Caved-In, for tifaching
Title: Caved-In
Author: dollysdoodles
Recipient: tifaching
Beta-Reader: simar1991
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: ~1,600
Warnings: Not much. Pre-series story, hence no spoilers.
Author's Notes: A big thanks to the mods for understanding and not ending up starngulating me for all the delay. And special thanks to my sister for beta-reading the story for me. All the remaining mistakes are my own!
Summary: Dean’s trapped underground after a cave in. The bad thing he and his father and Sam were hunting is trapped down there with him. It can’t get to him, but Dean can hear it. "You are a failiure Dean. Your family hates you and they are going to let you rot in here". As time passes, Dean feels more and more discouraged.
Dean had stopped waiting for his Brother and father some time back.
Chances of him being rescued from this caved in structure were next to impossible and though, he knew his father and brother would still be trying their best to save him, there really wasn’t any hope. He had lost a lot of blood from the injuries, his flashlight had given up sometime back .
They had been hunting an alfar in the forests of California from last two weeks. It had taken them weeks of interrogation and hours research to finally narrow down their search to a particular part of the forest. Most of the disappearances had occurred around the stretch of land close to the lake. The three of them had split up on entering the forest to cover more ground.
In essence, Alfar was similar to a wendigo. Once upon a time they used to be humans who got stranded and turned to cannibalism for survival. Now, they had super speed and metal tough skin and other powers that could be gained from devouring human flesh but unlike wendigos these things could also speak…in many voices.
Alfar lured their prey into their lair pretending to be someone close to the victim and calling for help.
That’s how Dean ended up in this tunnel. The alfar pretended to be Sam and called out to Dean for help. The miserable broken cries of his brother erased all logic from his brain and he ran towards the source of it, an abandoned mine. Once inside, Dean knew he had been trapped. Decayed carcasses of the creature’s previous victims decorated tunnel’s floor and the stink was unbearable.
Exasperated at his own stupidity Dean pulled out his flare gun and slowly backed out of the dark cave.
Dean needed to inform his dad about finding the thing’s lair and he needed back up. He fished his cell out of his jacket and speed dialled his dad’s number.
The call went through but got disconnected after few static filled seconds.
Cursing under his breath in a manner that would have put his punk batch mates at school to shame, Dean increased his pace. He needed to get out of here and he needed to do that fast. The creature was somewhere inside and if it got its hands on Dean before he could kill it, he really won’t live to tell the tale.
He turned off his flashlight and started moving towards the tunnel’s mouth.
And he had almost made it when he felt white hot searing pain at the back of his head and blood trickling down his neck.
Then, his world was engulfed in darkness.
He woke up hours later to find his body slashed badly and a few chunks of flesh missing from his mangled leg. There was rubble everywhere. The tunnel seemed to have caved in.
Dean whimpered in pain and called out for help, his voice raspy and weak.
No answer came, except for the angry snarls of the monster.
He tried to access his situation. From whatever he could make of his surroundings with his murky vision and a barely functional flashlight. The tunnel seemed to have collapsed. There were layers and layers of debris blocking the cave’s entrance and he was stuck inside, with a monster just few meters away.
The thing seemed to be stuck somewhere underneath the rubble.He could see its scaly arm crushed under a massive rock. Rest of the thing was obstructed from his view.
So that’s why I am still alive, Dean thought sluggishly.
His father and brother had no way of knowing he was stuck inside.
There was no way he was getting out of this one.
Dean could no longer keep his eyes open. His lacerated chest and broken leg had stopped hurting. Somewhere in the back of his mind Dean knew that wasn’t a good thing but he couldn’t care less.
Sleep was all that he needed. It would be a welcome break from the strange buzzing in his ears and the high pitched snarls of the monster they had come to kill.
He finally gave in to fatigue and slipped into a restless slumber.
”DEAN!! DEAN! Wake up dammit!”An urgent and panicked voice interrupted Dean’s peaceful sleep.
He tried opening his eyes, but they felt too heavy and gritty as if someone had suspended couple of stones from them.
”Dean wake up, dad is almost here and he is angry, Really really angry!”
”Sam?”, Dean managed to rasp out.
”Wake up damn it!”
Dean forced his eyes to open. It was Sam’s voice and he sounded both afraid and panicked. Dean needed to make sure his brother was okay and he also needed to tell him to get the hell out of here. There was a monster trapped somewhere underneath the rubble and Dean doubted the rocks would keep the thing down much longer. His brother shouldn’t be here.
”Sam?”, Dean asked again.
An agonised scream filled his surroundings.
“SAM!!”
Dean’s breath hitched. Sam was in trouble. Dean needed to find him and save him.
“Sam where are you?”
His only answer was another blood curling scream of his kid brother.
His heart thudding against his chest, threatening to break free, Dean scrambled back to his feet. It was completely dark around him and his flashlight had flickered off hours ago.
”Sam where are you?”
Sam screamed and this time his screams were followed by a high pitched keening laughter.
”Leave him you son of a bitch or I swear I will make you regret it!”, Dean yelled out the threat.
The laughter grew louder in pitch and so did the screams.
Dean stumbled ahead, forcing himself to move closer to his brother, but there was barely any space to move. Another scream from Sam and nausea hit Dean with full force. Images of his brother’s mangled corpse danced in front of his eyes. He needed to save his brother but he couldn’t see anything and there was dust and sharp edges of rocks everywhere.
Some where in the back of his mind, Dean knew the screams didn’t belong to his brother. It was the monster messing with him. The thing was trapped and it had no other source of entertainment. But the blood loss had made his reasoning power weaker then he would have liked and when his body finally gave in to fatigue, Dean could no longer carry on his futile search and slumped on the dirt and rocks. His last thought being, how badly he had failed in the role of his brother’s protector.
“You killed your brother. You are good for nothing Dean. Sam is dead and it’s because of you. The monster tore him to pieces and you couldn’t even cover few feet to save your brother? You are a killer Dean! A KILLER!”
The voice was wasn’t loud but it was harsh and dangerous and Dean recognized it immediately. It was his dad and he was angry. Sam was dead… Sam was really dead.
Dad was right. Dean had been a failure, he couldn’t save Sam. He was a murderer.
”I am taking Sam away and will bury him next to his mother. You should stay here Dean, rot in this place. That’s what you deserve.
Dean shuddered. His dad was leaving. He was taking Sam. Dean needed to stop him, he needed to see Sam, to beg him for forgiveness, he needed to say goodbye.
Dean tried saying something, but his mouth was too dry and it burned from all the dirt he had ingested. Dean sank into the blissful darkness once again.
”Your father never liked you Dean. You were always a burden. Sam was the special one, the one your father actually cared about. That is why he left you in here, now that your brother’s dead. It’s okay Dean. I took your revenge for you. I ripped your brother from limb to limb. Serves your dad right. Doesn’t it? You should thank me.”
Dean wanted the monster to stop. He wanted it to stop describing Sam’s final moments to him again and again. He wanted it to stop telling how Sam begged for his life, how Sam begged for his brother to help. He wanted it to stop telling him how he failed.
A low menacing laughter filled his surroundings.
”Looks like you really enjoyed my story, Dean. Want me to go over it again?”
Dean had no idea how much time had passed since the cave-in. It could have been hours or days or even weeks for that matter. He could barely open his eyes, his limbs hardly twitched. It was cruel that he was still alive somehow. May be this was the punishment for his crimes.
Or maybe this was hell, Dean thought when he heard the monster mocking him again.
Dean really didn’t pay attention to what the thing said any longer. It only laughed at his misery and mocked him for his failure. It told him again and again how his father and his brother hated him because he was a burden to them. Dean didn’t need to hear all that from this being. He had spent years wondering about them after all!.
So, when the Alfar’s menacing laughter changed into angry snarls, Dean barely noticed. He didn’t think much of it when the snarls changed into horrible screams, didn’t care when the acrid stench of burning flesh invaded his nostrils, didn’t care when he finally felt some heat after feeling cold for so long.
But then, he heard someone calling him and someone shaking him. He wanted the person to go away. He didn’t want to wake up, he didn’t deserve to wake up. He deserved to rot here in this place.
”Dean, Dean ! I have got you big brother. We brought help. They are going to make you better. Just hold on a little while longer…Please.”
”You did great champ. Just don’t leave us now. hold on, it’s an order!”
Dean obeyed his father’s order.