Heartless: Episode 5 (Supernatural Fan fiction)

The 5th installment in the Taylor Nelson saga (1 more episode to completion)

Heartless: Episode 5

“All The World’s A Stage”

There once was a girl named Taylor Aubrey Nelson who lived with her family all the way in Newark, New Jersey. She spent her days working at the local coffee shop, taking photos of sunsets, and watching her boyfriend Maddox paint on sidewalks and lamp posts. Maddox went to art school, he played in a punk three-piece band, and he worked nights at the local second hand book store. He wore nothing but band shirts and plaid, and always thought Taylor would make a great graphic novel hero… even though she didn’t agree. He smoked way too many cigarettes, painted his nails black, and his hair was dyed bright red- which he one day confessed to doing just so Taylor would notice him. At least it worked.

Taylor’s dad didn’t think a whole lot of Maddox, but he never said a word against him. He took solace in the fact that Maddox went to college, and maybe someday soon, Taylor would be inspired to do the same. Taylor’s mom however loved Maddox; after all, he was one hell of a charmer. Francis on the other hand, would’ve thrown Maddox out onto the pavement months ago, if it wasn’t for all those black magic books he sold him in secret.

There was barely a day that went by that Taylor didn’t see Maddox; they were simply inseparable. Until of course, one day Taylor Aubrey Nelson just vanished off the face of the earth. 5 months after their disappearance, the authorities decided Taylor and Francis Nelson had been murdered too, given the amount of blood they left at the scene.

Unfortunately for Maddox, he was unaccustomed to bad news such as this, and as much of a realist as he was- Maddox was also extremely temperamental. After living a life built to retaliate against everyone’s expectations, Maddox did what everyone half-heartedly expected him to do… he drove his car over a cliff, and died in a blaze lit by a spark in his pick up’s gas tank.

When Taylor read about his death in the paper, she didn’t cry. She simply couldn’t… it was too late. After all the horrors she had seen, and all the pain she had endured… and all the people she had lost in her life, Taylor’s grief stores had been spent. She was numb; unfeeling; jaded and lost. The only times she ever felt anything anymore, was when she picked a fight with her brother, or when her body was overrun with adrenaline as they dodged Death just one more time.

But then she learned something about herself… that she was different, maybe even important… or so the Winchester brothers believed. They believed in her so much that they dragged her into a war without any real preparation, and without knowing anything about Taylor Aubrey Nelson at all. Who knew that some no-good punk kid from New Jersey, with a pink streak in her hair, and stolen Doc Martens would be so much trouble?

***

Adapted from Taylor’s Journal (continued):

December 9^th 2009.

When I fell back down into my body; that conscious state where the real world resided, I felt a scorching heat lick at my limbs. It was the strangest sensation, like a thousand pins and needles poking away at me without drawing blood. I looked up and saw Sam and Dean struggling against the wall, tirelessly trying to stay centred and at least conscious. “You little insects…” I heard myself say, “Stop struggling, it’s so utterly pathetic,”

“You son of a b***h!” Dean huffed furiously, “Get out of her! Get out, or I swear to God-”

My voice laughed and I stepped towards Dean, a hand held out in front of me as if some invisible force connected my palm and his neck, “I wish I could, Dean,” I spat, twisting my hand and making him cringe. “But pretty little Taylor here is kind of like… a transmission tower for us non-bodied entities- me especially! We’re magnetized together… she’s my very own house-special, limited edition, special reserve meat-suit. And boys, you can’t beat that kind of serendipity…”

“What’re you talking about?” Sam muttered.

“Well, I knew it was only a matter of time that I’d run into you,” My voice replied, “I mean, how can the Winchester brothers ignore a hot little trail of mayhem like the one I was laying down… but seriously, I didn’t see this little twist coming- you brought me a package for me to play in… now that, ladies and gentlemen… is the kind of meant-to-be that’s just meant-to-be!” As hard as I tried to stop myself from talking, it was impossible, and when my wrist twisted again, I saw it inflict Dean with an invisible surge of pain. I tried so hard to stop my movements… but I failed every time. I was a prisoner in my own body, nailed inside a box in my head… and every time I so much as moved, I heard his voice whisper to me “You are nothing, you are nothing, you are nothing”. A psychological mind trip into madness… I was riding there first class and fast. “Taylor…” My voice said, “I can feel you scratching away in there… seriously,” I looked up at Sam and Dean again, “You’d think she’d be a little nicer to the guy who brought her back to life,”

“A- Amon?” Sam stammered.

“Pleasure to meet you,” My voice replied. I felt my heart sink… the murderer who slaughtered my family, who killed me, and who had pulled my life to pieces was now in charge of my very being. Every small movement was his… I had no more control, and it was terrifying. “I’ve been waiting a really long time, but I needed it to be just perfect… just… deliciously… poetic,”

“What do you want with us?” Dean asked. “You think ganking us will put you back in the hell-good-books?”

“Dean Winchester…” Amon replied, “You know all this could’ve been over sooner if I wasn’t kicked out of hell the first moment those parasites saw a chink in the chain- my god the things I would’ve done to you if I was in the Hotel California the same time you were…” My mind reeled, Dean Winchester? In hell? “But then again, I hear you did a pretty good job at kicking yourself in the guts- so maybe it was meant to be… a little torture here, a little torture there… and now, well, now it’s all over,”

“What the hell are you talking about!” Sam grimaced.

“I could blame it all on you guys of course- well, maybe I will… but you see, politics in hell is like a blood sport,” Amon replied, “The moment some big cheese in hell keels over, everyone comes scrambling for the high chair. It’s ridiculous… well, that’s how it went for me anyway. My father was a pretty big deal, and a whole lot of people hated him, even after all the work he had done- years, and years and years of hard work… all barrelling down to this wonderful Disney land of opportunities we see here today,”

“Your father?” Sam murmured, “Lucifer?”

Amon laughed, picking up a scalpel from the ground to inspect it as he took a few steps closer to the Winchesters. I tried one more time to loosen his grip on the knife, but he didn’t even feel me kick and scream. I knew what he was thinking of doing with that knife… and as hard as I tried to block out the images that flashed across my mind, I could not. “Not that scum filled sack of crap!” Amon sneered, “I can’t believe how much time my father spent worshipping that angel like he was our god…”

Dean and Sam’s minds clicked over simultaneously- I could see it in their expressions.

“No,” Amon said quietly to himself, seeing my reflection in the scalpel as he held it up, “You killed my father… Azazel,” he said, “After all the attention he showered over you like you were some sort of prized prodigal son… returning to the fold- and look at how you repaid him!” Amon shouted, “The moment his body hit the earth, they cast me out and I’ve had all this time to plan out exactly how you’re going to die, Sam and Dean Winchester… but right now I’m thinking… why don’t we just improvise,”

The hallway doors beside us slammed open with a bang, and Amon turned to see Francis barrelling down towards us, a shot gun pointed straight for our heads. “Get out of her! Get out!” He screamed, “In nomen nostri senior quod savior, licentia suus somes!” A moment later he was flung back onto the ground, screaming in pain. I wish I had listened to Castiel and the Winchesters… I wish I hadn’t texted him our plans from the Chevrolet when no one was paying attention. But 9 months of training had turned me into my brother’s little do-as-you’re-told wind-up toy. Always let big brother know where you’re headed…

“Are you kidding me?” Amon smirked, “The doting brother… Francis my darling- the part-time occult practitioner… long time no see,” Amon stepped towards him and placed a foot on Francis’ neck. “Seems like just yesterday you were summoning me to your pretty little home in Newark,” He laughed. Francis tried his exorcism spell again, muttering quietly through chokes for breath. “Are you insane or just stupid? We’ve been through this before- you can’t send me anywhere, you moron- I’m black listed out of hell… and your sister is tied to me,” Amon said, “You can’t tear us apart unless you cut us apart… and if you kill me, well, then you kill her too… simple as that,”

“You can’t have her…” Francis growled, fighting against the pressure on his neck, his hands clasped around my foot. “Please, I’ll do anything… take me,” He muttered pathetically. “She didn’t do this… she didn’t want this,”

Amon however, had his quota of family-love-moments for the night, and laughed in response. “Sorry, sonny, but how else am I going to teach the world the valuable lesson it needs to learn?” He sneered, “Don’t… mess… with the dark side,” He jammed my foot down into Francis’ neck and I heard a snap that made my skin crawl. I screamed in agony inside my head, but nothing reached my vocal chords. I clawed at the walls of the box that held me, but nothing happened. The voice that shared the space with me just got louder “You are nothing, you are nothing, you are nothing”. I couldn’t get out, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even cry. I’m not nothing, I’m not nothing, I’m not nothing, I muttered back, swallowed by an unfathomable grief. My whole life, the last strand holding me together… my last hope for a home was gone.

I thought of the car rides, the fights, the Polaroids we took of each other just to piss each other off… The bad dinner food, the hunting trips, the stories we told… the people we scammed. I thought of all the times he promised me we could turn back; all the times he painted me a picture of a future that lay just after Amon’s salt-burnt corpse. He had tried so hard to make me believe there was a happy ending to this twisted story of death and a blind hunt for retribution… but hadn’t he seen Hamlet? Or Sweeney Todd? All those screwed up stories end up the same- they sing the same note… you live in the darkness long enough, you become a part of it. And then, you die- because deep down, really, truthfully, at the end of that long and winding road there are just more and more miles of torture. The only way out is death.

I tried as hard as I could to remind myself I was still here… that I still existed, no matter how impossible it was to prove at this moment in time. I kicked, I screamed, I punched, cursing Amon’s name and hearing my voice just echo back to me. I’m still here! I screamed, after all, wasn’t that true? Somewhere, somehow, I still had the presence of mind to know I was still kicking and screaming- maybe that was enough. A small thought entered my head; you are important.

“Taylor,” I thought I heard as Amon made his way towards Sam, the scalpel gleaming in hand. “Taylor…” Francis’ voice gurgled behind me. I turned. Suddenly, I had the capacity to move my own head, and I stared down at Francis who choked his last breath. Amon retreated unwillingly and I broke the surface for one tiny moment.

“Taylor!” Sam screamed at me. I lifted the scalpel and knew what I had to do. I turned it on myself and sliced a deep cut into my chest.

“Absum! Is est a miles militis of Deus!” I screamed as the knife sunk into my flesh, a stream of blood staining my hand as my knees buckled and I fell backwards. Amon tried to flee, but he had nowhere to run to. He flew out through the cut in my chest; a bright white light that screamed in a torturous voice only I could hear. It filled the room and shook it, breaking glass and throwing items through space. Then it was gone… forever.

I fell to the ground and felt pain begin to grow from the wound I had created on my chest. I saw Dean and Sam fall to the ground too, stumbling towards me as fast as they could.

The next thing I remember was waking for a moment in Sam’s arms as Castiel held my face and whispered to me; “Stay with us, Taylor… stay…” I saw his eyes turn into a piercing electric blue, and his skin glow as he flexed his wings above me. I wondered- a stray thought skating across my mind- if his dusty grey wings used to be white.

“It’s okay, Castiel,” I whispered softly, my hand clasping around his hand that cupped my face, “God still loves you,”

My eyes rolled back in my head and I was enveloped in darkness for a long while. Afterwards, I remember small flashes of action happening around me; the boys shouting to each other as I lay in Castiel’s lap in the back seat of the speeding Impala… the neon lights in an emergency room of a hospital that was bustling with activity… a doctor telling me to stay lucid, to stay awake, and to tell her exactly where I was as if I had all the answers. As they put a mask around my face, I wished darkly that there would be nothing they could do for me. I wished that somehow, I would be able to see Francis again… my little sister… my mom and dad… Maddox… my dog Mercury. I had a whole life somewhere outside this one. How was it possible? I was dead even though I was the only one still breathing.

***

“If I knew, I would’ve thanked him,” Dean Winchester read from the pages of a mole skin journal. He looked up across the table at Bobby and Sheryl who sat, waiting expectantly. “She ripped out a tonne of pages,” Dean observed.

“No s**t, Sherlock,” Sam said, taking the journal from him.

“Shut up, b***h,” Dean muttered.

“Hey, you two cut it out!” Bobby interrupted gruffly, “I don’t know what it is you two are fighting about this time, but if you could just put your differences aside for a moment-”

“We’d appreciate it,” Sheryl put in, stopping Bobby’s angry rant short. Bobby looked up at her, like a dog that had just gotten its bone snatched away. He scratched his head for a moment and adjusted his trucker cap.

“What happened to her? Have you seen her since?” Bobby asked, after clearing his throat.

“No,” Dean replied, “She vanished after a couple of weeks at the hospital…” He said, leaning back in his chair to think, “We looked for her, but couldn’t find her anyway… We just figured she hit the road again.” Dean shrugged, “Hunters come and go all the time, hell Sheryl’s done more of her fair share of that.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t see hell hounds and demons outside a vessel… nor can I look upon the true form of an angel without my eyes probably exploding right outta my head,” Sheryl replied

“Yeah well,” Dean replied with a smug smile on his face, “I got pulled outta hell and the abominable snowman over here can fill up on demon blood and gank demon b*****s right out of their meat suits,” Dean said plainly, earning a dirty look from Sam.

“Exactly my point,” Sheryl replied, “And both of you have a pretty big role to play in all this stuff that’s been going on,”

“You’re saying you think Taylor has a part in the Apocalypse?” Sam asked.

“It’s possible,” Sheryl said.

“Think about it, guys,” Bobby said, “She’s a transistor for the good, the bad and the ugly,” He sighed, “She’s an open door- a vessel… ringin’ any bells?”

“She’s just some kid from Newark,” Dean scoffed.

“And you’re both just kids from Lawrence,” Bobby replied, and Dean had no choice but to bite his tongue. Truth was that Dean couldn’t deny the possibility of Taylor’s importance for a second… after all; he still had no idea how she exorcised and killed Amon while being possessed by him. But Dean didn’t like the idea that something like this had wormed its way out of his hands for so long…

“She turned up at the motel I run back in Wyomming,” Sheryl said. “Just a few weeks after her last entry in the journal… of course, I had no idea who she was back then- some runaway kid for all I knew,” She smiled to herself as she crossed the room to stand by the window, “I heard her talking to herself at night when I paced the hallway to check up on things, again I never really thought anything of it…” Sheryl looked out the window. “I can’t believe how long it took, but they only discovered it two weeks ago,”

Sheryl remembered standing in the reception area of her motel; counting bills like every other morning after a visit to the mailbox. It was business as usual, until of course, she heard a scream from one of the rooms. A guest had discovered a strange painting underneath their bed; a large, sinister looking pentagram with Latin words scribbled around it. It looked like a devil’s trap, but was actually an ancient spell against the evil eye. When Sheryl stripped the room, she found more etchings and paintings of the same variety. On the hidden side of the bed’s headboard were the words: “Absum! Is est a miles militis of Deus.”

Sheryl shared pictures of the room with Sam and Dean; the reality of the situation finally hitting them- it showed in their expressions. “I remembered seeing her out in the garden all the time, under the old Willow,” Sheryl said, “Sure enough, she had this old journal buried under there… for the life of me, I don’t know why she didn’t just burn the damned thing. Well, I’m glad she didn’t… She was gone after a couple of weeks, just left money on the reception and gapped it. I didn’t even see her go,”

“She’s running from something big,” Bobby said. “And if she’s still out there, she’s fighting the good fight on her own,”

“Never should’ve let her just run out like that…” Dean huffed, sounding angry at himself.

“Wait, this final line here,” Sam began, pointing to the final page in her journal, “If I knew, I would’ve thanked him,” He read, “Who is she talking about?”

“Well,” Sheryl said, turning towards the boys again, “I have a feeling she was talking about the person who helped her out of that hospital bed and helped her go on the run,” She explained.

“Who?” Dean asked.

“Well, I can’t say for certain- but I remember catching a glimpse of a man talking to her outside my motel when she first showed up. They were all the way up the driveway, standing in the rain… but she walked in on her own,”

“What?” Dean leaned forward in his chair, “Who was it?”

“Like I said, I can’t say for certain- they were standing a fair distance away and it was raining…” Sheryl said, and was met with the eager glances of the men around her. “Well…” she began with a sigh, “He was wearing a trench coat”.