'My name is Leonardo Hamato. I am 16 years old. My home is New York City. I am a ninja. I killed the Shredder. He came back. He captured me. I am a prisoner. I am thought dead by my family. I feel as if I am dead. Most likely I am dead. It would be best if I was dead...'
Leo looked up from the words he'd written, in his own blood, on the stone floor of his cell. He nodded, as if he'd needed only to see the facts laid bare before him to accept them. The action reminded him of his little sister, Vanessa, and of her binder full of similar, but happier lists.
'My name is Vanessa Wolfe. I had no family. I now have four brothers. I have a father...'
He sighed at the much brighter, vibrant tone of the memory. The remembrance of home, of family. Him, Vanessa, Don, Mikey, and a reluctant Raph sneaking out to watch a production of Macbeth at the Avalon Grande Theater. Training in the Dojo. Patrolling the city, and mopping up crime together. Fighting with Raph over something trivial, like him sneaking out at night.
God, what he would have given to be home. To apologize to Raph for being a jerk, something he'd never considered himself before. He wanted to tell Vanessa how much she meant to him, that she was more than just a valuable fighter to have on his team. To tell Don not to spend so much time in his lab, for his own sake. To do typical big brother stuff again.
Instead, he was here. At the mercy of the most vile, shameless villain his family had ever faced. A villain who, to make things impossibly worse, had a personal vendetta against him. The Shredder had given his scientists permission to do what they wanted to him, and had stood there during every session of torture. They'd been very indifferent about everything they'd done. Very scientific. They'd done so many things, he could only remember the last round of experiments they'd preformed. They'd tested how long he could survive underwater, without any source of air. His Chi Gong training had made it possible to last for hours, but even he couldn't last forever. Eventually, he'd breathed in a lungful of water, and they'd watched him drown as he writhed in panicked agony. They'd resuscitated him just so that the Shredder could watch him drown again. And again.
That had been one day.
He'd been captive for what he judged to be at least two weeks, though he couldn't be sure of the passage of time. Descriptions of Hell he'd read about, out of mild curiosity, made it seem like a welcome place at the moment. To simply burn would have been peaceful, like floating in a pool of water. He burned inside and out, body and soul, mind and heart. He had no safe place, not even able to escape into the calming depths of meditation.
'I must be going insane.' He often thought, as he wrote these strange messages in blood, all around his cell. He had no real, clear reason for doing it, but he did so all the same. Maybe he wanted Shredder to know he was going crazy. Maybe he wanted to know he was going crazy. He laughed, a low, haunted sound that was alien to his ears. Was he drugged, or was this insanity? Was this death, or was he still alive, trapped in his nightmares?
Leonardo did not know.
He looked up at the sound of the door being unlocked. It opened to reveal the Shredder, as well as the head scientist, who Leo had secretly nicknamed 'Mad Eye', because of his strange robotic eye, not to mention the ever present hip flask he constantly drank from while watching the helpless mutant thrash in agony. He stared at them blankly. 'Mad Eye' did a double take when he saw the new edition to Leo's mural of the macabre. Leo had noticed that the man fancied himself a psychologist, which was another small amusement to him; a shrink who created his own patients. So twisted, he found it funny. The man crouched down, so that he was on a level with him.
"What prompted you to write this?" He asked, in his authoritative voice, the accent still implacable, sounding genuinely curious. Leo simply shrugged in answer, never making eye contact with the man. The man glared at him, "I asked you a question, Freak. You vill answer." Leo looked up, letting his empty gaze rest on the scientist.
"Maybe I'm insane. You're the shrink. You tell me." His retort was met by a blow to the head. He simply winced, looking away.
"Have your ninja bring this creature to my lab, if it so pleases you, Master Shredder. I have a final experiment I vould like to conduct before you destroy him." Leo heard the man say, and shuddered. What could possibly happen to him now? And where, for that matter, was his family? Why had they not found him? Why wasn't he home?
He felt the rough hands of the Foot Ninja grab his arms, hauling his trembling, emaciated body off the floor. He didn't bother struggling beyond the instinctual growl that rumbled in his throat, and a weak attempt to pull himself free. He was rewarded with a hard attack to his chest, which left him gasping for breath as they dragged him down the non descript grey hallways.
'Let me die. Let me die. Please, let me die.' He chanted in his head, a mantra to keep him from screaming in frustration, and fear. They turned a corner, and he was hauled into what he quickly realised was a lab. Not the same one as he'd been in for the other experiments up to that point. There was a sort of table in the middle of the room, complete with leather straps to hold him down. Somehow, despite the lack of other tools to prove it, he knew what they were going to do to him. He completely lost it, screaming and thrashing, fear giving him a last reserve of strength he hadn't known he could call upon. Still, it wasn't enough to pull himself free, and the ninja wrestled him onto the table, cinching the straps around his legs, at his knees, ankles, and hips, as well as at his wrists. The strap across his shoulders pinned him very effectively, along with the smaller strap that was pulled across his mouth, gagging him.
He was trapped.
'My name is Leonardo Hamato. I am 16. I am about to be dissected alive. It is likely that I will die. I hope that I will die. Why can't I die?' He watched 'Mad Eye' and his team of Foot scientists enter the room, the equipment that one underling pushed on a cart confirming his horror; a surgical saw, scalpels, small specimen containers. Leonardo was, by no means, an idiot. He watched shows based around criminals and the apprehension thereof all the time. These objects belonged in an autopsy lab. He felt his breathing quickening, his heart racing. ' Oh, God,' He thought, his eyes widening at the sight of what looked almost like Don's heavy duty bolt cutters at home,
'Oh, my God. No. No! Don't let them actually be doing this. They can't!' He heard a low, panicked whine escaping him, and tried to shake his head. It was impossible. 'Mad Eye' smirked at him, a malicious, insane grin spreading across his face. He whimpered, feeling pathetic, helpless, and absolutely mortified. He could see a woman, the red-head who helped Mad Eye, setting up an IV drip, probably to sedate him or worse. She gripped his left arm, inserting a needle that would be a socket for the intrusion of unknown drugs into his body. He writhed; she had deliberately done it to cause pain. He knew that it could be painless; his genius brother had learned fast that none of his patients would accept his attentions if they hurt.
He let out a low moan of fear as she attached the line, literally feeling the coldness of the drug as it spread through his system. He could feel his heart slowing, his lungs drawing less air.
'Are they killing me first?' He thought, his eyes wide as he watched the scientists moved around his prone form, preparing. That, he knew, would be mercy. He tried to flex his fingers, horror filling his slowing heart as he realised they would not move. But he could still feel in perfect clarity. He slowly grasped the true horror of what the drug was doing; rendering him incapable of moving, of fighting, but very capable of feeling everything they were going to do to him.
'Please, let me die fast.' He silently prayed to whatever Gods would help him, as the surgical saw, in the hand of 'Mad Eye', descended upon his plastron.
The pain was unlike anything he'd ever experienced in his short 16 years of life. He knew that it was the kind of pain a person couldn't survive. His frozen body could feel it, to every nerve ending. His paralysed throat was unable to control or articulate the screams of pain that tore their way free.
But that wasn't the worst part.
His eyes were stuck open, his head tilted just enough that he could see what they were doing. He could see one of the underlings handing the sick maniac the object that reminded him of bolt cutters. He could see, feel, and hear as 'Mad Eye' snapped every rib in his ribcage, and he screamed in helplessness, the pain too much to bear. He could hear them discussing how like a human's the placement of his ribs was, even as they put their hands inside his body, examining his organs, bones, everything.
The sense of violation was so complete that he wanted to die. Flat out die.
They were touching parts of him that weren't meant to be touched, weren't meant for this hell. They were cutting into his living flesh, slicing away pieces of the organs that dictated whether he lived or died. He couldn't stop screaming; not even one moment of blessed peace did they afford him.
It went on forever. Forever and forever.
He silently thanked the Gods that had answered him when his world went black.
His whole body was one massive ache when he returned to reality. He let his limp hands dabble in the still wet blood that covered his plastron, which was somehow rejoined. His fingers traced minute swirls in the paint of his lifeblood. He raised his right hand, shaking, to the blank space on the wall beside him. He wrote on the uneven stone;
'My name is Leonardo Hamato. I am 16 years old. I want to die. It hurts so bad. PLEASE LET ME DIE.'