Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! And I want to apologize for the unusually short chapter this week. With the holidays all coming and going I've been busy with company, preparation, etc. Please forgive me, and hopefully the next chapter will be more fulfilling for you all. But hey! We get to see what's going on with Leo again!

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Chapter 13

Leonardo stumbled through the dark passageway. His whole body radiated heat, and yet he felt so cold.

Exhaustion had set in and his eyelids hung heavily, threatening to close. And he half wanted them too. But he was consumed with an overwhelming sense of dread that if they did, he might never be able to open them again. So he pushed forward on weak, trembling legs, desperately trying to fight against the warm void that tugged at his consciousness.

He continued his chant, unfaltering. And though it had helped to keep him aware for the first half of what seemed like eternity, it now slipped from his mouth, and echoed back to him without any recognition.

"Splinter.. Donnie.. Mikey.. Raph.."

A kind of numbness had filled him. Taking over his senses and voiding out the messages they were trying to send.

Which, in a way, was a relief, because then he didn't have to feel and register the torture his body was enduring with every agonizingly slow step.

His mind had zoned out as well. It was too hard to think clearly, and everything was becoming more and more confusing. The nauseating feeling of lightheaded dizziness overtaking him on one too many an occasion.

He was so tired and weak that he couldn't hold his arm up to slow the blood from his injury, and just let the aching limb fall back to his side. Too tired to care.

Without some sort of blockage, the blood oozed freely from the deep cut, becoming a thick stream of red that crept down until it dripped off his fingertips into the water at his feet.

All he knew was darkness. Suppressing him, trapping him. It crushed him like a heavy weight, seizing his lungs and making it harder to breathe. What little light he had left inside of him felt drained by it, sucked out until all that was left was pure, overwhelming darkness. He was filled with a heart wrenching despair that he would never escape its hold, and never know light again. He was alone. Lost in a never ending expanse of black. With no hope or assurance of ever seeing his family again.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the pitch black darkness of the tunnel got a little bit lighter. Turning a hazy grey.

His stomach lurched at the slight change, and he pushed on, desperately trying to reach the hope of light inside the overpowering darkness.

The tunnel took a sharp turn to the left and he followed it without really thinking. His mind only capable of registering the promising glow of light ahead.

Breaking out into a wider passageway he was illuminated in a dull grey light. He gasped as if his lungs had been deprived of breath, and he felt the crushing weight of darkness fall from his shoulders, leaving him filled with relief.

Another dizzy spell hit him and he stumbled forward in an attempt to steady himself. His vision was blurred and glaring, his eyes struggling to focus. All he could make out in the vague images his eyes were trying to send, were grey concrete walls and a black ribbon of water streaming down the middle of the tunnel.

Wait, there was something else. A green figure standing up ahead and off to the right. It looked familiar, and he struggled to remember why. But his brain felt thicker than sludge, and the blurred image that his eyes beheld was too confusing.

White and black spots began to fill his vision and he felt a silent, numbing, blackness creep from the back of his mind. Spreading out and infecting the rest of him like a disease of nothingness. He was going to lose consciousness.

Fighting it back as best as he could he stumbled forward a couple steps, knowing full well that all his attempts were in vain. He was too exhausted to win this fight. It was inevitable for unconsciousness to win, he had only hoped that he would've been able to make it home before it did.

In one last attempt to stay awake, he tried to focus on whatever was standing farther up the tunnel. Hoping beyond hope that the distraction would be enough to defeat the numbing darkness that was suffocating him.

His eyes caught a hint of orange and sudden recognition clicked in his brain.

Darkness tugged at the corners of his vision, and, struggling against the weakness that ravaged his body, he was barely able to gasp,

"Mikey?"

Before his knees buckled underneath him, unable to support him any longer. And he was enveloped in warm darkness..