Taphephobia

Disclaimer- Sherlock Holmes belongs to Arthur Conan Doyle; Holmes and Watson's personalities and traits in this particular story are based on Guy Richie's 2009 version in partnership with Warner Bros.

Chapter 1: First night

Taphephobia: Fear of being buried alive.

…

It was dark, he remembered.

His back aching, lying on a hard board.

The smell of lumber and rain.

His head was pounding. His ears were ringing.

Pitter patter pitter patter… could be heard just a little passed the buzz.

The sound annoyed him. First hard, then soft; it wouldn't stop!

What happened? Where was he

Moriarty…

The last two things Holmes could remember was the lucky jab that thug of Moriarty's had planted on his right cheek, the next was a sharp crack on the back of his head and all went black…

Right... No wonder his head was killing him.

He opened his eyes, or at least he thought he did. It was pitch dark, not a touch of light. Was he still under the restaurant? The boiler room perhaps? No, certainly there would be some source of light… Unless they shut down everything for the evening…

He felt tight. Closed in, like the walls were holding him in place. He twitched his hand. At least he could move; that's a good sign.

He pressed his left hand against the side of his left leg, testing his consciousness. He was definitely awake. Though he still felt groggy and unreal, the detective figured the best thing for him to do was force himself to move. There must be a door close by, and even if the restaurant was closed for the night, he would find a window or just simply wait in the dining room for the owner to open. Daylight couldn't be that far off. It had been getting dark when he'd left Baker Street.

Moving his head to the side, a strange sensation took him; the echoing sound of his movements. It sounded almost like he was in a closet or a cupboard…a large cupboard… one a full grown man could lie down in at full length...Almost like a-

With a shock of adrenaline, the man's hands flew upward only to smack on a hard wooden ceiling less than a foot away from his face.

No…No!

"No!" His voice was hoarse and stung the back of his throat, his head still throbbing. The voice, too, echoed off the low ceiling and smacked him in the face. His next action was to feel every inch of the walls around him. Raising his arms above him, he felt the decorated curve in the wood, the finely clothed bed of silk under his body, the barely stuffed small pillow supporting his head. His heart thumped. His chest stung with the horrifying realization…

There had to be a latch somewhere... a safety trick...a quick way out from the inside...

He ran his hand over every inch of the seal. Nailed. The whole thing was nailed down.

"Hello? Help! Damn. HELP?" His voice was weak, he couldn't scream, shout, anything. His throat felt dry and helpless.

No, it wasn't like him to panic. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to calm down.

Watson.

Watson had tried to get him to stay at Baker Street for the night…

...to not go alone.

"Promise me you'll stay out of it for tonight. We're talking about Moriarty, not some whiskey abusing thief."

The memory was running together, but still clear enough to replay over and over again in his conscience…

…

"Roderick De'brion and Paul Usher." Holmes said aloud. "Two very suspicious men with very suspicious connections…" He filled his pipe with tobacco and lit it.

"Holmes, I mean it, stay here this evening. It's cold, raining… Holmes?"

"Hmm." The detective murmured lazily through puffs of smoke."If I overheard them correctly, they will meet with Moriarty tonight to discuss something undeniably illegal. Ethelred's restaurant. You remember where that is, don't you?"

"Are you listening? Forget it, stay here. It's too dangerous, you'll be alone-"

"I wouldn't be going alone, if you hadn't backed out on me, dear friend." Holmes's words were sharp and accusing. "However, situations being what they are, a cannot simply let such an opportunity-"

"To kill yourself." His friend spat.

"Don't be dramatic, Watson."

"I'm not backing out; I never said I was free tonight in the first place!"

"You never said you weren't."

"Well, I didn't know I wouldn't be until Mary's mother spoke with her at the market."

Holmes didn't say anymore, only crossed from his chair to his desk and rummaged through piles of scribbled on papers.

"Holmes," His friend tried once more, stepping further into the room. "Please… tell the Yard to deal with it, wait for the next opportunity. Promise me you'll stay out of it for tonight. We're talking about Moriarty, not some whiskey abusing thief."

Sherlock Holmes made no sign of answering, so with a frown and a last worried glance Watson left the detective to his business, gently shutting the door behind him.

…

Holmes coughed and bit his tongue; anything to get the scratching dry pain out of his throat.

He wasn't underground was he?

No, there wouldn't be this much air if he was.

The thought of this Coffin being under the earth made his stomach lurch.

Stop! No! He had to get a hold of himself.

Once again putting his hands on the top of the coffin's lid, Holmes pushed up with all the strength he could muster in his current state. Honestly it wasn't amounting to much and the stress of his failing attempt to push open the nailed down death box was making him all the more uncomfortable. Every nerve in his body pricked him making him sweat and shake even though the wood around him was cold.

Claustrophobia was starting to set in. An itching to sit up. A fear you may never sit up again. His breathing became labored.

This wouldn't do.

Trying to gain control of his body, the detective started knocking and pounding on the ceiling of the casket, getting harder each minute it didn't open. Raw pain shot through his hands, they felt wet…sticky, but it didn't matter. Somebody had to be around! Somebody had to hear him!

Five minutes of this and Holmes forced himself to stop. It was doing more harm than good, something he didn't realize until after his knuckles were bloody and torn.

Burying him alive must have been a spur of the moment idea on Moriarty's part. Whoever this coffin was originally intended for was much taller than Holmes. The bottom piece couldn't even be found with a pointed toe.

The bottom...That's it! If he could reach the bottom, he could kick out the-

"AUHH!" He yelped as a sharp object penetrated his side as he tried to move down towards the end of the coffin. Blowing frustrated air out of his lungs, he roughly searched for what had stabbed him in the dark. It was a nail, of course, hammered sideways into the bottom of the coffin, its sharp point sticking into the skin of his side.

"Damn…Damn AHggh!" He lifted himself up a little in an attempt to move out of it, but he only managed to pull it more.

He was honestly trapped in place now, he couldn't move up, down, right, left... the nail literally pinning him like a butterfly on parchment.

His chest burned with a fear he had only experienced a handful of times during his life.

A fear of suffering... being tortured to death in a manner so horrid...

Leaving him to suffer in his own panic, clawing into the wood until his fingernails fell off and bled all over the thin silk sheets that were already being painted by the ever growing hole in his side.

Holmes couldn't help by question if the nail was there before they dumped his body into it.

Touché, Moriarty.

Imagine if he had, for once, actually listened to the doctor.

A/N:"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."- Edgar Allan Poe