CASTIEL, YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN, Michael Says. YOU WILL JOIN THE ELITE GARRISON–LED BY ME, OF COURSE,

CASTIEL, YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN, Michael says. YOU WILL JOIN THE ELITE GARRISON–LED BY ME, OF COURSE, TO RETRIEVE MY SWORD FROM HELL.

YES, MICHAEL, Castiel says.

–

“Are you sure you wanna go by yourself?” Sam asks.

“It’s gotta be me,” Dean says. He looks between Sam and Eileen and Jack and Claire and Kaia, tries to memorize their faces. He smiles weakly. “I’ll be back soon.”

He turns around. Michael lifts his hands. Dean takes a moment to commit his youngest brother’s face to memory. “Ready?”

“Yes,” Dean says, and Michael opens the portal.

–

Hell is loud. Screams from the tortured souls fill the air. Cries from demons fill the sound, and overtop are wails from the Cage. Castiel shudders at the sound of angelic screeching, grating and unexpected against his grace. He grips his blade tighter and dives between a layer of racks. 

He has his orders–fight the demons. Find the Righteous Man. Call Michael, allow him to retrieve his sword. Losses of angelic lives are unfortunate but perhaps necessary. Castiel recites them like a mantra, and a swarm of demons leaps for him. He flares his wings wide and bares his teeth and turns the full force of his hundreds of eyes onto them, and he fights.

–

The Empty is quiet. Eerily so. Every footstep Dean takes is muffled. He cannot hear himself breathe, cannot hear his heart, beating against his chest. For a moment, he’s certain he is dead, but when he puts his palm over his breast, he feels it, a steady tattoo against his ribcage. Dean tightens his grip on his angel blade, and he keeps walking forward. 

–

In the distance, Castiel spots Sarah fall. He dives sideways. He has always been smaller than his siblings, has always been a bit faster, and he slips between the cracks of the first circle, and descends deeper into the pit.

Continua a leggere