Disturbing Recollection

~

   Sore. His eyes were so sore. But the brightness was back once again. It surrounded him, seemed to bleach his own skin tone to nothing but whiteness. It was exactly like the other nigh, bright light, nothing but whiteness – no – this wasn't like the last time . . . he was stood. Leo was not laying down, he could not feel any surface on his shell, and his sense of balance, however dizzy it was seeming, told him he was vertical, and on his own feet. The small ache in his muscles told him that his own effort was causing him to be stood – no alien instrument or object was making him. But why was is painful to stand? It seemed to take half of his concentration to stay on his feet; otherwise he somehow knew he'd fall over. The other half of his concentration was forcing his mind to stay awake, to keep his sore eyes open. With this registered in his aching brain, Leo next wanted to know what he should and could now do. But he dare not turn . . . or he couldn't turn. His muscles were so focused on keeping him upright they were, at this minute in time, incapable of doing anything else. Leo's eyes were so sore, but he refused to close them in fear that if he did, he would fall under whatever control these aliens were trying to force onto him. Speaking of the hell demons themselves, Leo wondered where they were. He had the eerie, tingling feeling on his senses that they were just outside of his vision range, staring at him. The sudden feeling of childish hopelessness and fright gripped his heart, but – no – he fought against the feelings and crushed them deep down inside him, where they lingered weakly. He summoned with most of his mental strength, and opened his mouth and spoke.

   "I know you're there," his voice was whispery and surprised himself. He swallowed. "Let me see you." He demanded.

   There was no sounds, no movement. Only bright white.

   Leo waited with baited breath for something to happen. He at least hoped he would glimpse movement at the edge of his vision; but nothing. Leo took a deep breath.

   "Do you understand?" He listened. His highly trained senses could pick up nothing, and for one who prides themselves, and has relied on these senses for most of his life, it was disturbing to think they were unable to detect anything now. A new emotion took hold. "I know you're listening!" He shouted angrily. "I know you can see how this is – affecting – me. I want it to stop! You hear me? I want it to stop! I remember what you did to me when I was younger – I remember  - you tried to delete it from my memory . . ." He paused, breathing through his mouth with his bottom jaw stuck out in anger. "I remember seeing what you did to me – I saw my blood, all of my blood, running in transparent tubes into your machines, around me! You drained it from me! And I saw it . . . I remember it . . . " the memory had terrified him in his sleep, where he could do nothing but relive the nightmare. "You drilled a hole into my shell – " the memory of the shrill sound of the alien drill machine bore into his mind at that very second "– And now I know that you're trying to torture me again!" He almost screamed. He was breathing slightly harder now. The rage seemed to give him that little extra energy, and Leo summoned it to his neck muscles. He slowly turned his head to his right, still squinting against the harsh light. As he turned, something from the corner of his vision moved to the center as his eyes leveled with it; and widened. He vaguely saw that behind the figure there were four tables, bleaching in the whiteness. One of them was empty. Leo's eyes never left, what he could only guess right, as one of his captors and torturers.

()()()()

   "AGH!" Donny shot straight up from being laid on his bed. How he got there was a question that flicked so quickly in his mind that he forgot a slit second after he had awoke. He jumped off the bed and ran into the next compartment. He threw himself onto his knees, hitting his plastron against the side of Mikey's bed, and shook his brother on the arm with both hands.

   "Uh? – Uh – what?" Mikey shot up, looking alarmed. "Wh – where?" He turned and noticed Donny. "What?"

   "I just had a really strange, realistic dream," Donny told his brother a little breathlessly.

   "Whoa, me too," Mikey whispered, wondering why on earth he felt shaky, as though he'd been in a battle. He felt the adrenaline after one at least.

   "AGH – what the hell – " Raph's voice suddenly cried from the top bunk, and the bedsprings above Mikey groaned as their brother shot up. Raph's head and hands suddenly appeared over the edge of the top mattress. He stared for a few seconds, breathing as though he had been running. "What was that all about?" He said almost to himself.

   "Strange dream?" Donny asked quickly.

   Raph frowned and blinked a few times. "Yeah – but – but it felt so real . . ."

   "Care to share?" Mikey asked from the beneath his brother.

   "We don't need to," Donny said, almost cutting across Mikey. Donny suddenly looked up. "Where's Leo?"

   All three suddenly got up, or climbed off beds, and ran into the Lair. Their heads jerked from left to right, looking for their forth brother.

   Donny took off towards the dojo, quickly followed by Raph and Mikey. All were confused, yet thought they knew what had happened. All three reached the dojo and stopped at the door, catching themselves on the doorframe.

   Inside, they were looking at a sitting Leo, who had had his head bowed, but raised it as they appeared. He seemed to stare at them for half a second before he smiled, sort of relived like.

   "Leo?" Donny said, confusedly. Then he allowed himself to ask his-self why he had dashed here to find his brother.

   Leo's eyes wandered to the floor in front of him. "It's okay guys," he said softly. He looked up at them. "They're gone." He smiled, as though he knew they understood.

   They did, but they didn't.

   After two seconds of confused silence, Donny asked, "Who?"

   Leo's head tilted, his eyes on his brother. It looked a little freaky to see him calm about something that he seemed to know had made them scared a minute ago. He gave the impression that he knew everything to this mystery.

   "Them," he said, with no change of expression. "The lights, the abductors . . . they're not coming back."

   Donny moved further into the room and lowered himself onto his knees right in front of Leo, putting his hands on his lap.

   "Leo – what happened?" He asked quietly. Mikey and Raph took a step into the room, a hand remaining on the door frame each.

   Leo looked at his brother in front of him. "I –" he began, but paused a second. "I asked them to leave, to stop what they were doing to us. They didn't mean it – they didn't realize it was causing us pain."

   His brother knew that he was on about these aliens. Their Sensei had been worried about Leo, and had told his brother briefly what Leo's problem was; the memories, the memory when he was five.

   "But Leo," Donny started, hesitant to say what he was about to, "these abductions didn't hurt us – " he half turned and motioned to himself and Mikey and Raph. "They only took you, Splinter told us."

   Leo shook his head. "You, Mikey and Raph were tortured. You screamed in pain, you were all terrified." He voice, oddly, held no kind of emotion or tone they had every really heard Leo use.

   Donny felt a little tingle of fear for some reason. "I don't remember . . ." he whispered in a voice that almost asked Leo not to tell him it was true.

   "You don't, I do." Leo's expressionless face looked into Donny's, who could almost feel the distress Leo had earlier been feeling.

   Mikey left the doorframe and slowly sat down on Donny's left. "What are you saying? When were we taken?"

   Leo looked at him. "Every time." He said simply. "Every time I was, you were just never the ones awake. I remember seeing most things of what were done to you." He glanced at Raph. "I was taken twice in the past two days." He told them without exact words, that they were taken too. "But they're not coming back now," there was something of the old Leo back in his face. His gaze fell to the floor again. "I told them they were hurting us, and they were causing more harm than they ever thought could happen. They were here to study us. You've heard of human abductions in the past – well now they stumbled onto a new species: Us. They were curious I guess; wanted to know everything about the planet." He paused. "They took all four of us the first time because they didn't know if we were different from each other. But they found out we were the same in a certain way, and thought that, since they had realized from whatever tests they performed on us we were related, we had to be together to survive. They though there was a sort of connection to our minds that would break if we were taken out of a certain distance, and thought we would die. That gave them the opportunity to study us all . . . they told me all this, face to face if you like. Only, they couldn't talk, they had no mouths . . . it was like they were telepathic, but not. It wasn't thoughts they were sending to me, it was feelings. I could feel what they were thinking, it's weird, I can't explain." He gave a silent sigh. "They had been watching us since that first night when I acted weird." He looked at Donny. "Remember when it seemed I was going crazy, trying to point out small things that had changed in the night? Raph and Mikey had switched seats in the night, in the lair, and you all seemed darker? I guess even aliens can't get everything right, they recognized me because I was, if you like, marked, targeted. But they could not tell the different between Mikey and Raph, and so accidentally returned them to the lair in the wrong places. I think I remember feeling their thoughts on you, Don. They didn't get you mixed up because of your strong brain activity. They had some kinda machine to recognize this."

   They was a long silence in the dojo, in which time everyone stared at Leo, and then at the floor. Mikey broke the quietness.

   "But, why do you remember, and we don't?" He asked.

   Leo frowned slightly. "I think it was because I was always awake when we were taken. I saw the light, the light that freezes us."

Raph stepped away from the door. "So, the dreams us three had? We all suddenly woke . . ."

   Leo turned his eyes to his standing brother. "It was when they decided to leave us be . . . the control they had over you that was keeping you unconscious was taken off after I had finished speaking to them, and then they returned you – us – back home. You must have seen . . . the bright lights?" He asked.

   Raph looked uncomfortable, and shifted his eyes from place to place on the floor a few times before he spoke in a quiet voice. "I – I saw . . ." He swallowed and looked Leo in the eye. "I saw them."

   Mikey, who had been looking over his shoulder, looked at Leo. "So did I." He paused. "I felt pain as well, and I was scared."

   Donny slowly nodded as Mike looked at him, assuring him that he too felt the same. They and Leo looked at Raph, who lightly glared at the floor away from them. 

   "Yeah I felt pain . . . I was scared . . ." he admitted.

   Donny and Mike turned back and both took a slow, deep breath.

   "Splinter knows," Leo said, and his brothers looked at him. "I told him before you woke . . . the dream you had a few minutes ago was a memory of last night. You've all been asleep for a few hours. You woke in the ship, but they returned you to your unconscious state so you wouldn't see too much."

   "So, we haven't only just been put back in out rooms?" Mikey asked.

   Leo shook his head. "No, the effect of their power renders you asleep for a while after they have removed their control from you. Then as you were stirring, coming around from their effects, you saw a flash of your memories that happened hours ago."

   Donny leaned forward slightly, ignoring his numb feet. "They can easily hide any future abductions if they wanted to. What if they do it again?"

   Leo gave a small, one-sided smile. "They won't," Leo said quietly. "I know . . . I just know."

   He knew.

~

   End

   Yeah I know, you're thinking, what the hell kinda ending is that? Well, it's MY ending, and I leave it up to you guys to think about how Leo recovers and such. Thanks a bunch for the reviews. I've got another kinda spookster in mind, but it's too similar to this. If the ending was that pathetic, I can carry on, but that's ONLY if I get any comment back saying it is so. Ciao, gracias an' all that ;)