Ash woke first to the pain that filled her body. It was centralized around her right arm and back, but no part of her form wanted to exist in that moment. As she urgently opened her eyes to view her surroundings, her first thought was that she was still alive, and she didn't know why.
She was alone in a dark room, barely able to see anything around her. What she could tell through the pain coursing through her was that she was on a soft surface, and the room looked like it was either incompletely built or had been demolished at some point.
She could barely pay attention to the details as her body continued to remind her of all the injuries she had suffered from the foot. She sat up despite her back warning her not to move and started to examine what little she could in the darkness. Light shone through some cracks in a wall down a hallway, but she couldn't be bothered yet to explore.
Examining her hands as they rested in her lap, Ash struggled to form coherent thought. Her head pounded with the same disbelief she had in her mind—she should be dead. A bandage on her right arm covered the gash provided by a soldier trying to keep her still. She could feel it swollen and hot, but the sensation was drowned out by another wave of pain attacking her head.
While placing her left hand to her face, she felt around for extra cuts and bruises, but found that her face was far less sensitive than she thought it'd be. She was certain that she had been beaten well enough to have a black eye or broken nose, but it was just as sore as a healing bruise. Scabs from where her teeth busted her lip or where a punch broke skin felt at least a few days old.
"How long was I out?" she quietly asked herself, realizing then how dry her throat was. Coughing gave her a good idea of the state of her ribs, and she wondered if she'd even be able to stand.
Deciding to rest, she sat back against the wall and tried to take in her surroundings. She saw a table with a glass on it a few feet in front of her. Underneath her, she saw a mattress with a single pillow, blanket, and blood stains. The stains were fresh enough to be hers, but that would have meant her bandages were recently changed.
She closed her eyes to try and make sense of it, but as she grew used to the pain memories flooded back to her with no holds barred. Images of her family, slaughtered, as she watched helplessly from the ground, flooded her mind and forced tears out from her eyes. She couldn't fight off the images lest they demand more attention. The last thing she remembered was hearing one soldier tell her to befriend someone and gain their trust—but who were they talking about?
Her gentle and pained crying was heard by Mikey in the next room. The sound interrupted his attempted meditation while he knelt in front of a very crude altar made in honor of his lost family. He allowed a halfhearted conclusion to his thoughts as he stood up and prepared to meet the woman in the next room. He knew she would be confused and in a whole lot of pain, but he was just as hopeful about talking to her as he was about her surviving.
Before he entered the room, he tried to peek around the entrance to get a look at the situation. The only time he had seen her was when she was laying with hardly any sign of life in her. He saw her struggle through pain to adjust herself on his mattress. She wiped her nose and continued to cry while staring intently at the table across the room. He had left a glass of water for her in case she got up while he was out, but it didn't seem like she had gotten up yet. He wasn't sure if she could.
Mikey was about to knock and enter the room before he noticed her trying to stand while using the wall for support. He decided to watch.
Ash gritted her teeth to the point she thought she might bust out one of her molar fillings. Even with the amount of pain she was in, she didn't want to be trapped with some stranger in a completely strange place for who knew what reason! The foot had brought out the worst in people, and she wasn't about to be the victim of someone's mental break.
When she wasn't wincing, her eyes were fixed on the glass that sat on the table. Her back was on fire, and her right arm wasn't nearly as strong as her left. The fact that she was still alive was a big 'fuck you' to the foot and herself.
Her legs wobbled as she tried putting more of her weight on them. Every muscle in her back was screaming for her to stop moving, but her determination and paranoia were stronger. She grunted and held still for a moment as her legs threatened to collapse under her. Even her arms were starting to give in.
She let out a breath, "Gah!" and slipped down the wall. Mikey could only watch her struggle for so long.
His knock on the door-less door frame startled her and she fell, painfully, back onto the mattress. Her surprised yelp made him wince.
She glared at him for only a second before turning her attention back to her injured limbs.
"Shit, sorry," he said as he entered, bringing his hand up apologetically. "I was trying to not do that…"
Ash's breathing suddenly became faster and shallower as she stared at the creature who was now blocking the only exit. His skin was green and scarred, and she quickly noticed he was missing half of an arm. His expression could have been compassionate and friendly, if it wasn't on a face ridden with grief and stress and half-covered by an orange mask. It took her a second to notice, but he also had a shell on his back that was just as weathered as the rest of him.
Mikey could see that she was only more distressed after he entered the room, and he let out a soft sigh. Was it better to just introduce himself, or should he try to calm her down? He used to be a pro at easing humans into accepting his appearance, but he was far too tired to deal with all of those nuances now. "Yeah, I'm a giant talking turtle, and no you're not hallucinating."
He walked further into the room and leaned against the wall opposite of her. "My name's Mikey."
Ash remained pressed against the wall, feeling more threatened than ever. Mikey, played out in her head as she tried to figure out what her next move would be. He didn't have anything foot related on him, and it wouldn't have made any sense for him to try to keep her alive, and yet she was almost certain he was the one who did.
"Did you bring me here?" she asked.
"Yes," he said with a nod.
"So you saved my life?"
"Yes," he said again.
Her eyes narrowed and her next question dripped with malice. "Why?"
"You know, usually people say 'thank you.'"
"Only when they didn't want to die," she stated.
Mikey could feel her anger radiate through the room. Her statement wasn't completely unexpected, but the power in her emotions and words caught him off guard. The last time he felt anything like that was after Splinter had died.
"Well, forgive me for saving your life," he replied, unable to keep in his own negative feelings about the matter. Maybe the doctor had been right.
"What life?" she asked, wincing as she tried to get up again. "You think you did me a favor? Oh, helpless chick got attacked and left for dead by foot soldiers after being dropped from a window. The world is so worth living in, let me save her life!" She stopped moving with her legs bent as she was halfway up. "Tell me—how easy was it to save me? There's a lot of dried blood on this mattress."
Suddenly, Mikey thought he understood. Of course being in as much pain as she was in, coupled with where they were and who he was, she wouldn't want to have been saved. At least not by him. It's much easier to die than to deal with pain.
"You were bleeding out in an alley, I couldn't just leave you there," he said. "Anyone who could have would have wanted to save you, you know."
Ash continued to struggle to stand up, and Mikey felt compelled to help. "No one who was in that building would have dared," she muttered while he approached.
She shook off his attempted help.
"Let me help you," he said softly, holding onto the reason why he chose to help her in the first place.
They shared a moment of silent exchange when she looked at him. She could finally see his eyes with how close he was, and the complexity that was behind them. She knew he wasn't a foot soldier, but she couldn't shake that something was off. Still, she really needed to find out if she could stand, and he hadn't done anything but try to help her so far.
She accepted his help and finally stood on her feet with his support. "If you really wanted to help, you wouldn't have saved me. I've got nowhere to go now," she admitted solemnly.
She let go of his arm and leaned against the wall. Her legs still shook, and her back was still on fire with pain, but she was finally standing on her own.
"There's too much death these days," Mikey replied with similar tone. "I… You had a chance to live and I didn't want to waste it."
She stared at the ground while she got used to the new sensations of pain and tried to make sense of the new chapter before her. She had no idea why this strange creature had gone to any length to save her life, but his words told her enough about his motivations. "My name is Ash," she told him coldly. "Thanks."
Please leave a review if you would be so kind! I don't have any beta readers other than myself, and that doesn't make things much better. Thanks!
