Dream Walker

Rated – PG – 13

Disclaimer: I deny any ownership of any adult or adolescent transformed shadow warrior chelonians.

Author's Note: With two rewrites and one other story on the go, I can't say when or where this one will get updated but I will do my best.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. - Edgar Allan Poe.

Prologue:

I was used to having dreams, nightmares and all that; lets face it we all dream right? Just not the way I dream. I suppose, I have this very vivid imagination, it is amazing what I use to fuel the fires of my creative thought process and that probably only gives my subconscious state all the more to play with. Still the dream I had just woke from was very disturbing.

Not all my dreams though, are really dreams, sometimes they tell me bits of the future before it happens. ESP does run in my family I inherited it from my mother and while it often skips a generation, at least according to her, it almost always ends up in a female.

So I guess that made me a little strange or different. Not that I really needed help in that department any.

I was overweight, chubby, around the middle even though I got plenty of exercise I just couldn't seem to stay away from sweets or chips enough to lose the extra twenty – to twenty five pounds I packed on my body. Okay maybe there was more then that around my mid section but you would never get me to admit to it. I wore glasses because I was short sighted and had been wearing glasses since I was about four so wearing contacts now would just seem strange to me. Like I was walking around naked.

I had brown hair that, if it wasn't washed often enough it tended to get oily and hang limp and stringy, but if I washed it on a daily basis, it would be shiny and soft with a bit of curl to it, and a few blond highlights, but it would also tend to frizz and be a bit unmanageable. It was hard finding the right balance.

I was shy, quiet, a bit of a bookworm, and an introvert, but when I found something I enjoyed well, I could almost become fanatic about it. I'd learn all I could and would get together with others into the same thing, so we could talk and compare notes. My bedroom was full of little bits of collections from all sorts of movies, or what have you, that had grabbed my attention at one time or another.

Of course my parents didn't seem to understand me, they felt I ought to work harder in school, apply myself, make more friends, do after school sports or clubs and always seemed to be on my case about one thing or another. In other words I suffered from the typical teenage problems.

I had a brother who was fifteen, and Darren was a typical older brother, sometimes he could be nice, other times he went out of his way to beat up on me or make some joke about my looks or what have you. Darren was a star athlete at school, exceptional grades, good looks muscular, blond and blue eyes. He had no shortage of girl friends that was for sure though don't ask me why because for the life of me I couldn't figure out what they saw in him.

Me, no matter how hard I tried I was always the second child, second best, the one who was destined to live in the shadows of the first child and have great things pass them by, because as everyone knows great things don't happen to people like me. Great things were not meant for the ordinary or the average, if something great was going to happen in our immediate family it would be Darren who achieved it. I was perfectly okay with that, because I was used to being in the shadows, and would probably mess up if I was forced into the light.

Yet the dream that had disturbed my rest, seemed to be one of those prophetic types and of utmost importance, as if it was up to me to do something, because I knew about it, but in spite of that feeling, I knew in my heart it couldn't be real because of the contents of the dream itself.

In the dream I was in a dark, damp cold place, water sloshed around my feet, there was the sound of water dripping slowly but continual drip, drip, drip that could become aggravating in itself. The place smelled pungent and there was all sorts of garbage in the water that swirled around my feet, all around me were concrete pipes that seemed to go in every direction at once.

I realized I was probably in a sewer system but I had no clue as to where this sewer happened to be.

I moved slowly through the pipes, the water splashing up around my ankles and onto the back of my jeans as I walked. I wasn't sure where I was going, but I guess, it didn't really matter, I mean if you don't know where you are, what difference could it really make where you are going?

Then I heard a voice soft and low touched perhaps with a tinge of fear and uncertainty as if seeking reassurance.

" Guys we got to get him home."

" What if that thing is still after us? We can't lead it back to the lair." A louder harsher voice argued the point, the words sounded slightly slurred.

" Don doesn't have much time." A third voice replied; it was firm and a bit haggard.

I followed the slight echo of the voices, perhaps to get an idea of where I was or maybe so I didn't have to feel so alone, but as I drew nearer I felt suddenly, inexplicably terrified of something that I knew lay ahead, beyond the voices. I stood where I was hesitantly frantically looking around, not wanting to show myself and unsure, whether I ought to go on, or go back to hide in the sewer and shadows away from the darkness ahead.

I huddled into the shadows of a pipe, crouching down low and waited. I felt trapped unable to move one way or another so could only stay hidden as possible.

Slowly I saw the speakers draw into sight. There was four of them, one was guarding the path they were moving down, he had a red mask, and a look of sheer distaste, hatred, something, on his face. Another who wore a blue mask kept a wary eye on the way they had come. Both had weapons drawn, the blue one had swords, the one in red bore a weapon I knew to be called the sai.

There were two others, one in an orange mask who was trying to pack the fourth who had a purple mask, only ever once in a while it looked as if the one in orange was prepared to put the being in purple down to support it on one side.

They were all very tense and badly wounded, though the one in purple seemed to bear the worst wound, he was clearly unconscious and there was so much blood it was hard to tell where it was all coming from. The one in orange seemed to have most of blood on him, but then, considering he had his own and his brothers it probably only made sense.

Brothers? Well they could be, or they could be complete strangers for all I knew but I felt that they were brothers because they were all pretty much alike. I mean they all looked like giant turtles, only more human in some ways.

They had shells and green skin, but their legs and arms were muscled, they walked upright and they could clearly talk. They weren't your garden variety of pet shop turtle let me tell you.

Then, from somewhere down the way they had come from, came a low hissing noise that caused the turtle in blue and red to tense up, the turtle in orange did place his brother down and pull a wooden object from his belt spinning it nervously in his grip as he swallowed hard. His weapon I knew was the nunchuku.

" It isn't giving up Leo." He murmured, his voice hardly a whisper.

I saw the turtle in blue shoot the one in orange a dirty look, softened ever so gently with a hint of compassion. As if he understood his brother's concerns and yet wanted, needed, him to be silent now.

I knew then what ever was in the sewer was hunting; stalking them had to be as real as they were, and it wanted them dead. Don't ask me how I was aware it wanted the turtles dead. I could feel it and sense it.

It was ominous, and so malignant were its thoughts its very being, that I felt my heart start to race, as I held my breath, feeling paralyzed in my sudden terror as I began a feverish silent prayer in hopes of some deliverance.

Funny thing was, I didn't know if I really bought into any religion I knew about many different types, and I was willing to admit there had to be someone or something out there that had created everything, but I also had the feeling, that whoever created all this stuff had to have one heck of a sense of humour. Come on, you think anyone that could create a creature like a duck billed platypus, an animal that looked like it was made from spare parts or leftovers, doesn't find some amusement in that?

The thing, stalked closer, I could feel it drawing near and I felt the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as a wild panic grabbed hold of me.

I woke up then screaming, in a cold sweat with the blankets tangled all around and about me. I trembled wildly in the after effects, while I told myself repeatedly that it was only a dream. No more then a dream.

It had to be a dream, no matter how real it had felt to me; no matter that ESP talent that I had inherited that might hint of the dream having some true aspects to it.

It wasn't possible for it to be any thing but a dream.

I knew what I had seen in the dream couldn't be real because, well, the turtles themselves weren't really, real beings. They were characters in comics, movies, cartoons and so on. It was one of the things I was 'big' on and had quite a collection of to prove my interest in them. They were the teenage mutant ninja turtles, who bore the names of renaissance artist.

So you see, that dream could have been no more then my active imagination, taking one of my great interest and playing it out, but I had a foreboding feeling that twisted deep within my gut, that told me this could be more then a dream.

Perhaps something like Leo, Don, Raph and Mike actually, truly existed and they were in danger by something that was still unknown, at least by me.

I was aware of the danger they were in, but I couldn't help them because, I really wasn't much of any thing. I was plain and ordinary and most of all I was just me, a thirteen year old girl.

If turtles trained in ninjitsu couldn't hold their own, then I didn't know what I could do for them. I knew of their plight but that was all, and I only knew of it due to my cursed genes.

Besides it had to be a dream.

Or so I told myself then.

TBC ( When I can But I make no promises.)