Chapter One: All according to...

Sherlock awoke with a start, a deep gasp of air echoing through the dark and empty street. He sat against the cobblestone road, in the centre of the lane. All was dark, and all was quiet except for the sound of his lungs inhaling and exhaling in slow but deep breaths. He glanced around him, the area familiar but the atmosphere strange. It the same, yet different.

"Wait," he said to himself, his voice bouncing against the brick buildings around him. He bent his head forward, shutting his eyes as he concentrated on his surroundings. Nothing. Silence. No vehicles, no other voices, and not even the wind decided to make its presence known.

A chill ran through his spine, causing him to jerk back and open his eyes.

A thick mist began to pour in around him, edging closer in a slow yet seductive slither. The mist circled around him, as if toying with him with a mind of its own, yet staying far enough away to be out of Sherlock's reach.

He stood to his feet suddenly, a look of determination squared onto his face. He took a measured step forward, watching with curiosity as the mist moved back in equal distance. He continued this dance with the mist, moving further forward with each stride. His feet led him to his home, unsure if it was from muscle memory or just a habit. Sherlock looked upon his front door, still having met another living soul on his way there.

As he stepped into the familiar building, the faint whisper of voices from above pulled him forward. A light, growing brighter with each step, could be seen from underneath the door to his flat. Sherlock stepped closer to the door, pressing an ear against the wood to listen to the voices carefully.

"He's gone, he's really gone..." John's familiar voice echoed from within the room as if he were a million miles away.

"I'm so sorry, John..." another voice, Lestrade, was also echoing sounding close yet far at the same time.

Just as Sherlock pushed open the door, the light vanished and his eyes fell upon an empty room. "What is going on?" he thought out loud, brows coming together in consternation.

He moved throughout the room, touching at familiar objects and looking for any sign of life. Nothing. Not even dust. It was as if no one had ever been here at all.

"What is this?" he asked again, half-screaming into the nothingness of the room. He threw a nearby book across the room, the sound of its impact bouncing loudly in his ears. A sudden and unexplainable rage built up within him as he began throwing whatever he could grab this way and that until the room was torn apart, broken and tattered objects lying helpless on the ground.

Sherlock's chest heaved as he tried to regain his familiar calm, his back hunched forward as he gripped the edges of the table in front of him. "What..." he whispered in between breaths, "What is happening?"

A greeting from an unfamiliar voice startled him from his ease into calmness, his body jumping and twisting toward the sound. A woman, eyes matching the grey-white of the mists around him and her inky black hair flowing around her as if she were submerged in water.

"Hello, Sherlock," she said, her voice soft and gentle as if helping Sherlock come down from his rage. "You've come here a bit early."

"Here?" Sherlock repeated, his eyes roaming over the woman's form. Her soft silver-white gown was old, at least a century's old. Her skin was pale, like she had never experienced the sun. Lips of a dark ice-blue smiled up at him, holding a warmth that contradicted her cool appearance. "Who are you?" he asked, a million words and questions swimming around in his head.

"I'm to be your guide," she bowed, keeping her hands folded in front of her. "But, you're early."

"Early? Guide?" Sherlock tried to make sense of her words, her attire, and everything else around him but his mind continued to spin while he continued to bury the fire within him that threatened to claw its way out. "Why do I feel so angry?" he mused, his questions rolling out from his lips without permission. "What is here? Why can't I..." he paused, staring at the smiling woman in front of him. "Why can't I understand anything here? There is nothing here!"

The woman frowned at him, taking a gingerly step forward. Her step echoed against the floorboard as Sherlock tried to take a step back but was met with the edge of the table. "You've died," she said, sad eyes looking at Sherlock with concern.

"No," Sherlock frowned. "I mean, yes, I was supposed to die but it's meant to be a fake death."

"You fell," she continued to look at Sherlock with concern as she took another step toward him, her hand coming up to reach for him.

"Yes, I fell," he acknowledged. "It was part of the plan! I was to fall from the building, but I landed safely!"

The woman shook her head. "No, you didn't."

"Next you're going to tell me that I'm in Heaven," he said, scoffing with a glare. "Or maybe Hell, seeing as how there is absolutely no one else in sight other than yourself."

She shook her head again. "You're in Purgatory, Sherlock."

"Purgatory?" Sherlock felt her hand against his arm and the anger he felt had melted away instantly. Her touch was cool, but warmer than he had assumed it would be.

"You came here early," she repeated once again, nodding to Sherlock. "It isn't meant to be your time yet. Something had gone wrong."

"Am I to just sit here and wander for the rest of eternity?" he asked, mostly to himself. "It seems more like a Hell than a Purgatory."

She laughed then, her small giggle causing Sherlock to fully look down upon her face. At closer inspection, he noticed how her skin glistened like fresh snow and her eyes held a traces of blue. "No, you won't just be sitting here. You have a choice."

"And what is that choice?" he asked her, sliding to the side and putting some distance between them.

"You may choose to continue with this state and eventually find your peace," she started, taking a step back to look Sherlock with stern eyes. "Or you may choose to fight for your return with the one thing you do best: solving mysteries."

Sherlock thought for a moment, analyzing every word the woman said. "How am I to solve anything with this nothingness that surrounds me? There are no people, the vegetation has withered away, and I haven't seen evidence of even a rat scurrying about!" he argued.

A thought came to him, pausing the building rage within. A memory, of just moments before, of how he had heard the familiar voices of John and Lestrade within the room. "I had heard them," he said, eyes wide and frantic. "I had heard them here, just before entering. How is that?"

"If you choose to fight, then you will be returned in a temporary state," the woman moved around him, almost floating her way through the room. "You will be want others have called ghosts, spirits, and phantoms."

"Preposterous!" he shouted reflexively.

The woman cocked her head to the side, a smile gracing her lips once more. "Is it?" she asked in a playful tone. "Tell me, Sherlock Holmes, have you come to a conclusion yet as to where you are, or what is going on around you?"

Sherlock stared at her with keen eyes, narrowing into a thin glare. "I have had episodes before where I had been thrown into a world of confusion, of illusion and disillusion, within a place I had created of my own choosing as well as through my subconscious mind," he explained, rationality overcoming him with a boost of confidence. "Ghosts, spirits, and phantoms are no more than a trick of the mind – something one wishes enough to be true to make it true. This is nothing but a dream, a world created from a swift knock to the head. A dreary and poorly constructed explanation for a feeling of bewilderment. I will wake soon, I am sure of it."

The woman sighed and shook her head disappointingly. She waved her arm before her, casting it downward, and colour slowly began to seep into the room. Sherlock could not stop the sharp gasp that escaped him as the room transformed before his eyes to the slightly cleaner setting he had remembered. Then, figures appeared that soon became recognizable faces.

John. Lestrade. Mycroft. Molly. They all stood in the room with him, their eyes focused on the floor around their feet and sad expressions painted across their faces.

Sherlock jumped forward, attempting to grab hold of John by the shoulder. He hand phased right through, a gentle 'whoosh' sounding in his ears as he continued to stumble forward. John looked up to where Sherlock stood, staring through him.

"It feels as if he's still here," John muttered, his bottom lip quivering as his eyes held back tears.

Molly suddenly cried out and moved into Lestrade's arms. The man looked confused for a moment, before a focused look came about him and he held his arms around Molly. He patted her back gently as he forced his voice to come out of hiding. "I know," he whispered, voice rough and hoarse. "I know."

"I'm right here!" Sherlock screamed, stomping his foot against the floor. "Look at me!"

His scream went unnoticed as the others continued their slow and silent mourning. They spoke every once in a while, talking about Sherlock and all his odd habits and quirks. They laughed, they sighed, and they cried some more.

Sherlock found himself sitting on his couch, head held in his hands as he fought against pulling at his hair. The fire, the burning rage he felt from earlier, pounding and pounding from within. "This doesn't make sense!" he repeated to himself, again and again, as he rocked forward and back against the couch. "What... How..." he whispered through a clenched jaw.

The woman from before appeared beside him, placing her hand upon his shoulder. The fire subsided, becoming a soft hum in his head. Sherlock turned to her, anger and confusion as well as denial written over his face.

"You must choose, Sherlock," the woman whispered, patting him softly on the shoulder for comfort.

"If I fight," he choked, brows bending in sorrow. "If I choose to return, what will happen? Will I remember all that has happened here? Will time flow the same, or differently?"

"If you fight," her hand left Sherlock's shoulder to pull his hands away from his hair. "You will remember what has transpired here, and time will move side-by-side with the living world, however..." her voice trailed as she turned toward the others still standing not too far from where they sat. "However, when you return, you will be different. You will be haunted."

"Haunted?" he said, testing the word on his tongue. "You mean a ghost will follow me around, taunting and tormenting me?"

The woman shook her head, her hair floating gently around her. "No, not a ghost – all of this. You will see what others cannot. Your world and this will collide, blending together into an incoherent sea of life and death that only you will be able to harness. Others may claim to see what you will, but they only see pieces of the whole. You, however, will see all as it is willingly or not."

Sherlock listened to her words carefully, mulling each one over in his head again and again. Turning it this way and that, trying to view it from perspectives even he did not know he could see. "To live the rest of my life, haunted by the dead with no option for peace," he mused aloud."It seems quite the price."

"And yet life is priceless," the woman interjected.

"This was not how it was meant to be," he whispered, dropping his hands away from hers and leaning back into the couch. "How had my plan failed?"

"Your cushion, someone had moved it," she answered.

"Someone? Who?"

"I cannot say,"

"Why not? You seem to know and tell me everything else,"

"I cannot say because that is the mystery you must solve,"

Sherlock looked at the woman beside him, the back of her head facing him as she continued to look at the others. He thought again, examining her words then trying to remember the details from before he had awoken here. His body stiffened as his memory came up blank. He pressed further, straining his mind to recall anything – even the colour of the sky – but only continued to come up with nothing.

"Essentially," Sherlock began, a hint of mirth in his voice, "You wish for me to solve my own death?"

The woman nodded, turning to look at Sherlock with a smile. "Yes, that is your task. If you are able to complete it, life will be restored to your physical body."

Sherlock held out his hand toward the woman, grinning from ear to ear. "You have yourself a deal, Phantom."

"Phantom?" the woman repeated, eyes glancing at Sherlock's hand.

"You are a messenger, a guide for souls lost and forgotten. You are no one, and yet you are everyone. There is no name to call you, because you were given no name. If we are to meet again, I feel it would be appropriate to call you something and therefore I have decided to name you 'Phantom' as it suits the current setting," Sherlock explained.

"Very well," the woman took Sherlock's hand and shook it firmly.

"Very well indeed, Phantom," Sherlock grinned. "Now, where do I begin?"

A/N: Hello there! I just wanted to write this out because my boyfriend had mentioned something like this in passing and I thought that the idea was so awesome I had to get it down. I'm not sure if it warrants a continuation, because it sort of ends at a good part and we can at least all assume that he does indeed make it back into the living.

Anyway, yeah. There that is. I hope you liked it, since you reached the end of it! I really needed to get it out of my system so that I could continue on with my other story. Darn that boyfriend for supplying me with ideas! :D