A/N: This may or may not be a chapter story. This may just be a one-shot; however, if people like it, I could very well turn it into a story. Reviews are lovely.
Sarah couldn't decide if the day or night were worst of the two. The daytime had more people running about, carrying on their merry ways. More people meant more bad guys, but more people also meant protection. The night was much different. It was darker. She couldn't see a foe, but that also meant they couldn't see her. The number of people on the street has drastically decreased, along with her safety.
She thought it was a bitter but funny thing. While other ten-year-old were worrying about imaginary monsters under their beds that could easily be scared away by their parents walking into their rooms and switching on the light, she was worrying about bigger monsters, real monsters. The ones that could harm her and would, but she didn't have parents to ward of any potential threats. She didn't even have a home, but she sometimes likes to wonder what that would be like to have that again.
Several months ago on her tenth birthday, she waited for her mother, who made just enough money to take care of her daughter and herself, to come home from work. As you could probably guess, they were too poor to afford a babysitter with her mother's cashier job at a local convenience store in a small town of Pennsylvania, so little Sarah stayed by herself.
As the day turned into night, Sarah began to worry. Her mother was supposed to be home hours ago. Luckily, she knew the way to the gas station, so she bundled up and walked over to meet her mother so they could get started on Sarah's birthday dinner that her mom had promised, but when Sarah got there, she was met with policemen and a crowd of people. She desperately searched for her mother in fear, only to find her on one of those gurneys that she had seen on those hospital shows she liked to watch with her mom. Her mother had died that night from a gunshot wound with Sarah in the room. The entire hospital was filled with the sorrow that Sarah had felt. The aura in the building was depressing and lost, even the dead that rested in the morgue wept with the overwhelming sense of sadness that poor Sarah projected.
The state had taken her to an orphanage in New York City since she had no other guardian. Her grandparents died when her mother was just a wee child, an only child. Her father was never in the picture since he died in a car crash before she was even born so she had never met him. Her mother liked to tell her how much of a good man he was and how handsome he was-and Sarah agreed-if the worn out wedding photo that her mother had had was anything to go by- and how much Sarah reminded her of her husband. Sarah enjoyed that. She felt somehow closer to the father she never knew when her mother would say, "You look just like your father, same blonde hair and hazel eyes. When I look at you, it's like I'm lookin' at him," or something like, "I swear if you were anymore like her father, I wouldn't know what to do with you," when Sarah had done something wrong. It would always make Sarah smile.
The orphanage was terrible. She was only allowed to bring two item, besides her clothes, with her when she moved in. Sarah had chosen the worn-out black and white wedding photo of her mother and father cutting the small, simple white cake with the traditional bride and groom on top and the photo of her and her mother at the park. Her mother had taken that photo with a disposable camera as the both smiled up at the camera while they laid on their backs among beautiful yellow flowers.
The kids at the orphanage were mean to her, calling her names and pushing her. The adults were just as bad so she couldn't go to them. It took her awhile to work up the courage but she eventually ran away from the orphanage, and she has not regretted her decision once since it was practically made for her all those months ago.
Now, as she digs through the garbage behind a random restaurant, she still, however, feels a pang of jealously for all the little kids that are safe and warm with their parent or parents guarding them from all of their invisible monsters that hide in their closets or underneath their beds. Sarah wishes her monsters were imaginary too. She wishes she had a bed for those monsters to hide under, a mother, her hero, to safe her from them. But she doesn't. She's all alone. She doesn't have a hero to save her. All she has are memories and they can't save her.
All of those thoughts in her mind were confirmed when a growl sounded behind her. She cautiously jerked around to behind face to face with a stray, much like herself, Doberman. She could tell the dog didn't have a home due to the scars and the malnourished look of the dog.
She stood completely still as to not alert the dog until it lunged and barked at her anyway. She bolted, running as fast as her little legs could take her to the mouth of the alley. She ran down the street, throwing garbage can and any other large thing that could slow down a large Doberman as it barked and growled angrily behind her. Sarah was sure that if she hadn't, the dog would have gotten her since the dog is much faster than she.
She darted down another alleyway, knocking over two more metal cans, only to find the alley was a dead-end. She turned swiftly around to face her attacker who was edging closer and closer. Backing away and toward the brick barricade behind her, Sarah could feel her heart thumping rapidly as the thought of seeing her mother, the angel she once knew, again and finally meeting her father, the angel she'd never met, came to her mind and she smiled as much as she could from the adrenaline and fear she felt. Death by a dog didn't seem so terrible then, but as the dog readied himself to pounce, a figure fell from the sky and landed in between her and the Doberman and hitting the dog in the mouth with, what looked like to Sarah, two stick connected with a chain.
As the dog ran off, whining and sour, Sarah actually felt sorry for the poor creature and a little sad that she wouldn't see her parents just then, but when she looked up to meet the eyes of her savior that fell from the sky, it all disappeared and left fear and curiosity in its wake. Sarah was looking at the back of a humanoid turtle with a short orange mask that laid across his eyes.
"Yeah! Booyakasha!" the turtle yelled, punching his fist in the air. Sarah reached up, her curiosity getting the best of her, and touched her angel's skin to see if he was real. To her astonishment, he felt real. It didn't feel like any costume she had ever seen in the store, and it seems he could feel the slight caress that Sarah had made because he turned around in shock.
"Sorry. I figure you would have done left already," the turtle said. Sarah looked at him, dumbfounded, then behind her at the wall then in front of her where her hero block the narrow alley's entrance.
"Where would I go?" she had asked. Her voice raspy from months of unused vocal cords. He seem surprised by her question. He looked around as if to have only just then seen the predicament she found herself in.
"Oh, right! I guess you couldn't leave. At least, not without me noticing," he said with laughter in his voice. She nodded wordlessly, not allowing herself to trust this creature. While living on the streets, she learned trust could get you killed, but she couldn't help but think that maybe her parents, her angels that looked down at her, sent this turtle to rescue her.
"Mikey!" a voice in the distance yelled which got Mikey's attention.
"Well, brother calls! See ya. It's dangerous out here, you better get goin'," the turtle, whom she guessed would be Mikey, said as he climbed the side of the building effortlessly, looking down at her from the top, then running off when he finished his sentence. Sarah found herself looking around as she had done the last time he had spoken to her and found herself repeating her question, "Where would I go?" as well.
Sarah cautiously looked about, not feeling safe enough to sleep on the ground with the rats as her only companions but not as her only enemy. She looked at the fire escape that was directly opposite from the way the turtle went and climb. When she reached the top, she chose a corner and snuggle up within herself to keep warm. As she fell asleep, she thought back on those little kids with heroes that she was so jealous and she smiled. They might have heroes, but I have something better. I have angels.