Ten Birthdays

Irene Adler

She can't believe it.

This shouldn't be happening. So why is it happening?

She's shivering in the black cloth covering her body, her face, everything but her eyes. A single tear slips down her cheek. She is going to die here.

Hands still shaking, he feels around for her phone beneath the black covering. Frantically, she begins a new text message.

Her death is only minutes away. There's no possible reason that texting him now would bring him to her rescue.

But at the moment, she's little busy hoping beyond hope otherwise.

Feeling at the keyboard, she presses the keys, as quickly as she can without making a typo.

'Goodbye, Mr. Holmes.' A man to her right steps closer, blade in hand. A tiny sob escapes her throat. Oh, God, she's really going to die.

Then she hears it.

Her saving grace.

The text tone set as her personal text alert on Sherlock's phone. Slowly, she begins to look up at the man with the sword, she dare not believe her ears.

But she sees him, and believes her eyes.

"When I say run, RUN."

'Thank God,' she thinks to herself later, when her feeling of mortality begins to fade later. 'How terrible would it have been for me to die on my birthday.'