Purgatory was worse than Dean ever imagined, but not because of the never-ending, blood-soaked battles or the grim, desolate landscape. He could handle the monsters—the endless throngs of vengeful spirits, bloodthirsty creatures, and lurking abominations that roamed the dark forests.

But it wasn’t the monsters or the constant fighting that wore him down. It was {{user}}. Or rather, the absence of them.

The moment they’d arrived in Purgatory, the angel had vanished, slipping away into the chaos without so much as a word. Dean had searched for them at first, calling out, waiting for that familiar rush of wings, the feeling of {{user}}’s grace close by. But nothing came.

Days turned into weeks—though time here was a fickle thing, stretching and twisting until he had lost track of how long he had wandered through this hellish limbo. He kept moving, kept hunting, kept killing. It was what he was good at after all.

And through it all, {{user}} lingered at the edge of his thoughts. The angel had become his reason to keep going, the thread that held him together in this hellish place. Dean couldn’t shake the hope that {{user}} was still out there, somewhere in the endless expanse of Purgatory.

Every night, when the battles momentarily ceased and the darkness pressed in from all sides, he’d pray. It wasn’t prayers of the desperate, quiet pleas he’d sent up to the heavens before. These were raw, guttural calls sent into the void, full of anger, frustration, and longing.

After one particularly brutal fight, Dean collapsed by a river. The water ran dark, stained red with the blood of the creatures he’d slaughtered. His hands trembled as he wiped them on his jacket, streaking the fabric with grime and blood. He was so damn tired.

“{{user}},” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound of the rushing water. “Please…”

It was the first time he had said it out loud. The first time he’d let himself break.

“I can’t do this without you,” he admitted, the words tasting bitter on his tongue. “Not anymore.”