Chapter 6: Let Me Burn

With the lights off everything felt cold, dead. The Lair felt so frigid it made Leonardo shiver involuntarily as he closed off his senses and just listened to the sounds around him. He breathed in a shallow breath trying to hear the sounds that so frequently made the Lair home, but there were none. No water rushed through the pipes and drains. Sirens that were a constant background noise from the Topside world diminished. Even the scurrying of sewer mice and the rumble of the subway stopped. It was all silent.

"Guys?" Michelangelo's voice shook as he stayed where he was not daring to move lest he disturb the silence around him.

"It's most likely a circuit or a –" Donatello cut himself off when he felt something cold touch him. It was so cold, so lonesome, he yelled and jumped back trying to rid himself of that feeling that seemed to want to consume him, take him over. He shuffled back and ran into something hard that grabbed a hold of his arms with thick warm fingers. Raphael brought his face close to Donatello's ear to whisper, "Easy Donnie."

Leonardo closed his eyes trying to listen, trying to figure out their next move. They needed to get out of the Lair, that was obvious. It wasn't safe here, they needed to leave maybe head to Casey and April's house to seek shelter until they could figure out a way to get the lights working again. He needed to get the flashlights from the kitchen and in the drawers in Donatello's lab. If they moved fast maybe he could grab his swords and –

Something cold wrapped around his neck burning him. He screeched without meaning to and tried to move away but he couldn't move, couldn't think. It was so cold, so lost. There was nothing he could do but scream and scream. He must've eaten glass earlier because now it felt like he was throwing it up. Leonardo felt hands, warm hands, on his body but no, no, they weren't helping at all. They were making it worse, worse, worse. It hurt so bad. He felt so alone, so scared.

But, these weren't his feelings. Absently, he knew they weren't. He'd never felt this lone before. Never felt this lost before. Something was inside of him. Someone was latched onto the back of his neck causing him all this pain. He just needed to focus.

Focus, Leonardo. Focus, He whispered to himself like this was any other day and he needed to get his head in the game to practice a difficult kata. Focus.

The pain dimmed some as he stopped fighting, or not fighting as his body hadn't even moved in the minutes or hours he had been screaming. The searing pain lessened and lessened until the coldness on the back of his neck stopped all together. As soon as the cold left him Leonardo lost feeling in his legs. He drifted for a second before his knees buckled and he felt weightless. The ground was coming fast to his face before it suddenly stopped with a hard jerk and he was enshrouded in warmth and dry skin that smelled like after shave and musk; Raphael.

"What's going on?!" was screamed in his face by the red turtle. Raphael scrambled to lay his suddenly pliant older brother on the ground still in complete darkness. He shivered hearing and feeling Donatello get on his knees next to him to assess Leonardo the best he could without being able to see a thing. Raphael didn't like the dark. He wasn't afraid of it like Michelangelo but he didn't thrive in it like Leonardo. He didn't need it to function like Donatello, but all the same he didn't like it. He was never good with darkness just because he was too big to completely meld into the skinny, shallow shadows in corners and in rafters. He never had anything specifically against the dark... until a few minutes ago when Donatello had just about jumped into his arms and Leonardo had started screaming but refused to move or even listen to them as they grabbed for him and told him he was alright. Raphael was beginning to think that maybe they were all going crazy.

"Do you see me now?" Something asked that chilled Raphael to the bone. Michelangelo squeaked and jumped, bumping into Raphael though not hard enough to move his solid form. Raphael grabbed him and threw him behind his back towards Donatello and Leonardo who were speaking quietly and hadn't seemed to hear the voice. The red banded turtle grabbed for his sai's then cursed a blue streak when he remembered he didn't have them.

"Who's there?" Raphael yelled in the dark. "Show yourself! Now!"

Silence. Nothing. Raphael stood with his muscles taught and ready to rumble if he heard that sound again. It sounded like a young voice but he couldn't be sure. He didn't understand what was going on. He was confused.

Behind him, Leonardo forced Donatello's prying hands away from his face and head as he hurriedly told him that he had just seen something.

"You don't see anything, Leo. It's pitch black in here." Donatello said lightly not wanting to anger his older brother. Something was defiantly wrong, Leonardo was shaking violently.

"No," Michelangelo took a step forward as he saw a flash. It was dull and fast, he wouldn't have even seen it had he not been looking. But he had been and now he really didn't understand. "There's something there." He could feel his arms get cold, icy.

"Donatello, let me up. Please," Leonardo said as calmly as he could. He felt crazy, maybe he was crazy because… was that a girl? "Who are you?" He asked the girl who had appeared not ten feet away. Just out of range of the four of them.

Donatello looked at his older brother, Raphael jerked his head around to see the forms on the ground. He still couldn't see a damn thing but it was getting easier to distinguish his brothers' figures. "There's no one there." He said quietly.

Leonardo slowly got up using Donatello to help support him. The girl looked like the girl from his dreams back when he was in Donatello's lab. Dark hair, pale face, deathly completion, no expression.

The girl opened her mouth, she seemed to be upset. She was crying. "Why…" she started and Leonardo was hit by a feeling of being so empty, lost. Tears brimmed his eyes until they overflowed and seeped down his face. His heart hurt in his chest as a wave of depression smashed into him. He felt so lost, useless. Worthless and unloved. These were feelings he had never felt before but now he felt them and they were so raw. Heartbreaking.

"Why didn't you save me?" The girl whispered. Michelangelo, feeling a fraction of Leonardo's despair grabbed at his plastron where his heart was. Donatello sucked in a breath as he heard the whisper. The Lair seemed to grow even colder than before. Raphael whipped his head around looking for the owner of the voice but couldn't see anything. Nothing. Just darkness.

"You didn't save me…"

Through chattering teeth and a broken heart that he could understand wasn't his own feelings, Leonardo forced his mouth to open. He forced his voice to work but nothing came out, just a silent sob.

"I wasn't worth saving…"

He tried to move his feet but Leonardo was stuck in the concrete. His legs wouldn't do his bidding.

"Can you see me now?"

Run… run… run, his mind screamed.

"You didn't save me… YOU DIDN'T SAVE ME!" The girl screamed so loud the walls shook. Suddenly the spell that Leonardo seemed to be under snapped away and he screamed just as loud, "Run!"

Grabbing a hold of the nearest brother and jerking him towards himself, Leonardo latched on and took off. "Go to Master Splinter's room! Now!" He didn't know why but it felt like a good idea to run towards his father's old room that they never ventured towards. The air seemed to warm as he got closer. He slammed the door open hearing three sets of padding feet behind him. "Go, go, go!"

The Lair was alive with rumbling, it felt like an earthquake shaking the walls. It was so loud, deafening even. It was like every sound in the world just exploded around their home. It took Leonardo off guard and he staggered back as he held open the paper door for his brothers. Again, arms entrapped his chest and heaved him into their father's old room before he could fall. The paper door was slammed shut and with it the sound also stopped. It was so sudden all four turtles felt dizzy.

Someone moved around the dark room rummaging through a drawer until the sound of a match being stuck sounded and a small light almost blinded the other three. Donatello walked fast towards the candles that were cold and dusty from misuse. No one had been in this room since their Master had died.

When the candles were lit and both Michelangelo and Leonardo had wiped the tears from their eyes, Donatello went to grab for the blankets in the Hope Chest that sat in the corner to cover his shivering brothers.

Raphael bared the door with a desk and a book shelf. He gently shook the wooden contraption to ensure it would hold before taking his hands away and looking at his brothers with wide eyes.

"What. The. Shell. Just. Happened?"