Imagination
His hands were stained with ink, rubbed into the creases, beneath his fingernails. Pencil was rubbed into his fingertips, smudged against his face. The marks were set deep into his brow, which was furrowed in thought. The room was dim, but he didn't notice. All his focus was on the words beneath his pen. He was skipping letters, skipping lines, watching as his sentences melded into passive-voice messes as he left a trail of pulsing adverbs behind him.
Michelangelo didn't care.
All that mattered was that the teeming in his brain would stop. That the sensation of ants walking over his skin, into his skull, down his back, would cease. Just for a moment. That Mikey would have change to breathe again.
His words had been silenced for too long by the spark of happiness, by the trials of life. They would be silent no more. It was either them, or the last shreds of his sanity.
So Mikey wrote, until his hand pulsed with cramps and his eyes gave way, until he'd collapse in a heap on his desk, sweat on his brow, feeling his shell cry out in protest, his soul ache with exhaustion.
And then sometimes, just sometimes, if he was lucky, Mikey would see a light through the fog. A perfect moment, where he'd get the peace that Leo was always harping on about. He'd feel a flicker in his soul and a rise of his heart.
And sometimes, just sometimes, Michelangelo would remember why everybody envied his imagination.
AN: Sometimes being a writer is hard. But it is always worth it.