Sherlock - The Game Is On!

His Last Vow- Eight

Chapter Eight

Third POV

The scene freeze frames and a loud alarm siren begins to blare repeatedly. The room darkens around Sherlock and a spotlight shines onto his face as he stares ahead of himself in shock.

As the alarm continues, he is suddenly sprinting down the flights of a staircase in a white peeled building. Everything about the view suggests that this place is decaying, the concrete of the uncarpeted stairs is crumbling and the red paint on the bannisters is cracking off. He clings to the bannisters and braces his other hand on the wall as he continues rapidly downwards.

Back in Magnussen's room, Michelle, wearing her navy blue RAF uniform, walks around from behind Sherlock. "It's not like it is in the movies. There's not a great big spurt of blood and you go flying backwards." The scenery changes and so does Michelle's uniform. She now appears in her Army coveralls. "The impact isn't spread over a wide area."

Molly appears by her side in what looks to be a mortuary room. A body lies dead in the middle of the room. "It's tightly focussed, so there's little or no energy transfer." Michelle and Molly pull back the sheet, in which Sherlock lays under. "You stay still and the bullet pushes through."

Sherlock peers at the girls with fuzzy view, Molly disappears. "You're almost certainly going to die, so we need to focus." Michelle pulls back and slaps him hard across the face. He hauls in a huge breath, his eyes snapping open as his head jerks to the side under her blow.

In Magnussen's room, both Magnussen and Mary are still frozen. Sherlock's eyelids lift a little. "I said focus, solider!" Michelle slaps him again, this time Sherlock's head snaps under her blow. Standing in a white room. Straightening up he looks around, bewildered.

They stand in the mortuary room and in front of him is the table with his own dead body lying on it, covered by a sheet as far as the waist. Rows of mortuary cabinets line one wall. She walks towards the table, leans her hands onto the edge of it and looks across it to the living version of Sherlock standing on the other side. "It's all well and clever having a Mind Palace, but you've only three seconds of consciousness left to use it. So, come on, what's going to kill you?"

"Blood loss."

"Exactly." Sherlock frowns. "So, it's all about one thing now." Sherlock starts to sway, bracing his hands to the table. "Forwards, or backwards?" Molly and Michelle question. "We need to decide which way you're going to fall, darling." Michelle speaks gently.

Behind him, while Mary and Magnussen remain frozen in place, Anderson walks over and stops behind his back. He is wearing white medical gloves. Molly walks towards Sherlock from halfway across the room. "One hole, or two?" Frowning, Sherlock looks over his shoulder. "Sorry?" Anderson raises his eyebrows in a questioning way. "Is the bullet still inside you..." Molly, Michelle and Anderson now stand, forming a triangle around Sherlock. "Or is there an exit wound?"

The perspective changes and Molly and Michelle are no longer in front of him, though Anderson is still behind him. "It'll depend on the gun." Turning his head sideways, he sees diagrams of many different pistols in front of his eyes. He zooms in on one, which changes from a blue outline to a yellow one and a tag appears above it reading, 'Cat-0208'. "That one, I think." He looks across the diagrams and another pistol identified as 'Cat-077839' turns yellow. He moves on to another gun which changes to yellow. We can't see the first part of the identification tag but its number ends '173634'. "Or that one." He frowns as if uncertain and continues through the display, another gun flashing yellow and showing its identification and then rapidly disappearing off screen before he moves on. "Oh, for God's sake, Sherlock."