CHAPTER 8: THE DECEASING (Part 5)
Light. Everything around him was infected with an enhanced quality difficult to escape. The garish glow of the unfeeling air brutally attacking his psyche with cold vision. The cyclone doing laps around him picked him up, and tossed him carelessly unto a hard surface. He thought he could see something there too, but when he tried to advance the wings strapped to the back of the body started coming apart in feathers and the figure hunched over and spilled its guts on the floor. He still tried to reach out slowly and help this stranger place its insides back into its torso, but as soon as his hand made contact with the bizarre form, it raised its head and screamed. He couldn't remember a thing after that.
Light. That's all he could see when he opened his eyes at last. Bright, white, blinding light. He took a few moments to let his eyes adjust to the sensory attack after seemingly being closed for so much time. Once he was able to take in his surroundings, he scanned the unfamiliar room around him. Medium size, walls painted white, light blue floor, and there was what appeared to be a very expensive screen in the corner.
However, that was not the most interesting feature that this chamber possessed. There were quite a lot of sophisticated equipment around him, all sorts of still vaguely familiar machinery, of which he can't quite recall the function just yet. But he'll get there once the haze of sleep lifts from his head.
There was an odd tube attached to his wrist, and something restricted the movement of his legs and feet, which is when he realises he's laying horizontally on an uncomfortable bed. His body felt stiff from lasting immobility and there was an extreme pain coming from his abdomen which he couldn't really remember acquiring in the first place. His blue eyes perused the room again, trying to make sense of what was going on around him. Finding the place void of any other human presence was a bit unnerving, as was the long silence which seemed to stretch to some sort of high beating. The chair next to him was empty and he was alone.
All of this happening in mere seconds before confusion was replaced with recognition while his brain provided the answer with a simple word: hospital. That was a resolution to his situation he never saw coming, he hadn't calculated this outcome.
He used his anatomical knowledge to estimate the damage to his abdomen, and the partial removal of the bandage revealed a series of neat stitches that ran for about eight centimetres. Relief washed through him when he found them healing normally, and just as he started wondering exactly how his injuries were received and why did they seem to be at least a few days old, a nurse walked into his room.
"Oh, good, you're awake." She said, as she checked his vitals on the screen next to his bed. She made a satisfied noise which sent waves of comfort in his direction and smiled. "I'll bring the doctor right in." She stepped outside without so much as a "by your leave" and in her place entered a brunette doctor that reminded him of Molly a bit.
"You gave us quite a scare there." She squinted and read his name as she probably had done a thousand times before, with thousand other patients. "Doctor Watson." She said absentmindedly as she grabbed his chart from the feet of his bed. "The stitches will come off next week, but the scar will stay. Sorry about that." She came closer and proceeded to check his pupil dilatation.
"Okay." The soldier responded, still a bit confused at the whirlwind of information coming at him. However, once his brain really caught on with what she had said, he corrected himself shaking the sleep from his mind. "No. Sorry, what happened?" He asked eyeing the IV tube making its way from his wrist to a bag with liquid on his left.
"You got stabbed in the abdomen." Even if John had already gathered that much for himself, it still didn't make the news any easier to digest. He took a deep breath to fully prepare for the information the woman was going provide. "We had to surgically close the damage, and I'm afraid you lost a few centimetres of intestine." That is bad, yet not as bad as it could be, the blogger thought.
She fiddled with a few chords on the machines and turned to look at him. "But thankfully the knife managed to avoid any other vital organs, and that scarf stopped the blood flow." The onslaught of memories flooding down on him was brutal: the alley, the knife, the blood, Sherlock. He just hoped he will be able to make a full recovery; if not for himself, then for his friend that will undoubtedly place the blame on himself. "You were out for 6 days. The first four were morphine-induced, the other we just let you sleep through; you were exhausted. Your friends were all just waiting for you to wake up already. " Even if his head was heavy and his body felt as if he had been trampled by a truck he was glad and grateful that his friends had taken the time to stop by and see how he was.
"Have I got any visitors?" He asked as he plucked the two blue pills from the offering hand of the doctor and swallowed them dry.
"Oh yes, plenty." She replied chuckling. "I'm afraid we had to send them home to return at visiting hours." He figured it was the best idea since the sun outside had ceased to shine, even if he did felt a bit disappointed. He was a people person, after all. "One of them refused to leave, though." The look of exasperation at the memory could only mean one person. "A Mr. Holmes; sort of scary bloke, really. Kept making everyone uncomfortable."
"That'll be Sherlock, he's like that" The soldier could only imagine how keyed up his impatient friend would have been waiting for him to wake up. And an anxious Sherlock was far from what could pass as an "easy Sherlock". "You probably should let him in before he makes a nurse cry."
"Right." She walked to the entrance of the room and before departing gave him a genuine smile and said: "You're on the way to full recovery. Just take your pills and no strain. Good night."
"Thanks." He replied as he heard the door swing open and close again. When he became aware of the steps coming towards his room he thought about what to say. "So, how many nurses have you already..." But trailed off when he saw that it wasn't his best friend who was standing in front of him. "Mycroft?" The doctor asked, puzzled at the presence of Sherlock's older brother.
"Good night, John. It's good to have you back." Said man stood there. Stoic mask on. Actually looking more tired than John had ever seen him. "How's the wound doing?" Mycroft asked nonchalantly, but John could sense something was off about his attitude.
"Fine." He replied shortly. "Where's Sherlock?" Queried John, and if the slight flinch he saw crossing the umbrella-carrying man at the mention of his brother was any indication, the situation was more dire than he first believed.
"I trust the staff is treating you well." The government official blatantly ignored his question and chose any other topic to hold off the inevitable. Twirling his umbrella in his hand and not exactly looking at the patient in the eye.
"Mycroft, where's your brother?" Pressed on the blogger. His breathing becoming quite laboured as worry crawled inside his chest.
"I'll go inform the nurses to check on you." Mycroft was already turning around to exit the chamber. Fact that did nothing to soothe the blonde's nerves. If a Holmes was running away from something, it only meant disaster.
John sat up on the bed, ignoring the sharp pain that pierced him when he moved. "Is Sherlock alright?" He asked in a voice that would be considered way too loud for a hospital. He could faintly hear the heart monitor beat faster next to him.
The ginger-haired man looked alarmed, discombobulated as to what to do. "Maybe we..." The grip on his umbrella became tighter as he saw several nurses come inside the hospital suite. Hasting to stir the greatly injured man away from giving himself a heart attack.
"Where is he!?" He yelled. Knowing that something was definitely wrong, and needing to know exactly what in that instant. The other people in the room grabbed him by the arms as he trashed and tried to rip his IV off in order to stand up and jostle an answer out of the other man.
"Sir, you need to calm down, we don't want..." One of the male nurses said. As another was already rummaging in the drawer in search for a sedative strong enough to calm him.
"John." Mycroft said with a look of panic on his face. Watching the blogger's abdomen like a man entranced. The stitches had ripped with all the movement and his side was bleeding again.
Still, the blue-eyed man wouldn't back down. "God dammit, Mycroft! Where the bloody hell is Sherlock?" Fear running through his veins as blood. Panting from the pain, exhaustion and mostly horror of what could have happened to the most brilliant person he had ever met.
The British Government silently muttered. "I don't know." And the remorse in his expression was as alarming, as it was disconcerting. Mycroft had to know where his best friend was, he always did. What happened now?
The soldier stopped moving completely as an icy cold feeling stole him completely. "What?" He asked incredulous. Hoping against hope that the answer he so adamantly demanded wouldn't be as horrible as he imagined.
"We can't find him." Mycroft answered truthfully, as the needle was preparing to pierce him and carry him into oblivion once again. "He's gone." The statement shutting his hope down like a closing casket.