I know it sounds cliché, but what happened to me actually did happen on a momentous day. My birthday, of course. Not when I was actually born, no. it was quite a few years after, when I had turned thirty. My colleague, Mike Stamford, and I were working late in his laboratory. It was my birthday and Mike had invited another one of his friends to join us in the lab. His friend was a bit of a psycho, to say the least. He kept going on about these crazy experiments he was working on and how it would be beneficial to have a human subject. Mike was slipping out of consciousness and I was absolutely wasted so I agreed to help him out. He gave me a smile that, now that I look back on the occasion, should have deterred me from assisting this madman. Yet I still stretched my body out on that table, I still let some mystery fluids be pumped into my system and I still smiled when he swore and panicked that it was going wrong.
What a fool I was back then.
I stretched out my sleeping limbs, eyes squinting away from the bright light shining in my face and shivered from the cold. I glanced around the room, taking in the shiny equipment and the sickly pale blue tint of the wall tiles. It looked like some sort of hospital. I glanced at the chubby man sitting on a stool next to me and ran a profile match up in my head. Mike Stamford. He's put on weight.
"How long?" I asked bluntly. Mike raised an eyebrow but still kept that placidly idiotic smile on his face.
"Oh, so no 'Good Morning' then?" he rebutted casually. I glared at him, trying to figure out why he was dodging my question with only half my brain woken up.
"How long?" I asked again, sharper this time. Mike thinned the side of his mouth and looked away from me.
"A couple of years," he answered finally. I narrowed my eyes further and swung my legs around so the entirety of my body faced him.
"A couple as in 'two' or a couple as in 'I don't really want to tell you because then you'll get mad'?"
"The second one."
"How long have I been frozen, Mike?"
"You do realise you've got no clothes on, right?"
"HOW. LONG?"
Mike paused and shifted awkwardly on the stool. He looked up at my stern face and braced himself for my reaction.
"Ten years."
"Ten years? So I'm forty-five?"
"Well, technically yes, but physically you're still thirty-five," I groaned at him and sunk my head into my hands. Ten years. Ten bloody years.
"What about my apartment?"
"It's still the same. Like you never left," Mike smiled.
"And Irene?" I asked, lifting my head slightly to glare at him. He shifted again and avoided looking at me.
"Dead," he said finally.
"Ah," never liked her anyway, I thought, "Mike?"
"Yes, Sherlock?"
"I'm going to need a new flatmate."
"Of course," and with that, Mike waddled out of the room, leaving me to fully waken to my surroundings.
I felt hungry. Extremely hungry. Well, ten years of not eating will do that. I sat down at the workbench when I heard a faint knocking at the door.
"Molly. Come in," I called at the door. Molly poked her mousy face around the door and smiled that dreadful smile at me.
"Sherlock, it's good to see... you..." she trailed as she realised I was nude. She subtly tried to look under the workbench, but I cut her off with meaningless small talk.
"So, what brings you here?"
"Oh, right," she snapped back to reality, holding up a suit, "the Professor asked me to give you this."
"I don't see why he couldn't come down himself," I mumbled solemnly, "just leave it on the table."
"He's probably really busy at the moment, Sherlock."
"He's always busy," I whined as I put the suit on, the bench still covering my nudity, "let's face it, Molly, he thinks I'm an abomination."
Molly sighed lightly and stepped out on the room with a friendly goodbye. I finished putting on my suit and looked around for something interesting to do. It was probably best not to leave the room, seeing as how I was waiting for Mike to return, but then again...
"Molly!" I called into the corridor. The brunette turned and gave me a timid smile in return, "Molly, I need a favour."
"Bad day?" she asked as I wiped my brow on my sleeve. I glared at her and placed the riding crop on the table behind me. I refrained from stating the obvious and saying 'Yes, Molly, I have had a bad day. I woke up not two hours ago to discover I had been frozen for ten years!', so I left her standing awkwardly as I wordlessly exited the room and returned to the lab. The morgue was too depressing today. I had only just sat back down on the lab stool when I heard the door open. Mike smiled at me as I came in and I scowled at him. I swear if he's brought me another wom-
"Bit different from my day," commented the ex-army doctor as he stepped into the room. My face smoothed out in surprise and I stood as Mike introduced him as John Watson, an old friend of his. I pushed a key into his offering of a handshake and told him to meet me in an hour.
I had business to attend to.
I leaned against a wall in an alleyway about five minutes from my flat, analysing everyone that happened to pass by. Eventually, a woman in her late twenties came into the alleyway and stood next to me.
"I see you're too busy to make it in person," I commented dryly. The woman put her finger to her ear and bowed her head slightly.
"Not busy, my dear. Just vulnerable. You know how it is."
"I know how it is to be vulnerable, yes. But I'm still out roaming the streets," I snapped, keeping my eyes off the woman. There was a long pause before she spoke again.
"It's just how you turned out. I didn't mean to make you vulnerable."
"Choose your words carefully, Professor. This woman may know too much," after saying this, the woman gave a slight yelp. I glanced at her and noticed that her expression adopted a look of fear an surprise.
"What does he mean?" she asked out of character, "he said he's going to take care of me, what does he mean?" she looked around frantically and I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling the point of a needle trying to pierce through the tip of my index finger from the inside. I could hear her heart pounding in her chest and she cried out, no doubt aware of a sniper dot on her. I flattened myself against the wall and took deep breaths, trying to steady my uncontrolled excitement. I could tell that by mow she was thinking of her loved ones, her memories probably flashing before her eyes. Just one prick, a dark voice droned in my head, just one. You can't fight me. You can't fight your hunger either. The woman's voice hitched as a sniper bullet tore through her chest. She crumpled to the ground and I fell to my knees next to her, panting in time with her final heart beats. Three...two...one...silence. She was dead. Such a waste, the darkness commented. I shook my head and made my way towards Baker Street. Typical, I thought as I walked away from the alley, he tells me to meet him urgently and doesn't even tell me what he wanted.
As I approached my flat, I saw Dr. Watson had arrived early, standing calmly with his legs parted slightly and his hands behind his back. His face remained blank as he looked up at me. I greeted him with a little trivia on my landlady's "special deal" for the rent. His eyes widened in surprise as he asked if I got him off the death penalty.
"Oh no, I ensured it," I smiled briefly as I unlocked the door an went inside, "I'm surprised you didn't come in and have a look earlier, I did give you the spare key."
"Which wasn't a very smart thing to do," Dr. Watson mumbled audibly. I turned to face him just as we were about to enter my flat.
"Why not? You're a friend of Mike's. A close friend, from the sounds of it. You trained at Bart's together, and you're an ex-army doctor. You're trained to protect people, not inflict pain. And I doubt you've deviated from this training as you were discharged for an injury, not for any other reason. Thus it seemed perfectly fine to let you have the key so you could take a look while waiting for me," I explained calmly before turning to open the door to my flat. I held it open for him. He stepped in, and as he did I saw his face light up in awe. I supposed he liked the flat. That was good. He locked eyes with me as he looked around, and I could basically feel the excitement coming from him. He opened his mouth in a slight 'oh' as he remembered something.
"By the way, I looked you up on the internet," he stated calmly.
"Oh," I replied dismissively, "anything interesting?"
"Says you've been missing for ten years."
"Holiday," I commented quickly, leaving no room for hesitation.
"For ten years?" he asked suspiciously.
"Extended holiday," I saw the faintest of smiles creep its way across his face.
"All right then," he concluded, turning to look around again. I walked past him and slumped onto the sofa as he wandered around the house.
"So when will you be moving in? Sometime today, I expect?"
"What? I never said I'd be-"
"Doctor, it's pretty obvious that you like the place. No- Don't try to object. I can tell," John closed his mouth as quickly as he had opened it in protest, "you may move in any time you like. I'm going to be busy for the next few hours so I believe that would be an appropriate time seeing as how I won't be here to get in your way."
"Oh. Well... Thank you. I guess I'll go and pack my things," he trailed as he walked towards the door. Five minutes after he left, I got up and stepped out onto the unusually quiet street. Heading towards the alleyway I was in before returning to the flat, I noticed the amount of people became less as I walked along. Eventually I came to the corner of the alleyway and calmly peered inside. It was exactly how I suspected it to be. Empty. I pulled out my sliding lens and inspected the ground. Nothing. It was definitely the work of the Professor. I turned out of the alleyway. I paused and double-took a the corner of the wall. There was a very, very tiny drop of glowing white that could have been mistaken for a piece of glass. I crouched next to it and pulled out my lens once more. I glanced around quickly to see if anyone was in the street. Oddly enough, it was practically deserted, so I crouched lower and slid my tongue out of my mouth, lowering it with anticipation towards the substance on the ground. As soon as my tongue pressed against it, I felt a warm tingle shudder through my body. Whiteness clouded my vision and I felt as thought I was in a state of euphoria. My right index finger started to tremble, the needle within again trying to pierce through my skin. I got up quickly and leaned against the wall, breathing as deeply as I could to try and calm myself down. I could feel the inside of my mouth becoming moist and my throat was burning for more. The sounds of life snapped me back into reality, making me sway as the euphoria left my system. I steadied myself against a wall and slowed my breathing down further. I ran back towards the flat, sweeping through the streets and dodging cars that got in my way. I hastily put the keys into the lock on the flat door and hurried inside. I was greeted by a very bewildered doctor with a small box in his hands.
"Mr. Holmes!" He greeted cheerily, "welcome back!"
"You're here early, Doctor," I commented, frantically searching the bookcase.
"Yeah, well I... Mr. Holmes? Are you alright?"
"Sherlock. Fine."
"You're shaking, are you sure you're alright?"
"I'm fine," I reiterated, flipping through the pages of an old address book. I pointed dramatically at an entry in the book and rushed off almost as quickly as I had come in, still leaving Doctor Watson puzzled in my flat.
"Sherlock! Hi!"
I smiled as warmly as possible in Molly's presence. She showed me inside and talked to me about trivial matter in her life over the past ten years. I interrupted her, thankfully, diverting the conversation to a pressing issue.
"You know why I came here, Molly. Surely the Professor told you. There's no way he left it there accidentally," Molly's face dropped as I spoke, she sighed heavily and sat back in her chair.
"It was a trap, Sherlock," she stated quietly.
"I know. That's why I'm here," I elaborated, keeping my voice even. Molly sighed again and looked to the floor. She buried her face in her hands and took a deep breath in, mentally bracing herself for what I was about to do. She clutched my hand and looked up at me weakly, her lips trembling ever so slightly. I could feel her pulse beating steadily through her fingers, it was beginning to grow to the point where I could hear it pounding in her chest. My mouth moistened again, the needle in my finger finally piercing painfully through the skin. I winced in pain and Molly gasped slightly, her heart beat rising just enough for it to drum into my skull. I started to tremble again, my tongue flicking against the inside of my bottom lip. I exhaled with shaky breaths and slowly reached forward, ripping the front of her blouse as I leaned forward. Molly had gone silent, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing her lips together as a physical brace. I raised my finger, the glimmering fang-like needle shining in the dim light of the room. Beads of crimson dripped down her body as I forced it into her chest. After the initial drips of blood, a glowing, white substance began to leak from her wound. As soon as my tongue caught a drop of the substance, I whited out with euphoria. I recall draining her of the substance. I recall her screaming in pain as her heart shrivelled up. I recall her dying.
I also recall not caring at all. I got what I wanted. I didn't care about anyone else.
I woke the next morning to find I was in my own flat. I sat up in surprise and my vision blackened as the blood rushed around my head. Right, I thought, getting up quickly is a bad idea. I filed this for future reference. I was startled when I heard a noise downstairs, but the second of fear died as my brain reminded me that Doctor Watson had moved in. I got up out of my bed and noted that I was still wearing my suit from yesterday afternoon. Not the best start to my... I peered out the window from behind the curtains, revealing a deep orange light that smothered the city outside, afternoon? I shook my head, heading towards the bathroom. After peeling off my sweat-drenched clothes, I had a quick shower to eliminate any excess perspiration and quickly got changed into a silky purple shirt and black dress pants. I headed downstairs and plopped myself on the sofa. Doctor Watson cheerily entered the room shortly afterwards with tea.
"Well, good morning," he greeted, setting a extra cup on the table.
"It's afternoon. Are you expecting company?"
"I was being sarcastic, And no, it's for you. You look like you need it."
"I don't drink tea," I groaned, "or coffee, before you ask."
"Not very British of you," he joked. I smiled briefly at him, which made him seem a little happier. Odd man... I noted, returning to stare at the ceiling and recollect my memories from last night. Unfortunately, I failed. But don't tell anyone.
"Sherlock...?" Doctor Watson started in a concerned tone.
"Doctor Watson?" I replied cautiously. He glanced at me and gave me permission to just call him 'John'. I agreed and changed my reply to suit his correction.
"I don't mean to impose on your," John cleared his throat, "personal life, but... well..."
"Yes, John? Go ahead," I encouraged. I was confused as to the nature of his questioning, thus I wished to clear it up as soon as possible.
"Do you remember what you did when you got back to the flat last night?"
Shit.
"Pardon?" I asked casually. John smiled awkwardly and looked into his tea.
"Do you remember last night? After you came home?"
"No."
"Would you like me to enlighten you?"
Double shit.
"Maybe?"
"'cause I wrote it on my blog."
"You what?"
"I haven't posted it. I just thought 'I really need to write this down to see if I can make sense of this.' It didn't seem to help. Care to take a look?" I reluctantly agreed and John passed me the laptop near the coffee table. I opened it and read the document in front of me.
Personal Blog of Doctor John H. Watson. So. This morning my old friend Mike Stamford comes up to me and offers to introduce me to a friend of his looking to share his flat. It's in a nice part of London and the rent is affordable (the landlady, Mrs. Hudson, gave us a special deal. She's a lovely woman.)
Draft entry- 19/07/2011
The tenant that's now living with me is... well, he's interesting. One of those mysterious types. You know, "tall, dark and handsome"? Well that's him in a nutshell. A very tiny nutshell. A
So I'm sitting down having a cuppa, right? Then suddenly Mr. Sopping-Wet-Trenchcoat bursts into the room with a look of a rabid dog. Teeth bared in a predatory smile, eyes blazing, skin drenched from the rain (at least I hope it was rain), he peels off his trenchcoat, starts yammering on about blood and suckers and hermaphrodites... seriously, hermaphrodites. I had no idea what was going on. He rushes over to the fridge, pulls out the tub of butter at the pack of it (which I had only just learnt had body parts in it), pulls out a finger, puts it in his mouth and continues to rush about the place, shouting incoherently at a skull he picked up off the mantle while a dead man's (or woman's) finger flaps about in his jaws. He then stops, spits the finger out, looks at the aforementioned butter in the fridge and rushes to his room. As I cleaned up the trail of destruction he made, I heard his silky, baritonal voice retching into his toilet.
I think I can safely say this was one of my more... eventful days.
-Dr. John Watson."Oh," I said finally.
"'Oh' indeed, Sherlock. Care to explain?"
"Well... the vomiting was because of the butter."
"And not the finger?"
"It might have been both," I turned to face him. John was sitting in his chair with one arm folded across his chest and his other hand pinching the bridge of his nose, "look, I'm not apologising for something I don't remember, but all I can say is I will try to make sure it doesn't happen again."
"Thank you."
"Now," I concluded, standing up, "I'm going to be busy again today, so-"
"So you expect me to stay here like some boring old flatmate?"
"On the contrary," I smiled, "I was going to ask you to come with me."
The next few weeks were hard. Well, for me anyway. The urge to once again drain a life was overpowering at some points, especially when John's heart beat pounded in my ears. The spike would prick through my skin and I had to be careful when I was around him. It was hard to ward off suspicion with a poor ruse such as a clumsy fingertip. One day my hunger became so intolerable that my spike pierced through and extended almost to the length it had when I visited Molly last. John had me pinned against a wall to try and shield me from some criminals who were running after us. I could feel each throb of his heart pressing into my lower chest and the sensation was becoming too much. I had to admit that even in the short period I had known him, I was growing fond of this man, and it was getting harder to hide my urges from him. My mouth was moistening again and I could feel John's breath on my face as he held me firmly against the wall. I turned my head and shut my eyes to try and block out the thoughts that flooded into my head, but they pushed through, and in the haze of my breathless panting and rushing thoughts, I didn't notice a drop of saliva falling from my mouth until it had hit the opening on my fingertip. I cursed and quickly retracted the needle protruding from my finger. It was more painful and difficult than words can explain. I clutched at my finger, swearing in pain at the deepness of the wound. And because I had stupidly drooled on it, it wasn't going to stop bleeding any time soon.
John cried out as the blood poured from my wound, I could feel him catch me as I collapsed in the alley, blood still pouring out in a steady stream.
The last thing I saw were sirens as I blacked out in John's arms.
I woke up in hospital. There was a IV in my arm and tiny noises of hospital machinery filling my ears.
"Oh, thank God. Sherlock, are you okay?" came the sound of a distressed John. I nodded, finding that it was too difficult to speak.
"You've been unconscious overnight. The paramedics said the reason you collapsed so quickly is because you're pretty anaemic to begin with. God, I'm so stupid. I should have made you eat something."
"Joh-" I wheezed, then coughed, "John... It's not your fault."
"Yes it bloody well is! I'm a doctor, Sherlock, it's my job to keep people alive. You could have died."
"But I didn't John. You have to stop worrying. I'm fine now."
"Actually..."
"What?" I asked, surprised. I tried to roll over and look at him but my muscles felt sore and heavy, "what's wrong?"
"You are. There was something... something in your wound. They tried to get it out but it wouldn't budge. They also found out that the reason your blood wasn't clotting and healing for hours was that there was an anticoagulant on your wound. Not only that but your sodium levels are extremely low. They're going to feed you some salty foods and then-"
"No!"
"What?"
"They can't feed me anything salty!"
"Why on Earth not?"
"You won't understand! Just don't do it, okay?"
"Alright Sherlock, calm down," he finished. We sat in silence for a few minutes so we could settle back into our normal states, "Sherlock?"
"Hmm?"
"Why won't you tell me? Are you allergic, or maybe you just don't like sal-"
"It will kill me."
"Wait, what? Kill you? I don't think-"
"If I ingest anything even remotely salty, I will vomit up anything I have eaten, and once that has been regurgitated, my insides will follow and I will die a slow an very painful death. So again, please refrain from doing so."
"What, are you like a snail or something?" he joked. I managed to turn and glare at him.
"I'm a leech, John," I stated dryly. John started to chuckle awkwardly before realising that I wasn't joking.
"Please tell me you're joking. Please."
"I can't do that, John. I'm sorry."
"Oh, God... You're serious... How?"
"Pardon?"
"How did it happen? Were you born like that or-"
"You remember Bart's, yes? Well, a friend of Mike's was a very prestigious professor there, he decided to show us some of his experiments for my birthday fifteen years ago..."
"Jim! You came!" said Mike enthusiastically, "This is the birthday boy, Sherlock Holmes." Over the next few weeks, I couldn't figure out what it was that satiated me. Initially, we thought it would be blood, seeing as how the genes the professor injected into me were extracted from a leech, but it appeared that this wasn't the case. I managed to move into a flat with a friend of Mike's wife. Her name was Irene. I could tell somehow that she was attracted to me, but I didn't feel the same way for her. One morning she was preparing breakfast for herself when she cut her finger on a knife. Instead of a steady flow of crimson, there was a glittering stream of white. So I'm really sorry if you're confused at all, I'm working on a sequel as I said.
"Pleasure to meet you, Sherlock. I hear you're quite an intelligent young man," said the professor, beaming brightly at me.
"The pleasure's all mine," I responded. I had read quite a lot of his work, and saw how intelligent the professor was. It was a delight to be in his presence.
We had a few drinks and Jim started to explain this crazy new experiment he was working on. It involved gene splicing to create more intelligent humans using mutations from animals. He asked us if we wanted to see it happen. Mike was nodding off so I said we'd leave him be and go watch the experiment in action. He showed me some animals that had been given mutations, such as snakes that could see as far as an eagle. He said that he'd love to try and experiment on a human but he could never find any volunteers. I had always stood in awe of the professor, so I jumped at the chance to help him with one of his experiments. He strapped me down to a metal table and went through a shelf of vials. He pulled out one and loaded the liquid into a syringe. He injected the fluid into my arm and told me to relax. I was starting to doze off myself, but my face slowly contorted in pain as his experiment took effect. It felt like the bones in my fingers were extending and piercing through my skin. I cried out in pain as each broke through with a splatter of crimson. I started to salivate heavily, coughing up the saliva into my clawed hands. I could tell Jim had been worrying and cursing that it had gone wrong long before I realised what was happening to me.
"Sherlock! No! It's hirudin! Your bleeding won't stop unless you stop coughing into your hands!"
I cried out again as the claws continued to extend through my fingers. I grabbed hold of one of the spikes on my left hand and ripped it out, inwardly begging for it to stop. I had managed to pull nine of the claws out before o couldn't take the pain any more. Hirudin was dripping down my torso and the bench I had broken free of, as well as the floor of the lab, were covered in blood. Tears streamed down my face and I started to sob as the pain very slowly ebbed away.
"What have you done to me?" I cried, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"
"You... You were the one that volunteered," the professor replied in false cheeriness, rushing out of the room as I collapsed onto the bench.
Mike had managed to find me in his drunken confusion and haphazardly put bandages on my hands. We helped each other out and Mike took me back to his flat.
"Irene?"
"Yes?"
"What's that coming out of your finger?"
"Umm... Blood? And it's not coming out, the bleeding's stopped."
"No, the other thing. The white stuff."
"What are you talking about?"
"Never mind," I concluded exhaustedly. Once Irene had turned to wash the blood off, I scraped the substance into a small jar and took it to Mike.
"But it's right there, Mike"
"Maybe only you can see it? Maybe this is the thing you need to feed on?"
"Perhaps. What should I do?"
"Try a bit," I did as he suggested, hesitantly licking a tiny bit of the substance. I fell into euphoria, feeling light-headed and reckless,like the effects of alcohol had been concentrated and multiplied a million times.
"How do you feel?" I described the symptoms to Mike and his face lit up as I finished my diagnosis of myself.
"Sounds like you're in love, Sherlock," he laughed.
"Maybe that's it, Mike. Maybe I feed off love."A/N
Okay, hi.
This was written for Benedict's Birthday Bash which is organised by the lovely OperaGoose. As some of you who may have read some of my other work will know, and others will not, I have no computer a lot of the time. In fact, I only had my computer for a week and a half these holidays. I'm in the middle of packing for my new house and if I wasn't doing that then I was finishing Ocarina Of Time on 3DS and if not that I was doing other things (including the chapters for my others stories) because I had writer's block for this a hell of a lot. I am planning on doing a sequel in my spare time to conclude this story properly and fill in any information gaps, but I hope you really like it so far. The reason why I can't work on it later is because the removalists are coming in eight hours (it's midnight) and it needs to be in before Benny's big day, of course.
Thanks soooo much for reading :3
SH