Outcasts

Disclaimer: I deny any ownership of any adolescent transformed shadow warrior chelonians.

Rating PG-13 for occasional swearing.

Chapter One: Heaven and Hell.

There are times, far too many times actually, when I find myself running from my family

Trying to escape from them and all the rules, that structures our lives and existence on the fringes of New York City.

We live on the fringes of the big city, seeing, but not being seen, noticing without being noticed just like so many others. Only thing is we are a little different. We are not normal, we are freaks, rejects we are unwanted outcasts.

Yeah, I know all cities have their outcast, the people they don't want to mention or even admit exists. The group of people who live homeless either from choice or circumstance, the run aways, the addicts, or those just plain down on their luck.

Have you ever noticed the average hard working citizen sees someone like that they avert their eyes, or give the person a brush off. They don't want to have any contact with an outcast. Hell no, it just might be contagious.

So the average citizen pretends the social outcast is for the most part, no more than a city rat, they know the rat is there and survives on the garbage and filth. They know the rat exist but they refuse to see it as it scampers from shadow to shadow or rustles about in the dumpsters.

Those ones at least were to our advantage, they didn't want to notice and we were willing to go unnoticed by, and large it was to our favour.

Course there was some portion of humanity who actually did care. I knew about them, just as I knew about every sort of human that lived in this city. Those ones seemed to notice those in need and went out of the way to provide food, clothing and what ever else they could to ease life.

Those ones were harder for us to avoid, the bleedin' hearts needing to do a good deed were far more of a threat to us.

Freaks I knew didn't belong; anything strange or other couldn't be accepted all I had to do was look at how they treated the outcast to know deep in my heart the truth of what they would do to us.

They would want to beat us down, keep us in the slime and the sludge that was part of our home, they would expect us to stay where we belonged. Beneath them for outcasts do can never be above them in any way.

I often watched people and found their actions to be rather disappointing and infuriating. I expect more from them and was frustrated at the way they acted. Slapping labels on any thing and every thing and yet, still hiding behind their fears and insecurities wanting to prove themselves better, even if it meant demeaning someone else.

Maybe because I was always down I the sewers smelling the stench, that I and my family grew up around keeping forever to the shadows an the darkness that I longed to rise myself up above it all.

I couldn't sit under the streets, in a labyrinth of concrete tunnels and look up at the night sky and feel it was attainable by the likes of me.

It would almost seem as if the walls would close in around me, and even on the streets in my disguise, I would look up at the towering buildings around me and feel that I was damned for all life.

It's so hard to see heaven from hell!

Only when I climbed up and purposely went high above, the streets and the noise and surrounding buildings would I suddenly feel that maybe, just maybe, I might be worthy of a piece of heaven myself.

I would stand on the rooftop looking up at the night sky welcoming whatever was up there, be it starlight, moonlight or a nice cool breeze. The air smelt better and when it rained I would open my mouth and allow the fresh water to fall inside, and I could never get enough of that.

Going back down again was never easy; it was giving up heaven to return to hell. It was like admitting I belonged down there, that I didn't deserve to belong, that I was willing to return to being a nobody who would rather allow himself to be walked on and over, to standing up for myself.

It irked me to know that I would give my freedom up to return to the shadows, the half existence that lay below the streets.

It bothered me even more to know when I got there my brother would be waiting with a long winded lecture or nagging session about my attitude and behaviour. You think after all these years he would be used to me by now.

Sometimes sitting and looking at my three brothers all I could see was a reflection of my own loneliness and how, no matter what we were the only ones of our kind. We had never run into any one or any thing even remotely like ourselves.

It was pretty easy to see where our future, our lives were going. Nowhere. Fast or slow did it really matter? Not likely because no matter how fast you go, you'll still end up being in the same place when all is said and done.

We had only each other and our father was fading fast. All of us were on a trip to a dead end street.

Being in my home surrounded by the rules, the constant reminder of who and what we were, I could only feel like I was trapped and felt even more of an outcast.

Sure it isn't always like that. There are times that my brothers and I get along and I can relax and enjoy being there. After all while they are reflections of my loneliness they are also the only people in my life who can fully accept me.

With them I can feel like I actually belong, that I am at the very least a part of something. I don't feel this anywhere else or with anyone else. Not even with our human friends April and Casey.

Casey is a good friend and while we relate in many ways, he can never fully understand the pain, or hurt of being an outcast someone who is set apart from the rest of society. No the only thing that he can accept is that I am willing to go out and bust heads with him now and again and we can blow off steam together.

We are friends.

Just as April and I are friends though, it is a friendship of a different level. She in not the rough or rowdy person Casey is but she is kind, gentle. She gives me hope that maybe, one day it is possible for others to accept us.

She is the angel of our world, a bright shining light of hope. While Casey is simply Casey.

At times when I feel desperate I take my disguise and head up lingering in the crowds on the street walking until my feet grow soar and then I head into a dark smoky bar where I can sit in a back corner out of the way.

There I sit and watch. I also dream about being accepted I never go into a bar for the explicit reason of drinking, though I will have a few. I would rather sit and observe others and for just a little while feel that I am just another citizen. An accepted member of society mingling with others however I know it isn't true.

I'm not even kidding myself when I do that; for I know in reality I'm still on the outside looking in. I couldn't fit in or announce my presence for that would cause problems. In spite of what my brother thinks about my behaviour I would not purposely do anything to cause the rest of the family harm.

So a wall is between those that I long to be a part of and myself, I don't know how to break that wall or get past it. Don't know how to be accepted by others, and am in many ways afraid to reach out and try.

It is frustrating to sit there and long to be a part of society, sitting there watching life pass you by, yet forever sitting out knowing the awful truth. The more I sit and pretend the more it bothers me, the more lonely and alone I feel. However I can't stay away from it either.

It is like the moth being drawn forever towards the light, an instinctive thing it goes to the brightest thing it can see, the one bit of hope, and it bashes itself to death once it reaches the light.

I like to torment myself for I can't stay away from bars, I go there wanting to feel accepted yet the longer I am there the more I feel an outcast that I don't even belong.

I can't be accepted I will always be the figment of your imagination, nothing more then a nightmare to haunt the dreams of sleepers.

Even when patrolling the streets and stopping the crimes that happen I can't help but feel that our purpose is nothing more than hypocritical at best for we are protecting the lives of those who would, hurt or exploit us if they knew we existed.

The people we help might refer to us as angels, when they haven't seen our looks but if they were to see what truly spared their lives they would think some demon had escaped the underworld.

Hell at that point they would probably be begging' their attacker to save them from the beast that has come to life to terrorize them.

No wonder heaven is so far away; it is beyond reach and is so hard to even see for a fleeting moment.

There are times I feel my only true friends, the only ones I can really rely on are my weapons and the skills my father taught me to keep me safe. I have confidence in my abilities and the training that was instilled into me as a youngster.

I often questioned Splinter about why we had to learn these things and he would reply.

" The outside world is dangerous. I teach you and your brothers so that you might be able to protect yourself, and one another if ever you need to."

I always sensed there was more to it then that, that there were things he wasn't telling us. I wondered why he wouldn't let us know. I also how he could call the world above a bad place of danger when it provided us with many good things, like toys, warm blankets and food.

Somehow the outside world still called to me, even more then my brothers. My brothers were content and happy to obey the rules but I had to push the limit I had to search and look for a way to breach that wall.

I didn't want to spend the rest of my life looking in, or having others looking down at me. I didn't want to rein in hell, not if there was a way I could serve in heaven.

I didn't want to be an outcast ignored and neglected, I wanted the freedom of the world topside to be accepted.

I knew it would probably never happen the vicious circle of longing and hating and feeling so alone might never end. That perhaps, I ought to accept what was, as my brothers seemed to.

Yet one could not reach heaven by accepting things as they are only by aspiring to greatness can one raise them selves. So I keep looking for ways to do that in a world where I am no more then a demon.

An outcast of society living on the fringes.

TBC