A bunny that never left me, which I'm finally following up on as I catch up on the new TMNT and its poor treatment of girls and women.
Disclaimer: I own no part of any version of TMNT or its characters.
~ TMNT ~ TMNT ~ TMNT ~ TMNT ~ TMNT ~ TMNT ~ TMNT ~ TMNT ~
In a dark, dank cell in the back of the dungeons, the part that rarely gets visited or sees any upkeep, curls the shell of a girl. The crude stone walls are filled with tally marks, of which the girl has long forgotten what she was counting. Days? Minutes? Maybe just keeping herself distracted, but perhaps the distraction was more effective when her fingers were not bloodied, raw, and numb. Now she does it out of habit, a way to dull the ever present ache of hunger that haunts her. When was the last time she was fed? It's amazing she's still alive, though one may not know it just to glance at her pale, skeletal frame.
The girl told herself that the hunger, the darkness, the loneliness, and the utter hopelessness were at least better than before. The mere thought of before brings a shudder to her slight frame. The constant, bright light that made her wonder if she'd ever see again (and who knows if she can now that she's trapped in darkness). The poking and prodding – hair and blood and skin and marrow and nails and whatever else samples – that never seemed to stop, no matter how much she screamed and cried and begged. The three lost fingers and toes and, oh, her right eye. Pieces of herself that she'd never get back. She thinks perhaps they may have even taken a rib or two.
Those were the early days, when she'd used the thoughts of family and friends to get her through the pain and fear and loss. Did her family even remember her? Would they even recognize her? Did they still care? She didn't. She couldn't remember her mom's voice or her dad's face or if she even had any siblings. Vague and blurry shapes were all she could remember. Sometimes broken bits and pieces of memories filtered through her mind, but the girl couldn't be positive she hadn't made them up as stories.
What had the Kraang even kidnapped her for? Had she been a specific target or did she just have some of the world's worst luck? More importantly, what had they used her for? Most importantly, why was she still alive? Maybe she wasn't; maybe this was her purgatory. Doomed to rot forever in unforgiving darkness. Alone – unwanted and forgotten.
A loud, metallic scraping sound jolted the girl out of her habitual tally carving, signaling a long awaited meal as the metal flap groaned open. Slowly and carefully, she felt along wall towards the door. It was a round room, so there were no corners. It used to take her ten crawling steps to reach the food. This time it took 35 weak drags to get close enough to the food to dig in. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she used to find this slop disgusting. Hadn't even considered it food. Pink and globular, it had somewhat the texture of boogers and tasted worse than it looked. It wasn't helped by the fact that it was served by itself, not even on a tray. The first time she'd eaten it, she'd cried. Now it was all she remembered. The smoothness of the food soothed her throat. It settled heavily in her stomach. For the time being, the hunger was manageable again.
It had taken so much energy to make it to the door. The girl was almost tempted to stay where she was, but a small part of her still remembered the overwhelming fear for the Kraang and felt safer elsewhere in the cell. Was there any part of the wall left to carve into? She wasn't sure. She worked on dragging herself over to the opposite side of the circular room until she felt tally marks again. Then she began to start carving marks onto the floor and waited for sleep to take her. Not that she ever knew when she was actually sleeping.
Outside the girl's cell, the lights are dim and, in some places, flickering. The girl's cell is just one of hundreds. Although the cells are all stone, the hallway and doors are all rusted metal. The dungeons have not aged well and no one was bothered enough to clean them up. Many doors had faded, Kraangian writing on them, denoting the prisoner inside. Some doors were so faded that it was unlikely that the occupant had been alive in ages. Other doors had yet to receive a mark. The mark on the girl's door was slightly faded, yet was the newest mark in the dungeon. If one could read Kraangian, they would know the door labeled the prisoner as "Human Cloaking Donor for Creating Human Cloaking for Blending in With the Ones Known as Humans". Only one Kraang had bothered to learn that the girl's name was Irma Langinstein, and that Kraang had other uses in mind for the name than to have that it put on the girl's cell door.