Hell on Earth (SPN Fanfiction)

Trudging On

The world stopped spinning in seconds and I looked around frantically, seeing only darkness. It took a second for my panic to slip away and my eyes to adjust to the moon and stars above me. I was surrounded by trees, and my ears rang like someone had screamed in them. I waited, then realized that the screams weren't going away. My brain clicked and I looked off to my right and there was Dean, lying on the ground, unmoving but his mouth was open and an inhuman howl rang into the dark night. My legs couldn't seem to support me but I managed to crawl toward him, his screams fueling strength back into me. I grasped his arm, attempting to understand what he was screaming for. His shrieking subsided into a choking sob, which narrowed down to a series of quick gasps for air that couldn’t seem to sustain his lungs. I followed both of his arms down to his left leg, which he clutched as if it was his only source of life. I strained my eyes to see what was wrong in the inky blackness. I saw that a huge line through his pant leg had been burned off, but that was all. I ran my fingers across it as gently as I could, knowing that Dean was injured in some way. He yelped when I barely touched the burned edge of his pants, and I knew that there was clearly something very, very wrong. My eyes had adjusted better and I could see much clearer now, so I pulled the leg of his jeans up to his knee, and my stomach churned in disgust. I merely glanced at it again and couldn’t help the puke that was rising in my throat. I pushed myself away from him, hacking my guts up from the sight my eyes had laid upon. His shin was covered in blood, and that wasn't the disturbing part. The skin was. . . bubbling. I could see it bubble like it was boiling water, and his tibia had been snapped clean In half. I glanced in his direction again and he wasn’t paying any attention to me, he had his head tossed back and his teeth clenched together, making small animal noises. I took several deep breaths, forcing my uneasy stomach to calm itself. After a few seconds, I deemed myself able to look at the wound again. I crawled back up to Dean, who still had his head tipped back in pain.  

"Dean. Dean! Look at me, just look at me. It's fine, I'll fix you right up. It's not even that bad." Lie. Dean didn't move for a few seconds, obviously still in pain. Finally, he looked down, somewhat in my direction and somewhat in the direction of his injury.  

"I- I think it's broken."  

"Yep. Sure is." The skin had stopped bubbling, but it was still a nasty gash. I needed to clean it out and put a splint on it before it got infected or the broken bone broke even more. I had nothing to clean it with, I had nothing to use as a splint, but maybe. . . 

"Wait right here. I'll be right back." He stared at me like I was crazy, and I pushed myself to my feet, wobbling for a second. I only had to walk a few feet before I found a thick stick, one that could be useful for a makeshift splint. I wandered back over to where Dean sat and dropped to my knees in front of him, brandishing the large stick. I pulled my shirt off, glad I had decided to wear a tank top underneath it.  

"What are you doing?" I ignored his question, there wasn't a need to answer him. I tore my shirt into four strips, then flopped them all into a pile next to the stick that now lay on the ground. I carefully grasped Dean's leg by his knee, and held the back of his ankle by my other hand.  

"This might hurt a little." I slowly lifted his leg and his breath caught. I was vaguely aware of his cheeks filling with air and his face turning red before I placed his leg down on my knee. I held his leg in place and he was mumbling nonsense, begging me to put it back down. I grasped the stick, pulling it into place onto his calf. It was long enough to go past his knee, which was good, holding his entire leg immobile was the best I could do. It took a little work but I managed to resist Dean's yells of pain and attempts to roll away from me, I tied the splint on as tight as I could, forcing myself to ignore Dean's literal crying. I had never seen him so upset before, it hurt me a little to see him in so much pain. Tears were streaming down his face when I finished and he continued to whimper, sobs jerking his body every few seconds. I let him sit and rest for a few minutes, but we needed to get moving. I needed something to clean his wound out with, and I had nothing to do it with, so the faster we got moving the faster I could clean it out and the better his chances were of not having to amputate his left leg. He seemed to calm down a bit, the tears continued but he wasn’t sobbing anymore. I saw him wipe his jacket sleeve over his eyes and I decided that it was time to get moving.  

"Alright, we gotta get moving." I considered wrapping his wound before we moved, but our clothes were gross and dirty, and wrapping an open wound like that with something unsanitary would hasten the infection process. I got to my feet and Dean knew what was going on. 

"Wait. Can we just wait a few more minutes?" I gave him a sympathetic look, but didn’t say anything. I got to my knees behind him, clasping him around his waist.  

"We need to get you on your feet. Then we can go." I felt him tense a little, bracing himself for the pain he knew would come. I held him tightly, then lifted, pulling him up with all my might. My muscles and tendons popped with overexertion already, and I wanted to drop him so bad. I lifted him so that his one good foot dangled just above the ground, then slowly lowered him, every cell in my body screamed with the effort of setting him safely and painlessly on the ground. He stayed upright for a few seconds, and I wasn’t caught off guard when he swayed and his body tilted. Dean was hardly conscious from the pain that coursed through his entire body, and I didn’t blame him, I would pass out too. I held him up straight until he was semi-conscious. I called his name loudly and continued that way until he finally complied, his mind alert enough to hear his name. I asked him if he was alright and he nodded a little, seeming to hear me. I swung his left arm over my shoulder, giving him some stability.  

It was difficult to get moving first, Dean was constantly asking to stop and rest, a wound like his sapped his immense strength, but would couldn't stop as much as he wanted to. I pushed him to go further between rests, we had to get far, and being stuck in a huge forest with no clue of where we were wasn’t helping at all. I needed to find a highway, something like that, anything to show that we were near civilization. We had been walking for a few hours in the darkness of the night and Dean was doing much better when he started a conversation.  

"So... Cas didn’t make it?" I tightened my arm around Dean's waist, him continuing to limp heavily.  

"He didn’t make it in time, I'm sorry, Dean. I would've helped but. . ." I trailed off, I felt Dean had no idea that Cas hadn't tried, and I felt he wasn’t prepared for that type of information. Dean got quiet, and we walked on into the dreaded forest of the night, neither of us knowing what would happen to us in the next few hours.