It's dark in here.
Down the soundproofed walls I descend, the shadows chasing but fleeing when I turn. Lights glimmer in the distance, but shut off before I come near, whispering hallucination. Down, down I go, into the silence, into the blackness, until I cannot see or hear or perhaps even feel, for the coolness of reality has fled my skin and there is only the humidity of delusion. It's dark, and that is how I like it: an escape from the dazzlingly bright, blaring chaos of the outside world, everything coming at once in a steam train of information, pummelling against my skull in an ear-splitting pandemonium, while everyone else pads placidly about their day. So deeper I descend, and the blackness soothes, and the sound is snuffed out like a candle.
I bury myself in my mind palace until I forget I'm dead inside.
"Killing yourself is not as lovely as you might think."
I let out a sigh, my breath a ghost in the cold London air. It swirls above us as I ignore him.
"Think about it, brother dear. What do you really think happens? Not harps and angels singing, certainly."
His arcane wit makes me choke. I dash the cigarette from my lips and glare at him, silhouetted against the pink dawn behind his balcony.
"Don't be ridiculous, Mycroft," I snap, crushing the cigarette against the railing. "And I'm not your dear."
The ash falls from the stubbed tip in kamikaze sparks as I cringe at my substandard retort. But, in truth, I don't have the energy. I'm not the lively prodigy I once was.
I look away with the pretence of wiping my hands on my pants. You're nobody now. You might as well be dead.
"I suppose there will be a lot of blackness," I say, my voice drier. "And silence." Like your mind palace.
Yes, I whisper back. That's the point. How slow have you become, Sherlock?
"Precisely," I hear Mycroft murmur. He sounds underwater. "See, killing yourself would end up being awfully mundane. How appealing does that sound to someone of your… nature?"
Preferable. That is all.
I stare into the snowy dawn of his backyard, calculating my reply. I should have known he would be no help, but who else can I turn to?
Yourself. As usual.
"Shut up," I hiss.
"Pardon?"
I cast a calculatedly careless look his way. "You're correct, I mean." I reach for another cigarette. "For once."
"So, I take it you will not be continuing on this foolish suicidal endeavour?"
My fingers close around the tip of a cigarette. Pull. Tap. Light.
"It was merely a suggestion." Inhale.
I hold the smoke until it burns my lungs, bating breath for a reply.
"Of course."
Exhale.
"You're of a lot more use alive, Sherlock," he says. "You're a tool on the London streets – a dagger in the criminal network. Far better than languishing in a box, six feet below where you are required."
An object. A tool. Of course, that is all I am.
I do not feel.
Close your eyes. Tuck that thought away in your mind palace. Open.
"Thank you, Mycroft," I say. I am hollow. My voice echoes in the empty chambers of my insides.
Silence is his response. The balcony railing, pristine only moments before, is sprinkled with white. Snow is coming.
There is nothing more to say. I turn to leave.
"Besides, Sherlock." Mycroft's back is turned, but his words reach towards me with probing fingers.
I don't turn, only look away; bracing myself for the scalding remark, the disappointed drawl.
"What would your friends think, if you had any? If someone cared about you, what would they think if something happened to you? Think about that."
If someone cared about you…
I stand for a moment, stock-still. When I speak, the answer is so automatic, I'm terrified that I've betrayed some secret, shattered fragment of myself.
"Nothing happens to me."