Who had Donnie killed? As he stared at the broken body Donatello couldn't tell. Not that he even knew this person. They had been complete stranger. Her hair was platinum blonde and about 56 centimetres long. Her skin was dark as coco and her still-open eyes were the colour classified as 'frigid lake'. She had been tall, 168 centimetres, and slim, a model's body. She had a textbook in her hand and looked to be 18/19 years old. Probably a university student. Probably a woman with a whole life ahead of her. Probably had been crawling to the top when he killed her. Probably her death would taint the lives of a massive family, hundreds of friends and many, many acquaintances. The death of this woman could mean the end of the planet, she could have been about to solve climate change!
Ok, so maybe she wasn't about to save the world, but she had done nothing wrong. All she had done was startle a ninja. She shouldn't have died for that. He shouldn't have killed her for that. God, he wished he hadn't killed her. His brothers would forgive him. They would help him make the body disappear and they would let him know he still mattered. But she would still be dead, and he would still have killed her. She would have people who missed her, and she would leave behind a hole in the world, no matter how small and it was. And it was then that Donnie knew that his brothers might forgive him but he would never forgive himself.
She had been so…Young? Beautiful? Smart? Kind? He knew nothing about her, he couldn't say.
Donnie's life wasn't the only one that changed that day, he knew that. He had her phone. She had had over 300 contacts and they all called and texted frequently. They all asked the dead girl for advice, jokes, tips and just to talk. He saw it when paic began to set in and they began to text asking why she wasn't home ad where was she. He saw it when finally the phone pinged a last message; "The cops say you're dead. I don't know if you are. Maybe you just ran away, got sick of us all and went to start a new life. I know that doesn't sound like you, but I'm hoping that it's what you've done. I couldn't take it if you really were dead. I would die." The contact was called 'Eviline' and the phone got no more new messages.
Years later the phone chimed again, someone had been paying for the sim card all this time, the message was from a group chat. As Donnie read he learned about what had happened over all that time. It seemed like all of her friends were determined to keep talking to her even when she didn't talk back. He got messages about boyfriends and girlfriends, books she would have liked and photos. So many photos. Soon he could put a name to each face. Eric was tall and thin, Alix had deep blue hair and hated flash, Jack wore glasses and liked food selfies, Mary had beautiful black skin and liked girls.
Donnie sometimes wondered if he could ever forgive the mask that brought all this sorrow. His purple ninja mask. It matched his life, purple as death.