When John woke up, Sherlock was gone. He started to feel disappointed – Sherlock did everything with him – but then he remembered their fight last night and a feeling of bitterness welled up in his throat. He dressed and then headed over to breakfast. No sign of Sherlock there. John tried to not attract any attention and spend his breakfast in peace; sadly, no such thing was possible. The group of teenagers who had taunted them the day before surrounded him once again. They stared at John, smirking. After a few moments – John made sure it was timed perfectly so that they would catch the fantastic view of half chewed cereal in his mouth – he interrupted their trance.
"Yes?" He inquired, raising an eyebrow.
"Where's your boyfriend?" One of the girls said, making kissy noises. John decided to ignore her; after all, some people were just hopeless.
"You know, I think he's gone down to ... the hollow," A boy said – he was obviously trying to scare John, and it evidently was not working and this plainly angered the boy. A lot of obvious facts there; Sherlock would be pleased.
"Maybe he's had an encounter with the hound," Another boy said. John chose the wise decision of ignoring him.
"Hey, is that screaming I hear?" One of the girls said, giggling. John stood up abruptly, and for a moment, he really did want to punch her in the face, but for many reasons decided not to. Then, he thought about what they were saying. They were obviously trying to taunt him, but what if their words had an element of truth in them? In that case ... John spun towards the woods and started running as fast as his legs would take him.
As he ran, John started having images of hounds, and he shook them out of his head. No sooner than he had, he heard howling; and he wasn't imagining it. He sprained his ankle; he forced himself not to think of the pain and kept running. His voice was becoming hoarse; he kept shouting. He tripped up on the roots of shadowy trees and slipped on the muddy leaves; he kept running. Suddenly, he heard a scream. He stopped for a second; looked around ... then ran faster than he had ever in his whole life.
Strangely, the hollow seemed almost beautiful one he reached it. He took the winding path down into the depths of the hollow. John widened his eyes.
The hollow was empty... except for one blue scarf in the middle. He fell to his knees and started sobbing. He screamed to the wind and to the clouds, covering up the sun.
"SHERLOCK!"