Lost. Stumbling. Alone. Bored. So very, very bored. One morning London is dead, everybody's gone. And it's in the hands of Sherlock Holmes to find why. He's the only one there after all.
He wakes up after a night on the couch. His back hurts, but he doesn't care. He checks his phone for new messages: Nothing. Nothing on the website, nothing on John's blog. John isn't there too. The newspapers are on the table, carefully laid down between different parts of the human body, chemicals and a tray with breakfast on it.
Everything carefully prepared, but no sign of John. Nothing on the food indicates it's been made by him, the coffee is too cold and misses something.
Sherlock decides to go for a walk.
London is as empty as the flat. Nobody around to explain what happened, no sign that would explain what happened. Just the emptiness.
He sends angry texts to every number he can remember. Then he calls Mycroft: Mailbox. Of course.
As the sun slowly rises a noise begins to rise he gets back to the flat. Sherlock Holmes is left clueless, literally.
Then the noises began.
A constant banging, loud, annoying and almost perfectly rhythmic. It's muffled, else Sherlock would have been able to tell what it was. Of course. But the noise is muffled, as if there were multiple walls between him and the source, which is impossible since the volume doesn't change with the distance he tries to get between the noise and him. It's always there. Always!
Angrily he throws the first thing that comes into his hands on the ground.
The mobile makes an ugly noise when he steps on it, but it's useless now anyways and he can always use John's.
If it didn't disappear with him.
At least the situation promised a change. The solution would take some time. Or forever, which was more likely with the lack of clues.
He returns to 221b after a few hours, tired and annoyed. The sound is still there, constantly pushing itself back into his mind. The streets are empty, dull, boring. Nobody to talk to, nothing to talk about, nothing to think about.
Sherlock realized that although he could live without their help, he couldn't live without the presence of humans.
Maybe it was all a plan by Moriarty?
He noticed that the door had been open the whole time.
No, Moriarty wasn't that powerful.
The stairs looked the same way as always, he took two steps at once to make the way to the flat shorter.
But who was powerful enough to make impossible things happen?
After a short glance into the flat, only to reassure himself that everything was still the same (of course it was, who would change something? John? Mrs Hudson? They were all gone), Sherlock continued his way to John's room. He needed his mobile.
But what was powerful enough?
The phone was next to the bed, where it always was. The room itself was empty like always, maybe a bit messy. Still the military atmosphere was lying heavily in the room. Sherlock could have been able to tell how long John's time in the military was ago even if he didn't know it from the state of the wardrobe.
The answer was uncomfortable.
Sherlock took one of the jumpers, absorbing every tiny fact. Although he already knew all of it. Routine was feeling too good. He needed to find out what was wrong.
He called Lestrade.
Of course there was nobody.
He called Mycroft once again, even left a message. Shouted angrily at the wall, threw something that wasn't the mobile out of the window.
When the jumper reached the ground the sound was swallowed by the heartbeat of empty London. The banging never stopped.
He took a second jumper and took it together with the mobile downstairs, put them both on the table after putting unnecessary experiments roughly on the ground. This puzzle had absolute priority.
Sherlock asked himself questions, explained the situation to John, waited for a reaction, got nothing. Then he took his violin and began to solve the problem. Thing through every possible explanation, every possible reason, every possibility.
But he needed sound, he needed life. It didn't work when London was empty.
After taking the soft jumper once again and staring into the dark midnight in London, he began to search once again. Unsure about what would happen he went to the Underground, searched for any sign of humanity.
But there was nothing. Everything smelled desinfected, clean and boring, dull. As if someone had washed away almost every sign that there was something living here. London was deserted.
He returned once again, the jumper and mobile still in his hands, together with a few other things. Mainly things that didn't count, things that weren't important. A magazine filled with rumours and stories about celebrities he didn't know. An empty bottle, originally filled with some sort of alcoholic liquid he didn't know. A camera without any pictures on it. An old hairbrush.
The magazine was still filled with dull stories he didn't want to know about, one particulary bad one even about him. It hit a few of his experiments on the ground perfectly.
The bottle was completely empty and clean. The camera too, although the scratches on it and the memory chip showed that it had been used for a few years now. The hairbrush was clean as well, no single hair on it.
Always when he thought he had gotten used to it, the bangs pushed themselves into his consciousness again.
Humanity had disappeared and Sherlock Holmes knew what had happened to him. And he definitely didn't like the solution. He grabbed the jumper more tightly while lying on the couch and slowly falling asleep.
Sherlock stared at the wall. He had been staring at it for days now and John knew that he would probably never stop. The doctors told him that he sometimes had states in which he seemed awake, or at least more open to his surroundings.
During one of John's visits he had even shouted to make the banging stop. The noise one of the patients always managed to produce in some way, usually with the help of his head and a window, but he could do it by stomping on the ground as well.
What exactly had happened to Sherlock was still a miracle to most people. Mycroft had the most complicated solution that was connected to an unbelievable knowledge about the human brain and how Shelock's careless attitude towards nicotine and drugs of almost every kind must have damaged it in a way.
John looked down at Sherlock, who silently sat on the ground and stared at the wall in front of him, he knew that they were both alone now.
- THE END -
A/N: Another story prompted by the same friend who gave me the idea for 'Train To Nowhere' a few days ago. This was done in much shorter time and turned out to be a bit longer, I can say that I am very proud of myself. My writing also seems to get better and better everytime.
btw: This is part of an experiment, I want to write something on each day of the holidays we have at the moment, they are two weeks long and this is day two, but I started it on Friday so let's see how long I can do this and what it changes ;D