The Apocalypse Stops For No Time Lord [Prologue]
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Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth?
His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together;
each is so close to the next that no air can pass between.
They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted.
His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn.
Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out.
Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth.
Leviathan - Job 41:1-41:34
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Prologue 1
One dark night in August, 1988
The fuzziness of interrupted sleep made it hard for him to figure out exactly what had woken him at first. Darkness had collected in pockets about his room, the only relief coming from the splatter of moonlight that slipped through a chink in his curtains. There was nothing to be revealed though, just the clutter of a young boy’s room, toys and drawings and a .45. The clutter of a temporary home that would be his for no more than a week or two.
He was just about to roll over and fade back into sleep when the noise that woke him sounded again. It was strange, a sort of whooshing noise, almost like a siren but gentler. It wasn’t like the other sounds the old abandoned house made, none of the creaking and rustling and pattering of rat’s feet. There was something different about the sound, something safe. Any fear that had been building up in him over the monsters his Dad had taught him about disappeared with that sound.
The wooden boards were cold and rickety under his bare feet, but they had been in the building long enough for Sam to know which boards were silent when you stepped on them. Everything was strangely quiet, no snores from his brother’s room or sounds of night from outside. Even the rats seemed to have fallen silent. It was as though the house was holding its breath, listening to the ‘vroop vroop’.
At the bottom of the stairs, the living room was flooded with blue light. In the centre of the room stood a tall blue box with a flashing light on the top. There was writing on it, white letters in a strip above the door, but Sam could only read ‘police’ and ‘box’ and he didn’t know what that meant.
Then the door of the box opened with a slight creak and a man slipped out into the room. He was taller than Sam’s Dad, with spiky, brown hair and a generous smile. He had a long sweeping brown jacket and a striped suit that looked so different from what Sam usually saw people wearing.
A step out from the blue box, the man pulled out a long metal stick with a blue light on the end. As he pushed a button the light glowed and a strange buzzing sound came from the device. The man started pointing it randomly around the room, eyebrows folding in, until he finally spotted Sam.
“Well, hello,” the peculiar man grinned, swinging around the rotting armchair to crouch down in front of Sam. “Who are you? I’m the Doctor.”
For a moment Sam considered not replying, his father’s words about monsters and bad men echoing in his head. Then he saw the sadness in the Doctor’s eyes, something lonely that reminded him of those people left behind. It reminded him of the people John brought home with him sometimes, dazed and confused, the ones he said had lost everything.
“I’m Sam Winchester,” he replied, offering his hand.
“Hello Sam,” the Doctor said, shaking his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Hello!” A pretty woman with red hair appeared at the Doctor’s shoulder. She looked as strange as the man, both of them flushed by the light from the blue box. “I’m Donna. Just ignore him, he’s a bit weird.”
“No I’m not,” the Doctor protested before quickly turning back to Sam. “So, Sammy ... do you mind if I call you that?”
For a moment Sam hesitated, weighing the question and the man who asked it. Then he shook his head.
“Tell me, Sammy, what year is it?” Sam tilted his head to the side, completely bewildered.
“How can you not know what year it is?”
“I lose track sometimes,” The Doctor replied with an easy smile. “There’s a lot of time out there.”
“It’s 1988.” Sam said with a shrug.
“1988,” the strange man repeated, pulling a face at his red-haired companion. “I might have overshot it a bit.”
“Do you think?” Donna replied tartly.
“And Sammy,” the Doctor turned his smile back to Sam. “Tell me, have you seen anything weird around here?”
He their strangeness understood then. “You’re hunters, aren’t you? My dad is a hunter too.”
“Well, I don’t think you could call us hunters. We’re just looking for a strange man. He would be-” The Doctor hesitated. “Well... green.”
Sam thought of the green men in his books about the stars, and the movies that he and Dean watched in black and white, crackling with static. There were green men on other worlds, green men in his dreams of the universe.
“Are you looking for aliens?” Sam asked. “Like the ones in my dreams and on tv?”
“No-“
“Yes,” Donna hurriedly interrupted the Doctor, glaring at him. “Like those things you see on tv. They’re not real, don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” Sam replied confidently. “Dean says I shouldn’t be afraid of anything.”
The Doctor smiled softly at that, but it didn't quite reach the sadness in his eyes. “You’re very brave, Sam Winchester.”
“I haven’t seen any aliens, only monsters.” Sam frowned. “Why do you want to find the aliens?”
“We’re travellers,” the Doctor said. “I have this space-ship-”
“Your blue box?”
“Yes.” The Doctor reached out to rest his hands on Sam’s shoulder, smiling a smile that made his eyes look sad again. “My blue box. It can take us anywhere in space and time.”
“You’re astronauts?” Sam asked breathlessly, remembering all the stars and planets he had seen in the books Dean had stolen from libraries for him. “And time-travellers?”
“Yes, I suppose you can call us astronauts.” A soft beeping cut the Doctor off, filtering through the door of the blue box.
“Doctor,” Donna’s voice was hushed and secretive, like Dean and Dad talking about things that they think Sam doesn’t understand. “Isn’t that his signal?”
The Doctor’s hands squeezed his shoulders. “It was very nice meeting you, Sammy.”
“Can I come with you,” Sam blurted out without thinking. “In your box? Can me and Dean come with you and see the universe?”
“You’re very brave, Sam Winchester,” the Doctor said with his sad eyes and his warm smile. “Maybe I will see you and your Dean again.”
Sam didn’t have a chance to reply. Suddenly the Doctor was leaving, the red-haired woman disappearing into the blue box with him. Sam called out to the time-travelling astronaut but the whooshing sound had started again, drowning out his voice. For a moment nothing happened, but then the box started to fade; solid one moment, see-through the next, solid again, then only an outline. Every time it faded a little more until, finally, it didn’t come back.
Sam stood at the bottom of the stars, curling his bare toes into the thin, dusty carpet. He stared around the dark room and wondered where the time-travelling astronaut doctor and his companion had gone in their blue box. Slowly he dragged his feet up the stairs and into his room. With tired eyes he picked a planet in his book and fell asleep, dreaming of the Doctor among the stars.
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Prologue 2
The first evening of December, definitely 2011
It is strange to think that he was just a kid once. Just a kid with so many dreams and an imaginary friend. Those sun-kissed memories of innocence have been overrun by the black grind of a life set out like a Film Noir. Whatever child that used to linger in Sam, egged on by his brother’s ever-protective presence, is gone; if it was ever there.
And now... now Sam has been to Hell and back, he’s died more times than he cares to count and he’s watched more people die than he could bear to think about. Now here, finally, is the end and it is a fitting death, Sam thinks. He’s survived a couple of wars, not to mention the apocalypse, so he’s kind of okay that it’s the second apocalypse he’s faced that is going to bring him down.
A roaring starts up then, so loud it whisks away the sounds of the fields and pulls them down into the lake spread out in front of them. The surface begins to swirl, like a giant has pulled the plug on the world. The whirlpool grows wider and wider until it is taking up the entirety of the lake and the brothers are standing on the edge of a roaring chasm that is waiting for them to jump.
For a second Sam feels as though he might; thinks that it would be so much easier to fall, pitch forwards into the swift darkness, than to suffer whatever might happen next. He isn’t given a chance, though, and Dean is gripping his arm so tightly that there is nowhere for him to go without his brother.
In a bizarre mockery of physics, a huge plume of flame bursts from the water, charging up into the sky and slamming into the Winchesters as scorching waves of heat. Slowly the fire spreads across the sky, devouring the white clouds and the blue blue canvas until Sam can only see flames beyond the trees.
Suddenly everything slows down, every cough of fire distinct from the next until Sam can see each tree getting caught in the devouring flames. He can see everything and all he can do is watch as orange and yellow engulf the opposite bank.
This is the end. Dean’s hand tightens around Sam’s arm as the colossal shadow rises out of the lake in front of them, towering over the world until its serpent head wears a crown of flames. The beast is gigantic, sucking the lake dry as its skin turns a glistening pearly grey from the water.
“Maybe he’s coming.” Dean is still muttering next to Sam, wistful thoughts coming out of his mouth before he can really process what he is saying.
“Come on, Dean.” It is strange, but somehow there is a smile on Sam’s face and part of him keeps expecting hysterical laughter to escape his lips. “You didn’t think that we would live forever, did you?”
“We’re not supposed to die, though.” Dean’s eyes were fixed on his gun hand, clenching and unclenching as though he is just waiting for something that he can fight with his fists. “He promised.”
Sam closes his eyes. This is the end and he is waiting, staring at the orange shadow puppets the flames paint across his eyelids. The colossal creature opens its mouth, displaying fangs like miniature skyscrapers, and roars once more. This is the end, and, Sam thinks, it is a fitting one.
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| Part One |