Narration, English
Other languages
'Thoughts and names'
Dreams, flashbacks, memories

A huge digital clock hung above the door leading to the mysterious place in front of him. At first glance it was nothing unusual, the rectangular convex device with black screen and red lines arranged in digits. It showed not only an hour but also the date and temperature in the room. The clock was the only data he had received. The flashing digits told him how long he had been in that place or, if he hadn't got there right after the accident, how much time had passed since his separation from his family. The most frightening was the date, the clock showed that it was October 13, and as far as he could remember, their journey to Japan had been planed for the beginning of September. But what for? That made new questions in his mind, pushing through the previous ones which he still had no answers to. For how long had he been lying unconscious? Maybe they had given him some drugs or other intoxicants? Why nobody wanted to tell him what was going on?

The room maintained the constant temperature of 77 degrees, the clock showed it was 9.37 a.m. Ever since the doctor who seemed to be the main commander of the mysterious 'Childish Dream' project had checked his temperature, measured his blood pressure, examined his eyes and mouth, everything had started to remind him of some kind of form of annoying routine and artificiality. Every hour an individual in white coat entered the room and wrote down data from the monitor, the drip bad was being checked and changed if necessary. During one of those visits he had realised why he didn't have to go to the toilet. Two tubes, one thin and one slightly thicker, were discharging substances leaving his body. Before this conclusion he had thought that he simply had been making himself dirty and stinky. But now just thinking about those people having had their hands in his cloaca made him feel like vomiting.

Two men in white coats entered the room with folders in their hands. The shorter one looked like a typical Asian, more like a student than a fully educated physician. He didn't wear glasses and his face showed no emotion. A middle-aged man walked beside him but his origin wasn't such a trifle to guess. Both men walked to the bed, then the young Asian focused on the monitor while the older doctor pulled a small stool to the bed and sat down, muttering something under his breath. "Doctor Morisaki found out that you know English fluently and you can communicate with a three-year-old in Japanese." The man stroked his beard, not caring about his strong characteristic accent.

"Are you French?" he asked casually.

"Almost," the man snorted. "I come from Canada. More than thirty scientists, mainly doctors physicians, from various countries take part in this project. Our teammates are mostly Japanese, there we have a few Americans. Apart from them, the rest are individual people, there's no person from France."

He had asked one simple short question, and the guy began to rattle like an old lady in the church. The uncomfortable feeling and pain in his temples intensified thanks to the Canadian. That man seemed to be a nice guy, perfect for a conversation over coffee but there was some kind of a mockery in his voice as if he had known that his talk would have annoy the mutant. He couldn't let them provoke him, he would have showed his weakness. Knowing that he would regret that sooner or later, he tried to defend himself with the same tactics. "Do all Canadians answer the questions as if they told themselves a few more?" he asked with much irony in his voice.

"I see you're wordy. That's good because I'm the same and that's how our relationship will look." The physician laughed, and his laugh didn't make the lying reptile feel better. "I'm here to ask you some questions but don't worry, they'll be easy and we won't require you to reveal all secrets of your existence to us, at least not now," he added quietly, then turned to the young Asian. "Change his drip bag and give him something to calm down," he ordered in French.

The young Asian must have known French, and the Canadian clearly wanted the mutant to not understand him. He could dream on. "Actually I know a bit of French," he said, not taking his eyes off the younger man.

"Interesting."

"Why do you want to hide a simple sedation from me?"

"Well, we don't know you, we have no idea how you can react to such information."

"You're right. Don't worry, your drugs have so far put me through it. I'm careful and I always try to maintain peace in difficult situations. Believe me or not but I'm a scientist too."

The man laughed hard, it was obvious he wasn't going to buy that story. Meanwhile the Asian had followed the Canadian's orders and now was sitting on the other side of the bed. The old doctor rubbed his eyes, the tears of laughter ran down his cheeks. "I'm not sure if you noticed but you're a mutant, a reptile, and just a turtle!"

"How do you know I'm a mutant?"

"We are not allowed to answer this kind of questions," the silent Asian said.

The whole thing was very suspicious. He didn't have to be a mutant after all, right? They could have thought that he's an alien or an unknown species. They didn't want to answer his questions so how could he find out, what was going on there?

"We can tell you our names and answer the questions about casual things, such as 'What's for dinner?' or 'What's the weather like today?'."

"But first, you will answer our questions and I advise you to cooperate." The Canadian pulled out a notebook and a pen. "Do you have a name?"

"Yes," he hissed, having enough of that circus. So he decided to act like an offended toddler.

"Tell us."

"It's none of your business. I do not wish you two to call me by my name."

Both men only murmured, exchanging glances. The Canadian wrote down a few brief remarks in the notebook, then looked back at his interlocutor. "I our files you are registered as an object of research of the 'Childish Dream' project. I assume you do not wish us to call you that. Of course we can give you a new name but I'm warning you, it won't be a pleasant one."

"Is the knowledge of my name that important?" he snorted, trying to relax.

"Only if you want us to call you... worthily. Besides, we have some of your belongings which we found in one piece when we found you and believe me when I say we are quite good at blackmailing."

He sighed heavily, rolling his eyes. The guy was annoying, his stupid talk reminded him of Stockman. Actually, there was nothing wrong in telling these men his name. The problem was, he saw it only as a small step toward deeper relation, and he wanted to avoid that. The less they knew about him, the better. The older man wouldn't give up so easily and he was already a loser at that game. "Donatello," he murmured, licking his lips. His eyes slowly made their way from one to another man while he focused on a plan. 'If I make them talk, maybe I will be able to distract them from the rest of my body,' he thought. "My name is Donatello."

The Canadian chuckled and adjusted his glasses. "Donatello, huh? Now I wonder where this idea came from, huh? How the mutant could have had such a sophisticated name from the Renaissance?"

"I just have that name and it's none of your business," Donatello growled, feeling a tingle in his fingertips. Finally he managed to move them a little as well as with his toes. "Now that you know my name, you probably owe me introducing yourselves."

"You are funny, I like you. William Russell, a Canadian psychiatrist. And this is my main partner in this project, a fresh psychologist, Kuroba Akira, a Japanese."

"Yes, his surname is enough for me to get it." Donatello's eyes widened when he said the word 'enough'. Inside he was happy about getting more and more control over his own body. But the men weren't aware of that.

"It'll be a great pleasure to work with him, don't you think, Akira?" William laughed, ignoring another eye rollover from Donatello. "Very well, now that we know each other, it's time for another question. You have an American accent so you must come from the USA. How did you get to Japan?"

"I don't remember," he answered quickly, feeling strangely better than a couple of minutes before. He regained control over his body and could escape at any moment, however his curiosity told him to play with these guys a little more. "I must have hit my head."

"Yes, we had to examine your head when you were delivered here. You had a funny bump on your occiput. Let's say we believe you for now. Time for more important for us questions, but first the short information for you. Akira?"

The Japanese who had been quiet and had only nodded murmured in his language. "Hai, sir," he said and changed the languages. "We've examined your blood and stated that it is a mix of blood of a normal turtle, a red-eared slicer to be exact, and a strange substance which became the cause of your mutation. You also have some fragments of human DNA. From a large sample of your blood we've extracted this ooze." Akira raised his hand where he held a glass capsule full of green liquid.

"The mutagen!" Donatello's eyes widened.

"Oh, so you know something more about your being," the Canadian laughed low, glad of the sudden blankness on the mutant's face. "We would like to know more about your mutation and this, how did you call it? Ah, mutagen."

"It is a dangerous substance that breaks the law of nature. I will not say anything more!" Donatello turned his face away from the older man and closed his eyes so as not to have to look at the other.

"Well, we are specialists and sooner or later we'll discover how that your mutagen works. However, your cooperation would be welcomed, my friend."

"We're not friends, Mr. Russell," the turtle said, spitting out the man's name.

"I think we are, Donatello. You will change your opinion about us, you'll see."

Oh no, he won't see.

The silence filled the room. Donatello had no intentions to open his eyes and he stopped moving. He strained his ears so as not to lose awareness of what was going on in the room. The only audible sounds were the scratching the notebook's paper with pens and breathing. The mutant was grateful that the men stopped talking, now he could seriously consider the whole situation. He was able to escape, but his curiosity still ordered him to ponder. Maybe they want to extract more mutagen from him and experiment with mutations or they want to use it for treatment? Perhaps they've found something what can help cure cancer or improve living conditions on Earth?

The train of his thoughts was stopped by a squeal of chairs moving away from the bed. Donatello stayed in the same pose ha had been lying in for a couple of minutes, listening. Two pairs of feet moved away from the bed, going to the right, the door creaked. An interesting smell burst in the room, food. The door closed, the silence became more silent, Donatello was left alone. Slowly he turned his head and opened his eyes slightly to check if he really was alone. He didn't sense anyone's presence, it was time to develop a plan, and quickly. The last time he had tried to escape the alarm had gone off as soon as he had left the bed. There must have been some motion or heaviness sensors under the bedding, which were connected with the red knob. The distance from bed to door should have to take him no more than one second but with his height and long legs it wasn't a problem. The problem was that he didn't know what he would find behind that door, what the architecture of the building would be, if he was being observed and how many people he would encounter on his way to freedom.

It was serious.

"Okay, I must hurry," he said to himself, falling into his natural trance. "One jump toward the door, there's a corridor behind the door, it is quite long. If I turn left, I'll most likely find myself in the part where doctor Morisaki's family lives, this little girl and her mother probably too. If there's a residential part, there's also door leading outside the building. If I turn right, there the corridor is shorter which can be heard with the help of footsteps. It probably doesn't lead to any way out."

He had only one chance. If his escape ended in fiasco, all those physicians would ensure that this situation would never happen again. It was the only chance, especially because the drugs those people had given him had caused him to be inert everywhere, and now he felt full strength.

Very slowly he lifted the upper part of his body and sat on the bed, sliding the duvet off his legs. He noticed that he was wearing the same white hospital shirt and the color of his skin had became sickly gray-green. He quickly realized that escaping the room wouldn't be so easy. His right hand was still bandaged and the needle from the IV was still attached above his wrist. The skin under the bandages was slightly torn, no thanks to himself. That needle was secured solidly so he would have to bring the drip bag with him in order not to hurt himself more. But it wasn't the only obstacle, there still were these two tubes in his nostrils, their ends attached to a heavy device filled with oxygen, and two other tubes in his cloaca that were discharging substances leaving his body. He had no idea how to get these two out without damaging any internal organs.

"Uff, okay, focus, you should be able to pull them out," he murmured, clenching his thick fingers on the tubes tickling his face. "Carefully, slowly..."

With a gentle movement he slid both tubes out of his nostrils and moved them over his head. A strange feeling was blowing in his nose, such a weird emptiness which forced him to sneeze. After getting rid of the oxygen it was time to move and find the containers with his urine and feces. The whole thing was embarrassing, those people had stuffed their hands in his cloaca! Two plastic boxes were lying under the hospital bed, they weren't big or heavy, probably had been changed recently. Donatello took both both boxes on the bed and removed the IV bag, then pulled out the tubes with oxygen from the device to tie the containers he couldn't leave here with them. He brought all three bags to his plastron and and tied the tubes around his middle tight enough so the containers wouldn't fall but they also wouldn't break.

"You have only one jump, don't waste it," he growled at himself, looking at the door like a wildcat would have looked at its victim.

Crouched on the bed, he turned toward the door, never taking his eyes off it, he didn't even blink. He rested his palms in front of him, between his knees, ready to attack. 'One jump is all it takes,' he reminded himself, then proceeded to the plan.

As he had predicted, the red alarm went off when his body broke away from the bed, and the unpleasant sound echoed throughout the building. Stunned by the noise, he ran into the corridor and turned left, pushing back the first people in coats he spotted. The screams filled the house, the alarm increased and that was when Donatello realized that he wasn't ready for this. Too much noise, too many voices, too many people and the sudden lack of energy didn't cope with his plans. His vision became blurry and it was spinning. The three-meter tall reptile found himself in a place which he could call a kitchen connected with the living room, there he found a young woman. She wasn't wearing white coat and at the sight of the mutant her mouth opened and the plate which she had wiped fell down from her hands. The sound of broken porcelain hurt his swollen eardrums.

Then he noticed the door, less than five meters apart. His instinct took over his mind and the turtle staggered toward the exit. Someone behind him shouted but he didn't understand them because everything merged into one big noise. Something metal stuck in his shoulders and calves and one second later a huge pain pierced his entire body. The electricity. They treated him with tasers from behind. Devices of great power quickly brought him to his knees and it was only a matter of time before he stopped feeling anything.

"Wake up, wake up." Someone's cold hand patted his cheek. "We wouldn't like to feed you through the tube again because it's unhealthy."

"Mmm..." Donatello opened his eyes reluctantly, immediately noticing white, and the bright light was unbearable. He quickly closed his eyes but it didn't help. It was only when he tried to raise his left arm to cover his face did he came to disturbing conclusions.

"After your desperate, though ill-conceived attempts to escape we decided that we can't let you fool us by your tricks, mutant," the voice murmured, the very same voice that had introduced him to the name of the project he was supposed to be part of.

Donatello began to struggle slightly to test the strength of the metal latches on his wrists, ankles and around his waist. Without any effects, he was strapped to the bed for good. It was to be expected, he knew very well that failure meant tougher security measures that he wouldn't be able to break.

"But I have to admit that you've surprised me," doctor Morisaki went on. "It was a good test. We gave you drugs to make you feel weak, but with the delayed action. Your escape plan was... not that bad. After watching the recording I can't wait to learn more about you. Your personality, if I can call it that, is getting more and more interesting."

"You did that on purpose to test me."

"That's correct. Your results are satisfactory so as a reward you will get to eat normally for the first time and then I'll maybe answer your one question and only one."

On his left a young woman sat. She was an Asian but not the same one he had seen in the kitchen before. She was at similar age, her face covered with a hospital mask. She held a plate and chopsticks in her hands. Donatello quickly realized that the girl was going to feed him, but the vision of the fish being brought to fis face didn't sound appealing, neither did it smell nice. "I don't like sushi or other raw fish or fish in general." He wrinkled his beak, relieved that he could still move his head.

"Hmm, he doesn't like fish and he won't eat it, that's rich," doctor Morisaki laughed, explaining the situation to young assistance in Japanese. "Eika doesn't know English, mutant."

"I don't like fish!" Donatello repeated for the woman to understand.

A piece of sushi disappeared from his face for a moment and the angry face of the physician replaced it. "We don't care about what you like and what you don't like to eat. You will eat what we give you and drink what you get from us. Unless you prefer to starve to death?"

"You think me stupid, don't you?' the turtle snapped, wriggling a little. "If I weren't needed alive for you, you would have killed me when I tried to escape the first time."

Mr. Morisaki withdrew his face and sat back on the stool, raising his eyebrows. The captured reptile was wiser than he had thought which made him even more interesting specimen. Donatello saw the confusion in the man's eyes. "William Russell promised me a fairly fair game, but now I see that you have more points in this game than me."

"Huh?" Torn from his trance, Morisaki looked again int o the mutant's eyes.

"You know more about me than I know about this project. Don't you think that I deserve some explanation?"

"Eika, leave the sushi in the kitchen and bring the ramen," the doctor muttered, sending the woman back with his look. "So you've already met Russell and Kuroba, how wonderful. You're right of course, we need you alive and we have a few plans for you. You're also not mistaken when you say that we play unfair to you but we can't explain the secrets of the 'Childish Dream' project to you."

"But that's what I want to hear more about, doctor," Donatello said, the word 'doctor' spitted out in a mocking way.

Morisaki adjusted his glasses, counting to ten in his mind so as not to explode. The turtle was intelligent and insolent, he mocked him and apparently he had no idea who he played with. If that's how he wanted things to go, so be it. The man thought about some changes in the schedule, mainly about adding William Russell's name in a few places. With a devilish grin he rubbed his forehead and came back to the conversation with the mutant. "Doctor Russell gave me some information about you, that's true. Your name is Donatello and you're from North America, or at least your accent explains so much. You know Japanese at the level where you can catch the general sense of sentences, and French at the medium level. You fell from a great height and hit your head. We've extracted the substance you call mutagen from your blood, a very interesting and useful thing. In addition, William claims that you introduce yourself as a scientist which is a brilliant joke."

"I see nothing funny about that," Donatello growled.

"Coming back to mutagen," the doctor continued as if he didn't hear the reptile. "I'll tell you a secret. It's not a substance unknown to us, we happened to get it even before we met you and our project is based on various types of serum based on that ooze so valuable for you."

A sudden anxiety crossed Donatello's face and it didn't miss the doctor's attention. The man smiled wider, seeing the blankness and fear in turtle's eyes, when something else caught his attention. Without warning he slammed his hands on the mutant's temples and squinted his eyes to see better. "Yeah, you got a nasty infection in your eyes. Do you feel pain, burning, itching?"

"No," Donatello answered quickly. He hadn't lied. If Morisaki hadn't told him about the infection, he probably would never know that something was wrong. He had thought that his eyes were puffy because of exhaustion or that it was the side effect of drugs given him by those 'scientists'. "Are you sure it's an infection?" he asked.

"It looks like it is. Well, we'll have a look at this in a moment. Now we're going to the first phase of my plan. Eika!"

The woman appeared by the bed from nowhere, a huge syringe in her hand. A few other physicians entered the room, all of them in hospital masks on their faces and medical gloves. That stopped being fun and Donatello once again began to struggle. The needle pricked his neck, the substance burned his veins, getting into his bloodstream.

"Count from ten to zero, Donatello," the voice ordered.

The mutant started counting obediently. "Ten, nine, eeeight, seee...v...