Sunlight and Seawater

Softness surrounds my shell. I’m not falling! My head aches. I reach to my eyes, pull the wrap away. A dark ceiling arches high above.

A bright, round face appears over me. “Pleasure to meet you! I’m Michelangelo, but you can call me Mikey.” Warm orange wraps contrast this one’s darker skin. I can do nothing but stare. If I had the magical Shiny Thing that Donnie took from me, I could see more than just orange and green, but…

He grins, I can see that much, tugs me up and off whatever I’m lying on, and shouts “OKAY!!” to Donnie above.

“Ohmigosh!” He turns back to look up at me (he’s so short!), grinning wider. “Okay, wow, when Donnie called and told me-”

“WHAT.” Something slams open to our left. Mikey flinches. “WHAT WERE YOU BOZOS THINKING?!” A hulking creature rushes toward us, wrapped in vibrant red. A fourth? How many more?? Fear weighs my limbs down, and I stand frozen in place.

“Raph, it’s okay!” Mikey holds up his hands. “It was the fastest way to get them here. The subways would have taken too long, they’re exhausted!”

“Them!?” The red one stares at me, wide-eyed. “There’s more than one?” Our eyes are almost but not quite level. He stands a few inches taller than me. I shrink further under his piercing gaze.

As he speaks, a yelp comes from above. Raph and Mikey stop talking as the three of us look up. Friend’s flailing shape falls, then Leo swings gracefully through. Donnie follows.

Wait. Something’s strange, his shell is a different shape. It whirs like a dragonfly, and glows like the moon. And he floats to the ground. He floats!

My eyes follow his descent. I turn to watch him land. Once on the ground, his shell returns to its normal shape with a click, and the whirring quiets. I stare confusedly; can turtles fly now? Can I fly? I don’t know what’s real anymore.

“Pretty neat, right?” Donnie says. “Built it myself, I-“

“Donnie!” Raph interrupts. “You can explain your battle shells later. First, explain to ME what was going through that brain o’ yours bringing strangers back to our TOP SECRET, HIDDEN LAIR!”

Donnie sighs dramatically, then turns to Raph. “It was Leo’s idea too, y’know.”

“Hey, don’t drag me into this, Don! You wanted to track the footprints, not me!”

I take a step back. Seems like something I’d rather not get involved in.

Friend groans behind me. Argument forgotten, I rush to her. She lies curled, flippers hiding her face. Is she okay? Is she hurt?

Behind me, Raph, Donnie and Leo are still talking. Their voices are raised, they sound angry. Mikey speaks too, but not often, and not as loud.

Friend sits up slowly and rubs her face. She looks unharmed, but her eyelids droop. It’s been a long day. I check her over for injuries, hard to do when I can’t see well, but I try my best. A few shallow scrapes on her skin, but nothing deep. They’ll heal. In her armpit I find a blinking light. A nagging feeling of unease settles deep in my stomach. I tug hard to try to remove it, but Friend squeaks in pain so I leave it be. Maybe later the others can help.

Soon I finish checking her over. She’s fighting to stay awake. I’m drowsy too, but I have to look after her. She’s so little.

By the sound of it, the other turtles are still fighting. I rub my eyes and turn to see Raph facing Leo and Donnie, stance wide and threatening. Leo and Donnie are on their toes, waving their arms at Raph and at each other. Mikey hovers behind them, staying low.

Friend needs to be protected if they get physical. Now that I know she’s unhurt, we need to move. Where can we hide in this place? I have to get her somewhere safe before we both pass out from exhaustion. My limbs feel heavier by the second.

This is the first time I’ve actually taken stock of where we are. Friend and I sit near the center of a huge round slab, made of the same rock-like stuff we were curled up on when Donnie found us. Not-Stone, I’ll call it. Round cave openings line the walls. Water rings the space in what seems to be an endless circular stream, bridged by flat slabs of wood that lead to these caves. Those are an option. The water, however, is not. Even from here I can see it is tinged a sickly shade of green-brown, it doesn’t look safe. Okay, what else?

Another feature of the space is a pair of huge, curved wooden structures, one on each side. They stretch up to a walkway and a second layer of caves, then above those a third layer, then a narrow fourth, then the ceiling far above. Looking up makes me dizzy. Stay awake! They’re far too steep for us to climb, but maybe we could hide behind one?

I look back at Friend, ready to help her up. One problem: she’s asleep. Absolutely out of it. I’m so close to passing out too, but we have to move! I try to gather her in my arms (she’s heavy) but her flippers keep flopping about. I don’t want to hurt her.

I make it to a kneeling position. Good enough. The closest curved structure seems so far away now. I shuffle towards it.

The ground is rough. Friend is so heavy.

I can make it, I just have to keep going.

It’s loud. My arms ache.

Keep going.

I’m so tired.

Keep going.

The ground blurs.

Keep…

—————

Slowly, I wake.

“…to treat his foot, look at it! It’s terrible!”

“Be quiet, he’s still asleep. I want to finish these scans while he’s not moving around.”

The voices sound like Donnie and Mikey, but I can hear the breathing of at least one more of them. My eyes are crusted shut. I stay frozen.

“Look at the mark that Oozesquito left on this dude’s neck!” says Mikey. “That had to hurt, poor guy.”

“Ooh, yeah that’s nasty,” Donnie’s voice winces. “Hey, don’t touch it!”

Mikey (I assume) pokes at me, right on my bug bite. Wow, that’s sore! Despite my best efforts to stay silent, I let out a groan of pain.

“Augh, now look what you’ve done!”

Raph’s voice pipes up, “Okay, that’s it, everyone out! Give the guy some space.”

“THANK you, brother dearest.”

I rub the crust out of my eyes and blink them open. Donnie sits beside me, surrounded by clutter that blinks and whirs like his unnatural shell. Behind him, Raph is ushering Leo and Mikey away through a cave entrance, looking out to the main space. The sound of running water trickles through unseen channels in the walls.

This is not what I remember. We were on the ground, I was trying to move us to safety. Where am I? Where is Friend?

In a panic, I jolt up. Where is she?

“Whoa, hey!” Donnie exclaims. “Relax. Your little buddy is over there, asleep. It’s fine. She’s fine.”

Following his pointing finger, I see a pile of soft material. I can only assume Friend is buried somewhere in the pile, hopefully getting some well-deserved rest. My shoulders slump with relief, and something in my chest loosens, just a fraction.

“Now,” Donnie says, “I need you to lie back down on the table and hold still. That has to be disinfected, who knows what kind of garbage you’ve stepped in?” He gestures to my foot. Instead of lying down I lean forward and rotate my leg - on the bottom of my foot, a gash I hadn’t noticed slices across from underneath one toe all the way to the other edge at an angle. Shit. I must have been too on-edge to register the pain when it happened, but now… now I can feel it, for sure. It burns.

Now that I think of it, dim memories of the broken cage flicker in my head. That’s right! I cut my foot in our escape! Did I bleed? The wound is deep, I must have. Is that how Donnie tracked us?

I should have been more careful. My fingers clench on the edge of the cold surface - the table - I’m sitting on.

Donnie must have seen my worried look, because he begins to talk. “You were bleeding quite profusely, you know. I tracked your footprints all the way from the smuggling ring to that alley. It had stopped by the time I found you, thankfully, otherwise you’d be in big trouble. I don’t have the necessary equipment for a blood transfusion, I’m not even sure what kind of blood you would need. Human? Turtle? A mix of both? But at what ratio? Of course I’ve done the research for me and my brothers just in case, but you and your little friend are an entirely different can of worms. No offense.”

These new words slide right off my brain like it’s an algae-covered log. I shrug in confusion.

“Well, in any case, I have to deal with that before it gets infected. I’m shocked it isn’t already.” A spidery limb emerges from over his shoulder (how many unnatural features does this guy have?) and pushes against my shoulder. “Lie back on the table, nice and easy.” My muscles tense as I instinctively resist.

“No no no mister, I said lie back.” Donnie crosses his arms as the spider leg pushes again, with more force. I fall back. “This is for your own good.” Before I have a chance to react or struggle, two more of these spider legs stretch out and grasp my legs. A fourth presses against my left wrist as the first limb, on my right, readjusts its position to match.

Fear swells inside me as I realize: I am completely immobilized. Trapped like when the Bad Men took me. The room closes in and I panic. Thrashing my limbs gets me predictably nowhere, but damn do I ever try. My movements toss Donnie from side to side, but he is clutching the table with his hands, wide-eyed, and maintains his grip on me.

Help me, I plead, to anything listening. Tears build in my eyes. The flood threatens to swallow me whole. The water flowing in the walls is deafening. When did it get so loud?

A shrill wail echoes around us. Donnie recoils, hands clasped to the sides of his head. The spider legs hold firm. After a second, I realise the sound is coming from me.

“Oh, for the love of- RAPH! A LITTLE HELP?!” Donnie shrieks, then at a lower volume, “Good Galileo, I haven’t even started yet!”

I roll my head to the side as the scream fades with the last of my breath and energy. Gasping in a new lungful of air, I see the pile and realise that the noise should have woken Friend. It should have woken anybody in a mile radius! But… the pile stays unmoving. Is she okay in there? Is she even alive? Did Donnie lie to me?! Awful thoughts flood through my head like monsoon river water. I’m about to burst.

With renewed energy I thrash harder, and pull one arm free. My momentum rolls me off the table and out of the grip of the rest of the spider legs as Donnie shouts. I scramble towards the pile. Things go flying, but I can’t see her yet, then EEP! I’m tugged back and off the ground. Predator!! My limbs jerk as close to me as they can, then I freeze.

“What the shell is going on in here??” That’s Raph’s voice. Close behind me. So… not a predator? Well, he still could be, but I think if he wanted me dead, he’d have killed me a long time ago. I relax a bit.

“I don’t know!” Donnie says, from further away. “I tried to restrain him so I could clean his wound, and he went crazy! Yelling and crying and destroying my precious lab! My tech! My priceless inventions!”

“Uh, we’ve got bigger problems than your tech, Dee.”

“What could possibly be more important than-” He pauses for a moment, then, “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’, understatement of the century, Don! Where is she??” Raph yells, as he spins to face Donnie. I swing weightless in the air. “You were supposed to be watching her, you bozo! You were supposed to be watching both -” As he speaks, I’m shaken around. I let out a yelp and he stops mid-sentence. Donnie snickers quietly.

“Alright, you! I’ve got this one, you go find the other one, pronto!” Raph points with his other hand, first at Donnie then out to the main area. “Pops is still asleep, but he won’t be for much longer, and I don’t know how we’re gonna explain to him what you’ve done.”

“What I’ve done? I think you mean what we’ve done, Leo and Mikey aren’t innocent either!”

‘Yeah, whatever, now GO!”

Donnie sighs in defeat. After a second, he gathers himself and slips out of the room.

Suddenly I’m dropped with no great care into the soft pile I’d just torn apart. I yelp again and, after a moment, push myself up to a sitting position. Raph plonks himself down opposite me with a thud, and from the deep, turbulent look in his eyes I know there’s no point in running.

He slaps his hands to his knees. A silent eternity stretches out, neither of us willing to move. Eventually he speaks, his voice artificially low, intimidating.

“I’ve got questions for you.”