Taphephobia
Disclaimer- Sherlock Holmes belongs to Arthur Conan Doyle; Holmes and Watson's personalities and traits in this particular story are based on Guy Richie's 2009 version in partnership with Warner Bros.
Chapter 2- The First Day/ Second night
Taphephobia: Fear of being buried alive.
…
He must have fallen back into some sort of sleep… or more like unconsciousness.
When he woke he was still cramped; his fingers sticking together with the drying blood from his knuckles and the nail in his side going numb.
His limbs ached to be used; hot frustration itching at his tired panicky mind.
The pitter patter had stopped now and through the cracks of his wooden prison he could see light. The coffin's true owner was probably of the lower class to have such a cheap coffin, yet still not cheap enough for the corpse inside, who wasn't a corpse at all, to break out.
...It was almost funny
Almost.
The ringing in his ears was gone too, thankfully, leaving the barely audible sound of birds and swaying trees.
He was outside. He probably had been all night, the pitter patter being rain.
Rain…
Water. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so thirsty, not to mention the fact that he had to go to the bathroom which just added to his current misery. He briefly wondered how long he could hold it;
Not too much longer.
"Nanna! Nanna!" A little muffled voice broke him from his unpleasant thoughts. It was high pitched and cheerful; a child's! He dizzily started knocking on his coffin's lid again, ignoring the cuts and rips on his hand that were reopening.
After a few seconds another voice chimed something like "Come on, Madeline!" But he wasn't completely sure. Regardless, he kept knocking and pounding. She has to hear him… This was his chance!
Sure enough, not too soon after he'd stopped to listen if the little girl, Madeline, was still close by, there was a light tap on the other side of the wood.
"Madeline!" Holmes shouted, tearing his throat to pieces. "Madeline!"
An abrupt scream made the detective wince and accidentally push harder into the twisted nail. What sounded like a stick bounced off the top of the coffin and off the other side as her screams ran away.
"Wait! Madeline!" He pounded a couple more times before deciding she wasn't coming back. Holmes let his arms rest by his side, fuming with anger and fright. He couldn't really blame her. A muffled cry from a coffin was creepy enough without it saying your name. Now that he thought about it, he probably should have just yelled "Help".
All was painfully silent again. His arms twitched, his stomach gurgling. The wood had seemed to soak in last night's relentless rain and was now damp and sweaty, smelling like dirt and wet fabric. He pulled at the collar of his shirt and unbuttoned his coat, suddenly feeling very annoyed with it cluttering his neck and its tightness pressing against his wound.
Hopefully the girl will tell someone…boasting or scared out of her mind; it didn't matter, as long as someone came.
Then again, who would believe her?
...
The daylight did make things a little more comfortable, in an odd way. He could see the sunlit wooden edges around him, a bright tan, and some of the damage he'd done to his hands. Along with that, he could also see precisely how much room he had in his prison…It wasn't much; especially since the delightful little gift Moriarty's goons had undoubtedly nailed into the back of his coffin was paining him more than ever.
A few slow breaths entered and exited his mouth.
Watson was probably worried by now.
The doctor had most likely checked on him at dawn, just to ease his worries, and when he found the detective missing, went looking in all the usual places, probably even the restaurant.
How was he to predict this? How could he have possibly known something like this would occur? It wasn't his fault!
Of course it wasn't. He was only the one to get caught, after all.
Holmes cursed and rested one arm above his head.
He guessed he was in a cemetery. The coffin he was now occupying having either been dug up and broken into or, more likely, just arrived and waiting to be put in the ground.
…Put in the ground.
That meant someone had to come back for it sooner or later, he just needed to make sure he was awake and alert when the time came.
Honestly, with a full bladder, dry throat, and an empty stomach, sooner rather than later would be nice.
...
One hour.
Two hours.
Three hours… Or maybe it's been four…Five?
Shit
Stomach acid burned the back of his throat, begging him to sit up and vomit.
No, he'd rather wet his pants than puke in this hell box. Speaking of wetting, he had long past given up on holding it. Any longer and he might have burst. Desperate times call for desperate measures,
At least that's what he kept repeating to himself.
Little by little the light started deteriorating, his torture chamber getting darker and darker as minutes past.
How long did that undertaker seriously need to keep the damn corpse waiting? The very thought of his would be dead body sitting out from day to day for anyone to take and use for firewood was unsettling; almost as unsettling as the fact that he may very well be a corpse if his luck didn't change soon.
He needed to stay awake.
He needed to be ready.
He needed to stay level headed and calm.
One short cat nap could mean waking up six feet under the earth with little to no air, using the space around as a bathroom as he starved or suffocated to death, whichever came first.
Right… calm…
Stay awake.
Stay awake.
Stay Awake.
Stay…
…
It was dark now; pitch dark. No pitter patter, No swaying trees, No birds…
Thirty minutes must have slipped by until the detective accidentally drifted off to sleep.
A/N: "Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so." - Edgar Allan Poe