TMNT 2012 Numb

Ch 3: Where The City Sleeps

POINT OF VIEW: LEO

It was cold…..no I was cold. The soft snow fluttered like white feathers in the breeze. The cold substance landed on my skin, causing me to shiver. The sky was jet black and no stars seemed to be gracing the city with their presence tonight.

There I stood, overlooking the city in a silent vigil. In my hands were a red mask, I clenched it tightly. The tears threatening to spill over and onto my cheeks, I clenched my jaw together. This was no time for me to break down.

The city below me seemed to be tucked underneath a small coating of dusty white. A blanket of just inch deep snow. It's where the city slept. But I wasn't sleeping. I don't think I could ever sleep again, not until I found Raph and brought him back safely.

I was holding one of his many replacement masks. Master Splinter had crafted many masks, just in case if one of my brothers or I got a tear in our current mask. My fists tightened even more around the mask.

It was late and I was exhausted, no one knew I was up here, not even Master Splinter. I could feel the rebellion raging inside my blood. The bitter wind whipped at my face like tiny dagger blades. It sucked being cold blooded, like seriously.

I huffed out in annoyance, my breath clouding in the air before dissipating slowly. I moved on. I was getting no where fast by standing in one place for too long. In fact I'd probably become a frozen turtle popsicle…heh…wow.

It's funny what goes on in your head when you are about to fall apart. When you are about to shatter like fragile glass into a thousand scattered pieces, at least that is how I felt anyways.

Peh, so much for the great leader Leonardo, what kind of a leader was I when I let one of my little brothers get captured by our hated enemies The Foot Clan? Oh so you think I should look in the Foot building for my brother? Oh what a glorious and wonderful idea how did I not even think of it? Oh wait I HAVE! Guess what been there done that, didn't find jack squat.

Great, now I was spilling my inner thoughts of torment to nonexistent people. I think I might be losing my mind. I'm not sure; I'll have to have Donnie check me out later I suppose.

Considering if I remembered to ask, I wasn't exactly all too concerned about my own mentality right now. As I ran across the roof tops of New York I could hear the harsh words that Raph and I spat out venomously towards each other before he disappeared during the ambush that Foot had set upon us.

During that time I was confused and calling Raphael's name desperately. The memory played over and over again within my head like a broken DVD that kept rewinding when it reached a certain point. A blockage between us, keeping us separated.

It was like there was a wall between me and Raphael. A glass wall, we could see each other, but we couldn't understand each other. It was as if our words were blocked by the thick wall of glass. A wall of glass that mocked us both, that angered us, that drove us to fight as if we wanted nothing more than to tear each other apart, limb by limb and watch each other bleed to death.

I hated it….I hated myself. I hated how I could never convey my feelings the correct way, a way in which Raphael would understand that I wasn't trying to control him. I wasn't trying to use him or anything of the sort. All I ever wanted was to protect my team, to make sure we all come back alive after every mission.

But Raphael, he never understood. He always shoved my plans back in my face and told me how much he hated me being the leader. He told me all the time that I sucked at leading and perhaps he was right. We have failed so many missions, however in my view point, my brothers come first.

If a mission went sour and I could see no possible way to complete it other than a risky stunt that might get us all killed… then I'd opt out. I would order a retreat. There was no way I was going to put my team…my brothers' lives on the line just to finish a mission.

There comes a point in time where the end doesn't justify the means. And if the means was losing the life of one of my brothers, then the mission would be a complete failure in my eyes. It didn't matter if we completed the mission or not. If one of us were to die due to me being so foolish as to risk their lives…then I would have failed them all.

My speedy sprint imprinted my footprints into the snow; however the indentations in the snow vanished as soon as printed covered out of sight by the falling snow.

My footprints vanished just like my brother had. However, unlike the footprints I left behind that winked out of existence, Raphael still existed. He was just missing and he left an impression on the earth that would last.

The freezing wind nipped at my green skin and I ignored it, placing my feet carefully so as not to slip on the powdery snow. The last thing I needed was to take a spill and end up injured.

That's the last thing anyone needed. I didn't want anyone to fret over me, we need to find Raphael and soon. Before we fell apart, before our family lost all hope, before we all were crushed under the unforgiving weight of our agony. Before I fell apart.

Come on Raphael where are you? Please just give me a sign. Just-WOAH! I hadn't seen the edge of the roof and almost flipped over the edge like a pancake and splattered like an egg onto the concrete pavement in the alley. Thanks to my training I was able to avoid the fall and vault myself over to the other rooftop, using the fire escape railing to my advantage.

I landed on my hands and knees panting, my whole body shivering violently in the freezing temperatures. It was then in horror that I noticed that I no longer had Raphael's extra mask in my hands. I shot up like a bullet and looked around frantically.

Finally I spotted it a few feet away from me caught to a TV antenna that was jutting up from the roof. I sprinted towards it, my blue eyes widening as it slipped off of the antenna and then began to drift away on the frigid winds.

"NO!" I shouted, louder than I probably should have. Even if New York was still, there might be people up and about. You never knew and you always had to watch your shell diligently, unless you wanted to be surprised ambushed. And surprise ambushes…weren't happy fun times.

My run was sluggish and the muscles in my legs were heavy. Raph's extra red mask was floating further and further away from me. I don't know what compelled me but retrieving Raph's extra mask about near killed me.

I'm sure you'd like to know how right? Well let me recount all the thrilling and gut wrenching details for you, you twisted psycho non existent people. Anyways I picked up the pace and jumped from roof to roof. The snow fall had picked up majorly.

Obscuring my vision and making it harder and harder to see the red mask, now I know what you are thinking, how in the shell is it next to impossible seeing a bright crimson red mask flowing in the wind like a ribbon while snow is falling and the snow is white?

Why don't you try running after an object being cradled in the howling wind, while the snow is pelting down almost hail like. Normally in New York it didn't snow all too often but when it did snow, it was like a blizzard.

I was all but numb and the only feeling I had was the aching muscles in my legs. I didn't care though. All I wanted was the mask back. Stop judging me I know you are, but right now for some reason that mask meant a lot to me. It was something that reminded me of my brother. A little piece of him to hold on to when I could not hold onto him myself.

When I could not see him, or hear him, speak to him or hold him. Tell him he'd be okay. Look I know Raphael might be a stubborn and a cocky hothead who puts on a tough front but even he had his limits. I was the last one to see him.

I was the last one to speak with him before he vanished in the massive chaos of that ambush. I was the one that caused him to cry. I saw the gleam of sorrow in his eyes, I saw those tears fall and then…we were attacked and that was that. I had hurt him…I had said things I shouldn't have.

He had been injured the night he vanished; his injuries were what caused me to fret over him. It started out as a simple lecture that twisted into something spiteful. We began to yell at each other. Finally I had hit my breaking point and I said something….so horrible. Something that should have never left my mouth. I said…..no it didn't matter what I said.

I just needed to get that mask! And now here I was falling off the side of a building, holding onto Raphael's extra mask, hitting my head against the railing of a fire escape and plummeting to the unforgiving earth. It felt as if the fall was in slow motion, as if I were floating in an abyss of white and black.

Foolishly I had jumped after Raph's mask when I had reached a building that was spread out a little too far from the next one. I had misjudged the distance due to the snow flurry flying around me. I had caught Raph's mask but my forehead smacked against the railing of the fire escape on the other building.

And then my body connected with the ground. The snow cradled my fall. The fall wasn't what almost killed me. It was the deep and agonizing pain that pierced into me. Something had shoved itself through the back of my shoulder and out through the front of it, near my collar bone.

It took me a moment, my mouth opened in a silent scream, my face scrunched up in agony and then I let out a screech. I could feel blood, my own blood spilling out and onto the snow.

Oh look…I've been impaled. My blue eyes narrowed in pain as I looked at the metal pipe jutting out from my skin. I tried moving my impaled arm. Not a smart move. Pain like a wasp sting, only ten times worse flared within my pain sensors and I let out a reluctant cry of agony.

Good Lord humans are so careless, how in the world did this steel pipe ever end up here? And how it ended up impaling me would be a mystery that I never would solve. God, don't humans know that you shouldn't leave hazardous things discarded haphazardly? It could get someone killed, like ME FOR INSTANCE!

I forced myself into a sit, wincing at every new pain that came with my clumsy movements. It was at that point in time I noticed that my impaled arm was the arm I had used to reach out and grab Raphael's extra mask.

I looked down to see my fist clenched in an iron grip around the red mask that was now a darker shade of red as my blood stained it. That was when my thoughts paused and landed on my earlier thoughts. Thoughts of going to see Donnie to check if I was becoming a nut case, but now I had a totally different reason to see Donnie.

Like the metal pipe jutting through me. I just hope the thing isn't rusty, because if it is, then I could be bedridden because of falling ill and I couldn't afford that. With new found feeling that came with the blazing agony of the metal pipe I stood up.

I was starting to become light headed and contributed it to me being cold blooded and running around in the snow without some type of cloth or fabric to shield me from the icy chills and due to the fact it seemed I had lost a lot of blood.

Too much blood in fact….I think the metal pipe might have severed some of my blood veins. I fell to my knees and fumbled with my good hand to find my tphone. As I took it out, I found it very difficult to dial Donnie with one hand but I managed.

"Donnie…" I groaned out, my voice slurred and cracking with suffering. "Donnie….I…." I took in a shaky breath as the world began to spin around me as if I were at an amusement park riding a carousel. Wait a minute let me rephrase that. The world was spinning around as if I were part of a carousel, the metal pipe being the thing connecting me to it. Yeah that sounded about right.

"What's wrong…Leo? Leo?" Donnie's voice came through the phone distorted and far away. I felt faint, my skin starting to pale. I was already cold blooded and losing my blood in this snowstorm was causing me to freeze faster.

I no longer could comprehend Donne's words, I felt myself fall back and the metal pipe shoved further into my shoulder. I cried out feebly, the pain almost unbearable. How weak and pathetic was I?

To die from impalement and freezing? My eyelids were heavy and the tphone slipped out of my numb fingers. I shouldn't let myself sleep, but I craved it. I needed to sleep. Sleep…yes…just for a few moments. Just to escape the pain….just to become numb.

My eyes slowly began to close. The copious amounts of blood I had been losing earlier began to thin out. Proving that I had lost a massive amount of the red liquid that helped keep me functioning and alive.

My eyes closed and I was in darkness. I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't feel anything. Only the numbness that washed over me like an ocean's wave. No…I was wrong….there was something I could hear. The beating of my own sluggish heart. It thumped feeble within my chest.

So was this what it felt like to die? To slip away? Was it really this easy? No…no it wasn't for after a few moments of nothing but numbness I could feel a stabbing throb within my chest. It was the most agonizing physical torment I ever went through in my entire life. It felt as if someone had shoved my heart through my body, out my back and then pulled it back and out of my chest.

Then I felt a presences near me. A light in the darkness. Someone was there, someone was watching over me in my time of need. They were saying something….what was it?

"..et….p…amn…it…"

I strained to listen. Wondering who or what was speaking to me. The voice seemed familiar but I couldn't place it. The pain was making it hard to think.

"…get….p….amn it…" The voice was slightly clearer than the first time it reached out to me from within the darkness. The owner of the voice…I knew the owner of the voice. The voice was gruff….harsh…but pleading.

"GET UP DAMN IT!"

I don't know what happened but all of a sudden I was jolting up into a sit. The jerking motion causing the pain of my injury to burn horribly. That voice…that voice was.

"Raph?" I called out in a hoarse voice….was that my voice? I couldn't even recognize my own voice. With a will of iron I pushed myself up with my good arm. My whole body trembling as I struggled to stay on my feet. That voice…it had been Raph's voice. I was sure of it.

Then through the snowy white, I could see a shadowy figure. "R…a…ph?" I called out to it feebly. But to my relief and sorrow, another shadow joined it and the two shadows came rushing for me. It was my brothers Donnie and Mikey.

I couldn't make out what they were saying to me, all I knew was that Donnie was fussing over me being impaled and Mikey was cupping my face with his hands. He was saying something, probably something along these lines: 'Stay awake dude! We're here bro! Just don't fall asleep.' But I didn't care. I know what I heard. I heard Raph…so where was he? Where was my brother? I needed my brother…I needed Raphael.

My head suddenly felt heavy… and I couldn't help but look down and my blurry gaze landed on the red mask that I somehow still miraculously held in my clenched fist. Then my eyes closed and everything went dark.

Raphael was out there….somewhere.

I wouldn't let him go.

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Author's note: Holy mother of GOD! That was an intense chapter now wasn't it? In all honesty this chapter wasn't even going to end this way. But then as I wrote more and more I decided it should end this way. The first version was that Leo would almost fall but hold himself out on a steel beam of a billboard and catch Raph's extra mask by his finger tips and then it would end with: I wouldn't let him go.

But then my sick and twisted personality took over and had him impaled by a steel pipe. Aren't I just the sweetest little angel ever?

HAHAHAA NO! Anyways read and review! Every review counts and means the world to me! I love to know what people think of my stories! Until next time! LATERS~