A/n: Sorry for the wait on this guys, I've been very busy indeed! As always, I would like to thank my wonderful Beta and her friend for taking the time to tediously go through my work and polish it up shiny and new! So thank you DarkUnderworld and Amonrapheonix.
Now please enjoy ;)
-Chapter Twenty Four-
Raphael
One thing people didn't tell you about torture was that after a while it became...tedious. Raphael stared blankly up at the now agonizingly familiar ceiling.
How long had he been here? How many hours had he been tied down to this cold, hard table?
By the radiating cramps present in all of his limbs, he guessed that it had been a while...a very long while. His body throbbed with agony; his bad leg was now beyond any sort of comprehensible pain.
He had been lying here for days, tortured, alone and in excruciating pain. He hadn't thought that his body would be able to take anymore, and yet he was still somehow alive. The pain had dulled to the point where it didn't seem to affect him anymore. He could still feel it- sort of, knew that it was there, but he was now beyond feeling it fully; his body was growing more and more numb as each second passed by.
He had been reluctantly pulled out of unconsciousness feeling oddly awake and coherent. He had been drifting in and out of consciousness for the past few days. His throat was parched and painfully dry. He hadn't had any food or water since his capture, and the constant growl of his empty stomach was the only noise in the small room; other than Raphael's laboured and wheezing breathing.
He stared up at the ceiling now, absently wondering when Bishop would come back into the room and try to torture more information out of him. Raphael was starting to wish that he was dead; being dead was probably a lot more interesting than counting the cracks in the ceiling.
Raphael blinked slowly, opening and closing his eyes cautiously. He still wasn't use to having only one eye. His mangled eye felt odd, almost foreign, and it burned with an incredible amount of pain. His vision in the other eye felt distorted, as if he wasn't quite able to grasp the depth or scope of objects anymore.
Raphael thought back grimly to two days ago, at least, he thought it was two days ago when he lost his right eye. He had still possessed the mocking, belligerent spirit he was known for, spitting and swearing at Bishop and struggling in vain at his restraints. He had kept his mouth shut when Bishop asked him where his family was. He had kept his mouth shut when Bishop smacked his bad leg. And he had kept his mouth shut when he saw the white-hot poker descend towards his eye. He had only opened his mouth to scream in agony when the burning poker touched his eye. A painfully bright, flaming light had been the last image he saw out of his right eye before everything went permanently dark.
He would always remember that unbearable pain that tore through his body; the searing heat, the sizzling sound of his flesh bubbling, and the chilling darkness that now graced his right eye. Now he was in a heated debate with himself over whether his leg injury had hurt more than losing his eye, and so far he would say that it was a dead heat between the two. His mind drifted to other thoughts, coming to the strangely odd conclusion that he hated being alone. With no one else around, he had started talking to himself, even going as far as having heated arguments with himself, most of which he lost. But with the boredom, and counting the cracks in the ceiling and talking to himself, the pain throbbed within him constantly, always there and always rudely reminding him that he was still alive. Raphael had never wanted some of Donnie's custom pain meds as much as he wanted them now.
The sound of heavy, striding footsteps suddenly broke through Raphael's thoughts, and he swivelled his head around as Bishop entered the room, hands clasped behind his back and a smug smile on his face.
"And how are we today?" Bishop asked his usual greeting. "How's the eye?" He asked cruelly.
"Never better," Raphael mocked, narrowing his good eye at the sadistic man in front of him.
"You could at least cover it with a bandage."
"No, the mangled flesh look suits you," Bishop quipped with a vindictive smirk.
Raphael growled.
Bishop took his usual seat beside Raphael. "Feeling a bit more cooperative today?"
Raphael ignored him, trying to maintain his glare as the pain in his body harshly reminded him once more that it was present.
"No?" Bishop said with a frown. "Well, I might have just the thing to loosen your tongue a bit."
"What are you going to do this time, blind me in my other eye?" Raphael asked sarcastically through a grimace of pain.
"No, too mainstream," Bishop said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "An opportunity presented itself this morning, gift wrapped with a pretty bow and everything. I would have been a fool not to use it to my advantage."
"What the hell are ya' talking about?" Raphael sighed, wanting nothing more but to slip into the magical realm of unconsciousness again. However what Bishop said next made Raphael's blood run cold.
"Your brothers tried to rescue you, as I knew they would," Bishop said with a grin. "Unfortunately for them, we were of course ready for such a thing."
Rising from his seat, Bishop momentarily disappeared from Raphael's view. When he came back into Raphael's line of sight, Bishop was pushing an old TV towards him, a video tape in hand.
"Oh boy, do we get to watch the Disney Channel?" Raphael asked sardonically praying that none of the fear that was fast flowing through him could be heard in his voice as his heart raced wildly in his chest.
"No, more of the National Geographic Channel," Bishop answered, sliding the DVD disc into the DVD player that was located in the TV. "I think this episode is called; 'How long can a turtle hold its breath.'"
Raphael's body went rigid, as dread, thick, biting and cruel slithered across his skin, burrowing deeply and settling into his gut.
Bishop smiled wickedly and turned the TV on.
Against his will Raphael looked at the screen, and the image presented to him, callously ripped his heart from his chest. On the grainy screen of the TV, his brothers were bound and suspended in a tank of water. Their hands were tied behind their backs and their ankles lashed together with thick rope. Cling wrap was wrapped several times around their faces, blocking their airways.
"No…" Raphael whispered in horror. What he was watching couldn't be real...could it?
His brothers started thrashing, desperately trying to free their hands to rip the constricting cling wrap from their faces. Hundreds of tiny bubbles raced to the surface all around them almost obscuring them from view.
"No!" Raphael yelled, the physical pain that had been radiating through his entire body giving way to an indescribable emotional pain. "Let them go!" Raphael roared, fighting against his bonds with furious jerking movements that only shot excruciating pain throughout his body, but he didn't care. He had to get free to rescue his brothers.
"It's too late," Bishop said viciously. "It's a recording. What you are seeing has already happened."
Raphael felt as if he had been punched in the gut. He couldn't breathe, his lungs refusing to take in any air. His heart pounded wildly in his chest, a knife lodged deep in its centre, twisting painfully back and forth and pressing in deeper. His blood had turned to ice in his veins, and his vision was blurred in his good eye from the hot tears that rolled relentlessly down his cold, pale cheek.
"Please stop it!" Raphael pleaded, trying vainly to free himself from his restraints. His voice broke, as wracking sobs stole his voice. And yet he continued to beg his captor; plead with the man who had broken him to release his already deceased brothers.
On the screen, his brothers had stopped struggling, and were eerily still, their heads lolling lifelessly on their shoulders.
His brothers, his family, were dead.
He was alone, the last of his kind... an orphan.
And there was nothing he could do about it because it had already happened without him knowing it. How could he not feel his brothers die? Was he so wrapped up in his own pain that he couldn't sense their horrific deaths?
His sobs subsided to choking gasps. He would notlet this man, this vile, putrid excuse of a human; see him cry, any more, no matter how much he wanted to.
"Now," Bishop said, flicking the TV off and turning to face Raphael with a smile. "Has that loosened your tongue a little more? Or do I have to resort to more archaic methods of getting information out of you?
"Go ahead," Raphael whispered bitterly. "You've already taken away my brothers. So do your worst," Raphael growled, slowly lifting his head up to lock his eyes defiantly on Bishop; one clear and sharp, the other unseeing and desolate. "I have nothing left to lose." He spat boldly.