The story is simple. It follows the turtles as each one meets a creature of the dark that plays on what they feel is their strongest points in life. Strength, love, ability in ones mind, or happiness. The creatures slowly tear your down until you are nothing. This will adapt more later on as the chapters get more advanced.


chapter two: Raphael's Fate

The second oldest had always been surrounded by a fire like anger that melted away any patience he could ever grasp at. It had shone in the fights they had in the past, but it was at times quelled only by the looks of need on his brothers' faces. His hate, disgust, and anger had only grew the last few years, to the strongest, when the only eldest had up and left them. A betrayal if he had ever known one from stories, movies, and his own personal knowledge. It had shook him up so much that at the end of the first year, when no sight or sound, nor message and signal was heard his heart had turned from the normal aggression into something that literally sliced at his flesh. Wounds would sprout from how often he had went out, fights with the criminals of the city, to steam off to the world of trash and freaks that were called 'humans'.

It had been sudden, this one time with no provocation, that the eldest, Leonardo, had came out of the shower before he felt his throat being tightly forced closed by Raphael. The eldest shell slowly grinding against the wall as Leonardo's eyes looked into the untamed fury, anger that had no meaning. His hands had flown to his neck gripping the tight squeezing hand as he gasp, flailing before slowly he realized things were turning black in his vision. It had surprised him for a few second until the force had nearly vanished and he fell like a stone to the floor coughing before Leonardo's eyes shot skyward catching the hazy look that had gripped Raphael. The look slowly faded away leaving the confusion, the guilt, and the pure horror to shine clear out of any blocks that might have once existed in those golden orbs.

"I..." Raphael coughed out his voice raw from the deep unusual breathing that turned swiftly into a growl as the anger returned, directed not at the eldest who slowly pushed himself up watching each second as Raphael slowly stepped away his fist pounding against his own skull as he let out a scream, something so unheard of in the living, that lasted what seemed hours but was just a few seconds.

"Raphael?" He reached a hand out before the golden orbs looked at him, tears swimming but unable to reach the edges. "Raph?" again the eldest pushed softly.

'I fear it.' Raphael's anger soothed instantly as his head tilted at an odd angle looking into the shadows of the bathroom that lay behind the unseen eldest. Raphael blinked several times as the fleeting whisper came again, 'I detest it, feeling like this, so bottled up... I detest having to listen. I want freedom, I want to go back, back to how it once was.' He felt the tears slowly slide down his face as it spoke again so quietly that he nearly stepped into the dark if it wasn't for the eldest grabbing his waist and holding him against his firm plastron screaming Raphael's name to what felt like a deaf person.

'Tell me how to end this suffering that you desire to inflict upon me.'

Raphael had felt fine after that for weeks, his attention mainly on keeping his baby brother from walking head first into some strange 'areas' of the dark patches littering the lair. It wasn't as if what his baby brother was becoming, less his self, that bothered him it was what suddenly his brother would say to him, 'Where would they take me, Raphie, if they knew...' The words had been said through a voice so thick with fear that it nearly closed just trying to speak two words into the sentence.

Though it happened again as if it seemed to have been provoked by his eldest brother. It was strange how Raphael watched the turtle yelling practically, it wasn't though his brain logically tried to state. He had walked over, the eyes of his younger brothers, Donatello and Michelangelo, had grown wide when he was upon the blue banded turtle, his arm locked tightly around the throat, his laughter so wild that even the insane would have turned crying out that this was something unreal... something to fear...

"STOP!" it was so mocking that the words actually made his mouth salivate. "Oh, just stop..." it was less than serious as Raphael giggled at the eldest brothers body stumbling forward his hand again trying to pry the arm from his throat. "Can't hear ya, Leo... Can't," he felt the world shift as the seeming fun turned into a feral rage. "Shut the fuck up! Stop it, stop stop stop!" he ranted over and over as they both toppled over hitting the floor.

Raphael moved pulling the eldest under him to his shell, his fist connected with the cheek forcing the eldest head right, "LEAVE ME ALONE! STOP MAKING ME FEEL LIKE SOME PIECE OF SHIT, LEO!" the anger quelled as the turtle leader coughed violently gagging as he took in air. "Stop... stop... stop!" he gripped his head lowering it to his leaders shoulder crying harder trying to turn the anger back into the lock. "Stop..." he whispered.

'Stop it, I'm better than this, stop making me... I... I ... stop' that voice returned with a sting to his brain as he cried harder. 'I can't make it stop... I can't turn it off... Stop mouthing off to me, stop degrading me... STOP IT!' it screamed making him look up as he swore he saw it. The figure crouched in the dark its hands over its head looking straight at him both its eyes sewn shut. Its lower jaw missing but it still spoke with a tongue slithering about in the empty space, 'Don't look at what I am! This is your fault, you bastard!'

He didn't feel anything as the shadows around his eyes grew brighter, the feeling of being floating coating his brain. He giggled as his eyes rolled into his head and fully fell on top of Leo who still gasped out from the sudden shocking attack, "Raphael?" the eldest had only whispered out but it was enough for him to feel the regret of his actions.