Ash is falling from the sky like snow. Fires burn everything solid into heaps of rubble. The Thames is a bubbling fiercely, billows from its surface. Some people can be seen jumping into it; they see boiling alive a far better fate that the alternative. The alternative… oh Sherlock, where are you?
My name is John Watson, and I can't fully process what is happening here. People are screaming that it's the end of the world… but there's always someone saying that, isn't there? But this time, I'm afraid that they might be right.
It was just a typical Sunday afternoon. Sherlock and I were in the sitting room having tea and sticking thumb tacks into the wall to track a killer for a case. Nothing was out of the ordinary. We worked mainly in silence, until I'd do something the wrong way, and then he'd call me an idiot and do it over. I'd just smile at him, and he'd try not to smile back. People ask me all of the time, why I put up with being so mistreated by him all of the time. What they don't understand is that when these words come from Sherlock, they're terms of endearment. It's the only way he knows how to show his affection. The truth of the matter is: he'd be completely lost without me… and I would be the same without him.
Our easy-going day was shot straight to hell when a deafening boom shook the streets of London. Both of us crashed to the floor with our ears ringing. Quickly, I grabbed at Sherlock to check if he was alright. To my frantic dismay, he was sprawled next to me with eyes closed. "Sherlock!" I shouted, taking his face in my hands. "Sherlock, wake up!"
Thankfully, his eyes snapped open straight away, but my relief was soon diminished as I saw the look on his face. Worry and anger were prominent in every impossible curve of his face. His perfect, cupid's bow lips turned down into a nasty grimace, and his intense, grey eyes burned with fury. Pulling himself from my grasp, he dashed to the window and looked out.
I followed him and caught my breath in my throat as I saw the destruction of my world. The sky was grey, blanketed my swirling clouds that were spitting out football-sized fireballs everywhere across the city. In the streets, people were screaming frantically and running for their very lives… what else do you do at a time like this? I drew my attention from the window and back to Sherlock, but he was in his own little world: his mind palace.
His arms waved away invisible flies, and his legs walked up imaginary steps; all the while his eyes were screwed tightly shut as he mumbled incoherent words under his breath. I did my best to keep calm, sucking deep but quavering breaths into my lungs. Even though he was in the same room as me, I felt so alone. Hell was pouring down outside, and Sherlock had left me in reality to dive deep inside his mind. I wanted to shake him, hit him even, do anything that would snap him out of this and bring him back to me. This was selfish, of course; in his mind palace, he was most likely working out how to save us all, but I didn't care because the sounds of death and terror where growing louder. All of this demolition was coming closer to us, and I was certain that we needed to move.
"Come on, Sherlock; we've got to move," I told him, putting my hand on his forearm. He ignored me, not even conscious enough to shake off my touch. "Sherlock, we're going to die if we don't leave right now. Come on!" Still, there was no response or recognition. "Listen to me, damnit! Get out of your bloody head, and come back to me!" Fear rising in me, I shook him by the shoulders, but he still kept on with his mutterings and calculations. Expelling a ragged breath, I shouted for Mrs. Hudson. We were going to have to carry him out… well drag him, more like. It might risk our own lives, but I would not leave him. Even when he's far away from me being brilliant in his own head, it's better than not having him near me at all.