Adam Milligan was ten years old and training for war.
Not the kind with soldiers or flags. The kind with salt and Latin, silver and fire. The kind where monsters were real, and no one believed you until it was too late.
He started at the Windom Public Library. It smelled like dust and old wood, and the reference section became his sanctuary. Adam pulled books on mythology, folklore, demonology—anything that echoed what he remembered from Supernatural. He checked out beginner Latin guides, pretending it was for a school project. He made flashcards and recited conjugations under his breath at the dinner table.
"Amo, amas, amat," he mumbled, poking at his green beans.
"You talking to your vegetables now?" Kate asked, raising an eyebrow. "Should I be concerned?"
Adam looked up, caught. "It's Latin. For school."
"Since when does Windom Elementary teach Latin?"
"It doesn't. It's... extra credit."
Kate studied him for a moment, that look she got when checking a patient's chart for inconsistencies. Then she shrugged. "Well, at least it's educational. Better than when you went through that phase of naming all your food before eating it."
"I was six!" Adam protested, feeling his face heat up. "And I only named the chicken nuggets."
"Oh right, how could I forget the tragic tale of Sir Nugget and his brave knights of the Round Plate?" Kate laughed, ruffling his hair as she gathered their plates. "Just don't start performing exorcisms on the furniture, okay? Mrs. Henderson next door already thinks we're weird."
Adam nearly choked on his milk. If she only knew.
Kate didn't ask further questions. She was used to his weird phases—dinosaurs last year, astronomy before that. She figured this was another.
It wasn't.
By March, Adam had created what he called his Life Plan, neatly divided into four categories:
Education: Learn Latin, read all known lore, keep a low profile.
Research: Build a supernatural database. Verify what's real.
Physical Training: Run, swim, get stronger.
Resources: Save money, collect gear, plan for the long haul.
It wasn't perfect, but it was a start.
He salted the window sills of his bedroom, just like he remembered Dean doing. He drew small protective sigils under his bed, inside the closet door, even behind the light switch plate. If monsters came early, he wanted a fighting chance.
His first attempt at a devil's trap under his rug looked more like a drunk pentagon with chicken scratch around it, but Adam wasn't discouraged. Practice made perfect, and he had time. Not a lot, but enough.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Adam jumped, nearly knocking over the salt container. His mom stood in the doorway, arms crossed, staring at the white line he was carefully laying across his windowsill.
"I, uh..." His mind raced. "Science experiment? On... Pattern distribution?"
Kate's eyebrow climbed higher. "With my table salt?"
"I'll clean it up?" It came out as a question rather than a statement.
Kate sighed, the long-suffering sigh of a parent who's seen too many weird childhood phases to be truly concerned. "Just vacuum when you're done. And stop raiding my kitchen supplies without asking." She paused. "Also, if this is some weird internet challenge thing, please tell me it doesn't involve eating the salt afterward."
"Gross, Mom! No!"
"Good. Because I've seen what comes into the ER when kids try those stunts." She shook her head and left him to it, muttering something about "at least it's not glue-eating" as she walked away.
Adam exhaled slowly. Crisis averted. For now.
That summer, Adam joined the library's summer reading program—mostly as cover. He checked out everything from Grimm's Fairy Tales to obscure Native American legends. He started swimming at the community pool and ran laps around the block until he could finish a mile without stopping.
The first day he tried running, he made it exactly one and a half blocks before throwing up in Mrs. Patterson's hydrangeas. She watched from her porch, watering can in hand, as he heaved his breakfast into her prized flowers.
"Sorry!" he gasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Mrs. Patterson, a retired teacher with a permanent scowl, just stared. "You're Kate Milligan's boy, aren't you?"
Adam nodded miserably.
"Well, tell your mother her son just fertilized my award-winning hydrangeas with what smells like Lucky Charms." She sniffed. "Though I suppose the neighborhood dogs have done worse."
Adam flushed with embarrassment but kept running every day. By week three, he could make it around the block without wanting to die. By week six, a mile seemed possible. It wasn't much compared to what Sam and Dean could do in his memories, but Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither were monster hunters.
His muscles ached constantly. His knees had permanent scabs from failed attempts at climbing trees in the park. Once, he tried to practice a roundhouse kick he'd seen in a martial arts movie and ended up with a sprained ankle and a very confused emergency room doctor.
"He says he... fell down the stairs?" Dr. Rajiv looked at Kate skeptically while Adam sat on the examination table, holding an ice pack to his ankle.
"We don't have stairs," Kate replied flatly. "Adam?"
"I was... practicing self-defense?"
Dr. Rajiv and his mom exchanged a look that Adam recognized as the universal adult signal for "we'll talk about this later."
Later turned out to be in the car on the way home, his ankle wrapped and throbbing.
"Self-defense?" Kate asked, eyes fixed on the road. "Is someone bothering you at school? Because if they are—"
"No! Nothing like that," Adam said quickly. "I just thought... it would be cool to learn. You know, just in case."
Kate relaxed slightly but still looked concerned. "In case of what, exactly? Ninjas attacking Windom, Minnesota?"
Adam shrugged. "Bad things happen everywhere, Mom. Even here."
Something in his tone made Kate glance at him, really look at him, for the first time in weeks. "You've been different lately. More serious." She paused. "Is this about turning ten? Because I promise, double digits isn't actually a curse, despite what Tommy Wilson told you about growing extra toes."
Adam couldn't help but laugh. "No, it's not that. I just..." How could he explain? "I just want to be prepared. For whatever comes next."
Kate reached over and squeezed his hand. "That's very mature of you. But maybe stick to reading books about self-defense until you're a little older? Or I could sign you up for actual classes rather than you roundhouse kicking our furniture."
"It was a tree, actually," Adam admitted.
"The tree won, I take it?"
"By knockout in the first round."
They both laughed, and for a moment, everything felt normal. But that night, Adam added "Proper Fighting Techniques" to his Life Plan, with an asterisk: Don't be an idiot. Start small.
But it was a garage sale in June that changed everything.
Down the street, the elderly Nelsons were clearing out their late uncle's house. Adam wasn't looking for anything, just killing time—but then he saw it: an old leather journal, half-covered in dust, marked E. Carrigan – 1948. Something about it felt...right.
He picked it up carefully, running his fingers over the worn leather cover. It reminded him of his own journal, but older, more used. More authentic.
"You interested in that old thing?" Mrs. Nelson asked, appearing behind him with a glass of lemonade. "Uncle Eddie was always scribbling in it. Quite the imagination, that man."
"Was he a writer?" Adam asked, not taking his eyes off the journal.
Mrs. Nelson chuckled. "More like the town eccentric. Traveled all over, came back with the wildest stories. My mother—his sister—used to say he had one foot in this world and one in the next." She sighed. "Died alone in that cabin up by Leech Lake. Heart attack, they said, but the sheriff told us the place was a mess—salt everywhere, strange symbols on the walls. We figured he'd finally gone completely around the bend."
Adam's heart raced. This wasn't just any journal. This was a hunter's journal.
"How much?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
"Fifty cents, I suppose. Nobody else would want Eddie's crazy scribblings."
He paid fifty cents for it.
That night, he cracked it open—and his breath caught.
Inside were detailed entries describing supernatural creatures: rugaru, shtriga, black dogs. There were hand-drawn diagrams, Latin phrases, instructions for rituals and banishments. The handwriting was messy, but real. This wasn't fiction. This was someone like John Winchester.
November 16, 1952 - Encountered what I believe to be a wendigo near the Boundary Waters. Faster than anything I've ever seen. Fire seems to be the only thing it fears. Lost Davies to the beast before I could torch it. May he rest in peace. Note: Always carry flare guns in northern woods.
Adam flipped through page after page, heart pounding. The journal confirmed what his memories told him. The supernatural was real—and others had fought it before.
One entry made him pause:
April 3, 1957 - Met another hunter today. Campbell's his name. Gruff bastard, but knows his stuff. Says there are more of us than I thought. Gave me a contact in Nebraska—Harvelle. Might be worth checking out.
Campbell. The name tickled something in Adam's memory. Mary's maiden name had been Campbell. Which meant this hunter had possibly met his brothers' grandfather. The world suddenly felt smaller, more connected—and somehow, that made Adam feel less alone.
He added the Carrigan journal to his own, cross-referencing facts, copying down useful sigils and weapons notes. Slowly, he started building what he called his "Hunter's Codex"—a primitive, handwritten database of everything he could learn.
One entry in Carrigan's journal particularly caught his attention:
July 19, 1963 - Found evidence that some families pass down hunting knowledge through generations. Smart approach. Children trained from youth stand better chances. Adult beginners like me? We're usually dead within five years. Lucky to have made it fifteen.
Adam stared at those words for a long time. Five years. The average lifespan of an adult who entered hunting. But children raised in it—like Sam and Dean—had better odds.
He was getting an early start. That had to count for something.
By July, he took the next step.
"Hey, Mom," he said one morning over pancakes, "can we open a savings account? I want to start saving for college."
Kate blinked at him, surprised but pleased. "Well...sure. You're serious?"
He nodded. "Dead serious."
"You're ten," Kate pointed out, flipping another pancake onto his plate. "College is a long way off."
"That's why I want to start now." Adam poured an obscene amount of syrup over his stack. "Compound interest and all that."
Kate nearly dropped her spatula. "Compound interest? Where did you even learn about that?"
"Library." It wasn't technically a lie. He had been reading about investment strategies, tucked between books on werewolf lore and exorcism rituals.
"Well," Kate said slowly, "I guess we could set something up. Maybe put your birthday money in to start?"
"And my allowance," Adam added eagerly. "And maybe I could do some jobs around the neighborhood? Mrs. Patterson mentioned her lawn needs mowing, and I bet I could—"
"Slow down, Warren Buffett," Kate laughed. "Let's start with the account, and we'll see about turning you into a child labor magnate later."
She had no idea that part of his plan included investing early in a few companies he knew would explode: Apple, Google, Amazon. It would take time, but Adam was thinking long-term. He needed money for weapons, travel, gear. College was optional. Survival wasn't.
His first attempt at lawn mowing was almost as disastrous as his roundhouse kick. Mrs. Patterson's ancient push mower had a mind of its own, veering wildly across her yard like a drunk bumblebee. By the end, the lawn looked like it had been attacked by a vengeful toddler with scissors. Mrs. Patterson squinted at it through her thick glasses.
"Well," she said finally, "it's certainly... unique."
Adam, dripping with sweat and covered in grass clippings, waited for the verdict.
"Five dollars," she said, reaching for her purse. "And a piece of advice: diagonal stripes are for professionals. Stick to straight lines next time."
He took the money with a mixture of pride and embarrassment. Five dollars wasn't much, but it was a start. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was a hunter's war chest.
A week later, at the library, Adam met Dr. Eleanor Reed.
She was there giving a lecture on local folklore, and something she said about protective charms from Scandinavian immigrants caught his attention. After the talk, Adam approached her with genuine questions—and impressed her enough to get invited to visit her office sometime.
"The iron horseshoe," Adam asked, pointing to a slide in her presentation, "would that actually work against, um, supernatural creatures? In the stories, I mean."
Dr. Reed, a tall woman with silver-streaked hair and glasses that somehow made her look both scholarly and intimidating, smiled down at him. "Well, young man, in folklore across many cultures, iron is indeed believed to repel malevolent spirits and certain creatures of the night. The horseshoe specifically combines the protective properties of iron with its shape—the curve is thought to catch good luck while the open end either traps or repels evil, depending on which way it's hung."
Adam nodded seriously. "And salt? I've read that's protective too."
"Indeed!" Dr. Reed's eyes lit up. "Salt has purifying properties in nearly every major cultural tradition. The Romans paid their soldiers in salt—that's where we get the word 'salary,' you know. In Japanese Shinto traditions, salt is used for ritual purification. Even in Christianity, there's that lovely verse about believers being 'the salt of the earth.'"
She studied him curiously. "You seem awfully interested in protective folk magic for someone your age."
Adam shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "I like scary stories. Just want to know what works, you know, just in case."
Dr. Reed laughed. "Well, in case the bogeyman comes calling, you'll be prepared." She reached into her bag and pulled out a business card. "I teach at the community college, but I'm also the curator for our small folklore museum. If you're interested, stop by sometime. I could show you our collection of protective amulets."
Adam took the card reverently. A real resource—a person who knew about this stuff, even if she thought it was just stories.
She called him "the most curious ten-year-old" she'd ever met.
The Folklore Museum turned out to be a single room in the basement of the community college, but to Adam, it was a treasure trove. Display cases filled with amulets, charms, and ritual objects from around the world. A glass cabinet containing what Dr. Reed called "witch bottles"—old vessels filled with pins, herbs, and other items designed to trap malevolent spirits.
"This one," Dr. Reed said, pointing to a small, iron pendant in the shape of a hammer, "is a Thor's hammer. Norse in origin. Believed to protect the wearer from harm and evil forces."
Adam peered at it through the glass. "Does it work?"
"Well, that depends on what you mean by 'work,'" Dr. Reed replied with a smile. "As a cultural artifact that provided psychological comfort to its wearer? Absolutely. As an actual deterrent to supernatural entities?" She chuckled. "I'm afraid I can't speak to its efficacy there, as I've yet to encounter a real-life draugr or valkyrie."
Adam nodded seriously. "But the iron would work against spirits, right? That's consistent across cultures."
Dr. Reed tilted her head, studying him. "You know, most children who come here—the few that do—just want to see the shrunken head replica or ask if any of the objects are cursed." She knelt down to his eye level. "But you're asking about patterns, consistencies across cultural belief systems. That's... unusual."
Adam swallowed. Had he been too eager? Too obvious?
"It's refreshing," she continued, her face breaking into a smile. "Too often, people dismiss folklore as mere superstition, but these beliefs persisted for reasons. People observed patterns, developed hypotheses, tested them through experience. It was a kind of proto-science, in a way."
Relief washed over Adam. "So... some of it might be based on real things that worked?"
"Almost certainly," Dr. Reed nodded. "Take willow bark tea for pain relief—folk medicine for centuries before we isolated the compound and named it aspirin." She stood and walked to a locked cabinet in the corner. "I'm not supposed to show this to just anyone, but since you're such a serious scholar..."
She unlocked the cabinet and carefully removed a small leather pouch. Opening it, she tipped the contents into her palm: a small, rough-hewn stone figure with symbols carved into it.
"This was found in northern Minnesota, near an Ojibwe settlement. Over two hundred years old. The tribe's oral history says it was used by their medicine men to ward off the Windigo—a cannibalistic spirit that possessed humans during harsh winters." She let Adam examine it. "The interesting part is the carving here, on the back. It's nearly identical to protective sigils found in medieval European grimoires. Cultures separated by an ocean, developing remarkably similar protective symbols."
Adam turned the figure over in his hands, careful not to drop it. The symbol looked like one he'd seen in Carrigan's journal—a complex knot with what appeared to be a tree or branch motif.
"Convergent evolution," he said softly.
Dr. Reed's eyebrows shot up. "My, you are full of surprises. Yes, exactly like convergent evolution in biology. Different cultures developing similar solutions to similar problems, independently."
Or, Adam thought but didn't say, different cultures encountering the same monsters and figuring out the same ways to fight them.
By the end of summer, Adam had filled half his journal, built a rough lore index, and could recite basic exorcism rites from memory. He had bruises from training, notes hidden all over his room, and a growing understanding that this mission—his mission—was bigger than just staying alive.
It was about changing the story.
He wouldn't be the forgotten brother. He wouldn't die in that crypt. He wouldn't let his mom be taken, or let Sam and Dean carry the weight alone. He had time. He had knowledge. He had purpose.
And now, he had a plan.
The last entry in his journal for that summer read simply:
August 28, 2000 - Fifth grade starts tomorrow. Maintain cover as normal kid, good grades, nothing weird. Real mission: continue training. Dr. Reed agreed to let me volunteer at the museum on weekends. More access to lore. Started running two miles without stopping. Small progress, but progress. Found a book on Enochian symbols at a used bookstore in Minneapolis when Mom took me for my dental appointment. This is really happening. No going back now.
Adam closed the journal and looked at himself in the mirror. He was still scrawny, still clearly a kid with gangly limbs and a cowlick that refused to stay down. But behind his eyes was something older, something determined.
"One day at a time," he told his reflection. "One step at a time."
He had no idea if he could really change anything. If this reality would play out the same way as his memories. If monsters and demons and angels were really coming. But he knew one thing for certain: this time, he wouldn't be caught unprepared.
This time, Adam Milligan was writing his own story.