Chapter One: Pain
Pain. The pain radiated throughout his body, the epicenter seemingly his mid-left thigh. This constant throbbing, drawn out and persistent, was not a result of muscle atrophy. It seemed to come from within his bones, a black shadow infecting the morrow, turning his bones dry and brittle, seeping outwards into his muscles, his joints.
Intoxicating his blood, this ebony poison circulated around his body, settling around the interior of his mind, tainting the air in his lungs. It was pulsed into his heart, and the black shadow stayed there as well.
Taking the most crucial of his organs, stealing it and transforming from the inside out, this viral pain turned his heart black, completely shelling it of the volumes of feelings that had once resided there. The blackness purged the rest of his body as well, every sentiment he had ever felt deteriorated. He felt the depth of the emotions that once kept him comfortable as well as full. But now that they were no more, the only depth he felt was that of an empty body. The pain was acidic, and now the only feelings it had left him were endless leagues of nothing.
Not even the jet colored pain would take some of the space. It did not cling to the brittle, thin, crackling walls that separated his inner body from his skin, it was not suspended within him, a mass floating in his center, but it became like an airborne pathogen, breaking down to its simplest form and clinging to the molecules of the cold, damp air within him. It did, though, condense at one point - his mid-left thigh.
His upper leg throbbed with grief and longing. With every ounce of pressure on his leg the stiff, sharp black ice stabbed outward, racing downward, upwards, and to both sides instantly.
This pain contrasted the pain everywhere else in his body highly, besides the acute searing through his legs, he was almost thankful he could feel it. In comparison to the bleak, silent sea of endless torment inside of him, a ripping, screaming flash of agony reminded him that he was still capable of experiencing other feelings besides the airborne black pathogen.
But the brief lightning of agony was, in fact, brief. Inside his mind, he would then recover from this bright white agony and return to feeling barren. No thought crossed his mind, only images, basic, primitive feelings, and the consuming blackness.
Images. His brain recognized a possible thought, just a simple word interrupting the silence of his mind
Images. A flapping coat, the look on a person's face as they take a sharp, shocked, frightened inhalation of air. He frantically scrambled to stop the thought process, but more painful images flashed into his mind, whirling about overwhelmingly.
Stop. STOP.
"John?" A weak voice beckoned. The images blipped out of his mind.
"Sorry, what was that Mrs. Hudson?" John answered.
"John, dear, are you feeling alright? You're pale as death." Mrs. Hudson replied.
Realizing what she had said, tears raced to brim at her eyelashes. "Oh, John I'm so sorry.
I did not mean it."
John looked at her, the word hung between them, the air became still and tense. Death. He looked at her intently, his grey and blue eyes boring into hers. She look pale as well, her nicely aged face had turned to white, cold marble, each wrinkle becoming a deep carving instead of a light line of age and wisdom. Death. That word stabbed both him and Mrs. Hudson. To him deep in an unknown part of his body, that had somehow remained pink and vulnerable, small as this area was.
He was familiar with death, the war had given his this familiarity, but the death of his comrades did not stir John as the death of Him seemed to. Words snuck into the barren tundra of his mind, his own words, 'You're a machine…', and another stab to his hidden spot of vulnerability. John composed himself to his formal, soldier, outwardly emotionless self.
"It's fine, really. How about I put on the kettle?"
John gripped his cane vigorously, pulling himself to his feet, and limped painfully to Mrs. Hudson's kitchen, which lay directly under his flat. Our flat, John thought remorsefully. In the silent kitchen, creaking footsteps could be heard upstairs.
Footsteps. In Their flat.
A rush of emotions and questions flooded John. The funeral was only yesterday, he saw His glossy, jet black coffin that was made of ebony lowered into the ground. John stood at His grave, with Mrs. Hudson then alone, he stood in front of His gravestone, saying his farewell, pleading to Him: 'Give me one more miracle Sherlock… Please… Don't be dead.'
John himself had not even slept in the flat that night.
Who is up there?