Let me hear your voice
Disclaimer: I own nothing I tell you! I do use the name Snoopy, but it's no relation to Charlie Brown's cute doggie! I only own Mariel and Jannette!
Note: My first shot at a TMNT fic! Please be nice and don't flame, though I welcome constructive criticism. Not a whole bunch of action in the prolouge, but I promise it that it will pick up soon!
Prolouge - Mariel
A young girl walked slowly through the snow covered park. The sky was a muted grey color and the once beautiful trees were now cold and lifeless, like her soul had always seemed to be. The only sound she could hear was the quiet crunch of snowflakes beneath her feet.
There were people all around her, laughing, sharing secret kisses with their lovers, having snowball fights, and just enjoying the winter season. Mariel took no notice, she hardly ever did. She didn't care.
It wasn't that she hated people; it was people that seemed to hate her. For as long as she could remember, she had been shipped around from foster home to foster home. Each home was worse than the last. She had never been treated kindly. Always, beaten, yelled at, starved, and sometimes even raped.
She gave an involuntary shudder and pulled her coat tighter about her small frame. But despite all the horrific mistreatment, she had never made a single sound. She had never screamed in pain from beatings or pleaded to be taken to another home. Whenever she was told to do something, she did it without a sound. People always assumed that she was a mute because she was stupid or just couldn't talk.
The funny thing was, she wasn't quite sure why she was a mute in the first place. She hadn't always been one, of that she was sure. Only once when she was ten did one of her foster parents care enough to take her to a doctor about it, and this was only after she hadn't screamed during a beating involving a knife. They had told the doctor that she had gotten her injuries from a fight with the neighborhood bullies when they cornered her for money. The senile old fool had bought the story without question saying that sadly, events like that were common in New York.
The doctor had kept her in his office for a good portion of five hours trying to persuade her to talk and running tests on her. He came to the conclusion that something had happened in the past that was so traumatic, probably her parents' deaths, that her mind was still in a form of shock and had locked up her ability to speak.
That was the other thing she wasn't sure of, her real parents. All she could remember was the fact that she had been found wondering the streets when she was five, covered in blood and dirt but seemingly unharmed aside from the fact that she was a mute. They didn't know her name, so they called her Mariel. Not long after, the nightmarish cycle began.
She slowed her pace even more as she made her way to the edge of the park. From here it was only six blocks to the dingy apartment complex where she lived with her latest foster mother, Janette. The air temperature around her seemed to drop another ten degrees as she thought of returning to that place. The others had abused her. This woman just plain annoyed her.
Janette Parkinson was a vain, short tempered woman with a gorilla nicknamed Snoopy (Mariel had no desire to know why) for a boyfriend. She also thought she was destined to be a Broadway star. She was constantly fretting over herself in some kind of mirror and going out to parties with 'Snoopy-kins'. She told Mariel that she had only adopted her as a maid and cook. In her words, "A personal servant for me when I'm famous".
Janette almost always had some comment to make about Mariel's appearance and the fact that she wouldn't talk. In fact, her favorite past time was comparing herself to Mariel in front of Snoopy. She remembered what had happened earlier.
"You see, my little Snoopy-kins?" she had said at dinner that evening. Mariel was going to the kitchen to clean her plate. She'd been eating dinner in her small bedroom as always. 'Servants' were not allowed at the table.
"Her hair is so thin and dirty looking. My hair is perfectly clean and gorgeous. And look at the color! It's such an ugly brown! Mine is a pretty blonde! Her eyes are too big to! And too blue! And urgh, those glasses! And she won't even talk! I know she can! So talk! Go on!" she got up and walked over to Mariel.
"Tell me to shut up! I know you want to! Or are you just scared? Scared because you know Snoopy will beat your ass if you do! That's it! You're too stupid and ugly for my lovely eyes to look at! Go and get us some ice cream so I don't have to see you!" she screamed.
Can't wait to be out the door.Mariel thought wryly as she threw on an old coat of Janette's and left quickly.
Snoopy had just nodded dumbly throughout the whole thing, while staring at Janette's chest. Intelligence on so many levels.
Mariel had contemplated running away several times over the years, but had pushed the thought quickly to the back of her mind. There was no way a sixteen year old girl would last out in the middle of New York City for more then a two days if she managed to live through the night without being raped and murdered.
It's still four more blocks, She thought. And it's getting dark. Trust that bitch to send me out for ice cream alone at sunset. She clutched the plastic bag she was carrying from the store a bit tighter and decided to quicken her pace. The sun was no longer visible and the streetlights had come on a few moments earlier.
She considered taking a short cut she had found the other day. The only problem was it involved walking through a long alleyway that all but screamed 'looking to get raped? Apply here!'
She took a breath and swallowed her nervousness as she took her chances and started down the alley. She jumped when she thought she heard someone on the roof above her. Dismissing it as the wind, she kept walking. She heard it again, and began to run. When she was almost out of the alley, she had to stop for breath, her chest heaving with her silent breathing. She looked down the alley and saw no one. Then she realized something.
I've dropped the freaking ice cream! Perfect! Janette's going to have a field day with me. She's – She was cut off by trash can beside her moving slightly and her eyes widened as she looked around. She was completely surrounded by strange men in black ninja outfits. Each one had a red marking on the front of their outfit which she recognized from the news to be the symbol of the Foot.
I'm going to die. She thought.
She began to back up against the wall as they took out their weapons and advanced toward her slowly.
She was trapped. And she couldn't even scream.
