Tribulation: Chapter One
"Apologizes are pointless, regrets come too late. What matters is you can move on, you can grow."
-Kelsey Grammer
"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone."
-Harriet Beecher Stowe
Disclaimer: I do not own the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
***Italics=flashbacks***
'What have I done?'
…
…
…
'Holy shit, what have I done?'
Standing in my brother's room, I let the dimness suck me in as I mentally chanted the same thing multiple times glued to the same spot I had been for hours.
'What have I done?'
Thick silent tears began spilling from my watery eyes hitting the cold stone floor like an arsenal of small bullets as I tried sorting through the thoughts that were swimming in my head.
'What have I done?'
As I stifled back yet another sob, my eyes frantically darted around the room where it all began as if the answers would come to me.
'This is my entire fault.'
Whether by some outside force, or my subconscious mind alone, my legs, compelled me around the vacant space. Half-heartedly, I glanced at old discarded punching bags, free weights, and various other things that were sprawled around the room.
As my calloused fingers gently caressed the worn sheets on the hammock that my brother called his bed, I suddenly realized that it will forever remain cold, and that it will never again show any signs of life. I felt my heart breaking; thinking about having to rouse one less every morning was just too painful to bear now as the constricting sensation in my chest began to tighten.
Turning away with stinging eyes threatening to spill their content of fresh tears, the object that started this whole ordeal fell into my line of vision. What little control I had left over my tears was gone in an instant as I rushed over to the other side of the room to confront it.
With a shaky hand, I gingerly stoked the smoothed surface as I relived the events that happened just hours before.
"Who would have thought that I would lose you over something as silly as this?" I whispered into the deserted quarters.
"Who would have thought that I would lose you over a map?"
The memories were too much to bear and I closed my eyes trying to get my mind to concentrate, to focus, just as my father had thought us for years. However, none of his teachings could ever have prepared me for a horrible event like this one.
'How am I going to go on?'
I thought as I slid down to my knees in front of the clause, the object that was the source of all this chaos.
Sighing, while slowly glancing to my left I saw them, and I felt my eyes widen in realization.
Guilt. Guilt was all I felt upon seeing the pushpins that I crudely snatched out of the poster and threw to the floor. They were now carefully tucked away in a glass jar on the shelf adjacent to the map.
And that's when they hit me, and I succumbed to the memories of what happened earlier that day…
"What is the meaning of this, get off your lazy shell and come to the dojo we have an extra training session since the weather is terrible outside" I shouted at my younger brother who was as usual defiantly sprawled out on the floor staring at his map littered with various push pins'
"It's a map of all the places I'm going to go, all the things I'm going to see," my brother responded back with an air of nonchalance.
"And how exactly are you going to go to those places, how exactly are you going to see those things?" I quickly barked out
"Easy, with my bike."
"Oh with my bike he says. With my bike, I am going to go on a reckless ride all across the United States without giving so much of a thought about my family's safety, not to mention Master Splinter would not approve."
"Yeah, right fearless, I don't give a damn about this family," he suddenly shot back while getting up with a stretch and exiting the room.
Blinking my eyes back to reality, I gazed into the glass case, turning it over in my shaky hand.
'He must have picked them all off the floor right before'- I contemplated silently as I examined the jars content with expert care.
"It didn't feel as if I tore this many out of the wall, there has to be at least fifty in here," I murmured into the stillness of the air while slipping back into the recesses of my mind…
"Raphael get back here," I growled as the realization that my brother was ignoring me yet again set in, "does it look like I'm done talking to you?"
"Does it look like I care…didn't think so."
"Raphael Hamato" I said in the most authoritative voice I could muster "I am in charge, and you will get back here and listen to what I have to say!"
With that last statement, I watched as my younger brother swiftly turned around in the doorframe while staring daggers at my form.
"Listen here 'Oh Fearless one'," he hissed in a voice sodden with spite, "I am not your little pet that will jump whenever you say jump, that leader shit you just pulled right there may work on Mike and Don, but it sure in the hell won't work on me. Now that map right there the one you got your shell so worked up over, I'd like to see you try and stop me from going to those places."
Raph has always been a master of bringing out the best and worst in me, and at that moment, the worst had been brought out. I needed to take my frustration out on something and fast and the map was the first object in my line of vision. Looking at all of those pushpins sparked anger from the pit of my belly, anger that I did not even know I was harboring. Instantly, I turned around and began roughly yanking them out.
"Leo, what the fuck are you doing" Raph yelled from the door way while hastily shuffling into the room, but his outburst didn't faze me I was on a mission to take out every single tack. He grabbed my arm in an attempt to prevent me from doing my task but I pulled it free and proceeded with a pace twice as fast.
"Leo, what the hell is your problem", Raph yelled while shoving me away from the map just as I tugged the last tack free, "do you even know how long that took me?"
Throwing the pin down to the floor, I used my newly freed hand to shove him back.
"Raph, you need to get it into your head that you can never risk our family's safety by doing something so careless, selfish and pointless, why can't you just understand that?"
His eyes were livid as if golden flames were flickering in his orbs. At first, all he did was stare and I could tell he was contemplating his next form of action. Slowly, his amber eyes began to cool down and his expression became solemn.
"I am not like Master Splinter, or you guys, I can't stand being trapped under ground while I know there's a whole fucking world out there. I know the odds are against us but why can't we enjoy life, why can't we do the same things as the ungrateful people we protect, why-'
"Because fate Raphael, we can't go topside because people will not understand, Master Splinter has told us since we were younger, you've even witnessed yourself how people react to us. With the enemies we have created, it is just not safe."
I silently watched as Raph turned to his map and carefully rubbed New York's position. After staring at a particular spot, he quickly turned around and headed out of the door.
"And where do you think you're going?" I shouted after him while running out of the room and stopping him in the hallway.
"Out, is that alright with you," he curtly stated while pushing pass me heading to the elevator that leads to the garage.
As I entered the elevator with him, I knew he wouldn't elaborate until I pressed the matter further, and I knew wherever he was going it wouldn't end well.
"Out where?"
As the door opened, Raph silently slipped out heading over to his bike ignoring my question and me altogether.
"Out where Raphael"
Pausing before putting his helmet on he carefully muttered "we have lived here for seventeen years and not one of us has seen the Chrysler building or any of the other crap that people take for advantage, I am going site seeing."
"You can't," I said while moving in front of his bike.
"And why the hell not"
"First off we have practice, second you might get spotted, and third the weather is a nightmare tonight, and you could get hurt."
As if confirming my statement, a mantra of thunder and lightning filled the air in the garage.
Rolling his eyes at my last statement, he wordlessly turned on his bike.
"Raphael, did you even hear what I just said?"
Putting on his helmet, he revved up his engine, bringing it to life.
"Raphael!"
"Bite me," was the last thing I heard from him before he bolted off into the stormy night.
(A/N) This story was raging in my brain for a while, I hope you guys enjoy it! Please R&R!