Title: Black Hole
Author: Jayde
Rating: PG
Summary: A plot bunny born of watching 'I, Monster' one too many times. Those rats just creep me out. Leo-centric.
I couldn't think of a better place to go .. a more appropriate location for this exercise. Ever since Casey brought us out here for a practice I couldn't get it out of my mind.
The fence was intact, and the gate was still locked. I walked the perimeter first, scanning the barbed wire that curled at the top of the chain link that stretched far above my head. The red-orange of first light glinted off the sharp edges of the wire. I wasn't so far gone I would come out here at night …
I leapt over the fence, my landing puffing up a small cloud of dust. There was no sound, save the soft wind easing around the buildings and through the broken windows. Ghosts of the last visit caught up with me. My brothers laughed around me for a moment as Mike ran ahead.
One, two, three go!
A little game of stealth hunting to stretch our senses, but I was the only one taking it seriously.
Easy on the windows, Leo. It's just an exercise.
The brick buildings waited, and I stepped forward into their shadows. This must have been a manufacturing plant – perhaps even multiple companies had used these buildings long ago. Traveling in the direction I remembered, I found myself facing the collapsed tower. Everything here was the same as we had left it. The building I had fought the monster in was still destroyed.
Shouldering my way through the shattered door I had to watch my footing. Brick and glass lay everywhere. Ahead was the hole the monster had fallen into, nearly taking me with him. If Raph hadn't been as quick to catch my arm …
Approaching the edge slowly, I reached out with my senses. I could hear a steady rustling. I hunkered down and peered into the hole. The faint light of morning showed me what I had expected to see – a writhing mass of rats. Their black bodies slithered together, making a low sound that would have chilled anyone who heard it.
I sat down on the edge, my knees drawn up and my arms crossed over them. My eyes were fixed on the scene below. If there was a pattern, or a purpose, to the movement of the vermin I couldn't see it.
Had he survived, I wondered? That creature I had fought – he had disappeared into this hole. Were his bones down there, picked clean and now serving as a minor obstacle to the rats he had been feeding? An annoyance – a useless piece of trash on the floor beneath the feet of the scurrying rats.
Familiar exhaustion, gentle as an imagined lover's touch, swept over me and I shut my eyes. If the monster was dead, then we had something in common, he and I. What was I, anyway, but a minor obstacle? I put myself, and my brothers, in the path of evil again and again. Up until recently, I had believed we were the equals of anything we would face … That I would be able to take on anything that crossed our path and defeat it.
Rage and despair, the cure to my desire for rest. My hands tightened into fists. A sting of pain drew my attention, and I opened my eyes to study my left hand. The line of a cut crossed the back of my hand. The raised red welt was only a couple of inches long. Where had that come from? I shrugged it off. Injury was a part of my life.
The rats continued their pointless migration on the floor far below me. What was their objective? To eat, sleep … to create more of their own kind who would simply do the same. Animals. Base creatures acting only on instinct and reaction to stimulus.
Who did I have more in common with: the monster or the rat? Neither was needed or wanted. Both were feared and despised.
The black hole offered no answers and brought no comfort. Someone would notice that I was missing, and they – Raphael – would come looking. I didn't want them here. I stood up, careful of the drop, and stepped back.
Prickles of foreboding raced up my arms. Something else was here. I turned in a slow circle, scrutinizing my surroundings. Tumbled brick, glowing now from the sunlight, and shards of sparkling glass gave away no secrets. A flicker of motion drew my eyes up to the steel beams that crossed above my head. The red gaze of a rat gleamed back at me.
I walked out into bright sunshine and crossed to the fence. I vaulted over it and dropped on the far side. I spun, the world tilting as I thought I heard a sound that should not be there. Mad laughter. The wind increased, tearing the noise away.
Silence. Had I imagined it? Was it from my dreams, where Shredder still walked?
Real or figment, I was going back to the lair. I could do katas until I dropped, and then perhaps I would sleep. Maybe my nightmares wouldn't be about Oroku Saki.
Maybe they would hold only the whispered sound of rats.
Finis.