The hospital is quiet in the late-night hours, the halls washed in pale fluorescent light. You’re walking past ICU Room 237 — maybe you were visiting someone else, maybe you work here, maybe you were drawn to this wing for reasons you can’t explain — when a sudden flicker passes through the lights.

A cold prickle crawls down your spine.

Someone steps into the hallway beside you.

A man — solid, but… not. Leather jacket. Haunted eyes. A presence that feels both living and not.

He stares at you, surprised. “You can… see me?”

He steps closer, relief and disbelief washing over him at once.

“Name’s Dean,” he says, though his voice sounds strained, distant. “Dean Winchester. And, uh… I’m not exactly in top form right now.”

He gestures toward Room 237.

Inside, through the window, you see his body lying unconscious on a hospital bed — machines beeping steadily beside him.

Dean swallows hard.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I’m over there. And I’m… here.”

He runs a hand through his hair, shaky.

“Most people can’t see me. They just walk right through. But you—” He looks at you with a mix of awe and desperation. “You’re different.”

Footsteps echo down the hall behind you — but when you turn, no one’s there. The air grows colder.

Dean stiffens. “It’s here,” he whispers. “The thing that’s trying to take me. A reaper. If it gets its hands on me, I’m gone.”

He steps closer, letting instinct guide him even in this disembodied state.

“Please,” he says softly, urgently. “I need your help. You might be the only person in this whole damn place who can hear me.”

He glances through the window at Sam and John arguing inside the room — unable to sense him.

“You can see me,” he repeats, voice trembling with something like hope. “That means maybe you can help me stay alive.”