INSPIRED BY THE SUPER SHREDDER TRAILER ON NICK. KIND OF. HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE! THE PICTURE/COVER (that i hand drew, btw) ISNT THAT CREEPY, BUT THE STORY IS...HOPEFULLY. ANYWAY, PLEASE ENJOY MY OFFERING!

GOD BLESS AND GOOD DAY!

~THE LUPINE SOJOURNER

Asami jack-knifes into a sitting position, terror and fear powering a desperate attack that only injures the surrounding air. She then slumps, her initial surge of adrenaline gone, leaving her tired and shaky in the wake of what had awoken her in the first place.

The nightmare had been too real.

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Running down a dark tunnel was nothing to be frightened of. Asami had done so before, numerous times. This time, though, the darkness was heavy, oppressive, and most definitely dangerous. Beside her ran her family and her clan, each as terrified and desperate as the next to evade whatever was contained in the altogether horrifying darkness. Bone-chilling laughter, deep and oppressive, filled Asami's ears, freezing her senses to anything but the sense of urgency that she run and continue running until she had lost her pursuer, which was made all the more terrifying in its mystery. Suddenly, Mikey stumbled over his feet in his panic, falling to the ground with a cry of alarm. Miwa was at his side in an instant, but even that speed cost her the precious seconds she needed to escape. Mikey and Miwa let out a scream of utter pain and horror before being taken by the darkness.

While the loss was numbing and horrifying, the Hamato clan knew better than to slow down. They would escape and avenge their fallen. In his grief, Raph was next to make an error, falling with out grace and sucked away in the next instant, a roar of desperation the last sound he ever made. Now more grief-stricken than ever before, innocent Lupa stumbled and sobbed even as she disappeared. Asami gave a dry sob, but pressed on. She knew this tunnel. She and her father would deal with their attacker once and for all in the drainage junction just up ahead. However, their oppressor knew the tunnel as well, and tossed them over the pits edge with icy tendrils of pure agony and abject fear. They fell to the bottom, the tendrils embedded within them still, until a bridge halted their fall for a moment. Asami wanted nothing more than to stay on the ground until the pain passed, but was already desperately crawling away. At the sound of her father dragging himself behind her, she turned. And saw!

She could not, later, describe the being that landed with a force so great it shook the earth. Nor could she describe the terror she felt at witnessing her father's murder for the second time. She only knew her father's scream in any great detail as the knives that had once been tendrils sprouted from Splinter's chest, blood gushing out-not unlike like when the black-hole generator sounded out it's death toll to the earth and Splinter stood helpless with Saki's blades through his back, dark red staining his kimono-she'd failed again-

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"No...I just had a bad..." She gulps, wishing for a drink of water, or anything to distract her from her dark thoughts, "just had a nightmare...D-D-dad's fine...he's okay..." Shaking herself, panting, Asami slid the rice paper door separating her room from her father's open the tiniest of cracks, just enough to see that her father was safe and breathing. Taking a moment to calm herself, Asami listened to her hasty, panicked breathing intertwining with her father's, and eventually they match as she forces her breaths to even out and become steady and calm, though she felt neither of those things. Everything is alright. She thinks, desperate for a glimmer of hope to steady her beating heart. But I have to make sure.

She had slipped out of her room and through the dojo doors before she could think. Peeking into each of her sibling's rooms, she ascertained that they were unharmed and very much alive. The thought alone was enough to sufficiently calm the distressed mutant down, even as she circled through again, just to make sure. Asami knew, as she headed back toward the dojo and her futon mat, that she wouldn't get any more sleep tonight, so she slipped back into her room and began meditating deeply on one thought, one question, that haunted her about the experience.

Everything is alright. So what was that?!