Elephant's Memory (Sherlock BBC)

The Great Game part 9: Wizard of Oz.

Sherlock's footsteps echoed as he stepped into the pool area. It gave him an eerie feeling, like he had just eaten too much of a rich dessert. This was the moment that he had been waiting for. This was the night.

He kept his ears peeled for anything that could sound like Clara: the noise of a high-heeled shoe, a breath, a cry, or her phone, even though he knew that the one she was using was in his coat (he had found it at the crime scene). She had to be the victim of the last pip. She had to. There seemed to be no other option; why else would they take her? Other questions flicked through his head: Was Mary-Kate with her? Were they both dead? Why was it Mary-Kate who was taken? Why did the boy from Bradford hear Clara screaming? Was it Clara screaming at all? Why take Clara at all, if the bomber needed her to help him solve the case?

He glanced up into the gallery above, but saw nothing. There wasn't much in the pool area besides the pool; there was a changing station to his left, as well as a metal supply cabinet where they kept pool toys and things of that sort, a few life preservers strung around the room, and the other entrance to the pool on the opposite side. It appeared to be empty. Unsure of where to look, he analysed the place, looking all over for his foe. Unable to find any signs of life, he held the memory stick high in the air to try to draw out the man behind the curtain.

"I brought you a little getting-to-know you present. That's what it's all been for, hasn't it? All your little puzzles; making me dance - all to distract me from this." He held up the memory stick a little higher. "This game is done with! I've solved all of your puzzles! I've brought you this, your getting-to-know-you gift." the pool was silent. "Oh, don't be rude. Where's my gift? You know what I want." He looked all about. "Where is Clara Evangeline?" There was the soft padding of feet. His hand slackened as the one person in the world he trusted the most in the world suddenly stepped out from behind the changing area.

In the novel Coraline by Neil Gaiman, there is a moment in which the title character does not know where she is. Before this, the narrator reflects that the happiest part of our day is the moment we wake up and do not know where or who we are. Imagine, for a moment, a crowd, and that you are every person in this crowd while you sleep. You could be the ballerina you at the Paris Grande Opera. You could be the astronaut, floating a foot above everyone and not worrying about a thing in the world, because at the moment there is no world. You could be Kim Jong Un's personal secretary. Or, you could be Clara Evangeline, waking up out of a concussion-induce sleep in a cramped storage bin, having just been through the most unimaginable horror that anyone could go through.

Indeed, for a millisecond it seemed as if all was right, and that Clara wasn't bleeding and sore and hoping that Sherlock would show up on a white horse (preferably in a suit of armour. Clara had imagined that this would be incredibly arousing). For that same blissful millisecond, Sherlock couldn't believe what he was seeing, and for a moment he couldn't remember who he was. But it came rushing back as his voice wavered.

"John...?"

"This is a turn up, isn't it, Sherlock?" John said, speaking very robotically.

"John. What the hell ...?" He asked, suddenly slightly less worried about Clara.

"Bet you never saw this coming." Shock coated Sherlock's face, as well as hurt and bewilderment. He began to inch towards him, memory stick still held high. John, suddenly looking fearful, opened his jacket to reveal a bomb strapped to his chest. A red beam of light began to dance over the bomb; it was the beam from a sniper's rifle.

"What... would you like me... to make him say... next?" Sherlock saw that John was wearing an earpiece. His eyes danced over the gallery, but he couldn't see anyone holding a rifle. John looked like he was about to pass out, but yet managed to blink out a cry for help:
...---...
SOS