The Voss farmstead rests dark under the late December night, moonlight fracturing through warped shutters as Elias slumps onto his cot in the kitchen's corner with a shotgun propped near, his senses dulled by grief.
The 20-mile walk from I-70's pyre left him drained; Mara's ashes sealed in a tin beside him, Daniel sprawled in a chair gripping her coat and snoring with a whiskey rasp.
Elias's eyes grow heavy as the house creaks around him, and sleep takes him fast.
Snow whips across I-70 as the truck roars through the storm.
Thirteen-year-old Elias slouches in the passenger seat.
Mara's voice cuts through—'Brace, Elias!'—her scarred hand grabbing his shoulder, warm and alive.
Headlights catch black ice and the tires screech, Daniel grips the wheel with knuckles white while cursing under his breath.
Elias's heart pounds and his sharp instincts catch the sick slide of metal.
The truck skids and glass glints ready to shatter, but time stops.
Snow hangs frozen, and Mara's hand freezes and Daniel's curse cuts off.
Absolute silence grips around Elias.
Then a low voice, not theirs, whispers, "What will happen will eventually happen."
The world cracks and light bends and the truck vanishes.
A dim room flickers into being, air stale, a TV screen casting shadows.
He's not Elias—not 13—he's a man in his 20s, slouched on a worn couch with hands rough and gripping a cold, slick beer can.
The TV buzzes and images flash of a black car speeding down a dusty road.
Two men stand beside it; one tall with cropped hair, the other lean with sharp eyes, both holding shotguns.
Shadows twist around them, eyes black and smoke curling in the air. Then, light flares; wings burst into flames, and blades clash spraying blood and fire.
Demons and angels locked in war and shouts were echoing, names of Sam and Dean lost in the noise, meaningless.
His pulse spikes, the chaos was a blur with faces he never saw and their fight, a puzzle unknown.
The voice hums again, "What will happen…"
Flashes come fast. The same man, the same life, he was now outside, a bar's neon buzzing and the parking lot was dark.
He laughs, his voice was rough, stumbling to a car—a dented sedan, not the black one he saw—with keys rattling in his hand.
Another flash—this time a highway at a rainy night, with radio spitting static.
Headlights flare and a truck looms with horn blaring.
He yanks the wheel, but it's too late.
Metal crunches and glass shatters, and the car flips, once, twice.
Pain sears and blood floods his mouth, his chest collapses then his breath stops.
The voice fades, "…will eventually happen."
Then darkness swallows him, final and cold.
Elias jerks awake gasping with the cot creaking beneath him and sweat soaking his skin.
The kitchen's dark, Daniel's snores are rough, and the tin was glinting cold by his side.
His hands quickly grab the blanket while trembling, his heart was thudding like his first kill.
The dream clings of Mara's grip and the truck's slide, then that frozen moment, the voice, and those flashes, TV, strangers, black car, a crash, his crash.
"What…" he whispers with a thin voice lost in the silence.
He scrubs his face roughly chasing the fog; Mara's death he knows, but the rest? A man watching fights between demons, wings, and names he doesn't know, then dying, it's not him, but yet him.
He reaches for the tin; Mara's ashes, they were solid and real, with fingers tight anchoring him.
His senses twitch catching the house's low quiet, and Daniel's uneven breath but no answers.
The voice—"What will happen…"—echoes, tied to that life, that wreck and those faces.
He glances at Mara's rifle by the door where moonlight is tracing its barrel, steadying him.
"Just a dream…" he hollowly mutters and his hands quickly shake, and the past life's shards a haze he can't pierce.
The night presses close and the farmstead is still and Mara's absence sharp as the nightmare's crash.
Elias lies back with eyes wide while staring at the ceiling, remembering the dream's pieces.
He's 13, and her son, not that man, not that death; but the black car lingers, and sleep won't return to him.
He waits alone for dawn, shaken while clutching the tin.