"Experiments on insanity."
Chapter 1
"A warehouse, an injection and a recording."
# Raphael's POV
The news Donnie shared with us today were disturbing at best.
During one of his researches for the Foot Clan's current location, he accidentally discovered an abandoned warehouse on the very countryside of New York, which had a darker backstory than the Shedder.
Apparently some genius scientists were seen there doing experiments on living humans that were never seen alive again.
But that's not all.
Just a few years back, the bodies of the scientists were found in scattered all around the building, dead.
There were even a couple of photographs showing the house and the few shots of the bodies in a newspaper clip, that the police allowed for public viewing.
But what's even more disturbing is that when Leo asked our genius brother to show us the pictures from the scene, he refused saying it would be too much for Mikey to bear.
The internet only had the address of the house and a couple of pictures so we figured it could most likely be a cover story for the Foot clans secret location, and the creepy story was only added to scare away unwanted guests.
Well that's what Donnie and Leo thought of it anyway.
I think the pictures look way to realistic to be Photoshop. I mean yeah, some people are really good at making fakes, but nobody's THIS good.
"I say we check it out." Leo said looking at the photos on one of Donnie's many screens. "If the story is true there might be survivors the police missed. If it's not then this could be our next lead towards discovering Shedder's hideout."
"But what if it's a haunted house?" Mikey shrieked. "What if the ghosts will try to possess us?" I rolled my amber eyes at him.
"Relax Mikey." I reassured patting him on the back. "There is no such thing as ghosts, and even if there are, they can't possibly hurt you." He looked up at me with unsure baby blue eyes.
"Yeah Mike. They're just a floating pail of ectoplasma and nothing more." Donatello added smiling. "We might sense them if they're close by but they're completely harmless."
"Yeah tell that to the horror movies I watched last summer." My orange brother whimpered and moved closer to me.
"You mean "The conjuring" right?" Leo picked up looking Mikey in the eye. Our baby brother nodded his head.
I'm not usually affected by such silly things like horror movies.
I, unlike my little brother, am used to facing abnormal stuff. Hell I'm one of those things!
But "The conjuring" was not like a typical horror movie we would watch on Friday nights. It was so damn realistic, and the music was perfect. It didn't let me let my guard down for a second and the cast was born for their roles.
It left quite an impression on all of us. Especially with those words in the end.
Sadly I grew out of it a week after watching it, unlike our youngest.
"Mikey just because they said "Based on real life events" doesn't mean it will happen to us." Leo said placing a comforting hand on the orange clad ninja.
The youngest nodded and smiled weakly.
"Mikey you don't have to go if you're too afraid." I said giving him a light squeeze on the shoulder.
Our youngest looked at Leo pleadingly clearly interested in my proposition. My only older brother sighted.
"Fine Mikey you can stay."
"YES!" Michaelangelo yelled, happy to have the whole house to himself tonight.
"Oh no! I don't agree!" Donnie yelled. "He can't stay in the lair all alone! He'll burn it or blow it apart!" He was probably still mad at the orange turtle for blowing up that one doohickey yesterday, our nerdy brother, apparently, worked for four weeks to finish.
"Don, Mike won't be alone." I said folding my arms on my chest. "Master Splinter will watch him. It'll be fine."
But the purple clad genius didn't seam convinced. I sighted.
"Okay then how about you stay here with him to make sure he doesn't break any of your precious inventions?" I glared at him already tired of this argue.
Donatello seemed to like my idea because he smiled evilly at our youngest brother.
"Alright then. Tonight I and Raph are checking that place out." Leonardo said and with one swift movement of his hand let us know we were dismissed.
To tell you the truth I'm pretty curious about this mission. It was nothing like the ones we usually took and it didn't involve Shred-head.
And the best part…Mikey won't be there to ruin everything with his big mouth.
I smirked.
Yup. I'm definitely looking forward to it.
Two hours later
We left the lair ten minutes ago after Donnie gave us both those new communication doohickeys to put on our ears.
Currently I'm jumping from rooftop to rooftop enjoying the cool breeze of the midnight wind, against my emerald green skin.
Leo was right behind me, even though he was the one with the GPS.
I shrugged. Maybe he just accepted the fact that I was faster and there was no point on racing with me. I thought concentrating on the roofs before me.
"Alright, we should be turning left just about…now!" Leo commanded and leaped in front of me, leading the way now.
I growled. Nope. Still didn't let that bit of information through his thick skull.
Leonardo knew that I'm faster than him.
After running after gangsters, murders and muggers for most of my spare time, just to beat them to a bloody pulp I have to be.
Sure, he made me retire from being the Nightwatcher but that didn't stop me from going out with Casey for a brawl and a beer or two.
Leo might think he's a better fighter because I don't spend as much time on meditating and practicing katas as he does.
Well he's wrong.
As much as he trains indoors I train outside.
Granted, my way is more dangerous since my practice dummies, unlike his, can fight back and carry guns.
I look at him see him gaze at the GPS from time to time with a concentrated look on his face.
I still can get why didn't he let me lead. I know New York like the back of my hand. Literally. After spending weeks on learning the city's map by heart, I got so good at pointing directions Casey started calling me "GPS Raphie", much to my annoyance.
You call literally ask me anything about the locations in Big Apple and I can lead you strait to it.
"Well we should be reaching our destination in about five rooftops." I heard good old Leo say as he jumped to jet another rooftop.
We're here already? I thought a bit confused. By the way Donnie talked about the distance you'd think it was hell a lot further than this.
I turned to look at my "fearless leader". I have to say he does looks a bit worried… I snort. Come on fearless. Don't tell me you're scared of a little warehouse.
After a couple of rooftops we finally got our first look of our destination, and boy it looked creepier here than it did back in the lair on Donnie's computer screen.
The place resembled an abandoned asylum for mentally sick people than a house.
It was as big as a well build mansion, its walls were light gray all covered in black dirt and its windows didn't have glass and there was something black gripping from them. Not to mention the grass surrounding the place was almost up to my belt.
"Talk about "real life Arkam asylum"." I said as we went closer to the rusty, old, gate that said "Turn back".
Well that's inviting. I thought watching Leo pick the aged lock.
When he finally got it open I realized that the place was surrounded by grave stones. Each instead of a name had a warning on it.
Wow looks like somebody doesn't want to have a tea party.
After a long walk down the gray brick road I realized that the dry thing that was dripping from the windows was blood.
"Wow this place is getting creepier by the moment." I said reaching out and tearing a bit of the dry blood from beneath one of the windows and crushing it between my fingers. "I'm kinda happy we didn't take Mikey along."
"I have to agree with you on this one Raph." Leo said after opening the door with a swift kick when his pick-lock abilities didn't do the trick. "This place would give him nightmares for weeks." He snickered walking in the dark mansion.
The air inside was much colder than it was outside, and it stank with the smell of death and chemicals. It was dark and I could barely make out the shapes of doors before me.
"Hmmm doesn't seem like there's any foot activity around here." Leonardo said as he turned on his pocket flashlight, the clicking sound echoed of the smelly, fungus covered walls along with his voice.
"So do we check the rooms behind those doors?" I asked pointing at the metal door to my left that was covered in rust and classified as "XXI"
My older brother nodded and soon we split up to check as many rooms as possible before dawn.
I took a door with the number "XIX". It was stuck so I had to kick it open with my infamous round-kick. That move once made the Shredder hit the floor and that's why I'm really proud of it.
I pulled out my flash light and stepped in to the room.
What I saw made me think of a horror movie I watched a long time ago.
There before me was a metal torture chair all covered in rust and dry blood. Next to it I could make out a smaller table with medical pointy things I would never want stuck in my skin. Behind me was a large, alien-like, injection machine that also was pretty dirty with blood and other body fluids.
I walked up to it with my cellphone camera ready to make pictures. Donnie wouldn't let me live if I didn't make a picture of this doohickey so he can make a copy to the lair for medical proposes.
But as soon as I got close enough the machine faired to life and stuck a needle to my arm to fast for me to jump away and avoid it. Surprised (I repeat surprised not scared) I yelped and hurriedly pulled it out of my body.
God that thing is fast. I thought stepping away from the machine holding my injured arm that seemed to go limp after the injection.
Soon enough I could see Leo rush over to me with a worried face.
"You okay Raph?" He asked his voice thick with concern as he spotted my limp limb. "I could hear your scream from the other side of the hall."
I snarled at him.
"I'm fine Fearless." I answered waving him of with my good hand. "And I didn't "scream". I "yelped"."
"Whatever you say Raph." He answered rolling his brown eyes at me. "What happened?"
"The machine here still had some spark left in it." I gestured towards the damn pail of metal. "It stuck a needle in me. Though I don't think it was filled with anything. Probably it's in the robot's programing to inject everyone in close range."
Leo raised an eyebrow. "Oh rally? Then why is your arm limp?" He gestured to my right arm.
I growled. Why is it that you always have to right Fearless? "The needle hit a nerve, causing temporary paralysis."
Where did that info come from? I raised an eye brow at myself. Hmmm must have spent too much time in Donnie's company. Starting to sound like him.
"Hmmm I suppose you could be right." Leonardo eyed me again. "You have to hang out with me and Mikey more Raph. You're starting to sound like Donnie." He said walking out the room.
I followed him and felt my hand slowly regaining feeling.
After two hours of searching through the building we finally found some kind of lab room. It was filled with large computer screens that rivalled Donatello's in terms of size, and had all this laboratory equipment in it.
Leo divided the room to two sectors and we proceeded in checking the scary warehouse.
In one of the safes (witch I had to pick with my sai to open) I found a bunch of yellow, old looking folders.
Driven by my own stupid curiosity I pulled one out and opened it.
The first page contained the name, surname and picture of the person it belonged to.
"Angelina Summer." Hmm…nice name. Angelina was a college student of the last year, her eyes were in the color of grass, just like April's and her hair was blonde, tied in a small pony tail. When I looked at the "relatives" column I found out that the poor girl was an orphan all her life. And had only one friend called Andy Livingstone.
She was smiling in the picture.
I looked at the bottom of the page and my eyes widened.
There in big bright red letters I read:
"EXPERIMENT RESULT: FAILED.
DATE OF DEATH: .2003.
PATIENT'S CARETAKER: DR. CHARLES HAMMER.
DEATH BY: UNKNOWN."
I felt sick. With shaking hands I turned the page.
The images I saw there were worse than the ones in the best bloody horror movie ever made.
Angelina was lieing on a table with half of the face ripped off, a piece of her left leg (which she probably bit of with her own teeth) in her mouth dripping fresh blood, eyes shining in strange white light.
And the worst part is.
She was staring…straight…at…me.
Smiling in a petrifying Joker like manner.
I slammed the folder shut.
This image was going to hunt me till the day I die. I just knew it.
"Hey Raph." Luckily Fearless was here to prevent me from thinking about it to much. "I found something. Better check this out."
I nodded. I won't tell him about the picture. I decided walking over to where he stood. Before one of those large screens. He would never forgive himself for letting something like this happen to an innocent girl.
I clinch my fists. And neither will I.
"Are you feeling okay Raph?" He asked looking over at me concerned. "You look a little pail there bro."
I nodded and placed my hands on the computer's tape board. "I'm fine Leo. What did you find?"
He looked at me, not quite convinced but decided not to push the matter further.
Smart move Fearless. I thought watching him type something, his six grass green fingers moving swiftly around the keyboard. Be sure to use it more often and maybe we won't fight so much anymore.
"It looks like you were right bro." Leonardo said still typing. "This isn't the Foot clan's newest hideout. Only a secret laboratory. Build and used illegally by scientists that lost their licenses for experimenting on humans."
I could tell his throat was clinched at this point. Experiments on humans never ended well for the subject.
"It seems that one of these "doctors" kept recording stages of their progress and stored them on this computer."
"Play them out." I barked through gritted teeth.
"Raph I don't think this is a good idea." My older brother said shaking his head. "We might end up getting involved in a mess far too big for us to handle."
"The minute Donnie found this hellhole we were already involved in this mess Leo." I said glaring at him angrily. "There's no turning back now Fearless. So play out these recordings so we can get to the bottom of this."
He looked at the screen still not quite sure, but after a couple of minutes he pressed the "play" button and the first video began to play.
At firsts we saw nothing but snow but then a tall, brown haired man dressed in a doctor kilt with big, round glasses on his nose with large curious blue eyes appeared.
"Day 1. This is the first day I'm working here in "Shadow Springs Lab". Doctor Hamilton was kind enough to invite me over to help him complete his biggest dream. Creating the smartest human organism in the world. This experiment will provide our race with knowledge on how to fix all the world's problems, like the getting rid of the hunger problem, terrorists and finding an alternative power source for gas and our world's black gold!"
The scientist looked so excited when he talked about "Doctor Hamilton's biggest dream" that I began to wonder if he knew what will happen to the countless people they tested in order to complete it.
Suddenly as if reading my thoughts the scientist became sad, even hung his head in shame,
"Unfortunately, even that dream comes with a price to pay. And it's higher than anyone of us is willing to pay. In order to find out if the formula created by Doctor Hamilton works we need to test it out on a human brain. And, according to our calculations, the best ones are from teenage kids not older than twenty years of age. So in order to gather some willing candidates we organized a "competition" for a toothbrush commercial held here in the laboratory. Today came the first lab rats: Emily Flower, Maxwell Digg, Angelina Summer and Ronny Ash. All going to the same collage class. We will inject the formula into their bloodstreams after making them go through typical medical checkups."
And with that the screen went black. The first message was over.
"Donnie I hope you're hearing this." I hear Leo ask pressing a finger to his ear where I know he has the communication devise.
Don't know what brainy bro answered. Didn't care. All I cared about was this mystery on my hands.
"Doesn't matter Leo!" I yelled cutting short his conversation with Donatello. "Play out the second recording!"
He grumbled something but pressed the start button.
"Day 12." Wait! Where did the rest of the recordings go?! "So far the experiments have been unsuccessful. All the test subjects have either died during treatment or fallen into insanity. It appears that the chemical Dr. Hamilton created instead of turning people smart, turned them insane. But that's not a problem. We have the needed technology to correct that small flaw. This was Doctor Charles Hammer. Over and out."
This time my big bro didn't wait for my yelling.
"Day 17." Another jump. Great. "The corrections we made a week ago managed to grant the injected a few days of being the most intelligent persons on this planet, but after that time passed it turned them into psychopathic killers." The man was shaking now. "They killed each other when we were asleep. Only one survived. Angelina Summer. We predict that she was genetically the strongest species which is why she lasted the longest."
He didn't even say goodbye this time.
"Day 23." The man on the screen was covered in fresh blood and his glasses were missing. He was trembling and looked scared to death. "Angelina escaped her prison." He cried. "And killed all my fellow doctors on my very eyes! She's insane from the chemicals we delivered to her brain! And now she's after me! The sole survivor of our group." He looked deep into my very eyes and I could see he was petrified. "If anyone ever finds this recording I want you to know we did all this for the good of human kind! I left the last sample of Dr. Hamilton's chemical in the injection robot in room XIX. If anyone wishes to carry on our legacy and continue what we started it's there. Ready to be used. I hope the family's we torn apart will forgive us for what we have done to their children-" Before he could finish his speech something appeared from behind and grabbed his neck.
My eyes widened.
It was Angelina.
Smiling with the same insane smile she had on the picture as she broke his neck with one swift movement.
Her eyes were glowing with white light as she waved bye, bye to the camera.
Then all went black