Hi ya all out there!
So I'm back after my very long hiatus. I had to take a break from this one after the year I had spent fixing this story. So in the mean time, I was focusing on my Mass Effect story, Escape the Fate. So I have still been writing! ^^
But now I'm back with a new chapter and hope you will like it. I had planned to upload this chapter back in December, but I was not sure if I wanted the story to go this way... But now when I read through it I actually liked it. And the tension! Pretty good. Was amazed that I had actually written this. O.OBut I won't keep you for much longer. I think you want to know what is going to happen to the guys. And Mikey!
Thanks for Reading!
A Great Lost - Ninja Turtles
Chapter 16: Three Feet Down
The cold breeze ran through the newly-grown leaves on the trees and chilled me to the bones. The storm was growing stronger by the hour and the rain was already furiously whipping against my skin. My fingers was already so cold I suspected it wouldn't be long before they would start to go numb. So I tightened the grip on the shovel and made the first thrust into the ground. For hours I had been out here, ignoring everything which demanded my attention, so why shouldn't I just ignore my freezing fingers as well? Forcefully I grabbed a load of saturated earth, shoved it aside and thrust the shovel back down again, only to repeat it until I would get to the six feet dept mark of a grave. There was no going back now.
Three years ago I couldn't even imagine doing this the first time and didn't even dare to let the thought of doing it again cross my mind. And yet... wasn't it about a week ago that I had dug the grave of my beloved father and sensei? Six feet may not seem to be much, but as I was digging it my mind kept pounding on the thought of who it would belong to for an eternity and yet this may as well be a bottomless pit. The dead does not care where they end up, the grave is for the living to have a place to go and remember.
Each shovel gets harder and harder to put into the ground. Each shove will be heavier and heavier. Making yar strength fading faster and faster until all that is left is the weight of the mind, lost in whatever emotion and memory it's tormenting and taunting ya with. One would think doing this once was more than enough, then there was the second time and not a third... If life had a face, I could clearly see it have a sadistic grin on its' face right as it kept throwing us all this shit, 'cause it have to be that sick to make me do this for a third time!
As I shoved the shovel into the earth for the eight time, I tried to remember how I had ended up here. Most of the last twenty-three hours had been blurred out, leaving only small fragments left for my memory to work with. As fury, anger, grief, confusion and denial had fought a never ending intensive battle within me, I had refused to believe it. At times there was pictures, scenes or even conversations. But nothing clear to puzzle it all together. To be honest, I wasn't so sure I wanted to.
Suddenly the wind changed direction and the whipping rain splashed into my face. I took up my arm to cover my face and for a second I lost my footing and slipped on the mud. I fell down, splashing away the dark brown water which the rain was leaving behind. My injured leg protested from the impact, sending flashes of white hot pain to every nerve in my body. Paralyzed by the pain, I remained lying in the mud, waiting for it to get under my control once again.
As clear as the pain was, the reality of the order Karai had given the Elite, which had taken my father's life, -to take of that stupid straw hat of his only to reveal the one face I thought I would never ever see again, was just as clear. Once the face of my deceased brother came into view, my reality had crashed and burned in that very split second my eyes had fallen onto his own. Frozen in complete shock, I remember a thought which ran through my mind, 'That idiot threw me his sword'. Then every possible though and emotion ran through me the next minute or so. A mixture of the most joy and happiness I had ever felt before in my entire life as much as the most heartbreaking, terrified and sickened feeling I would ever feel. Denial screamed and clouded my senses to the point when I could no longer feel my body. Yet doubt of ever seeing him die managed to grab a hold and plant the seed inside my head and forced the knowing facts away.
Shocked and too confused to prevent anything, 'cause for a minute my big brother was very much alive and standing right in front of me, the Foot ninjas jumped and seized me, pinning me to the ground. With a brutal force to my jaw to knock my senses to a spin, I had been brought back to the reality and the brother I had lost, missed and grieved for three years, was once more taken away from me as he had complied and executed an order which the brother I had known and loved for my entire life, would never ever follow through with.
The memory of Mikey's arm being brutally broken only to end up gruesomely severed from his body lay fresh in my mind. No matter how much I may try, I will never be able to erase that image from my mind. Yet what would haunt me more was the face of the one responsible; the stone cold and emotionless face which belonged to my honorable older brother as he watched our baby brother's torment and struggle of the pain. It wouldn't matter whether it was truly my brother or an imposter. The hero of our family, dead for a fact yet doubtful following this event, had roughly violated my mind.
Slowly I pushed myself up on one knee. Still my wound sent fresh flashes of pain and I grabbed the shovel to lean on as I continued to wait for it to pass yet again. My eyes fell down on the bandage and I wasn't surprised in finding it drenched in the dark mud, leaving no trace of its' white color origin. As the leaves shifted in the wind, I closed my eyes and listened to the storm which was intensifying by the minute around me.
"An hour..." The words slipped through my lips in a harsh whisper.
It was the time we had been given to escape. Mikey had fallen unconscious from the excruciating pain he must have felt and had to endure by the hands of his hero, leaving Donny and I to watch as he slipped closer to death by each passing moment. The pool of blood had quickly formed underneath 'im, making it impossible to believe he was going to survive. As each precious minute past by while we still were in the clutches of Karai and the Foot, we had struggled, fought and demanded to get free while demanding a reason to how and why.
If we had gotten an answer or was ignored, I could no longer remember. All my emotions was boiling up in a rapid speed like never before, giving me the strength I needed to get my younger brothers out of there. But it was all drained away just as quickly when Karai had given new orders to the thing with the stolen face of my older brother's. There had been no resistance, no reaction nor any remorse as he had executed the orders of violently tear out Donny's right eye from its socket. Though as my second brother was being harmed in ways not even imaginable, I had somehow gotten free and threw myself into a fight with the thief and somewhere along the way I had managed to get hurt, though it was only mildly compared to what had happened to my brothers.
During all this, Karai had just stood on the sideline, watching us being pulled apart like her own personal experiments of lab rats, no offence to Masta' Splinter's spirit. In my books she had always been a wicked bitch, getting to much credit from my older brother for following the honor of being a ninja. There was nothing within her which was even close to honor, if not she was even worse than the Shredder! At least he actually did fought us in the end of all his lousy ambushes. But no, once we were down on our knees, she had given her final order before disappearing, giving us a lousy puny hour to escape the death by the face of the brother we had depended on our whole lives until he had roughly been taken away from us three years ago.
A flash of bright light made me open my eyes and turn my face up towards the black sky. Then the soft rumbling of thunder followed shortly, reminding me of the soft sound of a hungry stomach before it grew louder and finally exploding in a loud bang. Suddenly I could see my own breaths leave my mouth, yet I hadn't felt the slight shift in temperature. My skin had grown numb from the constant whipping and splashing from the freezing cold rain. Standing up once more, I let my eyes examine the work I had done so far. I had barely made it through the first feet. I let a growl of frustration escaped my lips as I shoved the shovel into the puddle of mud I had involuntarily created.
Once the order had been given and it was clear we needed to escape if we wanted a slight chance in saving Mikey's life, we had actually taken the single hour we had been given. I remember I had watched the Worthless- frauding- douchebag of a thief like a hawk as we had grabbed Mikey, expecting 'im to not keep his deal of waiting for an hour before hunting us down. The image of 'im standing there, his swords back in their sheaths on his back, his eyes expressionless as it was the only part of the face I could actually see.
I remember thinking I wanted 'im dead at that very moment and what had stopped me from actually attacking 'im was lost to me. If Don had said anything to prevent me or stopped me from grabbing my sais and pierced it through that phony's skull, I could not recall. Yet wanting to see 'im dead, I still couldn't shake off the fact that that his face belonged to my deceased brother. The small glimmer of hope that it actually was 'im had began to glow within me as well as the want and need for it to be true.
Getting off of the roof, I remember a lot of flashes of white hot pain and I had no doubt fallen down on my knees more than a few occasions, evident by the abrasions on my knees. My blood had been flowing freely from the four open wounds on my leg and I remember thinking for barley a second if it was possible that the femoral artery had been cut.
Whatever had happened with that though had not matter at the time as my wounds had been treated in time before any permanent damage had been made. Though Donny didn't like the fact that I was up and walking on it and not without the crutches he had provided me with.
"If Mikey dies, I'll kill ya." I remember the sound of my roaring threat, but if I had actually said it to the Freaking-Thieving-Bastard or if I had muttered it silently along our escape, I was not sure.
Yet the alarming voice of Donny's was as clear to me as the rain which ran down my face once reality to Mikey's crucial condition came crashing down on me. "We're losing him! The Battleshell is down there. We need to-"
I was losing my innocent baby brother right in front of my eyes. From there on nothing was more important than to get out of there and save his life. The way down the narrowed fire-escape was non-existing except from Donny's repeated plead and false reassurance to Mikey's unconscious from and a few of my own thoughts which lingered. We had carried Mikey between us, Donny having the support of Mikey's only arm over his shoulder and me struggling with keeping a firm but gentle grip on the stump which remained of his left arm and his bloody side which made my hand slip. I remember thinking; 'We're not gonna make it, Mikey'll be dead before we're outta here!'.
Somewhere along the way, I had actually cast a glance to Donny. The grim image of what was supposed to be his face-, but instead the right side of it was covered in what was supposed to be blood but had the shade of it was practically black and the eyelid was three times bigger than normal and hanging loosely over the empty socket while the flesh around it was just as swollen, deforming his face, -was enough to even scare the hell out of me.
"I shoulda killed 'im!" I had roared through my clenched teeth. "He should be dead for what he did! Hell he shouldn't even be alive to begin with!"
"If you had tried then you would be dead now!" The ice in Donny's tone had had such a certainty in it I had not believed it had come out of my normally levelheaded brother. "For him not being alive to begin with', well he's not. That isn't Leo!"
The freezing ice cold rain was no match to how icy Don's voice had been when he had told me there was no way that that thing was our brother. At that moment I had believed 'im even though my mind couldn't wrap itself around it all. Yet the doubt had been set like a growing seed. My mind couldn't wrap itself around what had happened up on that roof. I knew he was dead but he had been up there, for all I knew he was still be up there or he was searching through the whole city to find us.
I should have known. Realized it before. Something had nagged at the back of my mind when I had fought 'im the first time. There had been something wrong with this particular Elite which was not like the others. The ones before had been ruthless in their way of fighting just like their master. Like they had had a personal agenda in it, yet this Elite had not the same determination and lacked the bloodlust the previous had. His fighting style had seemed too familiar at times. Our techniques had matched like a smooth and fluently dance, like a pair who had danced together for the most of their lives. Only now when I knew who was hidden underneath that hat, I finally understood the reason why!
The shovel blade slammed into the ground, almost disappearing completely before I jerked it back up only to repeat it again and again. The rage was controlling my actions once again and I wasn't ashamed to let it. Why hadn't I realized it before? I shoulda made the connections earlier! Every single day of our lives I had fought with 'im. Some just for training purposes, but most of our fights had been the outcome from our all too intensive and heated arguments. I shoulda fucking known!
"Of course it ain't 'im! He took Mikey's freakin' arm off like it was nothin' ta 'im!" I had roared back into Don's face at the top of my lungs, probably hoping that brainwashed imposter on that roof had heard me. "'N' we're supposed ta let 'im get away with it? What if Mikey won't make it, huh? What-"
"RAPH!"
Too caught up in my raged fill mind, I hadn't realized Donny had spoken to me until he had snapped, though my natural respond to it had been to snap right back at 'im. "WHAT?"
I remember seeing the fury and determination burning in his lone remaining eye and the surprisingly calming effect it had had on me. "DON'T YOU DARE SAY MIKEY WON'T MAKE IT! We're not losing another one of our family! That includes YOU too! We're getting the hell out of here before that... THING up there comes after us again!"
Suddenly Donny had thrown open the back doors of the Battleshell and jumped inside before I had handed 'im Mikey's all to still and pale form. I remember thinking that never before had I been so glad in seeing that damned vehicle and maybe there was a chance we would actually be able to save Mikey.
"We're almost home Mikey, just hang on." Don had tried to reassure 'im, though I believe it was more for calming and reassuring 'imself that it wasn't too late. "Hand me the first aid kit!" I must have given 'im the bag because the next thing I could remember he was shouting again. "Hand me the blood bags from the fridge with the label Mikey."
Next there was flashes of painful agony sent from my leg to every nerve in my whole body, resulting in my vision blacken and there was a sudden lack of gravity as well as surroundings. A cry of pain must have escaped through my mouth as I remember Don's worried alarmed voice demanding an answer.
I couldn't remember if I had answered 'im or not, though the next thing I did remember was me staring at a bag filled with blood and the name Leonardo was on the label. Without a warning, my mind had drifted back to everything which had occurred since his violent death. In just a split second I was sent through those three years of suffering filled with grief, despair, guilt, loathe and self-hatred which had taken just as long to comprehend and to acknowledge only to be left with doubts. Was Leo alive or was he truly dead?
Don's shout had forced me back to the present once again and the reality that I yet again was losing a brother. I couldn't dwell on those which were dead as long as there was those alive which still needed me. Though as I was no doctor or had the knowledge to keep someone from dying of bloodlust, I had to leave it up to Don to save our baby brother's life. So I had done the only thing I actually could do, I had taken the driver's seat and drove at full speed through the streets of Brooklyn, heading home.
The rain came down harder, but the wind was coming down like waves and I was nowhere near finished. As I threw the soil into the growing pile next to the hole I had now a dept around two feet. I had slipped more than I cared to count, still the thought of stopping hadn't even crossed my mind. I had to do this, if not for me than I owed it to my family, both those dead and alive.
"We need to get to the lair now!" Donny had yelled from the back, the dread in his voice never leaving.
"I know! I'm tryin'!" The honk of the horn still rang in my ears. Living in New York ya have to be used to the heavy traffic no matter the time of day. But when the life of my brother was on the line, I couldn't afford to let it stop me. I had taken out my resentment on the horn and punched it as hard as I possibly could before I finally had had enough and just switched to the oncoming traffic lane, forcing the other cars to a stop or drive up on the walkway, I didn't care which as long as they got out of my way.
A thud had come from the back, followed with a roar from Donny, "Are you TRYING to kill us?!"
I had known Mikey was strapped to the floor to keep 'im from moving to much which would worsen his condition, though I wasn't sure it that was even possible as doubt of ever saving 'im had returned. Yet I had still asked, "How's he holdin' up?"
Though I remember the answer to be even more crucial and frightening than I had hoped, "We're losing him! I-I need blood-! I-I need my equipment-! I-I need his freaking ARM to grow back! DRIVE FASTER!" He had roared with desperation and terror as he had started to panic.
I remember looking through the rear view mirror. Donny was sitting by Mikey's form, which I could swear looked even paler than before, checking the vitals once again before he put his head to Mikey's chest. I remember praying to whatever higher power there was out there for 'im to hear a heartbeat or feel 'im breathing. I finally looked away once Don began to tear at the belt and cloth around the stump of what was left of Mikey's arm, not wanting to face the reality of Mikey never being able to use both of his beloved nun chucks ever again or play his many video games.
Though it wasn't long after that I had heard Don cry out in frustration and despair yet again. "Damn it, it's not working! How long to the lair?"
Whether I answered or not didn't matter as the next thing I remember was his desperate cries. "No-no-no-no no no. No. NO. NOO! Mikey! No! Don't do this to us! Don't you dare! Come on Mikey breathe!"
Turning around, demanding what the hell was happening, my eyes had rigged by the brutal scene I was about to witness. Don had fail with the compressions and exhaling into his mouth and pulled out a shot from the bag and forcefully plunged the needle into where Mikey's heart should be. The scene was enough to make my stomach do flips for days to come and I had turned away, and whispered a plead in a hope for Mikey to hear; "Please Mikey! Don't do this to us! Fight damnit!"
I was sure I had broken every international traffic rule there was as I had pushed the gas pedal to the bottom and driven through the streets and even up on the sidewalks forcing everyone to either move out of the way or being run over. At that moment, I hadn't cared for neither. Screw keeping ungrateful humans safe when my baby brother's life depended on it. I was sure that Masta' Splinta would forgive me from wherever he was, if not, I could live with that if that meant saving Mikey.
If my vicious driving had attracted the police, which afterwards I was sure it had, I was in no right mind to take notice. The honking of horns from the cars I was passing or almost crashed with, along with the screams from the people I had almost run over, wasn't even breaking into my mind. They were merely white noise compare to the shouts and pleads from Don in the back. Yet, all I could hear throughout the drive was the promise I had made so long ago.
"You'll take care of them for me, won't ya?"
"You will for me, won't you?"
"Take care of them."
Dead or alive, it was a promise I had vowed I would never break. Yet I had. I had failed to protect my brothers. My father. My friends. My family. Everyone had suffered beyond repair. Some dead and some dying. And I didn't understand why! What had we done to deserve this? All we had wanted was to be part of the human world, even if it was only in the small way of helping innocence from being hurt. Instead we had gotten ourselves mixed up with New York's criminal underworld and a clan war. All we had wanted to do was good. But all we got was agony and death. We had been kids for fucks sake! We still are kids!
A flash of light brightened the sky for a millisecond. If my baby brother was here, he would be counting the seconds until the roar of the thunder followed, telling him how far away the storm really was. It was a quality I had never appreciated before. But I would do anything to hear his silly little mumbling of numbers. But here I was, alone in the oncoming storm, digging through the mud.
Nothing of this was fare.
Eventually I had managed to get back to the empty warehouse we used as a garage without having crashed the van. I couldn't say anything about the welfare of New York's citizens, but that wasn't my concern for the first time in my life. As soon as I had stopped the van, I had abandoned my seat and walked over to a pale Don and a too still Mikey. Looking at the two of them again had crashed my image of them just a few moments before when I had last taken a glance at them. How they had looked then was nothing compared to the sight of the two of them back at the warehouse.
There was nearly no traces of Don's olive green skin as it had grown to a sickly unworked jade color. The blood stream on his face had been smeared around, giving him almost a full mask of red and brown. His plastron was also covered with blood, both his own and our baby brothers. The expression on his face was desperate, terrified. But what spread ice through my veins was the look of hope and belief that had been broken.
I had to force myself to look down at our baby brother. The cloth around Mikey's stump of an arm was completely drenched even of it had been exchanged multiply times and even the desperate attempts of Don's try in slowing the flow of the blood. The blood was both brightly red as the fresh crimson liquid was still slipping through and dark brown as it had begun to dry on Don's arms. The color of Mikey's skin was a deadly pale one which I had only seen once before and that had scared me beyond anything else.
"Don do something!" I had yelled at him and grabbed his still form to shake some actions into him.
"There... there's... nothing I can do..." He had mumbled as he stared with big teary eyes at the form of Mikey, at least as much as his right eye would let him. "He's-he's... gone, Raph. He's gone."
Another brother of mine was dead. Now there was only me and Donny left. The thought of it was too hard for me to comprehend. No. No there was no way of that ever happening. Mikey wasn't dead. I wouldn't allow it. What I had done, I didn't even know I could. Yet I had left the van like a zombie. Every foot step had been heavier than the last. The pain in my leg was none existent at that point as everything around me had been blackening.
Over and over I heard Leo repeat; "You'll take care of them for me, won't ya?"
My legs had taken me over to my second priced possession, my motorcycle on the other side of the warehouse. Next to it, stood the battery I had used in a try to give it back its juice.
Whatever my body had been doing, I had had no control of. All I could think of was the promise. The walk from the other side of the warehouse and back in the van again was lost, and even if I did remember the walk, it was nothing significant about it. The next thing I knew, I had put as much electricity into my baby brother's body as the battery had allowed and his form had buckled upright and fallen back to the floor with a loud thug.
I had tried again. Then again. Then...
The shovel slipped out of my grip as I tried to pull it out of the mud for what seemed like a thousand time. My hands hurt yet I had lost the feelings in my fingers. Looking down at them, they were shaking furiously from so many reasons I couldn't even think of half of them.
Yet it was nothing. Physical pain was nothing.
Looking at the whole I had dug so far, I realized I was three feet down.
But-but... What?! Is Mikey...? I got no answers! IS he dead or alive?! Whhaaaaaaaattttt?!
No-no-no-no-What is happening?! Well... I don't know the answer to that one. Or do I? O.o Do you? Do you think where this is going?! Tell me if you do! ^^
TBC...
