Deracinate (Coprolalia Part One)

Eighteen: Rise From Perdition

Claire's eyes opened into silence and darkness.

"What the hell?" She muttered. She raised her hands above her and they hit wood. "Goddamnit Ben! Not only did you have to bring me back, but you didn't burn my body. IDIOT."

She turned on her cellphone, which she thankfully still had. She flipped it open to shed light into the box.

Sure enough, she was in a pine box, only about a few inches bigger than her on each side. Her clothes were covered in blood, but her wounds were healed. Claire kicked the top of the box as hard as she could, and sandy dirt poured in.

Claire gasped for air when she hit the surface. She pulled her dirt covered body out of the hole and looked around. There wasn't the same destroyed circle that Dean had described when he'd come back, only all the plants in the clearing she was in were dead. That couldn't be a good sign. She pulled up the sleeves on both her shoulders, no handprints. So it wasn't an angel.

She pulled out her phone again and flipped it open, checking the date.She'd been dead for twelve months, shit. She'd lost a whole year. She went to her contacts and saw a new one had been added; Chloe had a phone. How had that gotten on her phone. She tapped Ben's name and held it up to her ear, listening to the ringing.

"Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing with Claire Novak's phone?" She heard his voice asking.

"Ben, it's me." She breathed, her voice was hoarse, she now noticed.

She heard the sound of other voices on the other side of the line. hopefullt Jesse and Chloe. "No, you're not, stop lying. She's dead." Then he hung up.

Claire felt a tear slide down her cheek. Ben- he didn't believe her, he thought she wouldn't keep her promise. She opened the GPS app she'd installed incase they got seperated. Her phone said that her location was the space between the backyard of... 40 Hunter Run, Pactford NY, and the highway. And Jesse's and Ben's location said... Oh my god, it said that they were inside 40 Hunter run.

Claire felt herself walking forwards, and a house came into view ahead. It looked abandoned and run down, a brick padio in the back that was falling apart, and the siding as well as the house's roofing was all falling off. She tried the backdoor, and it was locked. She reached into her hair and pulled out a black bobby pin. She quickly picked the lock. She hadn't even taken one step inside when a bucket of holy water fell on her head. Claire spat some out that had gotten in her mouth. "Guys! That was soo not necessary." She called out.

Someone rushed into the doorway to the room Claire was currently in; Ben. She saw him reach for his gun and instantly raised her hands in surrender. "Ben! Ben it's me. Not a demon, not a shifter, not a leviathan. Me." She said desperately.

Ben's face showed no sign of recognition, exactly like he had the last time she'd seen him, when he hadn't been him. "You're not Claire." He said as he raised the gun, aiming it at the space between her eyebrows. "My Claire is dead, has been for a year. It was my fault, I killed her, and I couldn't save her. You can't be her, because she's gone, and she's never coming back. My Claire died in my arms in that motel parking lot."

Claire felt her eyes fill with tears. "It's me. It's Claire. What do I have to do to prove that to you?" She begged.

"You can't, because you aren't her." Ben growled. His fingers moved to pull the trigger and Claire prepared herself to die again, but at the last moment a figure ran in and punched Ben in the jaw.

As Ben fell to the ground, unconcious, Claire got a goood look at the newcomer. She had moved faster than humanly possible, and hit harder thqn possible as well. But the girl's hair was much longer than Claire remembered it being, and the colors in it besides brown and blond were gone. And this girl... this girl had emotions besides anger and grief. "Chloe?" She asked in surprise.