(If you are reading this and it doesn't make sense, it's because I changed the last chapter. So, please go back and reread the previous chapter and then come back to this one.)
Raphael shut his door as he let it close without making a sound.
He didn't want any more attention at this point.
He wouldn't tempt fate, he had had a close enough call already, but, his ruse had worked. He was safe, they saw for themselves that he was not self-harming. It should put an end to that nonsense, or at least, give him a bit of a reprieve from their questions.
The emerald green turtle would look at his own arms then as he made his way to his hammock. Days of staying under bandages had changed their coloration …making them lighter and paler than the rest of his body. Days, he had spent so much time setting up that one desperate ruse to hide his secret, and it was over in only a matter of seconds.
His mind would flash back to when Master Splinter cut the wrappings free.
What was he going to do now? It wasn't even noon yet, and he was out of tricks to hide his secret.
This was the last day. The last day when his blood called out so strongly, and then everything could go back to normal. Just one lousy day, and he had to figure out some way to hide out until it's done. Raphael doubt the event in the kitchen would be enough to excuse him from mid-day practice, but maybe if he could somehow convince them that he had taken it to heart enough that he didn't want to bother with them.
Would it be enough?
It was a thought, an angle, as he flops on his belly on the hammock. It would sway a bit, but it didn't falter as he tried to think up his new plan. How could he make it to the end of the day without any one discovering his secret? He was so close, so close. Raphael was racking his brains, and with his strain he grew more and more distress. The blood started to call out to him, his stomach aching with it, as he knew he could no more resist it than at the moment solve his problem. All he could do, was simply go with the flow as he would crawl under the cover and position himself well in the hammock. His hands reaching for something in which to aid him in his bloodletting.
Why did this have to happen to him?
Why was he so different?
Did the world hate him?
Did his family?
Would they all be better without him?
The words. The thoughts churn in his head as his body punished him, and he squeeze his eyes shut as he rode the pain in waves, until it grew. The pain grew so large that it swallowed up those thoughts, it drown them, and in that moment …in that pain …he also found relief.
Blessing relief.
Knock …Knock.
"Raphael?"
The pain, the relief was all blown away with the sound of his own name. Fear and dread would quickly take its place as he looks at the door and the silences hung deeply. A simple prayer enter his head. Please let him think the room is empty, please let him decide that I have had enough and leave. The red master turtle, the one that seemed to be without fear, at that moment was completely and utterly terrified as the door knob slowly turns. As his father called his name once more, and in Raph's mind …the world itself …came tumbling down.
Secrets are a hard thing to keep.
What is done in darkness… will one day come to light.