Molly's eyes watered with tears. "It's says-" she broke off. She dug her face in her sleeves and blinked hard. Sherlock stared at her, suddenly uncomfortable and impatient.
"What? What does it say?" He hissed. Then his tone softened and he patted her shoulder awkwardly. "What does it say, Molly?"
Molly looked up at him. She stared at the markings again. "Don't blink." She stated, reading off the mirror. "And here it says, 'beware the weeping angels,'"
John felt his heart in his throat. His heartbeat began to quicken surprisingly fast.
Molly snorted incredulously. "B-but that's impossible." She looked around the room. "The weeping angels are just a kid story. A-a fairy tale."
Sherlock's face was blank. John couldn't tell if he was surprised or clueless, but no stone statues had appeared on the wall at Baker Street. How could Sherlock know about them?
Sherlock turned away and walked around the room. He shook his head, his hair flying in all directions. "Molly, tell me the story." He sat down on a chair covered in cob-webs. "The story of the weeping angels."
Molly looked at the mirror again. "It's silly."
Sherlock tilted his head. "I'd like to know."
Molly sighed and crossed her arms. "On Halloween every year, I would always want to hear a scary story. I was just a kid, and nothing really mattered, I just wanted to be scared witless one night of the year." Her fingers started tracing the circles in the mirror absentmindly. "My Mum would always tell me about the weeping angels." She smiled to herself. "Oh they were scary. Stone statues that came to life and moved incredibly fast. My granddad used to say that if you blinked-," She didn't get to finish.
A large crash came from the adjoining room. "John!" Sherlock called, suddenly seeing he wasn't there anymore. There was no answer. "John!" Sherlock's tone was panicked as he ran into the next hallway, leaving Molly open-mouthed.
Sherlock ran from room to room, frantically searching for his best friend. His heart pounded inside his chest. What was Molly going to say? He thought desperately. If those "weeping angels" had gotten John- No, Sherlock thought. Don't think about that. But nothing else seemed to cross his mind.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Sherlock found a room where there was pitch blackness. He could faintly see a window outlined in the dark, and light should have been streaming thorough like all the other rooms. But there was no light here.
Sherlock smiled unconsciously. This must be where John was. "John?" He cautiously picked up a broken lamp from the hallway. He tiptoed into the disheveled room, weaving his way around tarps, pieces of broken furniture, glass shards, and dusty tapestries. No sign of his trusty sidekick. Where could he be? Although Sherlock tended to keep a cool head, he could feel the panic rising like bile in his insides. "No no no no. Try to think positive," the detective scolded himself.
Sherlock sighed in relief when he finally heard his best friend, John cry, "Sherlock!"
Sherlock started and rushed towards the voice, relief flooding through his system. "John! Where are you?" He flung open a pair of balcony doors and saw him, standing in front of three angel statues, their clawed hands shrouding their faces. "Fascinating..." He breathed, creeping towards the far right angel and whipping out a magnifying glass.
"You idiot, don't investigate! Help me! You don't understand. They're the weeping angels Molly told us about. We have to get out of here. Please." John was desperate, wishing that Sherlock would stop deducing.
Then he did the unthinkable: he blinked.
Sherlock thought he was hallucinating when he saw the statues move. There had to be a logical explanation for this. His brain raced at an inhuman pace, the neurons and synapses frantically trying to make sense of the situation. But no. It was impossible.
He was jerked out of his reverie as John shouted, "Run!"
Molly watched Sherlock run out of the room, frantically calling his best friend's name. She sighed. I'll never come before John. She thought dejectedly, but immediately chastised herself for such a selfish thought. John might be hurt and in danger. Molly crossed her arms and bit her lip. Come to think of it, being here alone and in this room might be dangerous too. There was something evil going on that no one here could understand.
Molly tugged on the hem of her lab coat. She hadn't even realized she was wearing it, she just wore it all the time.
She thought about what she had told Sherlock. Molly was still trying to wrap her brain around the fact that the made up language her grandmum and granddad used was in an old abandoned house that supposedly had evil monsters inside that could make you vanish into thin air.
Molly laughed to herself bitterly. It was like her childhood was coming back to life.
It's not that her childhood was bad. In fact, Molly had a wonderful childhood. She distinctly remembered stopping after school on Fridays for chips, and winter Sundays in the park building misshapen snowmen.
It wasn't having the memories that hurt, it was loosing them.
Molly's grandparents had died when she was 17. It was huge shock to everyone, especially Molly. They had raised her after her own parents mysteriously disappeared. But her grandparents never spoke ill of their children; in fact, her grandparents always made out her parents to seem like the best people in the world- even though they never saw their own daughter grow up. The doctors had told Molly it was something about a disease they had caught in a trip to America when they were in their 20's. But the memories of seeing both her grandmum and pop in a hospital bed made her still have nightmares occasionally.
And seeing the secret language her grandparents made up again just made her want to cry. Her heart ached for family Christmases and the ugly woolly sweaters her Aunt Clara always sent. It was never perfect, but it was home.
"I wish you had never left," Molly whispered, blinking back tears.
Blinking made her even more angry than upset. The weeping angels were terrifying as a kid, but as she got older they got less and less intimidating.
"Maybe it's just a trick." Molly said to herself, rocking back on her heels. "It just looks like the code." But somehow Molly knew exactly what the words said, and it worried her.
She wiped away her tears and stood up. She felt brave all of a sudden, like she could take on a whole fleet of Daleks; another made up story that her grandfather loved to tell. It was about him rescuing his wife and blowing up ten thousand of their ships. Molly always liked the way he described them- 1970's salt shakers with a whisk and a plunger. He'd draw a horrible sketch and somehow the story became more like a funny tale than a majestic rescue.
"I'm ready," she reassured herself as she tightened her pony tail. Molly took a step forward and fell down against a crack on the floor. She frowned, her fall had sort of ruined the moment.
When she looked back up, she screamed.
A stone statue with flowing robes and spread wings was standing in the doorway where it wasn't before.
It had its eyes open, pointed teeth, and sharp fingernails aimed straight at her defenseless body on the ground.
"Sherlock."
"Sherlock? Can you hear me?"
Sherlock could hear his name being called, but the reception seemed to be off. John's voice sounded like he was shouting through murky water. His head throbbed and spun. Why can't I see? He thought to himself, the air buzzing like a hive of wasps.
Suddenly it all came back; the strange markings on the mirror, Molly's strange childhood stories, and the statues that had somehow moved. Sherlock wasn't sure, but two words came to him: Weeping Angels.
"Sherlock!"
John's voice became clearer as Sherlock swam up toward consciousness in his imaginary murky lake. He sounded frantic and a little afraid. That make Sherlock move even faster.
Then he was awake, lying on the ground staring at the navy colored sky. He could see the moon peeking out through the clouds, a beautiful round beacon shining in a stormy sea. But this was no time to appreciate astronomy, Sherlock feared John Watson was in danger.
He sat up with difficulty; his head throbbed. He surveyed the scene. John held a garden rake in his hand, standing defensively in front of Sherlock, his eyes wide open at the weeping angels.
"Sherlock, thank God." John sighed in relief. He shifted his weight from foot to foot.
"John," Sherlock stood up and walked around John in a circle. "Are you fighting off potential evil aliens with a garden rake?"
John tightened his grip on the rake. "Yes." He said through his teeth.
Sherlock clapped his hands. "Marvelous." He stalked over to the three angels. "Now," he looked at John. "I'm guessing after we did something (not sure what) that let the angels move. Something that would let the angels move...John any ideas?"
John fought to keep his eyes open. "Uh...Molly said something about blinking?"
Sherlock smiled. "Fantastic," he moved closer to the building and motioned for John to follow suit. "When we blinked, the angels moved and knocked me over." He rubbed the sore spot on his head and scowled.
"Sherlock, I've seen these before," John admitted. "When we were here before, I met these three wooglies." He guestured toward the three statues.
"What? Why didn't you tell me?" Sherlock said, annoyed.
John shrugged, not tearing his eyes away from the angels. "I thought I was crazy."
Sherlock smiled at him, happy he had a friend who would stick with him even when psycho killing statues attacked.
"What do we do now?" John slid over to where Sherlock was standing.
Sherlock didn't need to say anything though. A shocking scream rattled the windows of the house. Sherlock's didn't need a second thought. He knew who's scream that was: Molly Hooper's.
Sherlock grabbed John's wrist and dragged him into the house, running at full speed toward the room with the mirror.
"Basically, Run!" Sherlock careened around corners and sprinted down staircases. Every second he was away from Molly was another second she was in danger.
He finally reached the room where he had left Molly earlier. He stopped dead in his tracks, John breathing heavily beside him.
Another Weeping Angel was standing in the doorway. But this one was different than the three outside. The other three were broken and cracked; not very well taken care of. But this angel looked brand new. It's wings shown with polish and there was no cracks or blemishes in the stone.
"It's healthy," John remarked, not noticing the main part of the problem.
The angel was smiling; a creepy, grotesque smile that made Sherlock's blood run cold. It's eyes were open and blank without pupils. Sherlock found it hard to tear himself away from the eyes.
But this was not the most horrible thing about the whole ordeal.
Sherlock saw Molly's white lab coat clutched in its cold stone claws.
