When Sherlock opened his eyes, he thought he was back in Baker Street. The bed was soft, the ceiling was close…too close. The walls were brown and checkered instead of green. Something poked him in the shoulder. He sat up, breathing hard. A young man, or really a teenage boy, about his age, was cautiously watching him from the side of the bed with the biggest eyes Sherlock had ever seen. He was carefully poking Sherlock with his finger.

"Enough," Sherlock said, slapping it away. The boy jolted back and gripped his hand as if Sherlock had smacked it, backing away a bit. Sherlock scanned the area. Steel reinforcement on the walls. Steel door with a keypad, definitely a combination lock. Not the kind you could break down without a weapon. A small, cheap table with folding chairs. Sink. Bathtub. Toilet with no lid. Shelves. Wardrobe. Mini fridge. Rug with an abnormally large stain. Hard floors. The place was built like a box and uncomfortably similar to a solitary confinement cell. Was this the shed from the backyard?

The boy still hadn't blinked or taken his eyes off him. His clothes were ill-fitting and mismatched, and his hair was creeping past his neck and over his forehead. Something about him was familiar, but Sherlock couldn't quite place it.

"Where are we?" he asked. When Sherlock received no answer, he stood up and advanced, causing the boy to back up even more. He was becoming increasingly familiar, and Sherlock was irritated he didn't know why. "Well? Why are you staring at me?"

"You're a real person," he said in a voice barely above a whisper. "An actual real live person like me."

"Yes, thank you for that stunning observation. Now where. Are we."

"I-in Room."

"Room? What room?"

He blinked. "Room."

Sherlock sighed. "You're a wealth of information, aren't you." He stood under the skylight in the center of the area. Since he could see the sky—and not much else, try as he might—that meant this was almost certainly the shed.

"Have to find a way out," he murmured, rushing to the door. Of course it was locked. Sherlock studied the keypad. "The imprints make it clear the code uses the numbers eight, four, five, and nine, but that still leaves dozens of combinations and a system like this shuts down after three attempts." He glanced around. "Best thing to do is to break that skylight." He grabbed the folding chair and tossed it upward, to the shriek of his fellow prisoner.

"Don't do that!" The chair crashed to the ground, having left no effect on the skylight, and the boy scampered out of the way. "Why are you hurting Skylight?"

"To get us out of here, obviously. You could help me, you know."

"Get out of Room?"

Sherlock tried throwing the chair again, to no avail. "Room? Is that what he calls this place? How unimaginative."

"Stop it!"

Sherlock huffed. "That glass must be the toughest variety. If that's the case, it would take specialized equipment to damage it." He sat on the table and tried to think. "There must be another way out of here."

"What do you mean, out of here? There is nowhere else."

Sherlock nearly ignored that, then replayed it in his head and paused. "Nowhere else? What do you mean? Are you saying all the houses in this neighborhood are empty?"

The boy looked hopelessly confused. "I'm saying there's nowhere else unless you count outer space." He pointed to the skylight. "Nick says there's nothing out there though."

"Nick." Sherlock focused his attention on him now. Nick. The man who had kidnapped Jane Watson had kidnapped Sherlock too. God, this was humiliating. Some detective he was, unless maybe he could rescue himself. "So he's the one who put us here. Did he kidnap you too?"

"Kidnap? You're not making any sense," he shook his head.

Was this boy dumb as rocks or what? Sherlock sighed. "All right, let's start with the basics. My name is Sherlock Holmes. What's your name?"

"John."

"John what?"

"Just John."

"You're telling me you don't have a last name?"

"No."

Sherlock wasn't sure how that was possible but decided not to pursue it just yet. "Where are you from?"

John spread his arms. "Here. In Room. Are you from Telly?"

"Am I what?"

"From Telly." John pointed to the set in the corner, which was so old it had antennas. "That's where Nick goes when he gets my food and Sunday treats. Is that where you're from?"

Sherlock tried to wrap his brain around that nonsensical statement. Wait. John had said he was from Room…did that mean he was taken here as a child? Sherlock stood up suddenly. He moved closer to John, who tensed but didn't stop him, and moved his hair back to take a look at his eyes.

Jane Watson. That was why John had been familiar. His eyes were just like the girl's from the photograph.

"How old are you, John?"

"Nineteen."

So that was it. "Of course," Sherlock said, more to himself than to John. "Nick abducted a teenage girl so he could rape her and keep her accessible, and he impregnated her, and she had a son. And her son grew up here…" He had a feeling he knew the answer but was still compelled to ask, "What happened to your mother?"

John shook his head. "I don't have a mother. What are you on about?"

"Yes you do, everyone has a mother."

"Who's everyone?"

"Never mind." Since Jane Watson wasn't around and John seemed to have no memory of her, it wasn't hard to guess what had happened. "Has anyone else ever been in here? Besides Nick, I mean."

John started to say no, then stopped to think. "Sometimes I think I remember a lady being in Room. She was screaming and saying no, and she and Nick were fighting. Then he punched her, and there was a crack. But when I told Nick about it, he said it never happened, so I guess I dreamed it and got confused."

Sherlock squeezed his shoulder, and John jumped. He's not used to human contact, Sherlock realized. Had John really grown up here? Lived in this box all by himself for nineteen years? "That wasn't a dream, John. That was your mother, Jane Watson. Nick must have killed her." Sherlock stumbled to the bed and sank onto it.

For God's sake. He had solved the case, at least. Jane Watson had been kidnapped by a sexual predator named Nick, imprisoned in "Room," or Nick's shed, given birth to his son, and been killed by him, probably when John was a small child since he had some recollection of it. That would mean she had been living in this, this tiny box with her rapist, for at least three years and nine months. Maybe even longer. Sherlock's stomach twisted at the thought. Someone as smart as Jane would have certainly tried to unlock the door and break the skylight. If after three or four or even five years she hadn't escaped, it was clear that the shed was designed to be escape-proof. Nick was smarter than Sherlock had given him credit for. And somehow, he had kept her son imprisoned for his entire life too.

But why? Sherlock put his fingers to his chin. Why did he allow Jane's son to stay? He must have been worried he'd get caught otherwise. Sherlock also briefly wondered why he had killed Jane, but that wasn't as hard to figure out. Someone as aggressive and dangerous as Nick would certainly fly into a violent rage every now and then. The murder may not have even been intentional; if there was a "crack," as John said, he may have simply hit her too hard and caused her head to hit the wall or floor or her neck to twist.

Which meant it didn't look good for Sherlock.

Stay calm. Maybe he would see something Jane hadn't. He paced the shed. Eliminating the skylight, the door, and the walls as a possibility meant his only hope of escape would come from the floor.

"Move," he said, shoving John out of the way. "Hey!" John protested, still flinching from the touch. Sherlock couldn't take much notice, as he was pulling the rug up and tossing it aside to feel the floor underneath. Solid concrete…wait. There was a small crack, and he followed it under the bed, where it grew until it split open. Chainmail. Signs of digging. Panic was setting in.

Jane Watson tried to dig her way out of here only to find this. He didn't know what she had used to do it, but the small holes and lack of much progress meant it wasn't a shovel. Nick would never have allowed her to have something she could use to hurt him. Most likely she had hit the concrete hard with something and then used a shoe or a similar item for the rest.

Sherlock crawled out from under the bed, and the toilet caught his eye again. Maybe the lid had been what she'd used to crack the concrete, and that was why it was missing? Either that or she had tried to hit Nick with it. Sherlock hoped it was the latter.

"What are you doing? Why did Nick bring you here?" John asked.

Sherlock huffed. "Because that's what kidnappers do, John. They kidnap people. Now, do you know if there is any way out of here?"

"There's Door," John said, nodding to it. "But only Nick can go out of there."

So nothing then. Sherlock sat on the bed. There had to be a way. Maybe if he and John both took on Nick at once…but that was a dangerous move because either he could kill them or they could end up killing him, in which case they would both starve to death. The same would happen if Sherlock tried the codes, guessed wrong, and ended up locking Nick out.

"Seriously, who are you?" John asked, annoyed.

"Sherlock," he replied, and curled up, retreating into his mind palace. He would need to think hard to avoid a panic.