CHAPTER 8: THE DECEASING (PART 3)
Bottled up in a jar of hopeless horror, Sherlock was constantly tortured in the same manner by Moriarty for half a week. Captive, not even having the choice of escaping by death. Just waiting there, breathing though the poked holes, hoping to catch a sliver of strayed mercy. The criminal loved to see his arch-nemesis in such a tragic situation. He revelled in watching the detective silently loose himself to the vicious vortex of self-deprecation.
The detective's eyes were open, but they could seldom achieve to believe what they were seeing. The four walls that raised from the floor around him where all he knew now. Their grey colour taking new hues, and Sherlock knew each and every dent by heart. The sole lightbulb that hanged from the ceiling didn't seem so lonely anymore, it's dim light appeared to be on his side. Fighting the deep shadows that were threatening to consume him, lately he found he didn't mind them as much.
Moriarty had been true on his promise. His resolve to break him had been stronger than anything the curly-haired man could hurl at him in defence. The ache that had become an intrinsic part of his whole being proved that. The match which the criminal had struck started a deep conflagration that ended up incinerating him. Gone was his Mind Palace, and his options, and his fickle attempts to be a good man. All that was left was the fire, the intense warmth that rushed into him and left him feeling empty. His very own existence shattered into a million pieces of jagged glass.
He found himself yearning for the end, and he had said so to his captor on various occasions already. Whenever the consulting criminal had encountered a new way to torture his fatigued mind —as the Hole or oxygen deprivation— he had begged for release, for the opportunity to let himself get lost in the comfort that poison provided, only to be rejected by a smirking Jim every time. Howling "Please, just kill me!" once it was clear that suffering had become his sole and only purpose in life. Trashing and whimpering and withering away in the everlasting prayer for someone to end it all, to really ignite him and let him become ashes. Parched lips stammering out orisons of "Let me die" and "I beg of you" just to fall in apathetic deaf ears.
He had reached the bottom, there was nothing else that could be done to him that was worse than what he was feeling then; nor there was anything anyone could even attempt to do to save him, not that anyone would try. That convulsing sorrow was now ingrained on his bones, his blood, and his spirit. Controlled by the anxiousness to depart from this chamber of lamentations that was reality into a gentler non-existence. He felt ready, completely suited to fade into oblivion and be totally erased from life and its ceaseless horrors. Leaving this meagre world that will likely fail to notice he's gone; easily replaced as he was now. And he could do it, now that he had really nothing to lose he would be able to attempt an escape, to run away of the endless affliction of his iron shackles and be free to discontinue his miserable survival. But he couldn't do it. He wasn't capable of even allowing himself that small scrape of compassion.
Moriarty had even offered him the opportunity to do so. To make all his desires real, but he wasn't able to take it. The criminal had sat next to him, opened the door of his concrete cell and given him permission to get out and flee the captive life; saying: Go. Go now and I promise I won't go after you. Leave if you think what you have out there is any better than what you have here. But he wasn't brave enough to end it all on his own, he didn't feel he had earned an easy way out. And if he did not die, where would he go instead? John was gone, and all his other friends would blame him for that —not that he didn't believe he deserved it. He doubted even his brother would be able to look past his trespasses and he didn't posses the courage to risk it only to be greeted with an image of pure hatred directed towards him that mirrored the one he had for himself etched upon his mind forever.
Confrontation about his sins was not something he thought he could handle, so he preferred not to leave. He stayed there, laying haphazardly on the floor, heartbroken and with his scarred arms around himself in a bittersweet embrace of protection. Drunk in the display of his own mild self-comfort for himself was all he had now. Mentally digging his own grave with bare hands and ready to plunge inside and be swallowed by the dirt again.
Jim was sitting right next to where his head was occupying its space. Much closer that the detective would prefer; but then again, Moriarty would always be one mile too close in Sherlock's opinion. The boffin hated the other's presence and the anguish it commanded when close. He made a slight whimper at the hard truth that he, again, was alone in the sea of hungry monsters with nothing but a frail stick to defend himself. His strength gone like a light and his prize-worthy intellect clogged up with overflowing sentiments of grief and lamentations.
"What's wrong, dear?" The criminal asked in a lilted tone. The figure sprawled beside him shook violently but never answered. He was not going to respond to those horrible taunts anymore. He may have decided not to move another muscle for the rest of his pathetic existence but that didn't mean words like that didn't hurt him. The consulting criminal knew exactly what was wrong, why Sherlock was maintaining himself imprisoned on what could only be described as a pit of torment: he had succeeded at ripping him apart, he was broken, and now he just wanted to rub that in his face. To gloat about the fact that he had rendered that brilliant person into someone who chased death like a man possessed and would shoot anything into his veins in order to get it. However, said man had no desires of allowing him that sort of satisfaction.
This was truly it now. After everything the man had done to him, there was really nothing left to be done, nothing to be achieved. Nothing to hope for. Sherlock is aware of the odds of this ever getting better and they are non-existent. This crippling pain and sadness he felt wasn't treatable. There was only one thing that could save him from the severe depression he was feeling, and even that seemed adamant in sliding through his fingers.
James didn't look so pleased with his companion's silence, but made no comment about it; As Sherlock watched silver beings of his self-destruction being perfected at fate's cruel hands. Battling each other in a war where the winner would be anyone but himself. They were permanently damaging his psyche, turning to look at him with such brilliant eyes that the curly-haired man was ashamed to be seen by them. Smirking in the darkness of his self-hatred and paying not the slight-less mind to his troubled insides. He darted his misty vision around the room once more, only to find the spectres had doubled in number. What had been a few spectators to his redundant fit of suffering before, were now a small crowd of dancing reminders of each of his failures.
The criminal's presence seemed to exacerbate his already dire situation. Adding his unique shade of special doom to the tragic painting that was his reality, empowering the demons running rampant around them. The detective knew they couldn't really harm him, but the sole fact of them being there was enough to terrify him to his core. He tried to enter his Mind Palace, but there was nothing left of it now. His head was fuzzy with strayed musings and he couldn't really remember a lot of what was once his life-line. He wondered briefly if he had snapped at last; if he had finally become as demented as the criminal had wished him to be, and if he hadn't already been like this all his life. Thoughts like these would plague his every waking moment.
However, unconsciousness was another matter entirely. When unconscious he would be able to find a different sort of punishment, jumbled memories kept coming forth in the most unwelcome of times, reminiscences he didn't want to even acknowledge fired through his brain like a curse. All he ever did wrong was conspiring against his sanity and eating alive any comforting vision he could hope to remember. Every time he awoke from his fitful and short sleep he would feel simultaneous relief and dread over the reality in which he was plunged, but being here was definitely better than being out there; at least, if he was careful enough, he was already one step closer to the yearned casket.
The floor felt cryogenic on his cheek, and it was annoying as it was grounding. Having no real thought but intense pain to think about, he found himself nearly catatonic with despondency; but the naked floor was soothing in a way. He could concentrate in that, and just try to block out every other unsavoury assessment, not that he was ever completely successful, yet the pure distraction of a few seconds was worth it. Whenever he would dare to think back on his former life, before Moriarty had sunk his teeth and nails on him, a wave nausea and anxiety rushed its way through him in a way that it was hard to come out of the reverie with both mind and wrists intact; the stark contrast between then and his reality now was enough to make him sick, so he avoided it. And so would he stay there, laying on the floor like a discarded doll attempting to think about anything but how much damage his mistakes had caused and how he viciously wanted to disappear into thin air; to delete every bit of his existence until the lives he had ruined so throughly got fixed again.
He felt like crying, he always felt like crying now. How ironic, he had always been so in control of his emotions, and now they repeatedly seemed on the verge of pouring out from his eyes at any given moment. Sherlock was tired, exhausted of living a life of which he wanted no part, and the criminal only made matters worse.
"Without me, you are nothing, Sherlock." He would always say. Reminding him of the fact that the only part of him that remained unblemished was the real hatred he felt for this man, now stronger than ever. But as his troubled psyche struggled to keep track on exactly what grounds was he any different than the criminal in front of him, he preferred to take a morbid comfort out of the accustomed rivalry, having nothing else to hold unto but the familiarity of despising him.
Moriarty looked at the detective once more, and smiled when he saw enough time had passed and he hadn't made an attempt to go, he seemed to have resigned himself to a life-time of this. "No one's coming." As if to shake loose the final hope inside the detective's chest, rendering him hollow, filled with nothing but blank space. James was pulling him down into the abyss, killing him with every new word he let past his lips.
"You are alone, Sherlock." The grave that had been carved out for him was laid ever since he arrived at that foul place, but that sentence entombed him. The detective closed his eyes tightly as a childish attempt to think away reality, that way when he opened them again he would found out it had all been a nightmare, a sick joke played by his own treacherous mind, but no matter how many attempts he could manage, it never worked.
"But you'll always have me," The criminal continued with a voice as tender as if he were speaking to a little scared boy, which he supposed he was; he kneeled forward in order to come face to face with his willing prisoner. Sherlock dug his nails unto his shoulders from rage but kept staring straight ahead, refusing to even acknowledge the continuous stabbing and beating. "I'll always be right...here." The psychopath punctuated the last word with a painful jab at his forehead and smiled at him. He delved into the curly-haired man's eyes and when he found them empty he deemed his work finally finished. He stood up to walk out of the room and after a final long glance at the broken figure on the floor, he left. Moriarty never stepped through that door again.