Hell was breaking loose. Everything of nightmares, everything from the darkest reaches of the most twisted imaginations among all men, all was happening around the world. Warfare had broken out across the globe due to the cockiness of a couple of unmentioned countries, but that isn't the beginning, not exactly how it had gotten this way, there was another cause; the mass outbreak of the bacterial infection Motus excessus. This infection was engineered to be injected into the brain tissue of one that is deceased, causing the brain to come back to life, telling the body to breath and the heart to start pumping blood again. Therefore, doing as the name roughly translates to, raising the dead. Unfortunately, this didn't go so well on the first test subject. It seemed to be a miracle, at first, though. He awoke from his, thought-to-be, forevermore slumber. Almost as if his death never occurred, except, soon, his brain started shutting down. Half of it, anyway. He started stumbling about, losing his ability to speak, and, soon enough, started craving human flesh. He started to try to bite his family members and those around him. By the time that he was put down due to this strange, zombie-like behaviour, others were started to act odd, showing signs that he showed in the beginning of his transformation. It had most likely spread through saliva and touching of wounds. But, what really kicked everything off is when an entire morgue full of corpses became a house of the undead. Officials closed the building soon after some of the workers reported the occurrences of the bodies moving and starting to work again. This all happened in California, USA, yet soon the whole country started to experience such things. Soon after this, people began moving away to other countries. This was only hurting the situation, though. Some of the people, who went to other countries, became one of these zombies. Now, the world had broken into utter chaos.
It got worse, even though it seemed like it couldn't. Countries started to fight for whom should rule over the rest of everybody else, everyone taking everyone else's, thought to be, lowered defences as an advantage. Missiles were launched. A power struggle between the heads of countries, even though the citizens just wanted peace and safety.
Of course, London isn't excluded from all of this; meaning Sherlock Holmes and his partner John Watson aren't excluded, either.
Sherlock was awoken from his daze by the sounds of absolute terror. The screams from not only the people rushing around outside of the building, but the yelling of his flatmate, all piercing his thinking. He sat up and stood, moving over to look out the widow, watching the streets below. Sirens roared and the sly darkness of the sky had broken into flames. John put a hand on the taller man's shoulder, speaking, "We have to get out of here. We need to leave. Go get packed up, don't carry a load too heavy, but remember that the chances of us being able to return... are not very good."
He gave a quick nod and walked in a hasty manner to his room, pulling down an old travelling backpack, quickly filling the main compartment with clothes and an extra pair of shoes. He began grabbing multiple test tubes of chemicals, shoving them into the front pouch, along with a couple of swabs and Petri dishes. The detective also put a couple of droppers and medicine cups into the side pouches before grabbing more essential things that he would need.
After Sherlock finished, he slipped on his coat and his shoes, along with the rest of his accessories. He returned to John, giving him a quick nod. Both of them exited the flat after putting on masks. Luckily, the conditions weren't too bad on the streets with zombies, but precautions were taken. The two men both had handguns with them, loaded and ready to shoot. As they walked, John spoke quietly, "Do you think that we may be lucky enough to make it?"
"Probably not, but I refuse to throw my life away when such a thing is happening," Sherlock replied, almost coldly.
"Cheerful, aren't you?" John scoffed before turning and aiming his weapon, firing at a nearing zombie in an alleyway to their left.
"Why would you even want to be cheerful now? Also, good shot, Doctor Watson. We're going to need your skills, but don't waste bullets." The taller of them spoke, adjusting his mask.
John scoffed again and looked to the other man, "Would you mind shutting up and having a little hope for once?"
"Absolutely not. I will speak my mind and, also, hope only gets people hurt."
"Sherlock, hope is the only thing that we will have, why don't you understand that?"
Sherlock stared at John, taking a deep breath before speaking, "Maybe you're right. But, mind, a big part of hope is caring."
"Yes? Well, you need to try are care now, then, huh?"
"Probably."
The shorter of the two rolled his eyes and focused on their surroundings as he saw a man starting to run at them. Sherlock also held his gun at the man. He didn't look like a zombie, plus the undead wouldn't run at them with a machete. Though, he did have that crazed look in his eyes, a murderous one, that both of them knew far too well. When he didn't stop, no fear reflecting on his face, John had no choice but to fire. Sherlock put away his weapon and went over to the man's corpse, grabbing the large knife. He hacked off the now deceased man's head, blood spilling out onto the pavement. One less zombie, the better, right? Of course, his friend didn't understand the notion, giving Sherlock a disgusted look as the slim man put the machete into his backpack for future use.
"Why the Hell did you do that? It's bad enough that we had to kill him. At least we had a reason for that. There is no need to go chopping people's heads off," John continued to give him the same look, eyebrows furrowed a bit.
"One less of those crazed creatures, the better," He stated simply.
And, with a simple nod of John's head, the two were off again, continuing to make their way out of the city. It had already felt like it had been days since they left the flat, but, in all reality, it hadn't been but around 45 minutes. One thing kept the two going, though. The subtle fact that they had to help each other through this mess. Nothing would be the same again, would it? There was no such thing as peace anymore, only, well, this hellish environment that covered the world. There was no getting out of it all. Nobody is safe anymore.
Just to break the silence, Sherlock began to complain to his friend, "John, I won't have any more cases."
John looked to Sherlock again, "Of course you won't, and you'll just have to get over it."
"I'll be consumed by boredom."
"Sherlock, we could die at any moment."
"But we aren't," The detective mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest in a beyond childish manner. "Plus, death doesn't seem too bad to me. You know that."
"Grow up and there is still a possibility. Well, I care about your life. You're my best friend and there would be no use in going on without a partner to help me through this."
The dark haired man put his arms down to his sides before speaking more clearly, his voice more dark than usual, "And I care about your life. This is just going to be miserable. All of this is, and I don't know what everything is even going to boil down to, in the end. Something atrocious, if I take my best guess. We shouldn't expect to live. I know that you believe that we'll make it, but, in all honesty, the chances are slim. I'm sorry that I do not have much hope about everything, it's just not in my nature."
John sighed, looking forward at the road in front of them, "Of course it's not going to be fun. I know it's not going to be fun. This whole event is probably going to wipe out humanity within a decent amount of time, but, like I said, hope is the only thing that we have."
Sherlock pursed his lips momentarily, looking for the right words to respond without sounding too rude or saying too little, too much. Then, just the right combination of words came to mind and rolled right off his tongue; like he'd practiced them over and over again. "I'll try my utmost best to hope. I'll have hope that we will live. I'll have hope that everything will return to normal, even if it is very unlikely."
"That's all I can ask for," The older man responded, taking a deep, relieved breath and smiling slightly before speaking again. "Can I admit something?"
"Feel free to."
"I have hope, I really do, but I'm scared. I don't want to die and I don't want you to, either." John gave a quick nod before feeling himself being pulled into a hug by the other man. Sherlock held him close with one arm, also glancing to the side and fired a shot at a nearing zombie, right through the forehead, a more than smug smile appearing on his face.
"Good shot," The shorter of them muttered against the taller's chest.
"Thank you, John," Sherlock smiled a bit, the hardness in his gaze slipping a bit, making him look more kind for once. "I understand why you are frightened. In all honesty, but, after a bit of thinking... we are fuelled by fear, aren't we? The reason that we are going on is because of each other. We both want one-another to be safe, right?"
John nodded a bit, "I think so…" He then trailed off, pulling away.
"We need to keep moving." Sherlock then stated, facing forward and starting to walk. He cleared his throat and spoke a bit softer, glancing back to his friend who was looking about. "Well, let's go."
"Huh? Oh. Mm," John nodded and rushed forward a bit, walking beside his friend, his gaze cautious as an almost sudden haze of fog rolled in on the city. "Can we not get a break?"
The detective rolled his eyes, "We technically did get a break."
"Yes, for all of about 5 minutes, and, even then, there was a goddamn monster coming at us. Now, we can't even see all that well."
"Well, get over it."
John scoffed, glaring a moment before relaxing his face a bit, but still keeping a focused and hardy expression. Sherlock had a more thoughtful look, but it also rang of a strict determination to keep going.
There was no way that they would be able to make it out of London before sundown. This is less than pleasing to the two men. They would have to settle for the night. As John was keeping a watchful eye for enemies, Sherlock was house hunting. It was obvious that it was time to go into an abandoned building when strangled cries and yelps were echoing down the streets. The gangs were starting to come out as they did night-after-night, taking innocent lives for supplies, weapons, and whatever else they could forage to help them. After everything started to fall, these groups started to form. Alliances. And, they were brutal.
Sherlock grabbed John by the wrist, pulling him aside and into a nearing building. The door had been opened with a crowbar, meaning that it had already been raided. Not a target. The two men made their way to the top floor of the building. They pushed a cabinet over to block the door. It's much better to be safe than sorry.
After a few words had been passed between the two, a good night and a couple of phrases about their morning plans, it was finally time to sleep. And, to John's surprise, Sherlock was completely ready to. He wanted to sleep for once. Thank God, because he was going to need the rest.