Chapter Eleven
The floor. What if there was a door in the floor, or maybe above him? John had checked the walls, but he had not tried to find any irregularities on the floor. There must have been an entrance, and he would find it.
John kept his phone in his hand, warming it, hoping to prolong the battery power. He was still freezing, but his feet weren't so cold anymore. As long as he moved, he would be fine. His brain told him that he should use the remaining power of his phone to search for a door on the ground or above him, but his heart told him to wait; to wait for Sherlock to call him back.
Moving all of his clothes to one corner of the room, he started to run his hand over the moist concrete of the floor. It took him a long time and he was freezing and sore from his crouching position, but at least he felt like he was doing something useful. And he needed to use any chance he had to get out of this.
The floor was perfectly smooth, well, as smooth as concrete could be. When he had reached the opposite corner of the room, his fingers numb from the cold, John felt the panic return. What if there was no exit? What if the walls had been closed around him, leaving him with no chance of escape? No, that couldn't be it. He had had no trouble with his phone, so the concrete was either very thin or the room wasn't shut off above him.
He put the fingers of his left hand into his mouth to warm them up and he tasted blood. Slowly, he felt the numbness give way to pain and he winced. This was not how things were supposed to be. He was supposed to be home, and his fingers weren't supposed to be bleeding from tracing the concrete floor, but they were supposed to tingle from tracing Sherlock's skin.
John closed his eyes against the darkness. He started to feel miserable, and he knew that it was dangerous. If he lost hope, he would grow cold much faster, he would stop moving and eventually he would just give up. And giving up was not something he did.
So he decided to do the only thing that was sensible to do. He switched on the phone and pointed it upwards. With a sinking heart he saw the light disperse into darkness. The ceiling must have been higher than the light could reach. And even as he walked along the walls, checking for any doors or windows above his head, he didn't find anything.
If this was a dream, he hoped that he would wake up soon. But he had never had a dream like this and it felt too real, the pain felt too real.
It was a test. It must have been a test. Moriarty had put him here to test his patience, to see if he could break him.
Suddenly it all made sense. He was only alive because Moriarty wanted to play with him. Sherlock did not know where he was, and as long as Sherlock hadn't found him, John was a pet. A new idea struck. What if he wasn't quite as alone as he thought? He hadn't heard any noises, but he could at least try to call for help. So he did.
He called for help, for anybody to answer him. Then, feeling frustration grab hold of him, he started cursing, cursing Moriarty and his bloody awful concept of fun. He cursed until he felt his voice give, at which point he decided to stare at the invisible ceiling, just in case there was a camera that could record it. Thinking about it, it was very likely that a camera should record his every move, and he could positively see Moriarty sitting somewhere in a room, laughing his hysterical laughter at the way John crawled over the ground to find an escape! Just to make sure, he flipped the ceiling off.
Two seconds later he started laughing at himself. He sounded hoarse and almost mad, very unlike himself, but he did not care anymore. The darkness was getting to him. He never ever flipped anyone off. It was silly, well, at least he had always thought that.
Alright, he needed to stop being silly and concentrate. He touched his skin and felt how cold he was. He was almost dry, but he needed to move to keep warm. Crossing his arms, he pushed his sore hands under his arm pits, feeling the pain more prominently than he had before.
Slowly, he could feel exhaustion settling in. He had been pacing the room for what felt like hours. His feet were warm, but the rest of his body was clearly not. The socks on his jacket were still damp, but he wasn't sure whether it would make a difference anymore. His body temperature was dropping, he could feel it. It wasn't so bad yet, but he knew that a few more hours in this place would leave him exhausted and if he stopped moving...
"Jesus." He tried to calm himself down again. Allowing his thoughts to go there was the worst thing he could do. It pained him, but he imagined himself back in Afghanistan. If he had been captured, this might have been pretty close to a prison, underground, or in a cave. The conditions could have been the same. He would be blindfolded, naked, starving, probably bleeding and cold. He had heard enough stories to know that in the end everyone reached their limit. The threat of torture could be more effective than actual physical pain. It shouldn't have, but it worked. He calmed down.
Putting his mind into a different time and place, John managed to not think about what might happen to him, and that made it safe. His paces were slowing, and he used just enough energy to keep moving, but not too much to exhaust himself. The phone was pressed against his skin under his armpit, together with his bleeding hand. The pain seemed to give his situation another dimension and slowly he managed to get rid of the anger and fear he had felt before. If anything would happen, he would be prepared, and if nothing happened, well, he would not let himself go mad.
When the light was switched on, a sharp pain cut through his eyes and his legs gave in. He felt an even sharper pain in his knees as they hit the ground. The light was unnaturally bright, and John knew that it was supposed to keep him from seeing anything. He pressed one hand over his eyes and blinked rapidly, groaning in pain.
He could hear the switch before the light went out, and blue shades danced across his eyes for a long time. His head swam and he felt like he was going to be sick. Letting himself fall sideways he finally took his weight of his burning knees. Whatever this had been, it was closer to being held prisoner of war in Afghanistan than he would have liked to admit. For a while he just lay there, feeling the icy cold seep through him, holding him down like dead hands in a horror film. He knew he needed to move, but he was exhausted now, and the cold wasn't really that bad. He could get used to it.
The ring of his phone jerked him out of his almost melancholic state. He sat up, hastily, grabbing his phone that had slid to the ground.
"Hello?" His voice did not sound like him.
"John!" It's Sherlock, John thought, his heart starting to pound and he could feel relief wash through him.
"John, what happened? Are you okay? Where are you? No, no, concentrate." John had to smile at Sherlock's familiar way of talking to himself.
"I know where you are. At least I think I know where you are. Five acts, John, five. You are the fifth. He's going to make you fall. Don't let him." He sounded desperate, as if he knew that he couldn't help him.
"Sherlock, where are you?"
"Lestrade's office. The time, the pattern was right, only I didn't see. The blog, your blog, the numbers, it all makes sense now."
"Sherlock, I talked to Carl and the girl, Miranda, she brought me tea, I think it must have been..." he suddenly couldn't talk anymore. It was as if his tongue was suddenly too heavy. The phone slipped from his hands and he could only watch it fall. Then he fell back, as if in slow motion and the last thing he heard was Sherlock saying his name over and over again.
It took a while for him to realise that his body was paralysed while he was still awake. Every now and then a jolt went through his body, as if electricity was running though him. His phone was dead again and this time he was sure that it would not work again, no matter how much he tried to warm it up. And right now the real priority was his own body heat. But then again, he did not really feel very cold at all. No, he didn't feel anything. Light pressure from below, but the pain in his fingers and his knees had simply disappeared.
Well, he thought, suddenly very calm, at least he had heard Sherlock's voice one last time.
When he opened his eyes again, he could feel his body with intensified clarity. He ached all over and his head felt as if it was going to split. The darkness was still complete, and so was the silence. Nothing had changed, really. He still had his shoes and shorts on, most of his body attached painfully to the icy wet floor. John knew that he had to move, that he had to get up and get as warm as possible, but when he tried to sit up he felt the world spin, so he closed his eyes again and tried to focus on his breathing.
Sherlock had said he knew where he was. How could he know? John was relieved that his brain still seemed to work, despite the pain that seemed to be the most prominent of his feelings. The cold didn't seem so bad, but he knew that it was very dangerous.
"Get up!" he told himself. "Get up, slowly. No sudden moves." His voice helped him to focus and he managed to push himself up on his elbows. "Good, that's good. Now sit." He spoke through clenched teeth, trying to motivate his body to listen. His arms were shaking and the pain in his fingers was back when he pushed himself up into a sitting position. With a grunt he pulled his legs to his body, wrapping his arms around them, pressing his thighs against his chest. He rested his face on his knees and started to breathe warm air against his skin. "It's going to be okay."
For a while he stayed like this, waiting for his body to warm up again. He could feel blood dry on his knees, and he knew that he must have looked bloody awful. Sherlock would have a heart attack if he saw him like this. John had to smile. No matter what they had done to him, he would get out of here. Sherlock knew where he was, he had solved the puzzle, he would come and get him. A shudder ran through his body and John wasn't quite sure whether it was the cold or whether it was something else. He must have been drugged, it was obvious now. His pulse was still too fast and the weird paralysis must have been caused by the same drug that made him fall asleep and knocked him out clean so he could be transported to this godforsaken place.
John knew that he would have to stand up so he could start moving again, but he knew that his strength would probably fail him if he stood up now. Instead, he carefully crawled over to where he had left his clothes. It was astonishing that despite the panic and paralysis, he still remembered quite clearly where he was in the pitch black room, and he found his clothes as he had left them. When his hands felt for his socks, he could feel that they had indeed dried and for the first time he wondered for how long he had already been locked up in the room. It must have been more than a few hours, and he was still feeling relatively okay. The thought gave him hope. He came to sit on his jacket, groaning relieved when he realised how much warmer and softer it was than the cold ground. With difficulty he managed to take his shoes off and put his socks back on, rubbing his feet for a while to warm them up and then slipped on his shoes again. It felt so good he wanted to cry.
Feeling for his shirt, he found that it had almost dried as well, so he pulled it over his aching shoulders but failed buttoning it up as his fingers hurt too much. "Moriarty, you bastard!" John growled into the darkness. Concentrating on the enemy did help. "You think you can get away with this, don't you?" He rubbed his legs to get them warm. "You're probably sitting somewhere, laughing yourself to sleep over me sitting here trouser-less and freezing. But I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of freaking out in here. I don't care for your stupid little games. Yes, stupid, you hear me? How can you think that this is what life is all about for you? I pity you. I'm sure you don't even know what it means to be happy." He bit his lip to stop himself from rambling. If he started talking about Sherlock, it wouldn't end well. If Moriarty did indeed listen in on him, he would be offended by John calling him stupid, but he would love to destroy any kind of happiness he had, especially since a large part of his happiness was depending on Sherlock's well-being.
"You are not getting away with this," he whispered again. Then he started rocking, his legs pulled against his chest again, his arms trying to keep his legs warm, his shoulders pulled up so he could keep as much body heat as possible. God, what would he give for a bit of Sherlock's body heat now. Just a hand on the small of his back. Just a kiss pressed into his hair. Anything that would lend him some heat he so desperately needed.
When the next bout of paralysis set in he was aware enough to press himself into the nearest corner so that he wouldn't lie flat on the ground again. His body remained curled up and he didn't lose as much heat as he might have otherwise. Even as he felt his physical control disperse into nothing, he felt strangely proud that he managed to outwit the drug that overrode his system.
He started to count and only finished when he could feel his hands again. It had lasted about five minutes, and if he hadn't counted to make sure, it would have felt like five hours. The time is out of joint, John thought. Sherlock had known so much more than he had realised. He just wished he could have been more helpful. God, if he would start having nightmares about all of this now, Sherlock would go mental. But maybe that was why he was here. Maybe Moriarty did not want to kill him, but make sure that he became impossible to live with. Whatever the reason, John knew that it would make Sherlock feel only more protective of him than he already did.
You are the fifth. He's going to make you fall. The words suddenly pierced his consciousness. How had Sherlock known? Had he talked to someone? Had he been in contact with Moriarty?
The man on Strand must have been the fourth, but why had he died in the early afternoon and not at seven like the others? Maybe Sherlock had been right when he had considered the first victim's watch to be of importance. Maybe it was important that he died at eight while the man at Charlotte Street had died at seven? The BBC man had died at seven in the morning and the man at strand had died at two. The numbers, Sherlock had said that the numbers on his blog were the key. He had spent an hour looking at them, but now he couldn't for the life of him remember them.
Maybe Sherlock had gotten hold of the book. He had wanted the book, John now realised. When they had stopped at the second-hand bookshop, Sherlock had been looking for the book. If the numbers were a code within the text, he would have figured it out quickly. God, how he wished he could talk to Sherlock, listen to him come to a conclusion. It was only a matter of time until Sherlock would come and get him. Yes, he would be home before long and then he would get them both micro chipped so Mycroft would always know where they were.
This time he was prepared for the light, and as soon as he heard the switch, he hid his face between his knees, shielding his eyes from the brightness. For a few seconds he did not move, but then he opened his eyes and let them wander over the ground. It was perfectly smooth, just as he had thought. When he looked at his knees and hands he shuddered. He looked a bit like he used to look after particularly brutal rugby matches. Slowly, his eyes got used to the light, and he looked up, finding that the walls were just as smooth as the floor. When John looked even higher, using his hands to shield himself from the light, he saw small rusty spikes on the opposite wall. They started about two and a half metres above the ground, and if he jumped, he should be able to reach them and pull himself up and climb up there. For the first time he felt that he might manage to escape from this place on his own.
The light went out again and he inhaled deeply, trying to gather strength. He could do it, he was sure. He would get out of here.