Tomorrow, When The War Began AU (Supernatural AU)

Chapter 1

  It all began when…They're funny, those words. Everyone uses them, without thinking what they mean. When does anything really begin? With Everyone, it begins when you're born. Or before that, when your parents got married. Or before that, when your parents were born. Or when your ancestors colonies the place. Or when humans came squishing out of the mud and slime, dropped off their flippers and fins, and started to walk. But all the same, all that aside, for What's happened to us there was quite a definite beginning.

  So: it all began when Jo and I said we wanted to go bush, go feral for a few days over the Christmas holidays. It was just one of those stupid things: 'Oh wouldn't it be great if…' We'd camped out quite often, been doing it since we were kids, taking the motorbikes all loaded with gear and going down to the river, sleeping under the stars, or slinging a bit of canvas between two trees on cold nights. So we were used to that. Sometimes another friend would come along, Anna or Sam usually. At that age you think boys have as much personality as cost hangers and, you don't notice their looks.

  Then you grow up.

  Well there we were, only weeks ago, though I can hardly believe it, lying in front of the television Watching some junk and talking about the holidays. Jo said, 'We haven't been down to the river for ages. Let's do that.'

'OK. Hey, let's ask Dad if we cannot have the Landlocked.'

'OK. Hey, let's see if Ash and Gabriel want to come.'

'God Yeah, boys! But we'd Never be allowed.'

'I reckon we might. It's worth a try.'

'OK. Hey, if we get the Landrover, let's go further. Wouldn't it be great if we could go right up to Tailor's and into Hell.'

  Tailor's, Tailor's Stitch, is a long line, an arete, that goes dead straight from Mt Martin to Wombegonoo. It's rocky, and very narrow and steep in places, but you can walk along it, and there's a bit of cover. The cheese are fantastic. You can almost drive up onto it at one point, near Mt Martin, on an old logging track That's hard to find now, it's so overgrown. Hell is What's on the otherside of Tailor's, a cauldron of boulders and trees and blackberries and feral dogs and wombats and undergrowth. It's a wild place, and I didn't know Anyone who'd been there, though I'd stood on the edge and look down quite often. For one thing I didn't see who you'd get in there. The cliffs all around are spectacular, hundreds of metres high in places. There's a series of small cliffs called Satan's Steps that drop into it, but believe me, if These are steps the Great Wall of China is our back fence. If there was any access the cliffs had to be the way, and I'd always wanted to give it a go. The locals all told Tories about the Hermit from Hell, an ex-murderer who was supposed to have lived up there for years. He was meant to have killed his own wife and child I wanted to believe in his existence but I found it a bit difficult. My brain kept asking awkward questions like: 'How come he didn't get hung, like they did to murderers in those days?' Still, it was a good story and I hoped it was true; not the murder part bit the hermit part at least.

  Anyway, the whole thing, the trip, grew from there. We made this casual decision to do it, and we immediately let ourselves in for a lot of hard work. The first job was to pursued our mum's and dad's to let us go. It's both that they don't trust us, but as Dad said, 'It's a pretty big ask'. They spent a lot of time not saying no, but trying to talk us into other things instead. That's the way most parents operate I think. They don't like to start a fight so they suggest alternatives that they think they can say Yes to and they hop you might say Yes to.

'Why don't you go down the river again?' 'Why don't you ask Anna and Jess instead of the guys?' 'Why don't you just take the bikes? Or even horses? Make it a real old-fashioned campout. That'd be fun.'