Unbroken // Supernatural // Dean Winchester

Prologue: Paranoia

Disclaimer: 'Supernatural' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show.

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Prologue - Paranoia

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December 7, 2005

She was being paranoid. She was just being paranoid. It was an occupational hazard for someone in her position, wasn't it? Spend long enough in her line of work—grow up in her world—you get to learn everything can have a dark side, including sunflowers and puppies. So flitting shadows and the echo of cars backfiring weren't exactly things to be ignored. Hell, at some point paranoia becomes a symptom of self-preservation. An instigating factor to promote proper preparation. But it had been some time since paranoia had been a necessary ingredient in her day-to-day life, so that instinctive shiver running down her spine and the slight prickling of hairs rising on her neck left her confused as well as anxious.

Lizbeth Oswald walked briskly down the darkened street. Her long, red hair, collected into a ponytail, swished back and forth against her neck with each determined step. She reached into the collar of her coat, pulling the scarf up to cover most of her round face. On days like this one the icy, biting wind had a way of turning her usually pale skin to a bright, marbled pink. If hell was ever going to pick a night to freeze over, the odds for this one seemed particularly promising. She peered over the edge of the knit, blinking rapidly. Her eyeballs felt as if they were solidifying inside of her skull—first watering, followed by the thin tears turning to ice as they leaked down her face.

Everything around her painted the picture of a quaint winter village, worthy of one of those 1950s black and white sitcoms where they cook everything in butter. Actually the town looked like someone had photoshopped the interior of a Christmas Eve Macy's onto the landscape. Middlebury had a tendency to indulge in the holiday decorations alarmingly early, from the blinking lights to the inflatable reindeer sitting on snow-dusted lawns. All of it was so quintessentially suburban. Whether that was endearing or nauseating was up to interpretation, but something about frozen rivers and kids giggling on ice skates made Lizbeth feel a bit nostalgic. Snow crunched under her feet, if she inhaled forcefully she would undoubtably smell something nutmeg scented—so why did she feel so tense all of the sudden? Where the hell did you find the sinister in the midst of all this cheesy Hallmark Holiday Special bullshit? And yet there is was. Lurking. Like a lurker. A lurking lurker.

The trek she took was a familiar one, usually inspiring no excitement whatsoever. It started at the fitness studio where she helped teach Judo to middle schoolers on Wednesdays and Saturdays. From there it moved to the library where she spent a few hours cramming for whatever test was looming in the future. Finally it ended with a half mile hike to her off-campus apartment. She knew it well—she could walk it in her sleep.

Lizbeth pulled her puffy winter coat closer in around her, as if somehow that additional layer of clothing would afford her any extra degree of protection. Her gloves certainly weren't doing their job properly, the harsh wind cutting straight through to her fingertips, but it wasn't the weather that left her cold. For some reason she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. She couldn't speak to who or what was doing said watching or what their motivations might be, but a pit had settled in the base of her stomach a little over a week ago and hadn't shifted since. It left her twitchy and squirming, an ant under a magnifying glass some chubby kid with cotton candy colored cheeks was trying to light on fire. Direct threats she was fine with. If some asshole came charging her with a knife, it wouldn't bother her in the slightest. Or at least not to any unreasonable degree. Those were the problems she knew how to deal with. It was the problems that hid that bothered her—the ones that could sneak up on her.