Okay dear readers I feel compelled to put a little warning in right here. This was a chapter I found hard to write and just as hard to type up and edit. So, take a deep breath, fasten your seat belt and prepare yourself for a bumpy ride, the journey is about to begin. You've come this far, do you trust me to take you the rest of the way? You wanted to know what 'The Choice' was? Didn't you? Stick with me because I do know what I'm doing. :) (Also apologies for the long wait! :) )
Chapter 7 The Impossible Choice
It was a somewhat tattered and torn Donatello that dived through the closing door that slammed down behind him causing the mousers to plough into it, clawing and screeching their protest at the unwelcome barrier. Numerous scratches traced his limbs where the mousers had broken through his defences. The bandages wrapped about his hands, wrists and ankles now hung ripped, dotted with blossoms of deep red. He crouched on the floor panting, facing the closed door as he listened to the mechanical army screech and pound at the thick metal. His muscles trembled from his exertions and he pushed his hand up across his sweaty brow.
"Greetings Donatello. I have been waiting for you."
Donnie froze. No. Please god no. He knew that voice. Usually it caused him to roll his eyes in exasperation, but now? It was a voice he had grown to fear. A voice he had grown to dread. The maniacal chuckle flushed his body with a rush of nervous adrenaline and his exhausted pants became a series of hyperventilating gasps.
"I have been watching you turtles, watching you very, very carefully."
Donnie stiffened at the mocking quality of the tone.
"I watched you long enough to discover something interesting about you," an agonising pause followed. Donnie trembled. "I chose you Donatello to play this Game of Doom. I designed it just for you," another idiotic chuckle sounded. "Would you like to see?"
Donnie's heart seemed to pound in his ears. A frightened choke was his only response.
"Not even the slightest bit curious?"
He had to turn around. He didn't want to but he had to. His body rigid, unwilling to co-operate with his decision, Donnie stood and slowly turned. His eyes rolled up and greeted the high ceiling of the metal chamber. The room was bare save for a large screen on the on the back wall and a pair of large glass cylinders suspended from above and the cylinders, those prisons were occupied. Donatello felt his legs give way and he fell back, the bottom of his shell denting the floor as he scrambled backwards. His staff clattered hollowly at his side and he pressed the back of his hand to his mouth as his eyes widened in disbelief.
"No," he uttered. "Please, please say I'm dreaming." Standing in the cylinders, staring at him desperately was April and his brothers. Leo, Raph and Mikey were in the right hand side one. April was the on left. They started banging their fists on the curved walls of their prisons shouting Donnie's name, voices muffled by the thick glass.
"Let me enlighten you with the rules, they're quite simple really."
Donnie's blood suddenly felt like ice in his veins. 'No, please don't let this happen.' But it was happening. This, right there, right now was his nightmare, made flesh.
"All you have to do, is make a choice."
"No," Donnie shook his head.
"Yes, and the choice is do you save your brothers or-," there was a pointed silence. "Your girlfriend."
Donnie's frightened eyes flicked between the tubes and felt himself bite down on one of his knuckles.
"There is of course a catch. There's a simple release mechanism at the bottom of each of the containers. However if you spring one, you set off the booby trap in the other, so choose carefully because you will only get one chance."
Donatello shook his head. "Stockman, I-I don't want to play this game."
"Like it or not you're playing it turtle!" The mad scientist snapped. "So, because I'm feeling generous I'll give you a full minute to decide who you want to save."
The screen on the far wall blinked into life and the countdown in great red digital numbers began.
"How can you do this to me!?" Donnie suddenly yelled, his fear temporarily giving way to anger. "You have a sick mind Stockman!"
Baxter Stockman's voice crackled over the unseen speakers, he was undoubtedly enjoying every second of Donatello's initial terror. "Oh, did I mention if you fail to make a decision the traps trigger themselves when the clock reaches zero. The results will be twice as messy!"
By now Donnie heard Raphael yelling obscenities through the glass at the unseen Stockman. He couldn't think straight; his terrified thoughts swam in meaningless circles as he stared at the clock steadily ticking down, and dooming his loved ones to whatever fate he decided. Their frantic cries to get his attention became a foreign language to him. He didn't even recognise his own name as it was bellowed through the glass at him.
00:50
'This can't be happening!' He thought feverishly. 'I can't choose between them, I can't! Mikey please, wake me up!'
00:45
The tension that had settled in Donnie's chest squeezed harder and harder, forcing him to gasp down great gulps of air to stop himself passing out. What could he do? What could he do? He finally cast his eyes up, not understanding anything that his brothers or April shouted at him. Donnie clamped hands over his head, trying to summon his more logical side to come to his aid, begging him to come up with an idea to free them all without anyone coming to any harm.
"What's the matter turtle? Too hard to decide?"
00:38
He couldn't do it. Donnie shivered. The words, the exact words from his dream then tumbled from his mouth without a thought. A terrifying sense of déjà vu.
"How can I?!"
"It's easy. One or two?"
00:25
"I can't!"
"You must, otherwise you know what happens."
"Free them now!"
"The clock is still ticking."
00:20
"Damn you!"
"Choose turtle."
"How, can I possibly choose!?"
"Choose!"
00:12
"I can't! I-I just can't!"
"Look at the clock."
00:05
Donnie's mouth grew dry. A great pain twisted mercilessly in his chest as the last vital seconds of life finally reached its end. It had happened again. He had let the time trickle away whilst he argued with Stockman, shouted his indecision and hopelessly fumbled for a solution that was never going to come.
00:00
"Time's up."
The horrifying sound of spinning blades whirled into life and the colour drained from Donnie's face as a cry of mortal terror escaped from his throat.
"No! Oh please god NO!"
Within the cylinders spinning blades descended with frightening speed. They possessed only one purpose; to destroy the life of the beings trapped beneath them. Stockman's demented laugh dominated the background, as cries of fear became screams of agony. The blades not only slashed through bodies, flesh, muscle, sinew and bone but also tore the lives of their victims asunder.
"NOOO!" In a blur of panic Donnie snatched up his staff and threw it at the first cylinder he saw. Only as the occupant's body fell did the youngster realise whose prison he had opened.
The young ninja lunged forward and April fell into his arms. Bright crimson smeared across his plastron, transferred from the once sunny yellow sports tee shirt that April habitually wore. "April?" He whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut as the screams of his brothers suddenly grew quiet. A threatening barrage of tears began to well behind his eyes. The blades had stopped whirling and a horrible silence descended.
His breathing shuddering in his chest, Donnie looked down at April. She didn't say anything. She didn't move. She didn't breath. He body was seemingly untouched, save for the deep gash across her throat. A violent ribbon of red cut through her slender neck, spilling her blood and snatching her into oblivion. At least it had been quick but that was hardly a consolation. Donnie shook the redhead and repeated her name, again and again even though he knew it was pointless. His mind refused to accept the obvious truth. April was gone. Dead. The painful lump in his throat thrust itself forward as the dreadful word lodged itself in his brain and refused to budge. Dead. They were all dead.
"April? Please-," wretched breaths hitched in his breast as tears freely flowed down his cheeks in glistening rivulets. "I-I'm sorry April, my-my brothers. I-I'm so, so sorry," Donnie cradled April to his chest the pain suddenly becoming too much for him to bear. Heaving sobs, the piteous moan he issued swelled until it burst forth as an animalistic howl of complete and utter despair. He had done this. This, was all his fault.
As poor Donatello wailed, Stockman's voice cut through the young one's grief, gently mocking and unsympathetic, clearly revelling in his own triumph. "Don't worry Donatello, I'll put you out of your misery soon enough."
The door Donnie had entered the chamber by, slowly slid open and the mousers trapped behind it suddenly surged through it. Electronic squeaks and squeals filled his ears and the desperate youth hugged April's body closer to him as the metal mob advanced. For a fleeting moment Donnie actually considered letting the mousers have him. Anything to take this awful pain away. He would greet oblivion with open arms and accept its cold embrace willingly.
It was Baxter Stockman's jubilant laugh that snapped Donatello out of his depression. The tears still wet on his cheeks he glared up to where he knew the vengeful scientist must have hidden cameras that were spying down upon him. He was suddenly sickened and ashamed that the damning thought had even entered his mind. There was no way he would give this twisted individual the satisfaction of just laying back and giving up. That wasn't who he was. April and his brothers wouldn't want him to die in that godforsaken place either. He would live. For all of them. He would live.
"Stockman! I will hunt you down for this! Do you hear me? Even if it takes the rest of my life, I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN!"
The digital clock's screen suddenly flashed and Stockman's bespectacled face dominated the far wall. Donnie glowered at the visage that he had never really considered as that much of a threat. "Oh, I very much doubt that turtle."
A seething metal mass encircled him and he drew April into a final embrace. Donnie buried his snout into her soft red locks and shuddered as he breathed her in. He had to leave. He had to get out if he ever hoped to make Stockman pay. Silent tears mingled in her vibrant tresses and Donnie carefully laid her down. "Forgive me April," he whispered, stroking a gentle thumb across her brow, brushing her fringe from her eyes. For a moment he could almost imagine that she was asleep, almost.
With one last look he snatched up his staff with the naginata blade already extended. With an angry but anguished yell he swung the weapon wide, slicing down the nearest mousers and forcing the ones behind to jump back. Taking the advantage, Donnie charged forward and dug in the butt end of the staff and vaulted over the mousers' heads. He crushed one underfoot as he landed, grunting in effort as he brought the naginata down on the monsters' skulls.
Something then pounded into the back of his shell. Donnie felt claws rake into the surface and with a cry of panic and fury he groped over his shoulder and seized a jutting edge. He winced as the unwanted passenger snapped its hard jaws shut, slicing at Donnie's fingers. "No hitchhikers!" He yelled, ripping the mouser loose and hurling it across the chamber. Not wasting any more time, Donnie cut a swathe of destruction through the enemy and headed for the door. He was going to get out the same way he and brothers got in.
However Stockman spotted Donnie's intention. "I don't think so turtle!" Behind his screen he jabbed a button and the great steel door started to slide down.
This only hastened Donnie's advance, smashing and crushing every mouser that dared to get in his way. His fight was fuelled by the overwhelming, stubborn desire to rob Stockman of his complete victory. Donnie finally cleared the gauntlet, the door only a quarter way down as he slid through it. He should have kept running. He shouldn't have looked back but he couldn't help it. Donnie turned and caught sight of his brothers' cylinder. He had managed not to look as the blade stole away their lives but now the image would be branded across his memory for the rest of his days. A horrified choke filled his throat as he discovered why the blades had stopped spinning. They had lodged into one of his brother's shells. A chip on the upper ridge betrayed the identity of the owner.
"No," he pressed a hand to his mouth forgetting about the mousers as the blood filled his mind. He never saw the two that jumped him. One latched onto his upper right arm; the other clamped onto his left shoulder. With a pained yell, Donnie wrenched the demons off, each tearing brutal gashes through his skin.
"Leave me!" He screamed as he threw them back into the bloody chamber.
The door finally closed, sealing Donatello away from the danger and the butchered remains of his loved ones. The emotional pain far outweighed his physical injuries as his surge of adrenaline finally ran out. Limbs shaking, his shuddering breath gave way to a low moan, which brought him to his hands and knees. It had come true. His nightmare, his night terror had played out before his eyes and once more he had watched his family get murdered, watched whilst he was still unable to make that impossible choice. Now they were gone and his guilt swept over him like a wave, drowning him in its churning waters.
Sobs wracked his body and from somewhere he found the strength to drag himself off the ground. He needed to get out, for them. He could not and he would not die there.
Do not despair dear readers, just hang on and we will all get through this. Promise. :)
Thank you again to everyone who has taken the time to read this far, I really do appreciate it!
Also keep your eyes peeled for some new material coming up in the near future... Watch this space!
