A/N: Okay so not sure where this one came from, although I have been reading some dark fics, so it might be that influence. Or it could be that I do like creepy and scary stories and have been wanting to write another since the Soulverse ones.

This one is a lot darker than most of my work. Sherlock is not nice throughout most of this, but that being said I also usually like to write happy endings. Usually. Insert maniacal laughter here.

My mistakes are my own. I do not own and heartily wish I did. I have a twisted sense of humour. Same old, same old:)

1. Days Like This

The first thing he noticed when he awoke was intense throbbing pain in his head. His eyelids felt heavy and he couldn't open them. He was also extremely cold.

This was followed by the knowledge that he was lying face down on a freezing, hard surface. Concrete maybe.

He winced as he tried to move his hand up to his face. He felt sore all over; deep bone and muscle ache, the kind you get from a long sickness or from an all out bar fight.

He must have groaned or made some sort of noise because suddenly there was a familiar voice whispering urgently in his ear.

"John? John? Can you hear me? Oh John, please wake up!"

He was trying without a whole lot of success. He felt an urgent need to place the voice. He also wanted to figure out where the hell he was and how the hell he had arrived there.

All of this was taking mere seconds to process in his pain-filled and obviously addled brain. It felt a thousand times slower. He tried desperately to sort through the jigsaw pieces of the memories he did have, but they flowed and shifted and were as impossible to grasp as mercury.

He felt a cool hand on his forehead and there was whiff of something flowery, light and pretty, although underneath was the sour scent of fear and sweat. With it came the memory of the speaker.

"Molly?" He rasped out, not knowing if he was loud enough to be heard; not even recognizing his own voice.

It must have been clear because he next heard,

"Oh thank god!" And gentle hands helped him to turn over.

Once on his back he became more conscious of where he possibly could be. He was looking up at a ceiling. The paint on the ceiling had the mottled, diseased look it gets when it's been applied to concrete for a number of years. It was also rather institutional in colour. The bank of lights he was desperately trying to shut his eyes against were covered with a sort of mesh or wire. He wasn't consciously processing any of this, it was just sort of there. Familiarity.

That brought the next set of identifiable variables. He was cold because he was dressed in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans. No socks or shoes, no jumper or coat and he was lying on damp, cold concrete. He tried to lift his hand to his face once more or to wrap his arms around himself but he hurt too goddam much.

He groaned again.

Molly, in a frantic whisper, said "Shh, John, it's okay. It's going to be okay."

Another voice, male and one he didn't recognize right away, spoke near by. There was a slight hysterical edge to it and for some reason John felt an intense dislike for the voice.

"Stop lying to him. It's not going to be alright! It's not. It's not suppose to be like this!"

Molly, without turning to look at the spokesman, said with a hint of derision, "Nigel, if they wanted us dead, they would have killed us already."

"You don't know that! You're only guessing! They're probably just saving us for later."

Molly must have decided to ignore the other man because she merely narrowed her lips, her dislike evident and returned to the task of bringing John around.

"Can you sit up?" She asked him

He continued to blink at her stupidly.

"Wha...what happened?"

"What's the last thing you remember?"

He was finally able to bring his hand up and ran it across his eyes. "Ummmm...don't know."

His brain felt like it was trapped in something viscous, the rate he was processing information.

"Do you remember the Shadows breaching the defenses? Entering the encampment?"

John thought back. There were vague images, flashes of light, distant screams. He remembered standing in front of someone, trying to prevent them from being taken. He then shuddered with muscle memory as he had been hit with a pulse of sound and pain.

"Yeah, maybe."

Molly's face, whilst still worried and scared looking, began to show shades of relief as he began displaying some signs his memory was returning.

"Do you think you can sit up? I have water for you."

He nodded.

Molly wrapped one arm around his shoulders and using her free hand to grab his, helped him to sit. In an upright position he could see that there were at least 5 or 6 others in the room with them. People he recognized from the encampment.

Once he was leaning against the wall, she reached around & brought back a bottle of water. She cracked the seal and held it up to his mouth, his hands were too shaky to hold it himself. After effects of the pulse used by the Shadows.

The water was lukewarm, but John didn't care and drank down a third before Molly took it away.

She smiled at him regretfully.

"We don't know how long we'll be here. Have to save some."

"How long?"

Molly knew what he was asking.

"Not entirely sure. We've been here for a while now. You were unconscious a long time. I think they did more than pulse you."

John nodded wearily, as he attempted to clear his muzzy thoughts. He had been pulsed before and hadn't felt this slow and stupid. The after effects had cleared quicker. Perhaps he had been hit by more than one wave.

He continued to gaze around, trying to identify where they were when he noticed that in place of a fourth wall there were bars.

He recognized the place. Former police station.

Now used for holding those deemed by the Shadows to be terrorists.

No longer needed for drunks, thieves or murderers. That had been all taken care of when the Shadows arrived & took over...everything.

They sat on the floor for what seemed like hours more, but probably was closer to 20 minutes when they heard the sound they had all been straining for.

The sound of footsteps and something that caused their hearts to race, for with the sound came the chill, clammy feeling that death was present, hovering close by.

The slide and whisper of Shadows approaching.

Molly scrambled to her feet and with a touch from John to indicate he too wanted to face them standing, she helped him up and steadied him.

Figures appeared on the other side of the bars.

There were 6 of them.

Four humans. Collaborators most likely. Attendants wouldn't be out and about. It wasn't like they had any real freedoms.

Two were Shadows.

Shadows, because their features were indistinct. There was nothing to indicate what they looked like. Just a dark presence, shadowed and black. They appeared insubstantial when looking at them.

They were definitely solid when they captured you.

When they killed you.

He remembered the night of the first invasion, when he had been attacked at the hospital but had somehow managed to escape. Remembered the feeling of cool hands on his head, an impression of dark and whiteness, deadly, beautiful eyes searching his own and imminent death standing in front of him. There was more but he was forced out of the memory and back to the present when the shrouded stare of the two Shadows landed on him. He shuddered because they were both trained on him and were not moving. He felt pinned and trapped by their unseen gaze. You didn't need to see their eyes when they looked at you. You felt their weight and judgement as your fate was decided.

He felt like prey.

Not knowing how he knew this, but the two standing on the other side of the bars were females.

They bent and blended together, their indistinct edges merging as they spoke in the silvery, sibilant tongue of their home.

The first then turned back to John and addressed him in English.

"Dr. John Watson," she spoke in a voice, full of mystery and promise. John fought against surrendering to the reflex Shadow voices created. Their voices spoke promises of safety and love, of want and desire, but that was just another effective weapon in their arsenal. They were deadly killing machines. When they chose to be.

"Well this is your lucky day, Dr. Watson. And ours." He shuddered again, this time with atavistic fear. There was not going to be any escape for him. He was on their list of most wanted in the human resistance.

The Shadow who had been speaking turned to the other. "Go and tell him who we have down here. Although it wouldn't surprise me if he already knew," he felt her scowl, her true nature showing through momentarily, before she turned back to address him once again. "He'll want to take a personal hand in speaking to you, Dr. Watson. You have been causing far too much trouble."

She then turned to the humans. "Send the rest for testing to see if any are worthy to be Attendants. The ones that aren't, take the women for breeding and you can send the males to the bank. I am sure some of them will be delicious." She indicated to one of the Collaborators to open the door to the cell.

There was a commotion as Nigel rushed forward, close to the bars and began yelling,

"I was promised! I was promised! I gave you the location with the promise you would free me!" He was practically sobbing.

So that's how they knew, John thought, not really surprised. He had always known Nigel Anderson was spineless and cruel, just not aware of how far he'd go to save his own skin.

Promises, it seemed, were made to be broken on both sides.

What looked like an arm shot out from the first speaker's side and wrapped around Nigel's throat. There was a crunch and Nigel's lifeless form was tossed aside like a ragdoll, broken and discarded, his now lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling.

Moving toward John, she ignored the shape on the floor. There were muffled sobs coming from some of the others in the cell, whether for themselves or for the sudden revelation of Nigel's betrayal and execution, John wasn't sure. Nor did he really care at this point. He knew there was no escape for any of them.

A hand clutched at his. Molly reaching for comfort where there was none. She did it not because she was scared, although it was likely she was, but in acknowledgement. She wouldn't go without a fight. John clutched her hand back and locked eyes with her, he mutely shook his head. She grinned a brave grin and stood in front of John who was still too weak to do much of anything.

He did however grab her arm and pulled her back to stand with him. They held hands to give each other strength.

They felt the female Shadow's grin widened further as she took in the two of them.

"Oh my pretty brave one. Perhaps you will get to be chosen as Attendant. I like mine to have some fight in them. Perhaps I'd chose you," she almost purred the words at Molly. It was hard to ignore when they put the full force of sexual desire into their tones. They were death personified, but it was said to be a very sweet death.

If you were lucky.

The Shadow glided closer. Molly stood firm. The female seemed to sniff the air near Molly.

"Oh yes, you do have an intoxicating scent. I think you will do nicely," Before John could react she pounced at Molly. There wasn't anything anyone could do, it happened so fast. The Shadow wrapped what looked like her hands upon either side of Molly's head and lowered her head to her face. As she touched Molly, both females shuddered and Molly twitched slightly. The Shadow didn't stay to feed long. Just enough to taste. She drew back with an excited hiss.

Molly, dazed and pliant from the kiss, stood blinking and unable to move. The Shadow removed her hand from the side of Molly's head and stroked her hair. She leaned close to Molly to whisper in her ear, but it was loud enough for John to hear.

"Oh yes you will do very nicely." She turned to the humans waiting on the other side.

"She's mine."

A tall human with silvering hair opened his mouth as if to protest. The Shadow hissed at him. "Do not interfere Lestrade. Not if you know what's good for you."

The human looked stubborn for a moment and then nodded. He took Molly, still dazed and compliant and gently began to lead her away.

John called out Molly's name.

The human holding Molly flicked his gaze in John's direction. Was that sympathy or something else in the eyes that were searching his own? John didn't know, because at that moment the Shadow turned back to him and looked intently in his direction, more intently than the previous first stare. A high-pitched whine filled the cell and John felt the encroaching edge of blackness. The lights overhead flickered and the dark spots in front of his eyes multiplied until they gathered together to pull him down.

He slipped back under once more.

Sometimes oblivion could be a blessing.

This one dragged him under with feelings of terror.

Not for losing consciousness.

But for what he would wake to on the other side.

A/N: Next chapter will have a bit of background information before we get to all of the fun:D