Whatever you do, don't let go

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural, or any of its characters. Wishful thinking is all I got, but of that I have plenty. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made with this story.

Rating: T. Some bad language, some blood, some dark thoughts. Nothing excessive, certainly not more than on the show.

Summary: Losing somebody you love is the hardest thing to go through. Sam knows from personal experience. There is only thing that could possibly make this worse: a light at the end of the tunnel, but you don't know if it's hope or hellfire. Post season 3, my take on what could possibly happen after the season finale.

Spoilers: Everything up to "No Rest for the Wicked" is fair game. This story starts right where the season finale left off. Well, a few hours later.

Author's Note: Just a short one, then I leave you in peace to read the story. This is my first Supernatural multi-chapter story. It's fully planned out already, so I know where it's going and what's going to happen. Updates should be once a week, depending on how real life is treating me. Reviews are always appreciated, as is constructive criticism.

Enjoy!

Prologue: Behind the Veil

Pain.

Darkness.

Pain and darkness.

Darkness and pain.

Both so overwhelming that they were pulsing around him and in him and through him and out of him.

Pain…pain…pain…like a drum solo of agony it throbbed around him, flowed through his veins instead of blood and set every nerve in his body on fire.

There was no space or time, just an all-encompassing nothingness in which he was strung up, body stretched to its limits, stretched to taut by an unseeing force that it would rip him apart if just another pound of pressure was added.

He couldn't breathe.

He couldn't see.

He couldn't feel anything but the pain.

It was latching onto him from all sides, tearing, clawing, cutting, biting, hurting, ripping, but not breaking. Not breaking him. Not breaking him enough. He wished that it would all be over, that he'd reach that point where it would break him, when the pain would become too much, the moment when his mind blanked out and sent him into sweet oblivion. But the moment didn't come.

There was no relief, no oblivion, no way of stopping the agony.

There was only pain and the roaring of the darkness around him. It was so loud, bellowing in his head with enough force to make him hope for his eardrums to burst, anything to make it stop…

Just make it stop…please make it stop…MAKE IT STOP I BEG YOU!

It was too loud to think, he was in too much pain to think, all he could do was scream soundlessly against the roaring darkness, hoping and praying to a higher power he had never believed in to make it STOP.

There had to be some way to make it end. Some way to get out of this.

Some way to make it stop.

But he was helpless. Powerless. Lost in the darkness, in a black hole of pain and suffering, and he couldn't make it stop. He was too weak to make it stop on his own, and he knew that nobody would come to help him.

He was alone.

All his life he had been alone.

Alone in the darkness, alone with his pain.

There was only one person who had ever cared.

Only one person he could think of to come and save him from this.

Only one person who might be strong enough to make the pain stop.

Cracked and bleeding lips opened in a silent scream, coppery blood mixing with saliva and causing the bile to rise in his throat that was raw from screaming in pain. Maybe there was enough strength left to scream one more word before his vocal chords gave up from abuse, before it all became too much and the pain and the darkness would tear him apart into a thousand pieces that would never stop hurting.

He closed his eyes and screamed the one word that was echoing in his head again and again and again, bouncing from one side of his skull to the other and back again in a substitute for a heartbeat.

The one word that was his beacon against the darkness.

The one word that meant hope for him.

The one word that hurt him more than anything else.

He screamed with all his might, with all the power he had left in his lungs, and the word echoed faintly through the roaring darkness before its echo was swallowed into absolute silence.

"SAM!"

Prologues are short ;-) The next chapter will be much longer, I promise. And it should be up soon.