Sherlock: Nightmares

Sometimes, in the dark, early hours of the night, Mary would wake to a phone call. All would be silent and still in her flat. Darkness was all that could be seen, though the tender feeling of sleep was everywhere. Mary would always be in bed, asleep, after her usual phone call was through, after she and John had said their goodbyes. Peaceful slumber would wipe Mary's occupied mind clean until it was nothing, until loud rings pierced the thick, groggy air and Mary would wake. Every time, her stomach would fly instantly into her throat and her heart would pound loudly, like a beating drum in her ears. She knew what a random phone call deep into the night meant.

Now, Mary stirred in her sheets as her mobile started to ring. Anxiety and despair shot through her like adrenaline, and soon her heart was hammering away in her ribcage.

Mary slid to the edge of her bed, where her warm sheets turned ice cold and made her gasp. Her mobile shot white, blinding light into the room, and what it signified was harsh and sad.

She did not need to check the blinding screen to know who was phoning her. Mary took a deep breath to try to calm her racing heart, but it was in vain. She took the cold phone in her hand, touched the answer button cautiously, and held it up to her hear.

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John was standing on the roof of St. Bart's. Violent winds thrashed his jacket around forcefully, and bit and scratched at his exposed skin. He felt as though the strong winds would sweep him away. A grey slate of a sky pressed heavily down upon him.

But suddenly there was darkness. It was pitch black, and insane laughter rang and echoed all around him. Terror struck his heart like an arrow and, as if the arrow had been tipped with a poison, the terror spread through his veins all the way to his cold fingertips. Harsh, jagged gasps broke free from his heaving chest and breathing spread the terror even farther through his trembling body.

"You can talk, Johnny Boy," teased a deranged voice that belonged to someone whose heart was missing, whose soul was dead and lifeless, whose mind was demented beyond repair.

Bile rose in John's throat. And oh, God, he could smell it crawling up his throat. He felt his knees give out and he crashed to the pavement, tearing his trousers and smearing awful red paint on the ground. He fell on all fours and his body heaved with sickness. Brackish liquid ripped from his throat and splattered on the pavement. The stench filled his nostrils and made his stomach churn.

Manic laughter sounded around him and rang in his ears. It cut through his ears, and bounced and echoed inside his skull; the insane laughter acted as knives and it tore his mind until he could no longer think of anything but the terror that plagued his heart.

Then, like a light switch, the darkness was gone and the grey, bleak sky was back.

John gasped and looked around wildly with frightened, deranged eyes that bulged out of his skull. His fingernails scratched against the pavement like nails on a chalkboard, and the terror seemed to drain from him as well as all remaining color in his cheeks.

His skin was like thin, translucent sheets of paper pathetically wrapped around his muscle. It was almost completely white, almost grey. His thick, blue veins could be seen clearly as they throbbed to pump blood to his extremities.

John looked up from the mixture of blood and vomit splattered grotesquely on the concrete. Then he saw the man whom he owed everything to.

Sherlock Holmes.

He stood on the edge of the building, looking down to the empty darkness where he would fall.

"Sherlock." John's voice was like a soft sigh, barely a whisper that choked on the name escaping John's lips.