Chapter 1- The Anonymous Voice
It was a brisk, spring day in New York City. I was walking home from my best friend Abigail's house. She had invited me to sleep over yesterday so that she wouldn't be sulking around alone on a Friday night; yesterday would've been her and her ex-boyfriend's 2-year anniversary. He dumped her via text message saying that he thought he deserved better than her, so he left her for some Asian model he met in a bar. All night, all Abigail did was go on and on about relationships. Me? Nah, I'm not technically in a relationship. I mean, a cute guy from school telling you that he has feelings for you, and you telling him you feel the same way, doesn't mean you're in a relationship with him, right? All these thoughts began to flabbergast me as I approached my apartment building.
As the winds grew stronger, my hood was blown off, setting free the small, purple piece of paper I had in it for safe keeping. I chased the paper down an alley, as my elastic had fallen off the bottom of my braid, allowing my chocolate brown hair to fly around and into my face.
I guess I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings very well, because when I caught the paper, letting out a small sigh of relief under my breath, I saw two men maybe three yards away from me. They were both wearing exactly the same thing; an all-black onesie and masks that covered their entire heads, with blood red bandana masks over their black masks.
As I saw one hesitantly pass a silver briefcase to the other, I got up from my squatting position and began to back away slowly. Again, I was oblivious to my surroundings and backed into a tin garbage can, knocking it over and alerting the "pajama party of two" of my presence. I began to run, but was stopped by one of the men just 4 seconds later. He had me by my fore-arm, with a grip tighter than I had ever experienced. He spun me around to face him, then took half a second to examine me. He looked back to the other man and said with a thick Brooklyn accent, "Whadda we do wit' 'er?".
"You 'eard da boss.", the other man said with a weaker, but still recognizable, Brooklyn accent. "No witnesses".
"NO!" I said shaking my head violently. "I'LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING! CASH, MY PHONE, MY BANK CARD! YOU CAN HAVE ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING IN MY PURSE, JUST PLEASE! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
I screamed as I struggled to loosen his grip.
"How 'bout dis?" The weaker-accented man said with a tone as if he were negotiating to sell something. "How's about I follow ma boss' orda's and leave no witnesses, AND take ya money! Dat sound good, princess?" I looked away from him, shedding a single tear, remembering how my father used to call me princess.
"How about", a new anonymous voice began sternly, "you leave the girl alone and I let you leave with your pathetic little hearts still beating?" I looked around to see who the voice was emitting from, but saw no one. Then I looked to the shadows, and saw the silhouettes four men, all standing in a line, shoulder to shoulder. Both men in black looked at each other, then at the silhouettes. Then the man with the weaker accent said, "Boss told us 'bout you freaks! I ain't scared 'o nottin!".
"Not even spiders?" a new, more playful voice said. I heard a slapping sound and a small exclamation of pain come out from the playful voice. The weak-accented man growled with impatience and lunged at the silhouettes. I saw partial movement of the silhouettes, heard metal clashing, and dead silence for a good minute or so.
The thicker-accented man, that was now pinning my to the wall by my neck, let go of me to investigate what happened to his "pajama-pal". As soon as he let go, I fell on my knees, coughing erratically. As I fell down on all fours, my coughing slowing down, I saw the thicker-accented man fallen on his face to the left of me. Then I felt a presence next to me and a warm hand on my back. Then I heard the first anonymous voice say softly, "Are you alright?"
I pointed to my purse, remembering the half-full water bottle I had in it. He bolted over to it, picked it up, and ran it back to me.
Wow, he seems really worried about me… and I don't even know his name! It's kinda… sweet.
I took out the water, got up to a crouch, and chugged the water in four seconds. "Wow!" I heard the excited voice say. "That was fast!"
"Thanks!" I responded, matching his level of excitement with my tone, and leaning against the alley wall, squeezing my eyes shut as tight as I could. "I don't like to waste my time."
I slowly opened my eyes to see that we were in the light. I took a couple seconds to examine the four Good Samaritans, to discover that they were wearing costumes… turtle costumes? I looked at the one closest to me. He was wearing a blue bandana mask. He had ADORABLE, dark blue eyes and two swords strapped to his back. "Sick costumes!" I exclaimed. I saw Blue look down, as if he had something he needed to say, but for some reason, couldn't- I knew this look all too well. Then I looked closer at his face, and his scars. They were fresh, bleeding, real. Then I came to the conclusion that they were, indeed, walking, talking, fighting turtles, and passed out at the shocking realization.