"It's obvi-" Sherlock's words were cut short by the lack of air in his lungs. He couldn't breathe. He collapsed on the floor, his body contorting, his limbs stretched and bent at odd, sickening angles. John was by his side in an instant, but he had no idea what to do. The last thing Sherlock heard was a scream of call the ambulance- it was John, he could see that, but his voice was distorted, sounding completely different. For the first time since he was a child, the Consulting Detective was scared, really, genuinely scared. The cry for an ambulance, the last thing he heard; John's face, the last thing he saw; pure fear, the last thing Sherlock Holmes felt, before his clinical death.
The mind palace; it always looked the same on his quest for information, a fact hidden somewhere in the recess of his mind, under a rug, in a cupboard, sometimes written on a note and stuffed in a piggy bank. He just had to look and he would find it, but this time, there was nothing to find. So why was he there?
"I- he can't be...can't be dead..." Sherlock heard John say somewhere in the distance, his voice choked.
"John? John!"
"I'm very sorry, Mr. Watson." said a voice he didn't recognize. Could be a doctor. The voice had some of John's familiar, reassuring tones, always calm and measured.
"John!"
Come on, Sherlock, think. That's what you do best. Better than anyone else... how would do you contact someone who isn't close enough to talk to? Ah...the telephone. Sherlock pulled his Blackberry out of his pocket- why it was there, he didn't know -and called John's number.
"Sherlock?" said John, sounding surprised. It had worked...
"John, help, I think I'm stuck in the mind palace, help me..."
"Nurse! His eyes are open!"
John couldn't hear him, obviously, but he knew that Sherlock wasn't dead. Dead to the world, perhaps in a coma, but not dead to John. His John. As long as he was alive, John would be there for him. He missed him already...
Help me, John...