Sherlock POV

When I woke, I expected to have been thrown back out of darkness and into my body by the withdrawal of one of the personalities, but I wasn't outside. I was in a place almost as familiar to me as Baker Street. My mind palace. Every inch had been painstakingly carved and designed to be my place of worship, where the only thing I held holy was knowledge, logic and my work.

But this wasn't the same; it wasn't as I remembered. I was sat on my throne and staring down at the empty room, confusion clouding my mind and seeming to fill the room like a dense fog. It seemed strangely bare and for a second I wondered why, and then I realised. All of the books, all of the files and all of the papers that normally filled the room - and my most treasured information, which is usually kept in the throne room for easy access and regular use - was gone. Someone had stolen it.

It felt so empty. It was as if someone was moving everything out, including myself, so they could take control. They had even started to redecorate; all of the furniture, even the throne I was sat upon, had been moved to the centre of the room and draped with dust sheets, so they could repaint the walls. Half of the deep purple had already been replaced by black. I frowned and climb down from my throne, walking out into the palace and seeing that the other rooms had remained mostly untouched - so far, at least. The other personalities seem to have gone through the books, keeping themselves entertained, but none of the rooms were had the same degree of disarray as the throne room. It was as if that room was waiting for a shift in power.

The first sign of change I found was one of my studies. The door had been so heavily graffittied with a black marker pen in a variety of agitated and scrawling fonts. It was simply the word "Drugs" over and over again. I pushed the door open just a fraction to the find that had once held all of my instrument and equipment for chemistry had been converted into some sort of meth lab. The wallpaper had been stripped from the walls and the bare wall treated in much the same way as the door. The floor had escaped being saturated with pens because it was covered, instead, by waste: dirty syringes, bottles once holding Methodone, a light sprinkling of Cocaine and lighters. A few cigarettes, half used and with the smouldering ash scattered over the rest of the debris, were still smoking and had been thrown to the ground in a rage, joining empty bottles of whiskey and vodka.

The addict himself was curled up in a corner, his pupils constricted to tiny pinpricks as his eyes darted around the room, but he didn't seem to notice me. His sleeve had been rolled up, with a makeshift tournequet still around the arm, which had been held out reverently with the syringe still embedded in it. He looked impossibly far away and I didn't stop to try and make sense of the jibbering nonsense. Had I really been like that in the past? Did I really go so far?

I couldn't stay for another second, it was too troubling, so I carried on down the corridor. The next room wasn't far away, and it was impeccably tidy. The walls were whitewashed, everything had it's place and all of the files had been put into folders, boxes or had been arranged precisely on the corkboards covering the walls. Every inch of the room was brimming with information and I could see pictures of people with parts of them annotated, white text declaring their life story and their little personality quirks that only I noticed. It didn't take much to realise that this was where the sociopath lived, bombarding himself with work and with cases piled high on the desk where he laboured. I also noticed that there was nothing there except the work… it was all that mattered to him.

That was what made it so very different from the next room I came to. It clearly belonged to the kindest personality. The curtains around the tall french windows had been thrown open to allow light to stream into the room, illuminating the room with a golden glow that warmed the soft, calming colours and comfortable décor. There were hundreds of pictures in this room: memories of my time with John, both of us laughing and running off on adventures; pictures from my childhood with Mycroft and mummy; even some pictures of Mrs Hudson and Lestrade. It was a room filled with kindness and friendship, a side to myself locked away for a long time, so much so that I hadn't even realised I had this side. I didn't realise how much I missed being that person until I was looking at the evidence that I could potentially be him, or at least partially him, and not the person who had occupied the last room.

I had to force myself to walk on, smiling slightly as I passed the child's bedroom, which was a typical little boy's bedroom. It was blue, filled with toys and even had a small nightlight shaped like a pirate… I'd grown to live for the night time, but I had been terrified of it in my childhood years. I didn't pause to look at the room properly, however. It hurt too much. It was an open wound; this room was the ghost of a missed childhood,and a reminder of an abuse that I had withdrawn from and barely understood at the time.

The next room was plastered with graphic images, stimulus which made me recoil slightly; one whole wall was occupied by John Watson, another wall was taken up by Irene Adler, and the rest was filled in with images of Moriarty and any attractive person who I had ever looked at objectively. Here was my lust and my passion laid bare, no longer torn down into analytical logic… these people's smiles, looks and touches covered the walls. I had to pull away as I realised what that probably meant about my supposedly platonic feelings for John. I had buried them under so much logical asexuality that I didn't even realise they were there. And then there were the quite frankly sickening pictures of myself and Moriarty, and even more disgustingly Sally Donavon, caught in the act and rutting like animals. I pulled back instantly, feeling sick, and focused on John's wall. I lost myself slightly in the largest picture, where he was simply smiling down at me.

When I passed the next room I saw only gloom. The windows were shrouded with thick veils, and the lights and mirrors had been thoroughly smashed. The whole room stank of staleness and was thick with a palpable depression that oozed down the cold, dank walls. The depressed personality was buried under the cover, pulled into a ball and wailing so softly that I could barely hear him. It was so pitiful that even I could hardly stand it, and I almost went to comfort him, but then remembered that he wanted me dead and decided against it.

The psychopath's room was the worst out of all of them. The whitewashed walls had been splashed with liberal amounts of blood, the spatter pattern on one wall looking remarkably like the pattern left by the blood thundering out of a slashed jugular. I grimaced as I realised the floors were slick with a coating of blood and a few discarded body parts had been scattered around, torn from their bodies with obvious ferocity. Raw meat, in the shape of limbs that looked remarkably human, hung on great gleaming hooks from the ceiling and the surfaces were covered with skulls and even morer body parts. Arrows, Ninja throwing stars, daggers, bullets, poison darts and machetes were all deeply imbedded in the wall, thrown there in a fit of fury.

Angry sketches of bodies twisted into writhing agony, their haunted faces too realistic, had been made from violent slashes with charcoal or had been torn from books by other artists and secured to the wall, along with bloody tongues and ears, by daggers. A small animal lay whimpering in once corner, it's entire body quivering; it was the kitten I remembered having found in a box in an alleyway. What had I done to it? It had gone missing the next day and turned up drowned; it was sodden now and shied away from me, sickening me slightly. So that was what had happened.

The walls and floors were littered with photographs from the memories of my life, memories which I'd only recently regained, of my past and my childhood. The murders of the men, the abuse by my father and the hundreds of images of my destruction and murderous mayhem grinned down at me from the walls, like a hundred tiny madman.

I had to forced myself to walk away and carry on to the end of the corridor. What was I doing? Where should I go? The door was slightly ajar and I cautiously moved closer, hearing the other versions of me talking. It was strange to hear my own voice talking out loud, though my lips weren't moving, and then responding to itself. Yet, oddly, I could also distinguish the tones of the voices even without looking at the seperate personalities.

Through the gap in the door, I could make out the comfortable sitting room where I often went to relax in my mind, whilst I was thinking about a case. The child was sat in the nice personality's lap, hugging him close for warmth and protection as they anxiously stared into the fire. The lustful personality was draped across the armchair beside the fireplace, plucking a violin with obvious ternsion in his body, and the Sociopath stood separate from them all, his hands under his chin as if in silent pray – my usual thinking pose.

His eyes were fixed on the glass window, staring out over the palace gardens, and his eyebrows furrowed as he thought it through. All of the most logical and acceptable personalities of my mind were in one room, looking desperate and confused, all looking to the sociopath for leadership and protection from the others outside the room. Their leader sighed and began to speak,

"The Palace is in lockdown. Sherlock must be a coma-" The lustful one spoke up from beside the fire, a passion in his eyes which I usually only saw in people's eyes when there was someone else naked in their sight - usually a picture or film. He was more than just sexual then, he was passion… angry or otherwise,

"This is all the psychopath's fault. Where the Hell is he anyway?"

"Somewhere in the grounds. Don't worry, he can't get out of the palace to cause more harm, but neither can we. Sherlock's missing, he's not in the Throne Room I went to check; he could be anywhere, and I don't like the thought with the psychopath running around. We need to track him down. Lockie, when did you say you took control again?"

"Sherlock was fighting the psychopath. He was outside and they were wrestling, I was scared, so I took over. I promised Greggie that I would help Sherlock-"

"And we will. But I worry that if we are all locked in here by the coma… then so is Sherlock. He's been left vulnerable to the Psychopath's attacks; we need to track him down and-" There was a cold chuckle and the door on the other side of the room clicked open,

"Ooh, are you having a meeting? I'm sorry, I guess I didn't get the memo-" The passionate personality leapt to his feet, eyes narrowed at the psychopath,

"You've locked us all in, and we're just trying to solve your bloody mess! Excuse us for not inviting you in for tea-" The psychopath grabbed the man who was confronting him and twisted his arm behind him, making him cry out in pain,

"Sit down and stop embarassing yourself Sherlie." He tossed the lustful side into his seat beside the fireplace and shot an angry glare at Lockie, who shrank into the nice personality with obvious terror. The sociopath rolled his eyes and, arms clasped behind his back and face impassive, he spoke for the group,

"Your actions in attacking Sherlock have lead to a total lockdown in our palace. Somewhere in these walls the real Sherlock is trapped by a coma. We need to release him and you need to see sense and stop your ridiculous plan to overthrow him, because it's going to kill us all!" The psychopath smirked slightly and turned to face his twin, black eyes looking deep into icy blue,

"I will never stop… once I get my hands on him, oh the things I'll do-"

"I cannot allow that-"

"I'd like to see you try and stop me. You'll have to beat me there, so see you at the finish line." Turning swiftly on his heel, he glided from the hallyway. I breathed out slightly in relief, glad he hadn't chosen to come out through the door I was peering through, or his search would have been over very quickly.

I turned and ran, looking for a hiding place as they declared their intentions to split up and track me down. If I had it my way, I would stay hidden for as long as possible – until I could find a way to get out without taking any of them with me.