SEASON 1, EPISODE 18

The silence of the in-between was deafening. The land that hovered imperceptibly among the living world and the afterlife was not one that bore much entertainment, and without a job to carry out, Mara could do nothing but watch as humans were able to experience pleasantries like gusts of wind and emissions of radio music. She couldn't even listen to the Winchesters' playful banter without stepping the slightest bit into the land of the living, and even that was difficult, because it would only take one wrong move on Mara's part for her invisibility to fade away like fresh dew at dawn.

Luckily, death seemed to follow the Winchesters wherever they went. There wasn't a day that went by where Mara didn't catch a glimpse of another reaper, their intangible forms putting on a pleasant facade as they greeted a newly dead soul. Prior to Mara's involuntary binding to a yellow-eyed demon and his servant, she wouldn't have paid any attention to a reaper in passing. Death was no unordinary thing and did not startle her in the least. But now, when she was being forced to do nothing but observe three human beings as they went about their daily routines, she realized she should've been grateful for the company of her own kind when she'd had the chance.

Mara almost shouted in glee when the Winchesters decided to investigate a hospital in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. Hospitals always housed an abundance of reapers due to their high death rates, and this particular Wisconsin hospital was no exception. When Sam, Dean, and Katarina began interrogating parents about their children's undiagnosable diseases, and Mara felt the chilliness that signaled a reaper's presence, she saw her chance and leapt upon it.

She figured a simple conversation with another reaper wouldn't take longer than a minute, and it would temporarily satisfy the uneasiness that blossomed from being so alone. Even if the Winchesters left without her, locating them wouldn't be an issue. There was no doubt in her mind that it was worth the risk to speak with someone who could see her.

"Hello?" she spoke as she approached the reaper that stood nearest to her. His features were a little too close together to be appealing, and he wore a suit that was nearly indistinguishable from the ones other reapers liked to wear. When he responded to Mara's kind greeting, he was not as amiable as the female reaper had hoped.

"You," the reaper spoke, his voice hoarse and accurate to most mortal depictions of the reaper race. "There's something not quite right about you. You reek of...of something I cannot quite place."

Mara arched an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

The other reaper's eyes widened, and Mara was suddenly reminded of the reason humans pictured her kind as grotesque and gruesome. Besides being the harbingers of death, some reapers didn't even bother to look the slightest bit attractive. That much was obvious judging by the hollowed-out circles beneath the gray-skinned reaper's bloodshot eyes.

"You've stepped into the land of the living recently, haven't you? I can smell it all over you, the humans and their gluttony and irrational fear," the man spoke, one end of his mouth curling up in a nauseating snarl.

Mara's blood suddenly ran cold. At least, colder than her blood naturally was. She couldn't believe the profuse haplessness of her luck. Out of all the reapers that were currently wandering through the halls of the hospital she stood in, she'd chosen to speak to one who looked down upon the souls they ferried. Mara, on the other hand, never quite understood why some reapers acted condescendingly toward the mortals they were supposed to act cordially towards. It wasn't their fault they were ignorant creatures. How were they supposed to know there was an entire unseen world of supernatural deities existing around them if they, understandably enough, only had the capacity to believe what they could see?

"It was not unnecessary, I promise you," Mara answered. She wasn't sure why she felt the need to apologize to someone she didn't even know for actions she knew were necessary, nonetheless, and she inwardly cursed herself for acting so spineless even as she continued to utter excuses for her behavior. "There was no way around it."

And truly, there was no way Mara could have avoided stepping over into the land of the living. Not if she wanted to escape her detestable contract as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the man she stood across from didn't seem to hold her excuses in high regard.

His bushy eyebrows turned down in a repulsive glower, making Mara wonder why he didn't choose a more alluring form to appear as. The man's voice was hoarse and gravelly when he next spoke, his lips cracking as he croaked out, "You're a rogue reaper, aren't you? You guys seem to be popping up more and more and the apocalypse continues to grow near."

Mara bristled, the blood in her face growing warm. As much as she tried to ignore the spiteful words that seemed to be flying out of the man's mouth, she couldn't help but notice how her heart wrenched as he accused her of being a "rogue reaper". Everything she'd done, every move she'd made in the past month - she'd done it so she no longer had to act in a roguish manner. She'd even risked being the subject of an appalling personal violation, courtesy of a wannabe Ryan Gosling, for her cause.

Mara's only consolation was the subtle reassurance that the grey-skinned reaper must be going mad. He was boldly speaking of a so-called apocalypse as if it was completely ordinary; he must be mad.

"The apocalypse?" Mara mused, forcing a laugh as she did so. "I'm sorry, but I don't think you're in any place to be making such accusations if you believe in the apocalypse."

The features that painted the other reaper's face eased, and Mara could've sworn she saw pity in his eyes as he said, "You should believe in it. It will be upon us sooner than you realize, and it would do a rogue like yourself some good to know what side you should be on before it begins."

With that final statement, the man with the haunting countenance walked away from Mara, leaving her alone with her thoughts of the fictitious apocalypse that was to come.

◈◈◈

Later that day, when the Winchesters had returned to their research and the hospital excursion was hours behind them, Mara still found herself thinking of rumors about the apocalypse. Mara hoped they weren't true. An apocalypse was never something a reaper liked to hear, because the angel-demon relations never failed to become complicated, and it was inevitable for reapers to find themselves in the middle of it. They were the ones who had to clean up after both the angels and the demons.

Despite her meditations on the prospect of the apocalypse, Mara still found it an unsettling thing to believe in, and when the Winchester trio started discussing their current case, she was grateful for the distraction from her chilling contemplation.

"This thing..." Sam began, frustratedly running a hand through his mangled hair. "A shtriga, you said?"

Dean gave his younger brother a nod of affirmation, prompting him to continue, saying, "I can't find anything about it. There's nothing about it in any databases, forums, or servers."

"Nothing?" Dean asked. His features were twisted in a distressed frown that made Mara uneasy. In her weeks of tracing John's children, she'd never seen his eldest child look so uncomfortable about a case.

"Bubkes," Sam answered abruptly.

Silence washed over the bleak motel room, and it was only broken when Katarina Winchester spoke up, saying, "I wish we still had Dad's journal. Maybe there would be something about this shtriga in there."

Even though she knew the lifelong hunters couldn't see her, Mara felt like shrinking back into the corner of the room. It would be obvious to anyone that the Winchesters had no idea what they were facing, and though Mara was slightly confused about the shtriga as well, she was fully aware that she possessed the one thing that might help the hunters kill the shtriga and save the people it was attacking. Mara couldn't help but feel like her withdrawal of their journal was the reason more children were finding themselves victim to a malicious monster. She was a personification of death, but that didn't mean she was heartless when faced with the deaths of innocent children.

Mara knew what she had to do. She didn't necessarily like it, and she had no doubt in her mind that she would be duly punished by Meg and Azazel for what she was about to do. If she was still under Death's order, he would probably punish her as well. Even so, if there was a possibility that it could save lives that weren't due to be lost yet, then returning John Winchester's book was worth every risk.

Fortunately for the Winchesters, Mara knew exactly where it was. Despite it being held in the deepest parts of the in-between, it wouldn't take her longer than a few seconds to find and retrieve the leather-bound notebook.

The storage system of the in-between would be profoundly difficult to explain to anyone who wasn't familiar with reapers and their antics. Each reaper had a designated amount of storage, but even in the in-between, the storage units and the items they contained were invisible unless called upon. Rather than being lockers that required a combination to open, they were more similar to minuscule pockets that filled the gaps between the air molecules in the land of the supernatural. Each reaper's units followed them around wherever they went, and when a reaper needed something from their unit, they simply had to think about it and their unit would appear. Mara didn't even understand the odd system herself, and she didn't feel the need to. She was only grateful that she didn't have to leave the Winchesters' presence to retrieve the journal.

Getting a hold of John Winchester's journal was ridiculously easy in comparison to what Mara had to do next. She could just place the journal on the table Sam was sitting at, but that would be extremely hard to do without appearing herself, and she was certain the hunters, who were always on edge, would try to shoot her with a salt rifle or something similar. In this situation, it would be easier for Mara to appear to the Winchesters and hand over the journal in person. It was not something she was looking forward to doing.

She took a deep breath, glanced down at the expedient book that rested in her shaking hands, and allowed herself to become visible to Sam, Dean, and Kat.