TMNT Fan fiction

4/12/05

Ch 1

Enter Amber:

Blood. Everywhere I turned I smelled blood and it didn't help that I knew it was coming from me. I spent most of my time in a small cramped cage thinking about my family, my old life, and just about anything else besides what I am doing here. It hurt to think that my brother had sold me to this lab but what he did to me before is just about as bad as what the scientists are doing to me now.

I curled up into a small ball and pretended to be asleep as the lab technician checked my vitals. I know that I no longer looked human but I had no idea what I was. The stuff that they put in me had caused my body to bleed slowly as it changed but apparently not enough to have them put an IV drip in or something else to make up for the blood that I had lost. I also knew that I am smaller which is a blessing because that means that my cage has just a little bit more room in it for me to move around in.

The tech has now turned to the side to write down some info on his board. Another advantage to being smaller is that now my hand is small enough to slip through the bars, into the side pocket of his coat, and remove his key card with him completely unaware. I knew he is forgetful and will try to hide the fact that he lost his card again until he could find it. He had left it several times on his desk. When he turned back to me I pretended to be asleep with the card tucked snuggly under my stomach. Tonight I am leaving.

The main lights have been out for a while now and I was nervous about leaving. I mean where would I go? I didn't have a family that I could go home to and the general public would just hand me over to the doctors that could just as bad as living in the lab. But did I want to stay here? No any place would be better then living here, I just will have to avoid my family and figure out what I look like. Maybe if I don't look so bad I could get myself adopted into another family. OK I know that is impossible but you can't blame a girl for dreaming, right?

I guess I should at least try and see what happens because who knows what will happen when these lab boys get bored. I tried to wipe off as much blood as I could from the key card, but that was kind of a useless gesture as all that had happened was a thin layer of red film now coated the sensitive black strip. I sighed as I stared at it, there was nothing to whip it on in my cage and I didn't think it would work coated in blood. I knew I would have to lick off the blood and let it air dry but that idea repulsed me. I mean it is my blood but this isn't like sticking my finger in my mouth after cutting it, which is an automatic response. This felt more like canalizing myself and that felt wrong, besides it looked gross I mean how many germs could be on that card?

Carefully I bent forward to lick it clean, trying to think of something else besides the coppery taste, and then held the opposite side of the card, from the black strip, in my hand as I let it air dry. It seemed to take forever but I didn't want to rush it and break the temperamental machine. When it was done drying I sipped the card through the blood covered bars of my cage and slid it along the scanner before hitting the keys that would open my door. I couldn't help but smirk to myself when the door popped open. 'Stupid doctors,' I thought, 'think that I am stupid because I don't talk to them.'

Looking over the edge of my cage I noticed that it was about four feet to the floor, an easy drop but to be on the safe side I tried to climb down but lost my grip halfway down and dropped the rest.

"Ouch," I said faintly.

I looked up and frowned, I used to be bigger then that much bigger. What else was different besides my height and strength, which was nonexistent? I walked towards the door, as I looked around in wonder at all the scientific junk lying around. It looked like something out of a horror slash sci-fi movie. For a moment I had a vision of mixing up some chemicals to create a small bomb to flood their toilets with but I had to quickly suppressed it because knowing my luck I would probably just blow myself up, I might of had high school chemistry but I didn't even know what a third of the stuff that I looked at was.

Thump, I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't know that I was at the door until I ran right into it. After staring at the knob and keypad for a few seconds, I realized I had a problem, it wasn't the keypad, I knew the code but I couldn't reach either of them. I was too small. After a few minutes of jumping around, waving my arms, and berating myself for thinking that it would be this easy; I started looking around for something to stand on. I walked over to the chair on wheels and crawled on top of it to see if I could.

"I think there are some cats that are bigger then I am," I quietly grouch to myself. Standing on top of the chair, I noticed that on top of the desk was a thumb drive that had a cord attached to it. I picked up the cord and shoved it though the hole in the card and looped it over my head, now I didn't have to worry about dropping the card and smiled as I hopped off the chair.

'I would expect for scientists to be cleaner and not to just let things lie around for little hands to pick up,' I thought and laughed at my own joke before pushing the chair to the door. Once there, I climbed on top, slid the card though, pushed the code, turned the knob and grunted when I realized the door was too heavy to open. I put one foot against the wall and pushed as hard as I could. The chair flew out from under me, the door swung open, and I fell off the doorknob. How I managed to scurry through the door before it closed, I don't know but I am happy that I did.

After walking through hallways that stretched on forever, going down tons of flights of stairs, and bypassing the security guard sitting at his desk reading a horror book with a picture of a monster on the cover instead of watching the monitors, I came upon something useful. It was a shipping room, full of boxes and labels, and a stack of boxes to be taken out at four a.m. I guess that was smart to avoid rush hour traffic but it will be a blessing for me because it wont be until eight that they will have noticed that I was missing unless that guard decides to do his duty and watch the monitors. I looked up at the recording device and started making a box for myself. It took a long time because had to wrap myself up in packing paper and plastic to keep from bleeding on everything.

I copied down one of their addresses for a sister company on the east coast and taped it to the box before taping myself in by taping one flap and then pulling it down on the other flap while pushing the flap up with my head; because the box wasn't seal shut, I able to push up on the flaps to get some fresh air. I found it amusing that I was planning on mailing myself across country on their expense. Hopefully it will be far enough away that I can disappear before they find me.

I woke to the sound of the door being opened and two guys talking. When I knew it was the delivery guy, I held very still, and tried to breath quietly. I felt myself being picked up and place in the back of the truck with other boxes placed on top of me. After the door closed I had to pull a corner of the flap in and push against the side of the box as hard as I could for the entire drive just to get enough air to breath. When the truck stopped and the doors opened again I was surprised, thinking that I was already there but soon learned it was another pick up. By the third stop, I was becoming jumpy thinking that they had found me. It was on the fifth stop that I got tossed onto the back of a plane.

"For crying out loud, I thought I put 'fragile' on this box," I muttered as the plane took off. When I was certain that there were no one else in cargo hold, I forced my way out of the box and wondered around the area. Besides a few animals traveling cheaply, like me, no one was home. I gave the dogs a wide berth when one of them tried to attack me. I knew if I stayed in my box I would be caught soon. I began searching franticly for a box my size. When I found it I moved the stuff in it into another box, and took the stuff from that box into my lab box, hoping to buy myself some time. Then I taped myself back into my new box. New York sounded like a big enough city to get lost in.

I waited for the delivery truck to stop a few stops into the trip before making my escape. Unfortunately I spotted by the sales guy and the deliveryman who started chasing down the street. I looked behind me at the men chasing me and didn't see the sanitary worker's truck or the bars that I ran under or the open manhole that I fell through.

There is one thing that I can say about sewers and that is they are dark, smelly, slimy, and my new best friend. As soon as I got to my feet I ran! I ran down one turn and then the next, sometimes dropping several feet only to land in another set of tunnels.

Soon I realized I was truly lost and no one was following me. Exhausted I leaned against the wall or at least what I thought was a wall until I fell backwards down a tunnel and into a ditch. Standing up I felt my way around and found myself to be in some pit with slick walls. I was trapped; even with a running jump I couldn't reach the ledge of the tunnel I fell out of. Everywhere I heard bugs and critters moving.

I don't know how many days or even weeks I have been down here but I do know that I have gotten pretty good at catching those critters and eating them. I am so glad that it is pitch black down here because I don't want to know what I have been eating. If I survive this fever I have and my ankle stops hurting, maybe I will be able to one day grow big enough to get out of this whole I am in. Tired, I curled up into a small ball and tried to ignore the insects that were feeding off of my blood.