The class noisily bustled into the classroom. Their hair and coats dripping wet from the heavy rain outside.
"Shhh. Quiet down please children. I'm going to take the register." The teacher stood up. It was a typical British Monday morning. She wasn't really awake yet. But she still managed to remember that something was wrong. Something big. Something very wrong. Something that had been wrong for a while now.
"Harvey?"
"Yes, Miss."
"Katrina?"
"Yeah, Miss."
"Rivers?"
"Here."
"Sherlock..?" The word felt cold on her tongue as it slipped out. She knew she shouldn't have said his name. But for some reason she still wanted to feel her mouth carving the word. His name echoed around the silent classroom and hit every child in the class room with a pang of guilt and grief.
None more so, than John. The usually chatty boy was sitting on his chair, in the corner of the classroom, with his head on the table.
The chair next to him was empty. Sherlock wasn't at school. He would never be at school again. He was dead. And John was the last person to ever talk to him.
Their two families had been having a picnic. They had let the boys run off to play. But only one came back.
Maybe he could have saved him? Maybe he could have coaxed him away from the edge of the cliff? Maybe he could have held on for longer. He had tried. By god he had tried. But it had been of no use. It had happened so quickly. One minute Sherlock was walking across the edge of the cliff, the next... The next, John was down on his stomach holding onto Sherlock's hands for dear life. He had seen the terror in Sherlock's eyes as he tripped. He saw his mouth open. He heard the screams come out. The more Sherlock tried to hold on, the sweatier his hands became. John felt Sherlock slipping from his grasp. Everything went silent. He lost his grip and Sherlock started to fall. John watched as Sherlock, still screaming in absolute terror, fell down onto the rocks.
Sherlock's' high-pitched scream still tortured John. It plagued his every waking moment. But somehow, it wasn't the actual scream he hated so much, it was how fast it stopped. How fast the screaming had turned into the sounds of breaking bones. The sound of life leaving Sherlock. The worst part by far, was that John believed with every fibre in his body that it was his fault. And his fault only. He saw Sherlock fall onto the sharp rocks below. He saw the waves crashing over his friends' lifeless body. John screamed Sherlock's' name. But there was no reply. John knew Sherlock would never reply. He knew it was his fault. All of it.
"He... He isn't here miss." John croaked. As one the class turned and stared at him. These were the first words he had spoken since Sherlock died. And that was two weeks ago.
"Yes. Yes of course. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say his name. It hasn't been taken of the register yet." The teacher said, adjusting the messy bun on the back of her head.
"It should stay." John was utterly emotionless. He had no more tears left to cry. No more words of anger left to scream.
"Pardon?"
"He isn't dead, you know. He is alive." He stared at her. His face expressionless.
"Come with me, John. The rest of you can do some silent reading until I get back."
The teacher led the 10-year-old John out into the corridor.
"He is gone, John. He won't be coming back. The sooner you understand that the better."
"I'm telling you he isn't dead!" John was shouting now. Unable to contain his anger. His hatred of the world. His hatred for Sherlock. Why did he have to die and leave John alone? Why did he have to leave?
Sherlock was the only friend John had ever had. And now he was gone.
John ran down the corridor, out the door, across the playing field and over the fence at the bottom. He knew the teachers were following him. He could hear them. Hear them calling his name, over and over and over again.
He ran all the way to the cemetery. Running from his fears. Running to his life-line. He knelt down on the fresh soil that had been kept dry by the old oak tree Sherlock was buried under. John stared and the gold engraving on the black headstone. Tears filled his eyes. He let his fingers trace the name. Then the birthdate, and then the date of death. The dates seemed so close. They were too close. Far too close.
"One day we will all be old. Even more tears, but my heart is now dry. I can't laugh but I do still cry. I think about you all the time. But when I don't - I always wonder why. One day we can go back to the start. Back to the very beginning. Maybe then I can change that one thing. Maybe then you would still be here with me. Do you remember when it was just the two of us, Sherlock? Do you remember all of the times when I was too scared to tell you just how much I loved you, how much I cared? Tell me this, is it too late? I often go to say your name, when I realise, with a pang of guilt, that you are no longer here to hear it."
There was a cracking of twigs behind him. He turned around. There was his teacher, and the headmaster. They weren't running anymore. Just walking. They knelt beside him.
"It's okay, John. It's okay to be upset. It's okay to be angry." The headmaster said. Squeezing Johns' shoulder. But it wasn't okay. It would never be okay. Sherlock was dead. He was in pain when he died. He was terrified. How could that ever be okay?
"I think about how much I miss him, and start to feel sorry for myself... But then I think about all the people who never got the chance to meet him, and I start to feel sorry for them. I still dream that he'll come back to me. So that we can live these years together. But these are the dreams that shall never be. These are the storms we shall never weather. For it was he who filled my days with endless wonder." John rubbed some soil between his fingers.
"You know, John." His teacher smiled at him. "Sherlock wouldn't have wanted you to be like this, would he?" John continued to stare at the ground. After a while, he shook his head.
"Sometimes I feel like I just want to vanish off the face of the Earth. I don't want anyone to notice as my eyes run down my cheeks, and my mouth quivers at every abnormal noise. Nothingness in the almighty din. I don't want anyone to look, nor point and stare as I, an empty shell that once housed a boy with such an almighty future ahead of him, walk amongst the crowd. I am now just a stretch of skin under layers of terror and guilt and loneliness."
"But, John, dear boy, there is something you must understand; Nothingness isn't a sin."
John nodded. For the first time since Sherlock died, he didn't feel so guilty.
John remembered how small Sherlock's' coffin seemed. Even though he was taller than John. But then he realised, that's because children aren't meant to die. Only adults died. Because there was a kingdom where nobody died. Where everyone was safe. And nobody was hurt. And John knew that that kingdom was called Childhood. But his belief in this kingdom had died that day along with Sherlock.
He remembered how Sherlock's' older brother Mycroft had given him a dirty look as the coffin was lowered into the ground.
He remembered how badly Mycroft was punished. But that didn't make it any better. Mycroft would always blame him for his little brothers' death.
"I know your fears, and you know mine. We've had our doubts. But now we are fine. And I cannot live without you. I swear that is true. All the blood and the pain and the loosing of it all. All the time that we wasted and the places we will fall. Will we wake in the morning and know what it was all for?" John sniffed. He stood up. It had stopped raining now. He put his hand on his best friends' headstone, took a deep breath and said, "I was so alone, and I owe you so much."
The two teachers took Johns' hands. The three walked away in silence. As they reached the cemetery gates, John turned around and whispered. "Goodbye, Sherlock."