I WAS SURROUNDED by voices. They told me to hold on. They told me to give up. I had things to do, things I needed to fix. My life was worthless, a progression of failures culminating in this.
Live.
Die.
I dreamed. I sweated. I screamed in pain.
I focused on my brother’s voice in the cacophony. Sherlock didn’t accuse or encourage.
‘It’s a bad time,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you what to do, Morrigan. That’s all your decision. But it would be a very bad time to die. Hurry up, though, one way or the other. Time’s wasting.’
I tried to tell him again that dying people didn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter, but my mouth wouldn’t work, and there was something impossibly heavy resting on my chest.
‘There,’ he said. ‘Now you’ve done it. I can’t see this improving, now.’
I slept again
