Unfortunately for John, he's too late to stop her. The golem's jerk throws him off-kilter again and he stumbles into a snowbank, falling sideways. "Ecks, no! Stop! Ecks!" Too late. It's always too late. It will always be too late.
John tries to push himself up as the thing swallows Ecks whole, towers over him with a thousand eyes and thousand voices.
"Fix me. Fix me! Fix me! Fix me!"
John Watson is not an easy man to scare, not when it's him facing down his own death. Not when it's him taking the fall, matching the enemy, looking down the barrel of a gun and not blinking. He's absolutely, bone-chillingly terrified in that moment. The anguish in those voices and the visceral horror the thing's presence and words invoke have John just frozen and staring.
And then, as his nose begins to bleed, it rolls back the way it came, gathering speed all the while. John holds where he is for three or four seconds, and then gasps, his legs give out, he's shaking all over. No. No. No. God no. He pushes himself up again, hand going into his pocket to pull out his little fruit knife, his best weapon. He manages a few staggering steps, then a run, trying to chase the anomaly before it's swallowed up in the snow, until the trail ends and there's nothing. No anomaly, no Ecks, only him, the snow, and his knife.
Everything he's been holding back wells up in a scream that catches on the wind and doesn't even have the decency to echo. There's no satisfaction in it. Nothing to show. He screams again as tears sting his eyes, and he drops to his knees again, this time to shove the knife in his pocket and dig and dig and dig deep. By the time he's a foot into the snow, John realizes that he's sobbing, that this is pointless, that she's gone and he's not going to reach the anomaly.
Two of them. Two dead under his watch in less than six hours. It's not supposed to be like this. He stays hunched over in the snow for the next several minutes, breath hitching, mind screaming with impotent rage, frustration, guilt, fear.
But John is, ultimately, a practical man, a military man. And when he's had his cry, when he's dragged himself up, he begins walking slowly, purposefully toward the house where Fiona and Alfie are.
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John tries to push himself up as the thing swallows Ecks whole, towers over him with a thousand eyes and thousand voices.
"Fix me. Fix me! Fix me! Fix me!"
John Watson is not an easy man to scare, not when it's him facing down his own death. Not when it's him taking the fall, matching the enemy, looking down the barrel of a gun and not blinking. He's absolutely, bone-chillingly terrified in that moment. The anguish in those voices and the visceral horror the thing's presence and words invoke have John just frozen and staring.
And then, as his nose begins to bleed, it rolls back the way it came, gathering speed all the while. John holds where he is for three or four seconds, and then gasps, his legs give out, he's shaking all over. No. No. No. God no. He pushes himself up again, hand going into his pocket to pull out his little fruit knife, his best weapon. He manages a few staggering steps, then a run, trying to chase the anomaly before it's swallowed up in the snow, until the trail ends and there's nothing. No anomaly, no Ecks, only him, the snow, and his knife.
Everything he's been holding back wells up in a scream that catches on the wind and doesn't even have the decency to echo. There's no satisfaction in it. Nothing to show. He screams again as tears sting his eyes, and he drops to his knees again, this time to shove the knife in his pocket and dig and dig and dig deep. By the time he's a foot into the snow, John realizes that he's sobbing, that this is pointless, that she's gone and he's not going to reach the anomaly.
Two of them. Two dead under his watch in less than six hours. It's not supposed to be like this. He stays hunched over in the snow for the next several minutes, breath hitching, mind screaming with impotent rage, frustration, guilt, fear.
But John is, ultimately, a practical man, a military man. And when he's had his cry, when he's dragged himself up, he begins walking slowly, purposefully toward the house where Fiona and Alfie are.
Time stops for no man and no golem.
The clock keeps ticking.