Prologue

Darkness.

Everything was hidden from view by the black veil of night. The only light was from the stars, but what help are they trying to see anything ahead? There was no sound, not anymore. There was the occasional faint splash of water against the boat, but it made no significant noise, at least not one anyone could hear...That is if anyone was around to hear it.

The water was taunting the boat, coaxing everything around it to be consumed by the dark freezing hell below. It seemed to be an evil creature that was waiting in the darkness for it's next attack.

Waiting.

The moments of life that slipped by seemed like eternities. The mixture of silence and darkness made the time impossible to determine. It was morning, that was certain; the incident happened around midnight, or was it before then? Time had slipped away so quickly as soon as the chaos erupted. That first moment of impact, still lingered in Molly's mind as if it had happened just moments ago. The feeling of that sudden shake echoed through her body as if to add to the intensity of her shivering.

Freezing was too kind of a word to describe how her body felt. Her shaking frame was pressed against her lover's limp body, their arms wrapped around one another to keep each other from falling into the dark abyss below them. This broken, barely afloat, vessel was keeping them alive, that and hope. Hope to be found. Hope to be rescued. Hope to go home.

Hope.

'Wishful thinking', Molly told herself, 'That's what got me here. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so naive?'

She slowly lifted her head from the shoulder it was resting on; the sound of her crackling, frozen hairs made her flinch. She looked straight ahead at the darkness before her and absorbed the sight. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing around them that resembled any form of life. It was a graveyard; bodies of men and women, dressed in their nightclothes, bobbed in the water like corks. Their faces pale and their eyes were black; completely still and emotionless like the faces of porcelain, china dolls. Molly had seen many a dead body before, but not like these. These bodies, these people, didn't have to end up this way.

'These people didn't have to die.' she thought 'They could have had a chance. They could have lived.'

A groan from beside her, broke Molly from her thoughts. It came from him, her love, still clutching to the very edges of consciousness. If it had been any other situation, she would've been overjoyed and ecstatic. Now, however, she was too cold and exhausted to show her happiness. 'At least he's still alive,' she thought, 'I'm not completely alone just yet.' Shaking beyond belief, she gave his frail body a tight squeeze to let him know that she was still alive as well and he, with the little strength he could muster, held back.

"Mmm," was all Molly could dissect from her lover's horse, barely audible moan. Her own voice was completely gone so she couldn't inquire as to what he said, or rather was trying to say. She merely squeezed his hand to the best of her ability, a physical reminder that she was still here.

Her frozen joints ached as she adjusted herself to be face to face with the man she loved. His lips were quivering and blue with a layer of what was no doubt ice outlining his perfect cupid's bow and thin lower lip. Those luscious curls were hard and frozen, dangling in his pale face like icicles. His normally hypnotic, glass-like eyes that would shine a unique bluish green were now gray and unfocused, showing none of their usual spark. If he weren't holding onto her hand and mumbling, Molly would have assumed him lost along with the others around her.

However lifeless and cold those eyes may have appeared, they still struck a cord in Molly's heart. She loved him, truly and deeply. It was the reason they were in this very predicament, laying here in the harsh cold in the middle of nowhere with their arms around each other. She did all of it for him, risked it all for him...gave up everything for him. If only she could, Molly would whisper to him once more those words that ached at her heart strings daily:

'I love you, Sherlock. I love you and I'm sorry.'

His eyes were starting to close and his raspy breathing was becoming more and more labored. 'He's fading,' Molly thought as she raised a shaking hand to cup Sherlock's cheek, 'Please, no. Not like this.' His skin was so cold to the touch that it easily could've been mistaken for stone. Molly just gazed into his eyes and pleaded wordlessly for him to hold on. He was trying, but what use was there now? They both knew that death would be a fact sooner rather than later. They would be together until the very end, just not in the Utopian way they had planed for. They weren't going to make it out of here. This watery, freezing hell was to be their final resting place.

Hope was lost.

Waiting any more would just be in vain.

Darkness was all they would soon know.

Suddenly, a light shown brightly ahead. Molly could only see clearly out of the corner of her gaze, but she knew the light was coming toward them. Was this death, that infamous 'light at the end of the tunnel' so many had alluded to?

"Mm..." Sherlock moaned again, his voice slurring over the attempt at making words. Molly was too focused on the light to try and decipher his groans; she was mesmerized by the warm glow that just seemed to be coming nearer. It was in fact moving closer and closer to them. She could almost feel the warmth radiating from it or was that her imagination just trying to fuel that false hope?

Her lover tried to give out another moan, but it seemed that his weighing strength could no longer let him. Sherlock let out a sound that almost resembled choking on air and then, he let his body go limp in Molly's hold. His eyes finally closed as his weary head fell forward, his chin resting on his chest. He had finally lost all sense of consciousness and quite possibly life. A sense of panic entered Molly's mind, but she was too weak to let it show. She could only keep holding on to him, saying an empty prayer to herself that this light would bring a form of escape and safety for them.

A figure seemed to be holding the light; a tall, thin, dark figure that was nearing them, sliding across the water with ease. It came closer and closer with every blink of Molly's heavy eyelids until finally it seemed to be mere inches away. The figure stood above the pair, like a beacon of some sort. A beacon of hope? Unlikely.

"Can you move at all?" the figure asked of her, but Molly didn't quite understand. It's voice seemed so far away and muffled to her ears, almost as if they were speaking underwater. She opened her mouth, but as expected no words came. Feeling the exhaustion finally taking the best of her, Molly closed her eyes and tuned out of the world around her.

She felt her body being separated from her lover's and then laid down into a cocoon of warmth: blankets, no doubt. A hand brushed across her forehead and it felt so warm against her frozen skin.

"Molly? Molly, can you hear me?" came a voice, one that she was certain she had heard before but just couldn't place the name at the moment.

"We have get them heated back up," the voice of the figure said, "I'll have my team look through all of this mess; God, what the hell happened?"

"You can figure that out at a later moment," snapped the familiar voice, "Right now, I'm going to need some help getting these two back to the ship and warmed up. Greg, can you lift either of them?"

"Of course. The medics are on stand-by when we pull...John, he's not breathing."

"What?...Shit, no. No, no, no. Sherlock? Sherlock, can you hear me? God damn it, let's get moving!"

Molly broke free of the claws of her catatonic state as she heard this. Her eyes fluttered back open and her gaze landed on the small group huddled over a still figure, wrapped up in blankets. It, of course, was her Sherlock, laying ever so still and ever so...lifeless.

'Not breathing.' The phrase echoed through her foggy mind, taunting her into guilt, 'No, not like this. He can't go like this. I promised him, I'd save him. He can't go now.'

"Has he got a pulse?"

"N-no, no. Greg, I...I...Come on Sherlock, don't give up like this!"

"Damn it, can this boat move any faster?!"
"We're going as fast as we can, Detective Inspector."

"Then push yourself and go faster!"

'Giving up.' Molly's mind told her, 'He's giving up...but he can't.'

"Sherlock," she managed to whisper, lifting a shaking hand out of her cocoon of blankets in an attempt to reach out to him.

"Molly, Molly, just rest," came the familiar voice (belonging to John, apparently), "I'll save him, I promise you. Just rest for right now."

"Sherlock." Molly tried again, her sight blurring as she tried to reach the man laying just a few feet from her, "W-wake up...Sherlock...please."

Her fingers gently grazed his stone cold hand, but there came no response. He was so still, almost as if he were in a deep deep sleep. But no, not he wasn't sleep.

He was gone. She was sure of it.

"Sherlock..." Molly pleaded as the darkness of fatigue started to take her again, "...I'm...sorry."

**********
Hello! If you are a returning or new reader, welcome friend.

This is something very new for me in the writing sense and I hope you enjoy it. This, if you couldn't discern from the title is the prologue; The actual story and explanation as to how this happened will come in the following chapters. I wanted to get this out there first before posting the first chapter as a test to see if any interest is sparked. I will be posting the next chapter, which is the real beginning of this tale, very shortly.

Please let me know what you think. It will not go unheard or unappreciated, I assure you.

Much love and many thanks.

Samwise221b