"'A woman admitted to a psychiatric ward after being fired and divorced'", Dean read aloud. "That might be something, right? What'd ya' think, ghost possession making her loose her job and husband, and then her mind?"

Sam sighed. "No, I don't think it's that strange of a reaction after something like that."

"Fine," Dean muttered. Then he peaked up. "Hey, listen to this. '29 dead overnight by fatal epidemic.'"

That actually caught Sam's attention. "That's a lot for just one night. What're the symptoms?"

"Let's see… Couching up blood and catching high fever. That's what they die from, the fever."

"Now that might actually be something. Think we should check it out?"

"Of course, why wouldn't we?"

"Well, we've kind of got a lot on our plates with Cas, Lucifer and Amara..."
"Yeah, I know," says Dean, "but we agreed to keep doing cases until we find some new info on all that. Meanwhile, we've got nothing better to do, right?"

"Right", Sam agrees. "Okay then. Where do we start?"

Dean's eyes swept over the computer screen. "There's a hospital taking care of all the patients sick with the disease. We should probably go there, try to find out more about the sickness."

oooOOOooo

Once they reached the quarantined wing of the hospital and showed their FBI badges, they were immediately equipped with facemasks and gloves.

"So you don't know what this disease is?" Sam asked a female dark-haired nurse. Her nametag read Jocelyn.

"No, but whatever it is, it seems highly contagious", she replied, voice muffled by the mask.
They walked into a large room filled with patients in hospital beds.

"You keep them all in the same room?" Dean said. "Is that smart?"

"Not really, but we have no choice. We're running out of space to keep them all. Over 120 have gotten sick within the first day."

"My god," Sam mumbled. "It's spreading fast, huh?"

Jocelyn nodded sadly.

"How does it spread?" asked Dean. "By breathing the same air or just skin-to-skin contact?"

"We actually don't know yet", the nurse replied. "It's been almost impossible to get any information from the sick. It happens so fast, from the minute they start coughing it never takes more than 24 hours until they die."

"Can you tell us more about the symptoms?" Sam asked.

"From what we've gathered, it starts with coughing up blood. Then the body temperature starts rising and just... doesn't stop. We've documented temperatures up to 109 degrees. And that's what they die from."
"That's horrible", Sam said. "And there's nothing you can do?"

"Nothing yet. We try to ease their pain, but nothing'll stop the fever."

"Alright, anything else you've noticed that might be weird about the patients or the symptoms?" asked Dean.
Jocelyn seemed to think for a while. "Well, there is one thing. They all seem to kind of go crazy. We thought it was just fever hallucinations at first, but they're all talking about seeing the same thing."

"What?" Sam said. "Seeing what?"

"Smoke", Jocelyn said. "Dark, black smoke. They said it was everywhere, but there hasn't been a record of a fire anywhere near them."

Sam exchanged a pointed glance with Dean. Demon smoke. So this was a case.

"If you come with me to the office, I'll show you all the journals and the records of their symptoms."

"Yes, thank you", said Sam.

"Yeah, I'm gonna stay and talk to the patients", Dean said.

Sam hesitated. "Okay. But be careful, alright? Don't get infected."

"You too."

Jocelyn then led Sam out into a hallway, down to an office filled with drawers full of medical records. He took of his mask as she handed him a couple of files to be able to read better.

"Same symptoms", he mumbled as he scanned through the pages. "Different histories. They got anything in common?"

"Not as far as I know", Jocelyn said, her words a lot clearer now without the mask. "Different income, different origins, different age. They all live far from each other… The only thing I can think of is that they all have family. Not one patient here without close relatives."

"Hm", Sam said. Then he closed the files and handed them back. "Well, thank you for your time. My partner and I will be leaving now."

She just nodded.

Sam put the mask back on as he walked back into the room and met up with Dean.

"What'd you find out?"

"Not much", Dean said. "They're all too delusional from the fever to make any sense. What about you?"

"Nothing much here either, except for the fact that everyone who's sick has a family, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with it."

Dean sighed. "Alright then, what now?"

"I'll head back to the motel and do some research, look through the lore. I think you should probably drive down to the police station, find out if anything like this has ever happened before."

"Alright, sounds good."

oooOOOooo

Since Dean took the car, Sam had to walk back to the motel. He didn't mind though, it wasn't far, and the weather was nice outside. It gave him a chance to clear his head, which felt a lot fuller than usual.

He wondered where he'd start the research. He only knew one thing for sure, and that was that the disease wasn't natural- it was demonic. That was clear from the black smoke the patients spoke of.

As soon as the thought of the black smoke crossed his mind, he thought he saw something move in an empty parking lot out of the corner of his eye. Something dark and shapeless. But when he looked over there, the parking lot was still empty. Nothing unusual there.
"I'm overthinking it", he said to himself with a slight laugh.

He was thinking about it too much, it was just getting to his head. He must've imagined it.

And he was right; everything couldn't get more normal. The sun was shining, birds were singing and the people he met on the sidewalk smiled politely at him.

After walking for fifteen minutes, the sun started getting on his nerves. He felt too hot and longed for some shade and a cool bottle of water.

Suddenly, he tripped and stumbled forward, but managed to regain his balance just in time. He looked back to see what he tripped over, but there wasn't anything there. And then he realized that the world was spinning slightly. That's what had made him loose his balance.

"Must be getting a damn sunstroke", he muttered, and decided to hurry the rest of the way. He was almost there.

After five more minutes of walking he finally reached the motel room, sweating profusely. He drank a whole bottle of cool water and immediately felt better. Time for some research.

oooOOOooo

A/N: New Supernatural story of mine! Hello readers! What do you think about where I'm going with this? I swear it's going to get more intense soon. Please leave a review telling me your thoughts and I'll have the next chapter up soon. Thanks for reading!