Chapter 1: Dull day, isn't it?
"Aiden..." She hears her mother's quiet, whispery voice as she walks down a hall. The hall is dark, very dark, and cold too, she can barely make out the outline of her shaking hands. She keeps on moving down the corridor until she reaches the room at the end of it. Weirdly enough, its door was lit, yet there was no light. She takes in the image of the door she saw thousands of times before. It is a large dark brown oak door, old-fashioned, but in a rather good condition, the margin of it is decorated with a strip of gold paint that matches the round doorknob.
"Help me..." she hears the voice again, louder than before. Of course it would be, she was in front of her room after all. She really doesn't want to go in, but she does anyway. She always did, every single time. She opens the door and step inside, as soon as she does so, the door behind me shuts and locks itself. She doesn't jump or react in any way, she saw it coming anyway. She looks around and then she see her mother. She's sitting on a chair, staring at Aiden with wide, emotionless eyes. She remains quiet and unblinking as Aiden makes small steps towards her mother, knowing the only way for her to wake up is to go along with the dream until it is over. When the girl is a step away from what looks like a now-dead person, it suddenly grabs her hand. Aiden knew this was going to happen, but still she freaks out and tries to pull back while her mother's corpse, as it is best described, looks at her and opens its mouth to let thousands of spiders crawl out of it, causing Aiden to scream at the top of her lungs while the damned creatures crawl up her arm.
Aiden suddenly woke up, panting heavily with the blanked twisted around her in a way that seems too impossible to be true. She sighed loudly and sat up, pushing her dark brown hair out of her eyes before taking a quick glance at the clock on the night stand beside the bed. 3:00 was the digits the red lines on the screen indicated. With yet another loud sigh she crashed back into the bed.
"Nightmare again?" the girl heard Thomas ask in his natural quiet voice. Thomas was a 6 year old boy that lived at this orphanage. She, on the other hand, was only brought here a few months ago, after her mother had died of cancer. She was expecting it, really, but it still hit her pretty badly. Especially when her last words were 'Find him.' That was it. No 'I love you'. No 'You'll be alright''. Nothing but 'Find him'. Him. Who exactly was this him, you may wonder. This him was the man that oh-so-kindly gave 23 of his chromosomes to join with 23 of her mother's in order to create the first cell that later divided to create, well Aiden herself. In case you have not understood that simple and short explanation, this him we are talking about was Aiden's so-called father.
"Just go to sleep, Thomas." Aiden replied simply, rolling over to look at the boy. She couldn't see him that well, but she could make out his wide deep blue eyes.
"But… You're leaving tomorrow right?" he asked.
"I've said it already didn't I?" the teenager replied in a rather harsh tone, causing him to just nod and hide himself under the covers. She didn't feel bad, really. Afterall, she's only known him for a short time, and she never got attached to people.
"Have a safe journey." The maid that first welcomed Aiden here said as she handed over her suitcase.
"Well the possibility of me getting killed on my way to 221B Baker Street is rather low, seeing as we are only 30 minutes away from the destination. Though there is always the low probability of a road accident." Aiden replied and grabbed the suitcase, walking towards the taxi and taking her place in the passenger's seat.
"I suppose you already have the address?" asked Aiden, looking over at the driver. She took a few seconds to look him up and down.
"Yes, yes." he nodded, covering his mouth with his fist to cough heavily before the car drove off. Aiden spent most of her time watching his right hand move down to the compartment in the door, only to move it away quickly. He repeated this gesture a few more times.
"You can smoke if you want, you know." The girl burst out after about 10 minutes, getting irritated by the old man's fidgeting.
"How did yo-" he began asking, but she cut him off as she began explaining.
"That's simple. You smell of smoke." our teenager started but was rudely interrupted by him.
"Could've been around a smoker." the driver said and smirked, as if he had caught her trying to act smart, when actually she was just simply smart.
"Well, if you would've let me finish before you interrupted." Aiden shot back, sighing before going on. "After you answered my question you coughed heavily, much too heavy for it to be just a cold. Your voice is hoarse, maybe due to the paralysed cilia that stops your throat from being cleaned properly, another thing to indicate you are a smoker. Moving on. Appearance. There are multiple wrinkles around your mouth, generally caused from repetitive puckering. Next to your clothing. There's ash on your lap and there is a small burnt mark on your trousers too, generally happens to people that smoke in a car. Wind pushes ash back into the car, sometimes it's still hot. But you haven't had one since this morning have you? I can tell. You've been quite jumpy and fidgety. All smokers tend to do that when they haven't smoked in a while and are in desperate need of nicotine. You want a cigarette. Wait no. You don't want one. You need one." she let her brain speak by itself, talking at a fast rate which seemed to amaze the cabbie even more than what she was actually saying, when she finally stopped she took in a small breath.
"Convinced now?" she asked, raising a brow at him.
The old man smiled and nodded. "Ah yes, but look at that, we're already here." he said as the car came to a stop right in front of a large black door that had a gold-coloured sign reading 221B on it. Aiden moved her gaze down the street to notice the sign that said Baker Street. So she was finally here.
Aiden soon watched the cab zoom down the street and around a corner out of sight. She took in a deep breath and turned around to face the large white-walled flat. It was nothing special, just a normal, regular, typical British house. The type that blended into a whole row of other houses that looked mainly the same, the only way you could distinguish one from another was the slightly different hue in colour and the architecture of the windows. In much simpler words, they all looked pretty boring, dull even. Nothing special about them. Sure, some were shops, others were cafes, but none of them actually looked interesting, or intriguing. But then again, none of the houses in this city was really enough to keep Aiden interested for more than a few second, none except this particular house she was standing in front of. Sure, on the outside it was just another regular, ordinary house, but as many people would quote Ralph Waldo Emerson 'What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us'. Sure, when you first hear it, this would not exactly apply to the house, unless you actually decided to think about it, look a little closer and realize that the quote, does indeed, apply to the house before Aiden. Quotes. Why on Earth was she thinking of quotes right now? Why quotes when she could be thinking of something much more useful, such as what exactly to say after she knocks onto the damned door. How to introduce herself and how to explain herself. If she actually decided to knock on the door, or maybe ring the bell, either way she knew she wasn't ready just yet.
Pacing back and forth, Aiden began to think of all the possible ways of introducing herself. Could she just go up to the one-and-only Sherlock Holmes and simply just say what she had to say, in the simplest way possible, like any other person might do? No, she wouldn't go down to that level. She would create a perfectly elaborated and detailed introduction that would prevent any more questions from being asked. An introduction that explained everything, every single possible question that Sherlock Holmes would want to ask would already have been answer. In the very sophisticated explanation that her brain was currently producing. Yes, that was indeed one of the best ways of presenting herself. A way that would impress him enough.
"Okay, here we go." the girl told herself as she finally turned back to 221B and walked up to the door, raising her hand up to the doorbell. She was just about ready to press it when suddenly the door opened by itself. Well, it didn't really open by itself it was opened by someone on the inside, of course.
"What took you so long, for heaven's sake!" Taking a step back, Aiden looked up at the man before her. Tall, with a sharp face of harsh angles and prominent cheekbones, a head of dark curls that resembled her own, out of all his facial features his eyes intrigued her the most. They shared the same trait as hers, the difference in colouration of part of the pupil, sectoral heterochromia iridis. She looked over the blue eyes with green speckles, but didn't dare meet them. The way he looked at her made her feel small, powerless and insignificant.
"Speak child, fast and clear. I know you're not mute, so just speak your mind out." his gaze was now completely on her. He was trying to analyse her, she decided as she watched his eyes move from one part of her body to the other in a matter of seconds.
"Trying to deduce things, I suppose?" she finally managed to find her voice again, though she wished it wouldn't have had to happen with this unprepared and poor choice of words.
"Well of course I am! It's what I do. Sherlock Holmes, the one and only, consulting detective. Here to solve cases that mere humans cannot." he exclaimed, smiling to himself as he said so.
"Oh, I'm not here to ask for you help about a case, that's for sure." Aiden snorted as she fought the urge to roll his eyes at the man's big ego. 'The one and only'. As if.
"Oh, I assure you, I knew that. However, the one thing I need to question you on is who you are, of course." he eyed her carefully, this time his stare was on her face and unmoving.
"Who is that at the door, Sherlock?" she heard a voice chime in from somewhere higher up. The top of the stairs, she decided. Her thoughts soon being confirmed by the sound of alert footsteps moving down the steps. A much shorter man stopped behind Sherlock. He stood up straight, his posture like a soldier, his mousy-brown hair perfectly arranged. She noticed his eyes were a greyish colour, one feature that suddenly didn't make him as dull as he seemed before.
"Although you may be slightly shocked, Mr Holmes, I am your daughter." she responded simply, forcing herself to meet the gaze of the man that was now looking at her in a very different way.
She tried to make out what his thoughts could be, but his eyes were almost impossible to read. She felt vulnerable, not able to deduce what was going on into someone's head. She turned her gaze away from him to the man beside him.
"Hah, what a joke! Who put you up to this, kid? Was it some stupid reporter again? Was it Anderson? Mycroft even?" the man that she knew to be called John Watson asked, taking steps towards her. She could see it in his eyes that he couldn't believe it, or maybe he didn't want to. In order to test her theory she decided to say nothing. "This isn't true, Sherlock, is it?" he looked over at what seemed to be his friend before turning back to the girl. "Who put you up to this, god damnnit?!" he practically yelled. Feeling threatened and even slightly amused, Aiden took a step back.
"John!" Sherlock yelled over his friend's voice, silencing him. "Let's go upstairs. All of us. And have a chat." he added, simply turning around and making his way upstairs, with Watson following behind.
"You're not saying this is true, right?" his comrade insisted as he moved after him. Aiden had no other option but following behind them.
"Mrs Hudson! There is a suitcase outside, would you be so kind as to bring it inside?" Sherlock called out as soon as he reached the top of the stairs.
"Fine, but only this once, Sherlock. Remember, I am not your maid!" she called back and seconds later the clicking of heels against the wooden floor was heard downstairs.