"Allie," sung Alaya. "Alaya Potatah - my little Allie, she did dally - slept straight through from night to day. Soon she'll wake up and Sherlock Holmes will have gone away!"
Allie jerked straight up, screaming as Alaya's cackling faded away in her mind. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dark, but once they did she found herself lying on a bed in a surprisingly dirty hotel room.
Allie looked around. "Sherlock?" she hissed. She heard movement, and found herself blinking a second later as light flooded the room. She quickly located the source of the sudden brightness, a lamp on the far wall, and shielded her eyes against it.
"Sherlock?" she asked again. Alaya appeared and took a seat on the edge of her - of the bed. "Where's Sherlock?" Allie demanded. Alaya laughed. "What makes you think I would know?" she asked. Allie sighed. "We've been through this before," she reminded her subconscious. Alaya laughed again. "Let's go through it again," she said. "We don't have time for this," said Allie, shaking her head. She threw off the rumpled bedcovers and rose to her feet. "We have to find Sherlock."
In the back of her mind she could hear the shockingly annoying tune, "Slept from night to day, and someone's gone away!"
Ignoring it, Allie switched on another light. Alaya snickered behind her. "What?" asked Allie, turning to face her. "Aren't you forgetting something?" asked Allie, implications lacing her tone. "What?" Allie asked again as she crossed her arms. Allie mimicked her and the girl and her subconscious stood toe-to-toe.
"You should really obey me when I ask for something," Allie said warningly. "Why would I do that?" asked Alaya, and in the blink of an eye she was sitting in the chair in the corner.
Allie looked around, her eyes taking note of every detail of the room. "Sherlock really is bad at cleaning, isn't he?" she asked herself. "Mrs. Hudson has a lot to answer to," Alaya replied. "His mother has a lot to answer to," Allie said with a pointed glance.
"His mother?" asked Alaya with a sly smile. Allie shook her head. She looked around the room again. "Wait a second…" she said slowly, turning back to Alaya. "If we're the only two here," at this Alaya nodded. "And I was asleep," Allie continued, "and you're, um, you… who turned on that light?"
Both the girls, real and imaginary, spun to face the lamp resting on the desk. "This is the cliche moment for a masked murderer to jump out and kill us both, just FYI," said Allie quietly, slowly revolving on the spot. Alaya let out a short bitter laugh. "How would you know?" she asked with a mocking smile.
Allie sighed. "I read, remember?" she said to her subconscious. "Right," Alaya grinned. "It'd be hard to be a librarian without reading."
"Ah, so that's what you've been up to all these years." Another voice entered the conversation, and both Allie and Alaya turned to see who it was. To Allie's surprise, Alaya looked almost scared.
"We were wondering what you'd been doing with your life, if you were still alive," said Mycroft, Allie's oldest brother, as he stepped out of the shadows.