his senses to tell him where he was. He could barely keep his eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time, so how the hell could he trust them? Honestly? He hadn’t cared either way, slipping back gratefully into unconsciousness time and again.

He honestly wasn’t sure how long that lasted. He’d had nothing to go by to judge time except for the coming and goings of the doctor… if she really was a doctor. Dean had been certain at first that she had to be another demon. There was no way any of this was real. This had to be some kind of elaborate trick. They were trying to fuck with his head… and it was working…

Some nights he woke up thrashing, the machines monitoring his heartbeat screaming, he screamed too though there was no sound. It took the doctor and several others to hold him down while she administered a sedative. They’d started keeping him in restraints after that… for his own protection the doctor had said not unkindly and Dean had begun to have his doubts. What the hell was this? This dream… hallucination… whatever it was, wasn’t going away. Was it real? Was he really in a hospital? Did that mean that everything that had happened before… wasn’t real? Just a twisted fucked up nightmare?

Dean had lost that kind of optimism a long fucking time ago.

Whatever this was, however he’d gotten here, he sure as hell was not sticking around for whatever demon had lost him to come find him again. The first time he’d tried to get out of the bed on his own his vision had swam and his legs had been able to hold him, he didn’t even remember falling. He’d woken up a few hours later cold on the floor when the doctor and some other hospital staff were getting him up off the floor and back into the hospital bed. The second time he’d managed to get out of the bed, he’d made it all the way to the door before weakness began to overwhelm him. At least he’d managed to make it back to the bed before he’d ended up on the floor again.

This time, Dean wasn’t letting anything stop him. A sense of urgency filled him that he hadn’t felt before and he knew, just fucking knew, he had to get out of here right the fuck now. His legs felt like water, he had to grip the wall to keep himself upright, and he was shaking. Whether from overwhelming weakness or cold (he was only wearing a light pair of hospital pants after all), but he didn’t care. He’d managed to make it down the hall from his room to the stairs, and he stared at the steep staircase with trepidation but he had to keep going. He had to get the hell out of here. Get away from this place.

Gripping the railing in a death grip Dean made his way slowly down the stairs one at a time. He was sweating and shaking badly now, but he had to keep going, damn it.

[Ithiel Dragon]

Somehow Dean had made it to the ground level of the hospital and navigated his way through a part of the building that looked like it hadn't been used in months. The alarm didn't sound when he opened an emergency door, thank god, and he slipped out into a dark alley behind the hospital.

It had been so long since he'd seen the night sky, stars, he almost didn't recognize them. It was a little sad that they were also the most recognizable thing about the world he stepped out into.

He had to pick his way through debris from crumbled buildings no matter where he went. There was no light anywhere, even the hospital he'd just come from, looking back most of the windows were dark. Probably run on backup generators that probably wouldn't last all that much longer.

There was a… silence… outside that just seemed unnatural. He didn't see anyone. There were no cars, just twisted heaps of metal lining the roads long since stripped of anything useful inside of them. Store windows were broken open anything that might have been inside them gone, glass littering the sidewalks everywhere, cutting into his bare feet. What buildings were left standing looked like they might topple over any second from a strong wind… but there didn't even seem to be any wind left either.

A dead world.

Dean shivered, and it wasn't from cold even though he was freezing and wrapping his arms around his bare chest certainly did nothing to warm him.

He tried to stick to the shadows and back alleys as much as he could, making his way slowly through the devastation, even though he had no idea where he was going… but there had to be people… somewhere. There had to be. The war was still going on, after all. New slaves were often brought in for the amusement of the demons, after all. He just… had to find them.