Sherlock slowly climbed the grand staircase. The opulent decor that surrounded him seemed distant; fuzzy; somehow... different.
He looked around, taking in the beauty and magnificence of his surroundings. The golds and creams; velvets and silks; light and magic. He could hear laughter from one direction. Joyful laughter. Mrs Hudson; Molly; Greg; John. He smiled, trying to work out the direction of the sound; wanting to hear more; to see more.
His heart started to race as the laughter grew closer. The stairs below him listed suddenly, and everything blurred. He stopped to study one of the scrolls on the balustrade. As he reached out to touch it, it transformed into the snarling, growling face of a hound. Sherlock frowned. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong with his Mind Palace.
Then more sounds. Mummy; and Father; and Mycroft. He pictured it: a Holmes family Christmas. The smell of pine, cinnamon and wood smoke. Father, glass of fine Scotch in hand, sat by the fireplace. Sherlock barely a toddler and Mycroft about 9 years old sat at their Father's feet, watching and listening to Mummy play her violin. Sherlock smiled fondly as both memory and sounds became clearer.
He felt the stairs shift under his feet again, and suddenly he was outside, on the roof of his Mind Palace, surrounded by ostentatious towers and turrets. He could still hear the laughter and music from below, but before he could figure out how to get back, the brickwork beneath him moved once more, and he found himself falling.
The rush of wind in his face was exhilarating. The fall seemed endless and the surge of adrenaline that Sherlock felt was intoxicating. Falling really was just like flying, and Sherlock was flying high; higher than the birds; higher than the clouds; falling up, higher and higher...
Until he wasn't. Until his world went black with the crack of a gun ringing in his ears...