Author's Note: I'm baaaaaaaaack.

Yes, yes, I know, I know. I took forever updating this story and I greatly, GREATLY apologize, readers. School got in the way and when school ended, my friend from Washington came down to visit for a month. Plus the holidays came, my fiance dropped by to visit for a while too, and on top of that, Human Biology took up most of my free time. Have I mentioned that I hate science? Like ANY type of science? Sucks that it's a requirement too or else I'd have avoided it like the plague. But I need it to graduate, so here I am powering through the most hated subject in the world. In my opinion, that is. I'm sure Donnie would highly disagree with me on that one. Haha!

Anywho, I managed to find a little spare time now that both my friend and fiance have flown back to Washington and North Dakota. We also just had a test so I have absolutely no homework to worry about! So, I thought I'd update to this story since it got so many positive reviews. Forgive me if a few of the turtles sound a little bit out of character. Haven't written anything since October so I'm trying to get back in the swing of things while I update for more of my stories. As always, HUGE thanks to everyone who've been supporting me with this story. You guys are awesome and deserve a little shout out! Thank you so much to my fabulous reviewers: Rummy88, Little-Lost-Neko, Mikeygurl15, MissCookiiie, TheIncredibleDancingBetty, Ninjago1019, BubblyShell22, 1uvakindmom, and SleepingSeeker. Also a big thanks to AlexHamato who introduced me to Nine Inch Nails creepy 'Ghosts' album. Really helped me write the ending of this chapter and will definitely be an album I'll use for inspiration throughout this story.

Now, before I continue on with the story, I'd like to remind everyone that the 2013 Stealthy Stories Competition will be taking off with its nominations on February 4th through the 19th. The gathering period has already commenced, so make sure you jot down what stories you'd like to nominate. All rules and regulations can be found on the new Stealthy Stories site, which can be found on my profile.

Read on, readers, and enjoy the chapter! :D

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

"Severed"

Chapter 2

Darkness swept like an eerie fog, tugging and pulling him deeper into the vacant shadows. Unholy gloom ghosted over his skin, engulfing him, savoring him, and taking it's time to devour him whole; a mere morsel the darkness just couldn't get enough of. He could feel the whispering voices tickling at his eardrums, poking and prodding until he stirred with discomfort, an audible groan passing through his thirsty, cracked lips. He wished the darkness would just take him away, put him out of his misery until he was stripped of no feeling. No emotion. No way to tell whether he was suffering or balancing on the line between life and death. A ghost stuck in purgatory, that's what he craved. Just to make the pain of it all just disappear….

"Should we wake him up?"

"He looks like he's in pain, guys. What should we do? What if he's having a nightmare—we've gotta wake him up!"

"Waking him up could lead to dire consequences, Raphael. We have to just let him find his way out. Let him come to us."

"But what if he can't hear us, Don? What if he's lost?"

"He'll find his way home. Have faith in our brother, Raphael."

He stirred at the voices and let out a groan, eyes fluttering open as the darkness drifted away. "G-Guys…?"

Donatello gasped and spread out his arms, backing up enough to push his brothers a few steps away. "He's coming to, you guys, give him some space. Leo, I need to you go get some water from the kitchen. He needs something to drink before—"

His eyes shot open at his brother's mention of water, shooting up from the sweat-soaked couch while his head pounded ferociously. His breathing quickened, his nerves panicked, and all Michelangelo could think of was that moment in the sewage tunnels; staring into the soulless pits of those blackened eyes, staining imprints in the back of his scarred subconscious. He couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Why did everything feel so cold? Like the goose bumps of his skin pricked and frosted over into shards of crystal ice.

"Mikey? Michelangelo." Leonardo called out to his brother, trying his best to grasp Michelangelo's attention but only doing so much as grazing it with the tips of his fingers.

"Guys, give him some room, he's starting to hyperventilate."

"He's shaking real bad, Don. I'm gonna go get him another blanket."

"N-No!" Michelangelo cried, thrusting his hand out like a bolt of lightning, his fingers coiled around Raphael's arm.

Hissing painfully, the red-banded turtle took notice of the frozen fingers digging into his skin, biting through and chilling him to the bone, making him wince in both discomfort and pain. Donatello and Leonardo took notice of this as well, their eyes widened with concern at the bluish pigmentation that stained the tips of their brother's fingers, his arm shaking and shivering with a violent vengeance. They knew Michelangelo was cold due to the frozen sewage water that nearly drowned him, but even in the confines of their living quarters and a blanket wrapped around his frame, it didn't seem as though their orange-banded brother was getting any warmer. Could it be that he was frozen in the pediments of his fears? Or was their little brother slipping into a severe case of hypothermia?

"D-Don't want to be l-left alone." Michelangelo hiccupped, trails of snot beginning to drip down from his nose as he shook and trembled while trying to keep himself warm. "S-S-She'll find me and k-k-kill m-me."

Silence hung by a thinly woven thread, his brothers all looking at each other with equal amounts of concern. At first, none of them said a word, afraid of piercing through the silence and causing an uproar. Raphael was the first to make any sudden movement, placing a hand on Michelangelo's frozen arm and gently tugging himself free, watching as his brother sat quaking in the confinements of his terror. Leonardo was next in line, crouching down on his knees so that he was eyelevel with his baby brother, his face awash with a mask of reassurance.

"Nobody's going to hurt you, Mikey," he soothed very gently. "You're safe here in the lair. There's nothing out there that will get to you or to us. We're all here to protect you, I promise."

"Y-Y-You c-couldn't s-see her … s-she was r-r-right behi-ind y-you…"

"Mikey, you nearly drowned back there. You most likely would've died had we not come by to save you just in the nick of time," Donatello spoke up, meeting at eyelevel with his younger brother as well, his eyes swimming in a sea of distress. "The human mind is a powerful organ, Mikey. It can conjure up images and thoughts that are sometimes beyond the carrier's control. What our fears invoke can sometimes be produced through sight and sound. Your body was acting on impulse, switching into fight-or-flight mode. Your thoughts weren't comprehensible because they were acting on fear. Panic. What you saw could've easily just been a trick of the light – your fears acting on their own. There was nothing there, Mike. It was all just your imagination."

"W-What, s-s-so you thought I j-just pretended to see s-something? L-Like I w-was pining for attent-tion?" He sneered, acid lining through the tips of his words. "I-I'm not five-years-old, dude."

"We didn't say you were, Mike," Raphael spoke, reaching over to place a comforting hand on his baby brother's shoulder but stopped himself halfway, his hand retracting before setting back on his side. Out of the rest of his brothers, he was usually the one with the cold stares and harsh scowls, his growing temper getting the best of him in certain situations. Michelangelo was rarely ever angry – his happy smiles and peppy attitude too strong to feel such brooding emotions. But from the look emitting from his baby blue eyes, Raphael knew when it was best to just back away, giving his brother some space while Don and Leo continued to talk him down.

"Mikey, what you experienced was something frightening and difficult to forget," Leonardo spoke, trying his best for his words to sound soothing, just like Master Splinter had done to them many years ago. "We're not saying we don't believe that you may have seen something, but…"

"I k-know what I saw, Leo," Mikey spoke with a distinct venom. "I-I heard her in t-the tunnels. I s-saw her with my own e-eyes. S-She nearly choked me to death a-and then almost d-drowned me. Y-You think I'd m-make something l-like that up?"

"We're not saying you're a liar, Mike. We're not accusing you of anything. And if it makes you feel better…" Donatello looked up at his two remaining brothers, his eyes flicking from Leonardo to Raphael before wetting his lips and continuing to speak. "If it makes you feel more at ease, two of us will go into the tunnels and check it out."

"What?" Raphael nearly squawked, his eyes the size of dinner plates while Leonardo rose to his feet.

"I think that's a perfect idea, Don. I'm up for it."

"Y-You can't!" Michelangelo cried, rising to his feet only to feel the effects of dizzy spell knock him back down on the couch. "Y-You can't g-go out there, d-dudes. W-W-What if s-she's still o-out there?"

Raphael chimed in, his fists clenched as he stared his brothers down. "You guys can't be serious right now, can ya? What if there's something really out there? You see what it did to Mikey."

"For all we know, Michelangelo could've come across a scurrying sewer rat or something. I'm sure there's nothing out there and if there is, we need to make sure it doesn't come anywhere near our home."

"But what if it's not a person, Leo?" Raphael growled in a hushed whisper, making sure their conversation didn't fall upon their brother's ears. "What if Mikey really did see a … a…"

"Ghost?" Donatello finished. "We're not bringing up the possibilities of the paranormal mainly because ghosts and spirits don't exist."

"How the hell do you know that for sure, huh, brainiac? Ever throw on a hazmat suit and catch one yourself?" He poked the middle of Donatello's forehead, eliciting a stern growl from the purple-banded turtle. "I ain't taking the risk. Someone's gotta stay here with Mikey so count me out."

"Fine. Suit yourself," Leonardo waved him off, glancing over his shoulder while Donatello trailed close behind him. "Make sure to keep Michelangelo warm and fairly hydrated. We'll be back in a few minutes."

"G-Guys, wait!" Michelangelo cried, forcing himself up once more but was only able to take a few steps.

"We'll back as soon as we can, Mikey, don't worry," Leo soothed, motioning with his head for Donatello to follow before they exited the lair.

(-)

Cold droplets trickled through the tunnels, producing an eerie echo that resonated against the cobblestones. Careful step after careful step, Leonardo made sure to keep himself on high alert, shining his flashlight against every angle and every corner, looking out for anything that seemed out of the norm. He remembered travelling through these tunnels with Master Splinter whenever the rainy season was at its peak, collecting scraps and mass of debris left over from the floods that filtered through the storm drains. The abandoned tunnels always looked creepier at night, but like Donatello had told their younger brother earlier, the mind was a powerful organ that can conjure up images played upon the carrier's fears. If Leonardo allowed himself to freak out over the little scrapes and tiny noises bouncing off the walls of the sewer tunnels, he was going to wind up in Michelangelo's situation and see things that probably weren't even there. A poor trick to fall under when he was the one leading the search.

"Find anything yet?" He asked while glancing over his shoulder, making sure Donatello was still following closely behind, paranoid of being separated for even the shortest amount of time. On more than one occasions, Leonardo remembered him and his brothers getting lost through these tunnels, mainly because they were still too young to remember which spots looked familiar and which spots didn't. Master Splinter always forbade them from travelling through the tunnels without his accompaniment, but with the reliability of their Shell Cell's, Leonardo felt a little more at ease as they sunk further and further into the blackened shadows.

"Do you feel that unsettling sensation like someone's standing by and watching you from behind?" Donatello asked, his flashlight trailing over the dampened cobblestones.

"No. Do you?" Leonardo asked slowly, coming to a halt before Donatello let out a frustrated sigh, his hands on his hips with his flashlight shining underneath his chin.

"Of course not. Like I said before, whatever it is Mikey saw was probably just a figment of his imagination. We were watching a scary movie before he went to check on the circuit breaker, remember? So whatever he thought he saw or heard was probably just a sewer rat or something along the lines of that. Not some ghost girl that shares the similar descriptions of that ghost from 'The Ring'."

Leonardo couldn't help but chuckle, shining his flashlight on a few more angles before turning back toward his brainiac brother. "He does watch an unhealthy amount of scary movies."

"My point exactly. There's nothing down here, Leo. We're searching for something that's just a fabrication lying solely in the confinements of our brother's head. We're not going to find anything going further into the tunnels."

"So do you think we should just go back?" Leonardo asked, shining his flashlight underneath his chin as well, illuminating the question eminent on his face.

Donatello smirked and motioned forward with his head, already taking a few steps that lead back to their lair. "Allow me to lead the way."

Trickling sounds of dripping water pierced through their eardrums as the sound of light scrapes from possible sewer rats could be heard scurrying against the cemented floors. An eerie howl grazed through the air, no doubt coming from the storm drains high above as Leonardo followed closely behind his brainiac brother. Through the darkened shadows, the katana-wielding ninja could see his shoulders beginning to tense as he quickened his pace and continued down the pathway, eager to return back to the confinements of their lair. Leonardo wasted no time in picking up his speed, following as closely behind Donatello as he could while the haunting noises grew louder and more frightening. Shutting his eyes tight, he sucked in a comforting breath before letting it out in a small puff cloud of frost, quelling his thoughts and folding his arms. Did it suddenly get really cold in here?

Donatello mirrored his brother's actions by folding his arms in front of his chest, his shoulders shaking as they came closer and closer towards their lair, mist escaping the confinements of their lips. They searched their surroundings and pulled out their flashlights, shining the light in different directions but seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

And then … BANG! A loud noise, one fairy different from the sounds of dripping water and scurrying sewer rats. Both brothers nearly jolted three feet in the air, their bodies stiff until Donatello whipped around to face Leonardo, his eyes struck with remnants of fear.

"Did you hear that?" Leonardo asked slowly, his body frozen at the spot and not daring to make any sudden movements.

"There's … there's a lot of crates and boxes some of the sewage workers like to leave down here. Maybe one of them fell or … something."

"Yeah … maybe." Leonardo turned, glancing over his shoulder while still holding the flashlight tightly in his hands. He couldn't see past the blackened shadows engulfed around him, but he felt as though a presence was standing before him, staring at both him and his brother with a cold, emotionless stare; soulless and black just like Mikey had described the creature's eyes. Feeling his heart ramming dangerously inside his chest, Leo brought his flashlight up with trembling fingers, gulping down the nerves and shunning away any frightful images that clouded his mind. Careful inch by careful inch, he brought the flashlight up and shone it forward, breath hitched and frozen at a fearful standstill. Eyes clearing into focus, he realized that nothing was there but an empty pathway, making him sigh a breath of relief while Donatello produced an amusing chuckle.

"Dammit, I hate these tunnels," he laughed, slapping a hand on Leonardo's shoulder before he motioned for them to continue walking. "Come on, before a sewer rat runs along our path and we end up nearly drowning like Mikey…. Leo?"

He opened his mouth to speak, intentions to turn around and follow his younger brother. But with lips parted open, nothing came out but the frosty mist that drifted into the air, causing Leonardo to lower his hand and shut off his flashlight, the darkness engulfing him in an entrapment of shadows. Standing at a stationary standstill, he squinted his eyes and tried looking past the dimness, feeling that unsettling sensation that someone was watching him. With Donatello's voice grazing the back of his neck, falling deafly upon his heightened eardrums, Leonardo felt a piercing sting strike the front of his heart as his eyes cleared into focus and he saw the outline of a sharp, amused, pointed smile.