Young Writers Society

III.

When Sherlock awoke, he was once more in the hospital. He let off the most heavy of breaths. The sun was beginning to rise. Only a slight glow sat at the horizon, but Sherlock knew by the feeling in his gut that he only had an hour left to find John. He had rested seven hours, a collective eighteen hours- the most that he had slept in a twenty-four hour period in the past five years. He only had an hour left before John was killed; snuffed out; taken out; smothered. John was going to die if he didn't act fast.

Sherlock pulled himself from the hospital bed and ragged his dizzy self and his lame leg to the side where his coat was hanging. He began to search through his pockets for his mobile phone. The phone was produced and the timer had appeared on the screen once more, confirming the fact that he only had an hour left. Additionally, he had a new text message.

Sherlock tapped the icon and the new message appeared on the screen and it read, “Congratulations Sherlock Holmes. You've made it to the final puzzle.” Preceding the message was the number for John. He pressed the number and raised the phone to his ear.

“John? Are you there? Are you all right? Please tell me that you're all right.” Sherlock pleaded, his hand trembling very slightly. His body looked worn out and abnormally thin.

There was a long pause.

“H-help... me...”

The blood left Sherlock's face as the phone left John's cheek and was handed to another, less terrified man. This new voice was low, hoarse and croaking.

“For this last task, y-you... must be as blind as a banker. Return to the scene of your confrontation with Shan. Hurry now! H-hurry! You're running out of time!” Then, the phone call ended and Sherlock nearly dropped his phone. He could make it. In an hour, no matter what the task, he could do it. He took his coat from the wall hook, threw on his coat and shoved his phone into his pocket. Sherlock turned and sprinted from the room, lame leg ignored. Even with the secretaries and the nurses attempting to stop him, their attempts prove futile against the pressured man. He was unstoppable.

Sherlock fled the hospital, hurrying through the city to the London underground, heading for the black tramway. He travelled through the damp, neglected catacombs that wound and twisted, forming a labyrinth of cold and hopelessness.

Finally, after many minutes of searching and sprinting, Sherlock came upon a strange stage in the centre of the tunnels, sunken into the floor at least two feet and shrouded by a curtain of black. The contents of this pit was hidden from Sherlock's eyes by the curtain, covering a rectangular area. Before the curtains was a harness, just the right size for Sherlock. He didn't even need instruction. He moved forward and immediately began to dress his hips and torso in the black harness; he first stepped into the right leg hole, then the left, finally pulling the harness over his torso, fitting it to himself like a backpack. A rope and a belay dropped from the curtain, nearly causing Sherlock to jump. He took the cable and began to connect it to his harness with the belay.

“Congratulations, Mr. Holmes, on making it this far. How does it-”

“I don't have time to chat. Cut to the chase.” Sherlock snapped. The identity of the voice was irrelevant. It didn't matter. All that he needed was to complete this task and find John.

“Fine. Fine.” The female voice told the detective, a slight stutter in her voice indicating fear. “Before you is a pit full of knives. I see that you've already settled yourself in your harness.” The curtain drew back, revealing the statement as true. Knives littered every inch of the pit, protruding from the floor like stalagmites and they were coupled with stalactite knives on the ceiling. Sherlock gulped. Across the field of knives was a black tablet, alike the other before. This was the last piece of the puzzle. He would find John soon. He was too afraid to look to his time.

“...o!! Go Mr. Holmes!!” The woman cried out. Sherlock jumped, realizing that he had lost himself in thought. He hurried to the edge of the pit and gazed down at the knives. “Go!” Sherlock reached up and gripped the cord, stepping onto the knives.

The blades didn't stab through the soles of his shoes. Instead, his weight was held by the cord. He looked up to the ceiling and witnessed the stalactite knives dangling and wavering precariously. If he bent or twisted incorrectly, then his cord would be severed and he would be sent to an awful death by impalement. He took a deep breath before he began to move forward across the knives, leaning and twisting to avoid a painful death. However, as he went, his body became more heavy and the knives came closer to piercing his shoes. Additionally, the stalactite knives began to lower toward him, the space the he was allowed to occupy becoming severely limited. At one point, Sherlock was forced to lean back nearly horizontally to avoid the blades. Staring up at the deadly silver teeth drawing near his face and began to etch bloody lines into his pale cheek of as he moved. He moved forward quickly, attempting to reach the tablet. It was so close. If only he could just...

A horrible sound reverberated through the tunnel-- the sound of tearing. Sherlock glanced back- once again gaining bloody lines on his opposite cheek- only to find that the cord was being torn. He looked back to the tablet. He was so close.

The cord snapped. A scream bellowed through the tunnel and blood sprayed everywhere, drenching the silver knives blood red and the cement a maroon.

However, the blood did not belong to the detective. No. It belonged to the lady that had instructed him. She had been attached to his cord, dangling. However, when his cord snapped, she was dropped onto the knives herself and, now as Sherlock looked back, she was nearly ripped in two by the knives. Sherlock winced. Never had he desired to cause such a gruesome death. However, it didn't weigh very heavy on his conscious. He hadn't known her.

He took the tablet in his hand, shed his harness and leaped up to the tunnel floor, brushing himself off. He immediately dropped onto his bum on the floor, pulling out his phone and illuminating the screen of the tablet. His phone contained the other pieces of the code.

Sherlock decoded the message easily and assembled it with ease. The code read Kidbrooke. Kidbrooke was an abandon estate named after a watercourse, built upon a disused military sight and still is now a centre of crime. A criminal could easily hide with his captive there.

Sherlock dashed from the tunnels to the surface where he hailed the first cab that he saw. He ordered the cabbie, but apparently, non-criminals knew Kidbrooke also and the cabbie nearly rejected him as he believed that anyone that wanted to go there was going there to do 'no good'. Sherlock protested and was inevitably forced to explain his entire story before the cabbie took him. This ordeal consumed about ten minutes. Sherlock hastily looked to the timer and nibbled on his lip. Adrenaline filled his body as he saw the number. He had five minutes.

“Make it there in five minutes and you'll get an extra ten pounds.” He told the cabbie and immediately, the pace was picked up. Scenery sped by and the cabbie knew who was on patrol on what street and avoided the police cleanly. He arrived to Kidbrooke in five minutes exactly and before Sherlock had even exited the cab, he watched the timer hit zero and a gun shot riveted the complex.

Sherlock's heart nearly stopped. He had lost. He had lost the game and he had lost John. His mind and heart wouldn't believe that there was no hope left. There couldn't be hopelessness. Sherlock took off into the complex, telling the cabbie to wait for him. He dove into the concrete building, struggling through dark and pitch black corridors. Some of the windows were covered in dark steel plates to attempt to smother the crime. However, now it was slowing Sherlock from finding John. In two minutes, he had found the room.

It was a large room with empty fabricated brick walls and a wide expanse of empty, unused space. There was no-one in the room to account for the body in the middle of the floor or the pool of blood that surrounded him. Sherlock's attention didn't stay on the room for long as he looked over the bleeding body of his companion, John H. Watson.

“John!” He cried, hurrying forward, pale faced and tears budding. He dropped into the blood and pulled the body into him, resting him on his lap and cradling his friend. “John! Say something! Anything! Tell me how you think I am. Repeat what you know about me. Say something, anything!” He was shrieking, crying almost. Tears slipped from his eyes as he stared down at his friend, attempting to find any vitals. His heart rate was out of control, trying to save the rest of his body from the gun shot wound that had pierced his shoulder- dangerously close to the subclavian artery. Sherlock was no medical professional, but that couldn't be good. John was losing blood at an alarming rate.

“S-Sherlock...”His eyes remained mostly closed as he looked up through half lidded eyes and spoke in a slurred rasp. “Y-you're... late.” 'Late' sounded more like 'raid' but Sherlock understood.

“I know. I'm sorry. It wasn't as easy as one would imagine.” Sherlock told him. “Don't go to sleep. I'll call emergency.” He said and took out his phone, dialling the number and simply letting it ring. They would find them. In the mean time, he would make sure that John stayed with him. “Stay with me John. What can I do to keep you up?” He asked. “Trivia? Jokes? Secrets? Facts?”

“I'm... d-dying...” John whispered, closing his eyes as he leaned on Sherlock's chest. Even Sherlock could see that he was dying. “J-just... Kiss me.”

Sherlock was astonished and taken aback. He didn't expect those words from John in the slightest. He searched through all of the mental records of John and searched for anything that indicated this. There were too many points that accounted for this, Sherlock could only blame his ignorance and denial for not seeing this coming. He didn't want John to love him. He didn't want John to be disappointed. Sherlock couldn't love anything but his work.

“All right.”He said, gulping and bringing his lips in to make sure that they weren't dry and chapped. He didn't want to have his first kiss disturbed by unpleasant pain from chapped lips. Luckily, his lips were smooth and slightly moist. He gulped, trembling as he leaned down to his partner, eyes closed. It seemed like the space between them was endless and vast and that he would never reach his friend's lips.

At the moment when they touched, the paramedics filed in, crying out for them. Sherlock didn't feel like he ever wanted to let go of John. He had John. He was here and he wasn't leaving so he would stay like this with him for as long as John needed him to. He was a life line. He was the only thing keeping John here now.

The medics moved forward and attempted to take John up on a stretcher so that he would have a cushioned resting place. Sherlock pulled back when they moved him, but he took his friend's hand and gripped it. The medics laid John down on the floor and they began to put pressure on his wound to stop the bleeding.

John yelped when they touched his wound, but with Sherlock with him, he wasn't so loud. Sherlock moved on his knees, scooting toward his friend's head to see what they were doing to him. He bit his lip, seeing the needles and the blood. Sherlock wasn't afraid or even made uneasy by those, but when seeing them so near his friend, he was not happy.

“S-Sherlock.. Talk.” John ordered. He knew what he needed. He needed to stay talking and remain comforted. Sherlock snapped from his daze.

“John. I truly hope that you didn't think that I had abandoned you. I would have never done that. I wouldn't have abandon the game and if I would have had my way, I would have found you in six hours. Those tests, they were harder than they seemed. I came off with a shattered ankle and a near death experience with killer bees.” Sherlock listed off. “But even through all of that, I didn't stop until the end. I've never stopped moving until now, John. I would never give up until I reached you because I love you and you're my best friend and I know that if the situation were reversed, you would run in circles to find me. Don't die on me.” Sherlock pleaded.

“I won't. I'm f-fine.” John told Sherlock before closing his eyes and letting out a heavy breath. “Stay close.” He ordered.

“I will.” Sherlock nodded and pulled his friend's hand close to him. “You aren't leaving.” He continued to state that as if he couldn't say anything more. They remained like this, Sherlock repeating hopeless words over John as he was worked on by the medics and John, half awake from all of the blood loss. They remained this way for a good half hour before they were taken from the building and to St. Bart's.

Sherlock slept on the couch, having dozed off after his case- which had kept him up for 72 hours. John had only just finished tea and he was returning to Sherlock's side with the beverages. The tea would grow cold before the detective was awake, but John didn't mind that fact. He only set down the tea and lifted his laptop onto its place upon his lap. He began to write in his blog.

He told of the suffering that he went through, Sherlock's heroism and their healing. Finally, he included nothing more than their relationship was improving, stating, “He doesn't just regard me as the ex-army doctor or even his friend. I'm much more than that now, and I'm thankful because he means as much to me as I do him. He is my best friend.”