Broken Bow, Nebraska -- 1992
A hunter learns to trust their instincts. After Mary's death, after learning what's really out there in the darkness, those instincts became my lifeline. They kept my boys alive, kept us one step ahead of the monsters.
But lately, those same instincts were screaming at me about my own son.
It started small. Three years ago, Sam began drawing symbols I'd never taught him. Perfect, precise protection sigils hidden under motel mattresses, behind wallpaper, along windowsills. When asked, he'd say Dean showed him, but Dean's face said different.
Two years ago, a poltergeist in Idaho. Sam, seven then, calmly recited an ancient Sumerian banishing ritual I'd never mentioned. Said he "read it somewhere." The ghost vanished, but the temperature dropped twenty degrees. Storm clouds gathered from nowhere.
Last year, in Wisconsin, he survived a wendigo attack by burning specific herbs in a pattern I'd only seen once in an ancient text.
When I asked Bobby if he'd taught Sam that, he looked confused. Said Sam had been reading about protection magic, but nothing that advanced.
Now, watching him through the motel window, those little moments were adding up to something I couldn't ignore.
Sam sat on the Impala's hood, hunched over another old book. Dean cleaned weapons nearby, keeping watch like always. The sky above them darkened despite the forecast promising clear weather.
"Dad?" Dean's voice broke my concentration. "We're running low on salt."
I handed him some cash, not taking my eyes off Sam. "Store's down the street. Be quick."
Once Dean left, I stepped outside. Sam closed his book immediately – another pattern I'd noticed. Always hiding what he was reading, always prepared with an innocent explanation.
"What are you studying, son?"
"Just history," he said, but his eyes slid away from mine. Mary's eyes, but sometimes... sometimes they looked older.
"Let me see."
He hesitated before handing over the leather-bound volume. Inside were protection rituals, some I'd never seen in a decade of hunting.
Symbols that predated Christianity, notes in Sam's careful handwriting comparing different banishing techniques.
"Bobby gave you this?"
"Yes, sir." Truth, but not the whole truth. Another pattern.
I studied my youngest son's face, remembering Missouri's words from years ago: "That boy's got power in him, John. Power that's going to draw attention."
"Sam," I said carefully, "I've been noticing things."
His shoulders tensed slightly. "Sir?"
"The symbols you draw. The rituals you know. The weather that follows us." I gestured to the gathering storm clouds. "The headaches. The nosebleeds."
Surprise flickered across his face before he could hide it. "Dean told you?"
"Dean protects you. But I'm your father. I see more than you think."
Like the Latin he muttered in his sleep – not basic exorcisms, but something that made the air feel heavy.
Like the way animals reacted to him sometimes – either cowering or showing strange deference. Like the void that seemed to follow him, a space around him that light bent around wrong.
"Bobby says..." Sam started carefully, "Bobby says I might have psychic abilities. That it's not uncommon in hunters."
"Is that all it is?"
The storm clouds grew darker. Thunder rolled.
"What else would it be?"
I thought about the night Mary died. About yellow eyes in the darkness. About my wife's last words: "It's you..."
"Sam, I need you to be honest with me. Are you having... dreams? Visions?"
Something flickered in his eyes – recognition? Fear? – before he masked it. "Sometimes I have nightmares. About fire."
Not a lie, but not the whole truth either. I'd heard him at night, mumbling about emptiness, about cages, about things a nine-year-old shouldn't know about.
"Anything else?"
He hesitated, and for a moment, I thought he might actually tell me. Then Dean returned with the salt, and Sam's walls went back up.
That night, I reviewed my journal entries about Sam:
"1989: Sam (6) drew perfect devil's trap under his bed. Claims Dean taught him. Dean denies it.
1990: Found ancient protection texts hidden in Sam's backpack. Reading level far beyond normal. Weather patterns starting.
1991: Couldn't let Sam stay in the motel, came with us, survived a werewolf encounter by reciting Celtic binding spell. No previous exposure to Celtic lore.
1992: Psychic abilities developing? Nosebleeds increasing. Bobby's crystal showed reaction. Storm clouds follow us town to town.
Notable patterns:
- Advanced knowledge of supernatural lore
- Perfect recall of ancient languages
- Protective sigils appearing everywhere we stay
- Strange weather phenomena
- Animals react unusually
- Possible void/distortion effect
- Nightmares increasing"
Thunder crashed outside our motel room. Through the darkness, I watched Sam sit up in bed, his outline seeming wrong somehow – like there was a space around him that reality didn't quite fill.
"Everything okay?" I called out.
"Yes, sir," both boys answered, but I'd learned to hear the difference between Dean's honesty and Sam's careful deflections.
I thought about calling Missouri again, asking about what she'd sensed in him. About contacting Bobby for more information about that crystal test. About pushing Sam harder for the truth.
But I remembered Mary's face the last time I saw her alive. About her sometimes acting afraid, never telling him why. Always deflecting...
Sometimes secrets exist for a reason.
So I'd wait. Watch. Prepare. Keep detailed notes of every strange occurrence, every pattern, every sign. And hope that when the truth finally came out – when Sam finally told me what he was hiding – I'd be ready.
The storm raged through the night, but Sam slept peacefully under Dean's protective arm. In the morning, I found new protection symbols carved into the headboard, symbols that made my eyes hurt to look at directly.
I left them there.
Sometimes being a father means trusting your children, even when every hunter's instinct screams that you're missing something vital. Even when those secrets make the sky darken and the air grow heavy with potential.
Even when those secrets feel like they could tear the world apart.
But as I watched my boys pack up the next morning, Sam carefully hiding his book of rituals in his bag, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were running out of time. That something was coming.
And that my youngest son knew exactly what it was.
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(Author note: Hello everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the chapter!
Do tell how you found John's thoughts and perspective?
Also, if you've noticed, this isn't exactly like the show. I wish to implement more... Horror? Eldritch? Elements like that into the story.
Well, that's all I have to say. Do please comment and review if you haven't and I hope to see you all later,
Bye!)