Prologue: Where am I?
More chapters will be coming. For now: enjoy! ~cat-trash
Bored. Bored. Looking back, I think of all the ordinary people in my life. Including me, I guess. Moriarty was right. I failed in making my life entirely devoid of sentiment. And where did it get me? The losing side. I've never liked losing, but losing when it isn't a game? Ah. I don't want this. I wish I'd never existed, wish I'd never been born to inflict my "amazing" opinions on the world. Wish I'd never met…well. So I, Sherlock Holmes, overdosed on cocaine in the clinical and cold laboratory of St Bart's that embodied everything that I wanted to be.
XXX
A pale, raven haired man regained consciousness, curled up on a leather armchair in a dark, dusty room. He straightened up, cracking his long spine and shaking dust from his curls. He looked around him and found that there was little to deduce from this room: retro wallpaper suggesting a yearning for the past, two mismatched armchairs suggesting the people who usually occupy this place are modern, and no other furniture in the room, suggesting that this is not in fact a lived in location. He sprung from the chair with a curious desire to explore further, and noticed a darker corner of the room that was actually a corridor leading down to a lone window.
Approaching the window, the blackness outside allowed the man to see a familiar reflection but he realised that he did not quite remember who he was. He frowned at the reflection, puckering his marble forehead, and was perplexed to see the reflection grin back.
"Hello, me," rumbled a voice that sounded like it came from behind the man. He glanced round behind him, the reflection still not mirroring him, and saw nothing but the two empty armchairs.
"I'm you, you are me. It's a reflection. Obvious, right?" continued the reflection.
But who is me…? The man thought impatiently.
"Oh. I've lost my memory, okay. Don't worry, me, I know how to get it back," the semblance fixed its eyes on the man and he felt himself slipping away…
XXX
The man awoke in a different room. It was obviously a bedroom, but it reminded him of the room that he had just been in. Maybe it was the cherry wood furnishings. Maybe it was the lack of doors. He took a moment taking in the oddly familiar surroundings and then began looking for a way out. That spectre in the window appeared to have imprisoned him here. He pulled all the drawers out, tossing clothes on the bed, finding nothing helpful.
He flipped the pillows off the bed. An army pistol lay conspicuously beneath the second pillow. Incautiously the man picked up the gun, surprised at the comfortable weight of it in his hand. He felt like he had done this before. An idea suddenly occurred to him. He looked around the room once more with a calculating look in his blue eyes, and appeared to make a decision. He opened his mouth wide and placed the barrel of the pistol on his tongue. Decided, he confidently pulled the trigger.
XXX
The man came to in front of the window, hands shaking slightly. His head throbbed but he was clearly still alive and unscathed. The window was shattered, but a few large shards of glass remained in the frame. The reflection was still there.
"And he's back," announced the fragmented image. "How did it feel, being dead? It's good, right? No one bothers you." The man's face twitched.
"What did I say? All I did was show you how to get your precious memories back. Don't be so ungrateful, some of them actually contain some pretty important information," said his reflection.
The man opened his mouth to counter this but the appearance of new information in his head reached his lips first, "My name is Sherlock Holmes, I'm 33, and I OD'd on cocaine."
"Indeed. That was because of this window here. If you hadn't yet realised, you're in our mind palace. There are windows waiting to return your lost memories. Don't ask why, I don't really know either. That's just how this works apparently. Find the windows and smash them, everything will come back. I just showed you how, don't make me repeat myself. Your wish will be realised once all the windows are broken."
My wish… thought Sherlock.
"You know my methods," smiled the shards. "The rest is up to you."
As the reflection faded away, Sherlock remembered his wish. He wasn't sure why he desired it so, but he remembered that he had wished to remove his existence from the universe.
Nodding, he slowly turned away from the window. The armchair room had gone and a wide and high ceilinged corridor replaced it. There were no windows, only doors. Sherlock tried the wooden door nearest to him: locked. He methodically walked down the corridor, trying the doors one by one. All were locked apart from the end door, identical to the others, but with a plaque beside it that read PINK.