"Do you really think that will work?" I asked Cody as I looked at the new program for our Lego Robotics project.
Cody shrugged. "It's worth a shot. And if it doesn't work, we just think of a new program."
I nodded to the right. "Ok. Have at it." I told him as I moved out of the way. He nodded as he moved towards the computer and input the transactions that we supposedly needed. I looked to the robot as it began to move and my eyes brightened as it did everything that it needed to.
"Cody, you're a genius!"
Cody smirked as he blew on his fingernails. "So I've been told."
I look at him with the hardest glare I can muster. "You're so cocky. You know that right?"
He shrugged, a smile lit on his face. "Yeah, I know," He then moved towards the robot and picked it up. "When's the competition again?"
"December 6th I believe." Tristen, a boy originally from India, said. His Indian accent was very heavy, almost as heavy as Raphael's Brooklyn accent.
"December 6th," I repeated. "Where at?"
"Albany." Tristen replied.
I whistled. "The capital of New York? Now that's awesome."
"You're right about that," Cody said as he clapped his hand against my back. "I'm excited about the competition. I hear the competition is extremely hard. But I have no doubt that we'll win!"
"I hear," Tristen began, "that they've won every competition that they've encountered."
"Yeah," I said, sliding my right hand against the table before throwing it in the air as a fist. "But that's not going to happen this year! This year, we're taking home the gold!"
"Yeah!" Cody, Tristen, Spencer, and Kota yelled, while Damian just threw his hand in the air, on the account of him having the inability to speak.
Ring, ring!
I groaned. "Welp, there's the bell guys. See ya tomorrow. We'll work on other tactics when we get the chance." We all slung our backpacks over our shoulders as we departed to our own classes.
Or at least I began to.
"Hey, nerd, where ya goin'?" I heard someone ask from behind me. I tensed slightly but tried to ignore it as I continued to trudge to class. I could hear him growl behind me as his voice got louder. "Hey, nerd, I'm talkin' to you!"
Just keep on walking. You don't need to listen to him.
I could hear what sounded like running, and I began to run as well. The walls reduced to just flashes of white as my adrenaline began to course through my body.
"Get him!" I heard someone yell.
"Shit." I curse. Leo would have scolded me for using such profanity, but Leo wasn't here.
And Leo wasn't about to be beaten into a bloody pulp.
I run faster. Well, as fast as I can anyways. I fly past the stairs that led up to my next class and keep running straight.
I have to lose them, but how? I look all around the school though the walls continued to look just like white flashes. There's gotta be something here! Anything!
But it's too late.
I'm grabbed by the collar of my shirt and am yanked back. I give a loud yelp, but, more than likely, not loud enough for anyone in their classrooms to hear. "Tried to run didn't you?"
"What did it look like I was doing?" Me and my big mouth. I flinch as I'm brought closer to the guy's face.
"Are you giving me lip?"
"Uh, n-n-no! I…I was just, uh…"
He gripped my arm and he gripped it tight. I didn't yell in pain. No, that's what he wanted. He wanted me to yell, cry, and whimper in pain. I wasn't going to give him that satisfaction.
"Hands off my, little brother!" I looked all around for the source of the voice, but I couldn't see anyone. Who was that?
"I thought this was what you wanted." The boy holding me by both the collar of my shirt and arm said to the person.
"I was just mad. I hadn't meant any of the words I said," The voice said, a hint of regret could be detected. "I'd never want any harm to come to him. Now let him go!"
The guy holding me growled and threw me to the ground as if he were throwing an unwanted bag of trash. "Get out of here." He growled at me.
I nodded uneasily, licking the front of my purple banded braces. I stood on shaky legs before running from the miscreants who had messed with me.
But I could hear another set of feet running behind me.
I gulped and began to run faster. "Leave me alone!" I yelled back at the person following me.
"Don, it's only me!" The voice yelled. I stopped. That's the voice that had been speaking to those jerks. Now that the adrenaline had mainly worn off I could recognize that voice.
I turned around to face him. "Raphael?"
He nodded. "Yeah, Don, it's only me."
"Wait," I said, shaking my head in disbelief, remembering the words that those jerks had said, "you told them to do that to me?"
Raph's eyes held regret. "Don, I…"
"Did you or did you not tell them to do that to me?" I demanded, my backpack hanging on one shoulder instead of two.
He sighed, dropping his backpack to the floor right next to his feet. "I was mad, Don. I didn't know what I was saying or doing."
I shook my head, slowly backing away from him. "I can't believe you, Raph. Tell me you're joking."
Raph just dropped his head so it was looking at his feet. My eyes widened in betrayal and shock.
"How could you, Raphael? You actually wanted them to hurt me?!"
"No that's not-"
"Shut up, Raphael!" I yelled, cutting him off. He shut right up. "How could you?! Your own brother! Your own twin!"
"Don, I was just-"
"Don't tell me you were just angry, Raphael! You actually intended for them to hurt me!" I screeched.
"Don, I'm-"
"No," I said with a sigh as I turned my back to him. "Guess what? I'm done," I said as I began to walk towards the stairs and up to my class. "Goodbye, Raphael."
OoOoOoO
I sat up in my bed, panting and sweating profusely. It was just a dream. But it seemed so real! I look over to Raph who is still sleeping peacefully, and I shoot him a fond smile. How could someone make me go so insane yet keep me from going over the edge?
I glance at the clock on my bedside. Why's it so fuzzy? Oh! I reach for my glasses on my nightstand and place them on my face. Duh! I glance at the clock.
3:02am.
I groan quietly. I'll never be able to get back to sleep! I throw my feet over the side of the bed and rub my face with my hands, pushing my glasses up my forehead. As they fall back in place my eyes glance around the room. Above my bed was a poster of the times tables.
Above Raph was a poster of John Cena. I sighed. We're so different. The walls of our room was a very pale blue, and the carpet was a nice color of white. I pushed back my light purple comforter and stood on the floor, walking towards the door. I turn the doorknob slowly as to not make any noise to wake Raph. I slowly open the door, being careful of how far I opened it to make sure that very limited light from the kitchen entered our room.
As soon as I exited our room, I cracked the door so I could get back in easily. I walked to the stairs and began to creep down them slowly, their carpeted features padding my feet. Once I reached the bottom my feet immediately hit the cold parquet. I gasped a bit, bouncing on my tiptoes.
"Cold floor, cold floor!" I chanted quietly. I immediately hopped over to the living room that stood right beside the kitchen. I let out a sigh of relief as I once again felt the warm carpet padding. I look around our living room.
The walls are white along with gray carpeting and the room was barely lit save for the light of the kitchen glowing into the living room. I look to the closet that was in the living room as well. I walk over to the closet and turn on the light switch that was inside it.
There, packed away, were several cardboard boxes. I smiled. This is what I was looking for. I immediately take out one box and open it, knowing what was going to be stored away.
Many, many, pictures.
The first one on top is one of Raph and I as six-year-old children. I smiled widely. The photo showed Raph having me held in a held lock, rubbing his knuckles against the top of my head, my light brown hair being all messed up by the rough action. I remember this day!
"Can't catch me!" I had called as I ran around the house like a mad child.
"I sure can!" Raph had yelled after me. I saw our currently nine-month pregnant mom, Shen, laughing at us.
"Raphie can't catch me, Raphie can't catch me!" I chanted as I continued to run circles around the house.
"Oh yeah?!" Raph yelled as he jumped and tackled me straight to the ground.
"Ah, Raphie," I whined, "that's cheating!"
Raph smirked above me. "But I caught ya, didn't I?"
A nine-year-old Leo laughed as well as he swung on a swing with his good buddy, Usagi. Raph immediately yanked me up by my sleeve and held his arm around my neck, instantaneously digging his knuckles into my scalp.
"Say it!" He demanded.
"What?! No, Raphie!" I whined as he continued to scratch away at my scalp.
"Say it!"
"I don' wanna!"
"I won't let you go until you do!" He challenged.
I sighed. "Fine. Uncle!" I cried as his knuckles had dug deeper.
Finally, he let up as promised. "Big bully." I whined with a pout as I rubbed the top of my head.
"Dork." He retaliated.
I sighed. "Where have the good times gone?" I asked myself. Suddenly, I felt a bursting sensation in my throat as I began to cough roughly. Not again! I coughed harder and harder and harder until I vomited, directing my head away from the box full of memories.
Once the vomiting ceased the coughing continued to rupture through my throat. "R-Raph! L-Leo!" I called for help through ragged breaths and harsh coughs.
I waited maybe a good three minutes and no one had come down. That's when I decided to try again. "R-Raph! Leo!"
That's not who came to my aid, but my youngest, eight-year-old brother. "Donnie?" He asked as he walked down the stairs. Oh, I desperately wanted to answer him, but the harshness of my coughing wouldn't calm down. He turned his head up towards the stairs. "Raph, Leo! Something's wrong with Donnie!"
Mikey instantly ran to me and supported me. Though I wanted to tell him that everything was going to be ok, my words continued to fail me. I could hear the sound of feet bounding down the stairs, and there was Raph running up towards me, Leo not far behind.
Raph gripped my hand while Leo turned on the living room light before making his way towards me. "Mikey, dial 9-1-1." Leo instructed as he rubbed circles in my back. Mikey nodded as he ran off to the home phone so that he could dial the number demanded of him.
"Can you breathe?" Raph asked me. I shook my head. I was scared! Why does this keep happening?!
"My brother can't stop coughing and he vomited," I could hear Mikey speak into the receiver of the phone. For a moment I couldn't hear anything. Just a slight ringing in my ears. But that's when Mikey spoke once more. "No, he can't breathe. And it looks like he's about to go to sleep."
"Don," Every word that came out of his mouth echoed like a ton of balls smacking against a wall due to a fan blowing them around, "if you go to sleep, I swear I will pound you in!"
"Don't go to sleep, Donnie!" Leo told me.
But right at this instant, I found sleep not at all hard to find.
OoOoOoO
I awoke to the loud sounds of beeping, but not the loud beeping sound of my alarm clock. No, this was the familiar sound of a heart monitor. I opened my eyes only to close them almost instantly as my pupils were hit with a blinding, bright, light.
"C'mon, Donnie, open your eyes." I heard a voice. Unwillingly, I once again blinked my eyes open, blinking them furiously as to get used to the bright light.
"There ya go, Don. That's it. How're you feeling?" The voice asked.
I groaned lightly. "My throat burns." I said in a raspy, whisper like voice.
He sighed. "A bet. You were coughing still even after you lost consciousness."
Finally, things became a bit clearer. That's when I recognized him. His dark, black hair, his emerald green eyes, his red banded braces. "Raphael?"
"Yeah, it's me you dork." He said trying to sound mocking, but it only came off as worried.
"How long…have I been…out?" I asked through gasping breaths.
I felt Raph stroking the side of my head. "About forty-five minutes."
"What…time…is it?"
Raph glanced at the clock before directing his gaze back towards me. "3:52am."
"Where…are the others?"
Raph directed his finger to a chair that held my baby brother. "Mikey zonked out not too long ago. He wanted to stay awake, but he's eight years old, and it is way past his bed time. He told me to wake him up when you woke up, but he probably won't wake up. He's too tired."
I directed my gaze towards the chair watching as Mikey lied curled up in a ball, a blanket draped over his small frame. It's a wonder I didn't notice him sooner. "Place him…on the bed." I said seeing as how Mikey looked cramped on that tiny bed.
Raph nodded. He scooped the small child up in his arms and placed Mikey on the bed right next to me. I smiled fondly as Mikey snuggled up close to my chest. "Where's Leo?"
"He's talkin' to the doctor," Raph said, pointing his thumb towards the door. "We need to find out why all of this is happening to-"
"Raph," Leo said as he peeked his head through the door, "can I talk to you for a moment?"
Raph nodded once before following Leo out into the hallway. I smiled gently as Mikey's head cuddled his head gently against my chest. I began to gently stroke Mikey's curly blonde hair.
"What?! That's all that they found?! But there has to be more to this than what meets the eye! He is not ok! Have you been here for the past four months?! This doesn't just have to do with his immune system!" I heard Raph yell.
I frowned lightly and directed my gaze back towards Mikey. His skin was a very light and pale color that matched his extremely blonde, curly, hair. His eyes were a light blue as well. Ice cold, baby blue, eyes as I like to call them.
I could hear a sigh from the other side of the door. "And he doesn't even know what I did."
OoOoOoO
"You had to go to the hospital again? That's a bummer, dude." Cody told me as he dropped two drops of nitrogen into the solution.
"Yeah," I said as I looked under the meniscus of the liquid concoction, "and it really sucks because they said it was just a rough fever. Raph had a nervous breakdown due to the fact that they have said the same thing for the past…I don't know…four, six years?"
"Well, shoot, man," Cody said as he placed the mixture over a burner, "if you were my twin brother, I'd have a nervous breakdown too. I mean, the same answer gets kind of annoying after you practically know that it's something more."
"Yeah, I guess so." I said as I adjusted my glasses.
"So," Cody began as he observed the mixture, "how's that little brother of yours? Is he doing fine?"
"Yeah, I'd say so," I said as I wrote down my own observations, "if you can call creating pranks and causing havoc fine."
"Sounds normal to me." Cody laughed.
"You've got that right!" I laughed.
I heard snickering behind me. I turned my head to the students who were behind me to find Raph's little clique, but Raph and I didn't have the same science class. Just his clique. And, when Raph wasn't around, his clique and I weren't on necessarily good terms.
"Don't listen to them, Donatello. They don't understand the first thing about academic importance."
"Yeah," I said with a sigh, "I guess not."
Cody wore a small frown upon his face, but then he brightened up a bit. "Hey, I'm working on a new robot design at home. Wanna help with some of the upgrades?"
I perked up a bit. "Sure. I still have to update Metalhead a bit as well."
"You mean that robot that Michelangelo named?" Cody chuckled fondly.
I nodded with a smile. "Yeah, that robot. Plus, what's your robot's name?"
"Well," Cody said as he took the mixture off of the burner, "I thought about naming it Serling."
"That's a nice name," I said as I took the mixture into my own prongs. "I'm sure Mikey would like it."
"I can't see how he wouldn't," Cody laughed, "that kid is a naming machine."
Ring, ring.
"Go on to class, man. I'll clean up the experiment since you did it yesterday." Cody said as he began to dump the solution out.
I nodded. "Sure, dude. I'll do it tomorrow." I slung my backpack over my shoulder once more as I went out of the science room, walking towards my locker.
When my combination was undone and my locker was open, I gasped. Everything in my locker was destroyed! Everything! All of my books, papers…just everything!
"No, no, no, no!" I cried as I looked through all of the ruined work and books. "Who would do such a thing?" I asked broken heartedly.
I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder, and I looked behind me. There stood Damian, in all of his glory. Damian was a skinny, semi-short thirteen-year-old boy on my Lego Robotics Team.
"Are you ok?" Damian signed with his hands, having the inability to speak.
I shook my head. "No, Dame, I'm not. How could someone destroy everything in my locker? Everything that I worked on?"
"I may know who did it." Damian signed, his golden eyes warm and soft.
"Who?" I asked.
"Raphael and his posse. They were here after school yesterday, and Raph looked pretty mad. It sounded like you two had gotten into a fight. I think he may have done this along with the other 'cool' students." Damian signed, his hands moving quickly and gracefully at that.
I shook my head, confusion etched into my brow. "There's no way Raph would do that. I mean, sure he gets angry at times, but he never goes as far as destroying my stuff."
"Ok," Damian signed, "it was just a thought."
"Thanks for the observations anyways. I'll talk to him later." I said as I tried to get my papers and books together as best as I could, but not one page was left un-ripped.
Damian knelt beside me and began to pick up papers with me. I looked at him confused. "What are you doing?"
"I'm helping you pick up." Damian signed.
"Oh," I said, a bit embarrassed, "thanks."
As we continued to pick up papers through the mess and look to see if they were ripped, a thought came across my mind.
Did Raph do this?
So do you think Raph did it, or did he do something much worse? Did you like it, love it, hate it? Let me know. Your opinion matters. :)
