Chapter: Prologue

If you were to suddenly wake up, hung over, and groggy then to look around you to realize that you are only one of three turtle brothers lying in three similar caskets with small holes in the side for air. After a while of inspecting you realize, upon your knowledge, your hot tempered brother is nowhere in the room… you'd start to panic too.

This is Leo's reaction when he looked to the side of him, an empty table, to only see Raphael's bandanna stained in blood. His gear stripped and ripped. His Sai's, so precious to the red turtle, dangerously close to falling off… Leo wasn't sure what was going on around him until he felt the scream of his brother's name slip off his lethargic tongue waking up two, purple and orange, turtles up who snapped to sit to learn with difficulty of their situation.

"Oh my god!" Michelangelo called out groaning, "I don't remember drinking anything last night!" Don, Leo noted, was gripping his head in pain while scrunching his eyes closed. He too was feeling the effects of the hangover, but his worry over shadowed it.

"Now's not the time for that, Mikey." Leo called out weakly drawing their gaze. "Raph's not with us." Leo looked into Don's face before looking at the small portion of Mikey's he could see from the angle of the casket.

"Is… that…?" Donnie whispered weakly upon realizing what Leo had been looking at.

"I think it is…" Leo watched the tremor rush through Donatello's body before the turtle turned his head and looked away but Leo caught the sob.

"You don't think…" Don's voice was barely heard before Mikey hit the side of the casket he was in.

"WHAT is going on? What is wrong with Raphie?" Leo and Don looked at him, one in the face while one just the casket's angle, before Leo spoke up to save his younger brother the difficulty of what needed to be said to the youngest of them.

"His gear is next to me on a table, Mikey, but he isn't there…" Leo took a breath but Mikey said something, a quiver in his tone, before he could say anything else,

"So, whoever did this to us will bring him back, right?"

"It's covered in blood. Mikey… the whole table is…" Leo heard the gulp and he felt the small laugh resonate in the room from Mikey.

"So…" it sounded weak and desperate, "Raph lived through… through…" Leo shivered when he heard Mikey trying to deny what was being said.

"Mike," Don's voice piped, "There's too much blood… even Raphael wouldn't … survive." The room went silent before Leo felt his chest heave as both his younger brothers began to cry.

Don was right there was too much blood for Raphael to have survived. The fact that they were trapped, hung over, and down one brother was difficult to even think about at this point. Leo felt his eyes close before he thought of his father and wondered what happened to him.

"Do any of you remember what happened?" Don quietly spoke up after a while, "I don't … I don't remember getting hammered."

It was impossible to remember anything through the migraine that pulled at each turtles head before slowly they each gave a resigning 'no' for an answer.

"So… we have no idea what happened or what day it is… nothing… we don't even remember what part of New York we were in before this whole situation started and we woke up here." Donatello called out with a pang of horror.

"Don, calm down!" Leo commanded but he watched, from the oddest angle, as panic took hold of Mikey also.

"What if we've been here for days? What if… what if we were right here while they did who knows what to Raphie? WHAT IF WE COULD HAVE-." Leo watched, horrified, as Mikey's eyes rolled to the back of his head, his body stiffen, and Don gave a shout before looking at Leo.

"What happened? What's going on, Donnie?" Leo felt fear circle his chest.

"I don't know… he was… he was talking… then… I don't know!" Fear was gripping purple and blue before something caught their attention before a door opened.

"Sorry about that," it was a soft voice of a woman holding an I-pad in her arms, "His heart rate was elevated… I hate doing that to subjects but…" she shrugged raising her eyes, her glasses gleaming in the radiant light.

"What did you do to our brother!" Leo heard Don shout out and knew that not only was Mikey the one who lost control of his emotions but it was also Don who did too. Leo didn't blame him though as his own was inches from breaking to the surface.

"Which one?" she asked walking to the casket that held Mikey before slowly pushing a few random buttons and opening it from the top. "The one in red or the one in orange?" Leo caught Don freeze up, he couldn't see now that she was blocking his view of the youngest, and soon Don began to whimper.

"Stop whatever you're doing, now!" Leo commanded before she turned around, closing the casket, and walked to him.

"Oh, such command, I think they'll like you, big boy." She tapped four times on the glass, though not a glass case. "Okay, Howie, bring him in!" a man wheeled in another casket, this is what caught Leo and Don's attention before, and there laid Raphael his body coated with bandages.

"Raph?" Leo's voice cut as tears flowed out of his eyes. "Oh, god, Raph…" the woman and Howie both looked at Leo before at Raphael.

All Leo or Don could do was watch as Raphael took small even breaths underneath the thick dressings. Each of them felt their heart twist before their eyes closed on each other, whispering fear and reality to set in.

They might not make it out of this, not all of them.

0-0-0

There are things in life that should not be crossed. One of them was watching, weakly and trapped, as your injured brother opened his eyes and to be looking up at the ceiling before slowly and wearily turning his head to look into your own eyes, broken. Slowly, as if this was the first time in years, they seemed to actually see.

"You're… awake…" His voice was raw and raspy. His tone, though, was weak but it held something there that caused him to grin as he slowly cried realizing his brother was awake. "'Bout time… fearless…" His voice grew weaker before his eyes closed and he just smiled, weakly, but it was enough to make Leo worry about what was done to cause such damage, mentally and physically.

"Raph?" At first it was soft, almost a whisper, but as he repeated the words he couldn't hide the hysteria until he began to pound of the casket, "Wake up! Don't fall asleep. RAPHAEL!" Leo watched, mortified, before the door busted open, and Howie walked over looking in on the turtle in bandages.

"He's asleep, boss." The man spoke through the walkie talkie he pulled from his jacket pocket, "Yeah, don't think we can do anything to him for a while… yeah, blood loss and all that… which one should we take this time?" Leo couldn't hear the conversation but, as he watched the body language of this man, he could see that it was not one he was going to take lightly, "Purple turt?" Howie made a move towards the genius brother who was cowering in his casket.

"YOU BASTARD!" Leo screamed punching and kicking in his casket causing Howie to look at him, "YOU LEAVE MY FAMILY ALONE! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE!" Howie raised a brow before walking over to Leo's own casket.

"Funny, red said the same damn thing when he woke up from the beating…" Howie chuckled before walking to the wall and pulling over a chair, "Damn same thing." He sat down looking at Leonardo then to Raphael before back, "I wonder if you two think a lot alike."

A cold shiver rushed Leo's spine as he watched Howie grin before the walkie talkie was brought to his lips, "Let's take Blue, I like his spunk, boss." And it was turned off before Howie stood up, opened Raphael's cage, and he leaned down whispering something into the ear slit of Raphael's face.

Leo caught only the middle, "… You're just as bad as me…" before the conversation was far too quiet for him to hear anything else as he closed the lid.

"Night, Blue, sweet dreams." Howie whispered as he moved over to him before Leo began to scream as he felt his head explode, his body soon twitching, tightening. His mouth opened as darkness closed on him.