Author's Note:Howdy Y'all. This is my first ever Ninja Turtles fan fic, so I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing yet! Just bare with me. Sorry if it sucks, you're welcome if it rocks. Also, sorry if there are spelling errors. Microsoft Office free trial just recently expired, so no Word! Of course I read it over myself, but you know how easy it is to miss your own mistakes. Anyway, enjoy!
Of Desperation and Grief
Living in a world that seems to give just to take away could make anybody bitter, I guess.
I've been thinking about this for a few days now. Although bitter wasn't my first choice. I know grief when I see it, and I've seen it: strong, raw, agonizing, and horrible. But grief really only sticks to few. In others, it changes. Grief can turn to anger, to desperation, to emptiness, and to bitterness. My family has changed, I know. I've changed.
The lair is quiet, and I am where I have been everyday for the past month: sitting in the dojo, where I should be meditating, but instead fill my head with empty thoughts, thoughts of my broken family, and dreams and wishes, pleas, to go back in time and change everything about that night.
Because it never should have happened. It wasn't meant to happen. There's no way -- why would they be given something so precious, just so it could be taken away as abruptly and painfully as that?
I hear movement outside the door, but I do not turn, or even open my eyes to look. I know it's Raph; his heavy, tired footsteps give him away. It's not often that I hear him moving around anymore at any other time besides just before sunrise. He hasn't been home during the night at all, ever since that night. He tries to sneak out, but it's useless. I don't sleep. I hear him leave, and I hear him come home. I don't know exactly what he does, but I've seen the blood stains in the bathtub (none of it his), and I've seen the broken tip of his sai. Normally I think he'd at least try to hide the evidence by scrubbing the tub, but I guess he doesn't really care. The first night he walked out, and through my hazy mind I asked him where he was going. He muttered something about revenge, and I left it at that. While I worry for his safety, my desire to have every one of those bastards dead prevents me from stopping him.
I know I couldn't do it. From grief he went to anger and bitterness. He has the fuel and the determination to go after them, to slaughter them without even breaking a sweat. I don't even have the energy to walk from here to my room.
I feel a shiver run down my spine when I think about what Mikey would do if he went after them. He would probably walk up to them, sit down, and let them decapitate him. Atleast he wouldn't have to live with the grief that he is now. Mikey's transition was the most unsettling. He is no longer Mikey, but an empty body of a mutant turtle that none of us have ever met before. There is no more laughter, no more jokes, no more smiles, no more Mikey. He stays in his room, day and night, and have left my father and I seriously worried that he will die in there of starvation or dehydration.
My father is a whole other story. He tried to keep us together, to keep us whole, but in order to do that I guess he'd have to be whole himself. He looks decades older. He moves slower than before, and after realizing that we were not going to heal as swiftly and as quickly as he hoped we would, he keeps to himself in his room more. However, of course, he leaves his door open at all times, inviting us to come in and work our way through our grief.
Maybe he does not realize that at least two of his sons are no longer suffering from grief, and therefore cannot recover.
I think back to that night very often, to see how it could have been prevented. Of course I've thought of many: we hadn't gone out, we'd taken another route, we'd gone home earlier. Those were my first thoughts, but then I started to think more realistically. We'd ended up in the same situation, but had prevented what had taken our home and shaken it beyond repair.
I knew I shouldn't have been that close to the edge of that building, and I still don't remember why I was. Raph and Mikey were on the other end of the building, fighting. He was beside me, and they were approaching us. We were forced to step back. I had been too busy concentrating on how we were going to get around them and away from the edge of the building. I've never lost track of my surroundings in a fight before, not ever. So why did I that night? No matter how hard I slam my palms to my forehead, and how hard I kick and wail and scream, I cannot figure out why I had been so unprepared, and foolish.
He had been ready to defend himself in case any of them leapt and attacked. He had not been prepared, however, to have to whip around and grab my arm to prevent me from falling to the street below.
And if the world could turn to slow motion, if every sound could be emphasized and beat, beat into my eardrums, their shrillness causing me to cringe, it happened then.
When he turned, pulling me back steady on my feet, and into the awaiting katana held by our enemy.
His back was to me, and I did not realize, did not register what had happened until I saw the blade, covered in the blood of my beloved brother, removed, and his hands move to clutch the hole in his stomach.
I moved slowly, mechanically, to his side, and saw his face. He stared ahead, his mouth was slightly agape, and his eyes wide, in a shocked expression. He looked down, and removed his hands, to get a better look, as if to believe what he was seeing. He replaced his hands, looked straight ahead again, and then turned his head, looking straight at me.
His eyes penetrated my soul, making my entire body freeze up, even more than it had been.
I stood, my own mouth slack, and did not even realize time moving, until suddenly, he fell to his knees.
The entire world turned on once again, and his sudden movement turned on all my senses, turned on my mind, and made me truly realize what had just happened.
I had not even wondered why I had not been attacked in those few seconds I spent in a world alone with my injured brother. I had put together later the blood surrounding us and the sais in necks.
But at that time, the only thing that I knew was the shivering body that lay in my arms, the wound beneath my hands, and the sharp, uneven breaths that caused the body to jerk under the pressure that I applied.
My brother, my little brother, one filled with so much intelligence and curiosity, was dying. My gentle, caring, and pacifist brother, whom I loved with all my heart, dying.
Because of me.
I begged him, begged him not to go, and I held him as close as I possibly could. My brothers were beside us in minutes, having used no restraint against the enemies that were stupid enough to stay behind, while the other half of them ran for their lives. Raph charged at us, and threw himself to his knees. Once he reached us, he seemed to realized that he had no idea what to do. He lightly touched our injured brother's arm and was helpless to do anything except whisper his name in a tone I never thought possible to come out of his mouth. Mikey however, approached us slowly and cautiously, as if he was expecting us to jump out and yell 'surprise!' He kneeled just as slowly, tears already streaming down his face, although he made no sound.
I paid them no notice however, and I sat clutching and rocking our brother, all at the same time trying to stop the blood that flowed out of him like a river. I whispered to him, told him to stay awake, told him to hold on, and, what makes my stomach churn the most with guilt now -- I told him it would be alright. That he would be alright. He lay there, his barely open eyes looking at me as I spoke to him, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to speak, but only succeeding in groaning. My whispers became chocked sobs, desperation lacing every syllable to escape my mouth. I held him tighter as his breathing became almost none existent, as his entire body relaxed and became too weak to shiver as it had been. I still begged him to hold on, even as I watched his last breath escape his body, and as his eyes that had stared into mine, shut, never to open again.
I don't remember much after that. When my brother had died, I continued to rock him back and fourth. I clutched him even tighter and hid my face in his chest. I remember crying so hard that I was almost physically ill.
We made it back to the lair somehow. I went in to tell Splinter before letting Mikey and Raph bring his body in the lair. They'd waited outside I remember, because I told them too.
I hadn't been able to control myself when I told Sensei what had happened. He held me and cried as well, and I was so ashamed that I was not even strong enough to explain to my master of how I had failed him, of how I had let his precious son die.
I squeeze my eyes shut as my mind returns to the present, but a single tear escapes, so I wipe it away violently. I am frustrated. Frustrated with my incompetence, frustrated with my family, frustrated with my weakness, and frustrated... frustrated with him. With my brother.
A sob escapes my lips, but I do not realize it until after. My grief is changing. The pit in my stomach changes to something else.
I pound my fists on the floor infront of me repeatedly. I can feel myself losing control as desperation fills my soul.
My sobs are louder, more choked, and I am finding it hard to take a breath.
I can't take it anymore. Any of it. I want my family back. I want my brother back. I want myself back.
I continue to pound at the floor. I claw at my torso and at my face.
And I scream, scream as loud as I can.
But my dead home does not stir.
AN: Sooo.. what do you think? Good? Bad? If I'm gonna write more, I gotta know!! So please review. Constructive critism is more that welcome. I'm not sure if it makes sense though. Raph's grief changed to anger/bitterness, Mikey's to emptiness, and Leo's to desperation. Splinter's still just grieving. Hah! There you go. I was also think of writing another chapter about "that night" with dialogue and stuffs, just to make it clear what happened. Tell me if you'd like that or I won't bother!
