Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or associated characters. They remain in part the property of Mirage Studios and Nickelodeon (Viacom). I make no financial gain from this fiction

Author's Note: This is not a swan song or a death poem

Blood

Blood, that of my own or my enemies.

It doesn't matter, it runs as one

Clothed in thunderous rage, warm slithers trickle

Caressing my body, drenching my soul.

It whispers softly to me, feeding my aggression.

Cleansing, soothing, the pain runs with it.

Thick and black against the ebbing darkness of my mind.

The dull metallic scent sears my senses

Wounding, piercing, bitter as bile.

The blistering steel hisses, shrieking a perverse lullaby

It sings sweetly to me, drudging fetid flesh from broken bone.

I can no longer hear their demented voices, drowning in boiling crimson seas.

Adrenalin throbs, quickening

Tightening to blessed bursting relief.

Death rises on hollow wings to greet me

Drawing the dark edges closer, following my fevered footsteps

With salivating jaws it calls gently to me, I no longer hear the sound

Save the guttered gurgle of those lain before me.