Dean felt it first — that gut-level twitch that usually meant something supernatural was nearby. But this wasn’t sulfur or ozone or blood. It was silence. Thick, choking silence that clung to the cracked pavement and empty storefronts like fog.

They’d landed hard. One minute they were in a barn in Nebraska, mid-ritual, trying to seal a rift. The next, they were standing in the middle of a deserted street, surrounded by toppled cars and boarded-up windows. No birds. No wind. Just the distant creak of a broken swing swaying in the breeze.

Sam scanned the horizon, jaw tight. “This isn’t Earth. Or if it is… it’s not ours.”

Castiel tilted his head, trench coat fluttering. “There’s no celestial resonance. No angelic presence. It’s as if Heaven and Hell have gone dark.”

Dean crouched beside a rusted pickup, fingers brushing a smear of dried blood on the door handle. “Something went down here. Big time.”

A low groan echoed from an alleyway nearby — guttural, wet, and unmistakably wrong.

Dean stood slowly, eyes narrowing. “Okay. I’m officially creeped out.”

Then came the shuffle. The dragging of feet. And the first glimpse of a figure — slack-jawed, eyes clouded, flesh peeling in patches — lurching toward them.

Sam reached for his blade. “Dean…”

Dean cocked his gun. “Yup. Definitely not Kansas anymore.”