: Chapter 11:
The tension between Potts and Jinx was so real that I could feel a change in the force of gravity when I put my hand between them. My youngest brother, Michelangelo, would always do that whenever Raphael and Leonardo got into a fight. Frankly, it only made them more upset and usually ended up with Mike getting punched in the jaw, but it reminded me a little of home, the place I missed so dearly right now.
"What are you doing?" Jinx's tone was far from pleased as I brought my hand back down to my side. "You believe me don't you Don? I swear he locked me out on purpose." He growled as we walked down one of the hospital's darkest hallways.
"I just don't think we should make accusations. Why would Potts try to kill you if he knew I needed you to help me make the cure? It just doesn't seem logical."
"Whatever. I'm going with my gut."
The hospital was from inhabitable in my opinion. It seemed like not even a bunch of mutants, no pun intended, would be able to sustain life here. For one, it was awfully cold and once in a while you could see the formation of ice crystals on the end of gurneys and other objects. You couldn't see two feet in front of you if it weren't for the help of the flashlights we had brought along. It was a miracle none of the soldiers were bumping into the pipes sticking out of the walls and floors that were pointed to the edge. On top of it all, the wretch of rotting flesh and animal waste was enough to drive someone mad.
We walked up a few flights of staircases without any mutant encounters. So far it seemed like this trip would flow nicely, but as always, something has to go wrong.
"Stay close, we're picking up some movement up ahead." Potts whispered to his team. We made a right turn down a hallway that was flashing violently with ceiling lights. Every time they would go on and off, you would hear the sizzling of the light bulbs and once in a while one would break and shatter onto the floor. That wasn't the most horrifying part, however. All the way at the end of the hallway was a dog sized creature with skin colored appendages sticking out of its feathered back.
"Get back!" Potts pushed us back around the corner while he peeked around the edge. "Class C, looks a few years old and well fed by the looks of it."
"Well fed? What's it feeding on? Cleaning supplies?" Jinx mocked.
"Maybe they're eating each other." One soldier said to himself.
"That's not the important part right now. We need to get to that door. It leads directly to the staircase we need to get to the research room." Jinx butted in.
"Alright team. Nice and steady. When it attacks, you know what to do." Potts progressed around the corner with his weapon high above his chest. He crouched down low to the ground as his men followed close behind. Jinx and I exchanged glances before following along with them.
Our progression was slow but we somehow managed to stay hidden from the mutant. Even though its back was turned, it should have at least smelt us by now. It was odd that it wasn't reacting to our presence.
"Hey Jinx…" I asked.
"What"
"Do you think it knows something we don't?"
"What do you mean?" He suddenly looked at me expectantly. Just as he did, the mutant turned around and almost…laughed, if you will. A small rumbling began to emerge from underneath our feet and small bits of ceiling started to fall down on top of us.
"What's going on?!" A soldier yelled. They were too distracted by the sudden tremor that they failed to notice the mutant had taken off through the double doors. It ran away…but why? Just as this question popped into my head, the floor started to crack and break right under our feet.
"Oh boy." Jinx sighed.
At the spur of the moment, the entire foundation gave in and we all were sent in different directions as it broke apart. I saw a few men get thrown onto the other side by the double doors while another pair fell right into the abyss that was made by the separation, along with Jinx. A large piece of cement ricocheted upward and sent Potts through the ceiling and up God knows how many stories. The rest of the men suffered more dramatic endings. Most of them were crushed between two cement pieces and the rest were thrown so hard they died instantly from impact.
I was too busy watching everyone else get tossed around and being paralyzed by the scene that I hadn't noticed the floor underneath my own two feet had collapsed. I lost my footing and started to fall the same height Jinx and his buddies took until I managed to grab a hold of a lead pipe that was sticking out of the wall. I held on as best I could as my feet dangled underneath me into the crevasse below. As I stared down into the darkness, I realized that there was no way Jinx and those men could have survived that fall unless the managed to grab a hold onto another level like me. Jinx was smart though, he had to have caught himself and I refused to believe otherwise. I crawled across the pipe until I could reach the ledge of the next floor and pull myself up. We were all separated, on different levels of the building and I was sure most had unfortunately perished. We needed to regroup the small team we had left though if we were to stand a chance against the mutants that dwell here. Sure I had taken a class C out on my own, but it took me almost 15 minutes to do it and not to mention I almost got my shell handed to me.
I took a minute to catch my breath and check my wounds. I had a few scrapes along my arms and legs but nothing too serious. I would have to treat them as soon as I could though, just in case they were caused by all the rusted pipes that were sticking out.
Once I was recuperated, I pulled out a flashlight from my belt and switched it on. My floor was dark and now impossible to navigate thanks to the latest smokescreen. Normally I would wait for the dust to settle, but I was alone and needed to keep moving. Plus, the few growling sounds that were coming from behind me gave that little extra juice I needed to go forward.
:: (Third Person POV)
Jinx moaned as he rubbed the top of his head where he knew a bruise was most likely forming. Was he dead? As of now, he really wished he was. All this mutant crap was starting to get to his head, even if he was one himself. He slowly got up off the ground with his hand still pressed hard against his skull. Where was he? It was too dark to tell. He reached into his belt with his free hand to try and find a flashlight but it wasn't there.
"Great…just great." He dropped down onto his knees and felt across the floor. "'I think it knows something we don't.' He says." Jinx swore under his breath. "' I think the floor might collapse from underneath us.' He says!" His hand swept across the dust covered floor and into a pool of a sticky substance. He brought his hand up to his nose and sniffed. It was blood, hopefully not his own.
Finally, after a few more minutes of searching, his hand caught onto a cold piece of metal. It was his flashlight. He quickly snapped it on and waved it around his surroundings. There were two bodies on the floor, both Potts men. Looks like one of them had broken his fall too. He'll have to thank him for that later.
He used the dim light to search for any signs of where in hell's name he was. He noticed a small red sign on the other side of the room that read; "243A." He was on the bottom floor. He had fallen 6 stories all the way down and managed to survive with only a splitting headache. Even though he was somewhat glad to be alive, it didn't change the fact that he had been separated from Donatello. Heck, he didn't even know if turtle boy was even alive. Better not sit around to find out when Class C's are lurking all over the place. The elevator was obviously out of order so he would have to climb his way up to the first level and take the stairs the rest of the way up, the old fashioned way.
"You better be alive, Don." He said to himself. "I'll frickin' kill you if you're not alive."
:: (Donatello's POV)
The scene I was walking through was like a terrible nightmare of mine come true. The dust from the collapse was still lingering in the air and reflecting the light off my flashlight, making it useless except maybe to scare off anyone, or thing, that was surely lurking nearby. It was strange. I've never had that feeling before. You know the one where you think someone's following you and after you've turned around for the millionth time to check but never find anything? Yah, that's the one. Now I know how other people felt when my brothers and I were on the prowl back in the good old days.
I took small, light baby steps forward knowing that a second collapse usually follows after the first. Some pieces of the upper floor was probably still hanging over top of me and "getting crushed under concrete" isn't exactly on my to-do list. The sandy texture of the floor rubbed underneath my bare feet and gave them a chalky coating. I slipped once in a while from it but nothing so drastic that it would hasten my progression.
"Man, this hallway goes on forever." I moved the light back and forth in front of me in search for any other corridors I could turn down. I also checked closely for any signs that could tell me where in the world I was. There was nothing though, nothing that the dust would allow me to see anyway.
So after what seemed like the distance from New York to Moscow, I finally met with a wall. The debris was certainly in the minority at this end of the hospital, this was a good start. My luck only increased as I kept searching the area.
"Bingo." I found a sign on the wall. It was in Russian but I was easily able to translate it. According to my newest discovery, the cafeteria was to the left and the rec room was to the right. Up two floors was the patients living docks and down two floors was the place I needed to go, the research laboratory. How was I getting down though? I certainly wasn't going to use the elevator and I wasn't going to wonder around all day in search of a staircase. I suppose I have no choice though. The hallway split here into a left and right section. I'll go left first and if I don't find anything, I will then go right. Good plan.
I didn't have to walk very far until something out of the ordinary appeared. I crouched down onto the ground and picked up what looked like torn clothing. However, I was pretty sure none of the soldiers wore pink so this had to be someone else's. It was in almost perfect condition though. It had no tears or wrinkles except from where it appeared to have been ripped from the main piece. Well, I would worry about it later. Right now I had a staircase to find.
"Do…"
"Huh?" Something fuzzy was ringing through my ears.
"Don…"
"Polaris?!" Her voice was distorted but I could hear her coming through.
"Don...what's….going…"
"Polaris? Are you there?" A few seconds later, the signal was completely lost. There was no doubt in my mind that things were hectic back at the headquarters. After a collapse like the one we just experienced, all signals are probably being disrupted. That or no one was responding back to base.
After a few more minutes of walking in frustration, the dust had completely dissolved and I could finally see where I was going. I could also see strange, red scribbling running across the walls. I tried to distract my mind from the fact that it looked like someone was dragged across it with an obvious flesh wound. But once I made the next turn, I couldn't distract my mind from the next thing I saw.
It was a mutant, and it wasn't Jinx. It looked just like the last one we saw before the floor collapsed from underneath us with its stubby skin colored wings and rounded stomach. It was doing something else this time though, it was trying to break into a room. I ran back behind the wall pulled out my Bo-Staff. I had the advantage. I could sneak up on it and take it out. What if he doesn't drop right away though? Will the sound of its struggle signal the others to come? I started to think if maybe it was best if I just snuck around it.
"KRAAW!"
I heard its blood curdling calls as repeated sounds of banging echoed through the building. It certainly wanted to get into that room. I poked my head around the corner and watched it repeatedly smash its head against the metal door. If Leonardo was here, he would have just led us around and out of harm's way. But as usual, my curiosity got the better of me. I very lightly tapped the end of my Bo-Staff on the floor so it made a small ping sound and got the creatures attention. The banging immediately stopped and now the only sound that echoed were those of its footsteps towards me.
Alright Don, now what are you going to do? I thought to myself. I didn't have enough time to answer though. The creatures head was already around the corner and looking right at me.
"Oh Dear."
"KRAAW!" It snapped its jaws and barely missed taking off the end of my face. I summersaulted backwards and landed with my staff tight to my body prepared to fight. It raised its stubby wings in the air and let out another monstrous roar.
This one was smaller than the one I fought before but it defiantly was going to put up a much larger fight. It clamped its jaws on the end of my staff and tried to throw me off the ground. I fought back with every bit of strength I could but he easily overpowered me a million to one. I was thrown over its body and found myself crashing into a wooden desk and shattering it into pieces. Don't look now, but I was pretty sure a piece of it found its way into my upper thigh too, considering the blistering pain I felt afterwards. The beast liked it though; he was coming back for more.
"Hold on buddy!" Suddenly, the door that the mutant was trying to break into earlier swung open and a middle-aged man stepped out and released a round of bullets into its head. This time, it flipped over my body and crashed landed on the other side in a pool of blood.
"Damn." The man looked at me with a puzzled look on his face and then called out something in Russian. Two more men stepped out and assisted him in picking up my body and bringing it back in the room with them. They closed and locked the door tightly before placing me on the ground and examining the situation now presented before them. There were five people in the room, the reason I knew was because they all had circled around me with widened eyes.
"What…are you?" A woman with long blonde hair asked. I took into consideration the pink bandana she was wearing in her hair. Her face was covered with dirt and she shared a trait that the rest of the group did. They all had large, dark circles underneath their eyes. No doubt from a lack of sleep.
"I'm Donatello." I slowly sat up from my lying position and cuffed my thigh between my hands. A piece of wood about 6 inches across was jutting out of it like a sore thumb. "I'm with the MMC."
"Wow, another one." The middle-aged man who I could now see had shaggy brown hair and deep brown eyes spoke.
"What do you mean?" I asked, a little out of breath.
"We're with the MMC too. We've been trapped here for almost a year."
