\tThe click of the metal door unlocking signaled to Raphael Hamato that his lockpicking skills weren’t as rusty as he had first thought. Rising back to his feet, he stuffed his lockpicks back into his brown leather jackets pockets and pushed open the door.
\tHe made his way quickly and silently to the back of the building, expertly avoiding the view of the security cameras installed in each of the rooms corners. He walked up to one of the many glass doors that lined the back wall and grabbed out a carton off the third shelf, careful to keep the delicate glass bottles from clanging together and alerting anyone that may still be in the building.
\tAfter successfully extracting his desired cargo, he retraced his steps to the back door right as the loud sirens of oncoming cop cars echoed from the front of the building and red and blue lights flashed against the alleyways walls. He scurried up the nearest fire escape right as two police men rounded the corner.
\t“Suckers.” Raph chuckled as he turned and sat on the edge of the rooftop. He dropped the carton beside him, took out one of the bottles, and bit off the cap before taking a swig of his stolen beverage. Watching as the police entered the gas station he had just come from.
\t“Aw, fuck.” Raph cringed as the alcohol crawled down his throat with fiery claws. He had yet to get used to the bitterness of beer, only having started drinking just a few months ago. It was surprisingly difficult to get drunk on beer alone, but he didn’t have the stomach to endure anything stronger. He only did it for the temporary memory washing it provided. Was it worth the hangover he would have to endure the next morning? Hell yes. As far as he was concerned, anything that distracted him from his thoughts was worth it.
\tLeo, of course, wouldn’t agree, but . . .
\t“Fuck . . .” Raph growled at himself.
\tThere he went again. Thinking about him. The stupid turtle haunted him like a bad itch that wouldn’t go away, but it only burned when you scratched it.
\tHe took another gulp of his beer, pushing himself through the discomfort of stripping away the inner layer of his throat, and the memory of the one person he had ever loved with it.
\tRaph snorted at his thoughts. Oh yeah, that’s the way you treat the people you care about?
\tLeonardo Hamato had had every right to leave after the things he had said to him. Raph had tried to convince himself that it wasn’t his fault. That Leo should have understood he had only acted out because of the latest events that occurred shortly beforehand. Those thoughts had lasted for a short period of time after Leo had washed his hands of him. He knew he had went out of line. He had no right to target his stress and rage against Leo because he knew Leo was just as stressed and angry as him. Everyone had been at the time. Yet, Raph put it upon himself to increase the stress of the situation by pointing fingers and placing blame on the one person who would have understood him had he been sensible at the time.
\tSo much for not thinking about him. Raph sighed heavily and took a smaller sip of his beer this time. He knew that once he had started, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Leo was now burned into his thoughts for the rest of the night.
\tGreat.
\tNonetheless, he knew what happened next was for the best. After he had irreparably damaged their relationship, Leo had packed up his bags and left. And not to the other side of town. Oh, hell no. He left. Like all the way to the other side of the country type of: left. And Mikey had been the one to tell him where he had gone. The coward had fled to some remote island on Japan, where he would never see that blue banded wearing fucker again.
\tWhy didn’t he go after Leo after he admitted to himself he had been in the wrong and he was the douchebag, you ask?
\tRaph chuckled. The sound cold and empty, even to his own ears.
\tThere was no point. He knew it ahead of time too, that Leo would not be forgiving him this time. He had blew it when the words, I hate you, left his lips. True, he had said similar lines before in the heat of an argument and they recovered. But he knew from the look on Leo’s face after he said those words – along with many others – that that had been the last straw for him. He was done giving him another chance. Done hearing his mate tell him he hated him when things got tough. That this was his fault.
\tHe couldn’t blame Leo for leaving. No one wanted to repeatedly hear I love you and I hate you like a friggin light switch whenever the situation seems fitting.
\tSo, yeah. Raph had let Leo go.
\tForever.
\t“Lucky bastard.” Raph muttered under his breath. Considered taking another drink, then deciding against it. There was no point anymore.
\tNo matter what he said about Leo, he envied him. He would give his left nut to be where Leo was. Away from this decaying country and relaxing on some remote island like he was on friggin vacation! Not giving a single shit about his brothers’ constant battle for survival as, every day, Shredder gains more power. His army multiplying from hundreds, to thousands, to millions. Conquering every state till he has all of America under his boot. The government had no idea the threat inside their own nation until it was too late. The United States Army stood no chance when they finally fought back. And America destroyed itself from the inside out, much to its enemy’s delight.
\tHowever, it was only a matter of time before Shredder moves his army onto the rest of the world.
\tRaph had no doubt he would succeed.
\tAlready, several other countries had tried to bargain with the Shredder of visions of a One World Nation. Unfortunately, those sorry suckers have no idea that Shredder isn’t including them in his plans. Once he’s fully prepared, he would move his convoy to his next target location and, Raph was certain, they would welcome him with open arms. Then, before they can even realize their mistake, Shredder would crush them as he done to the U.S. government.
\tYou didn’t need to be some fortune teller to see this.
\tYet, Raph still fought the fight he knew he wasn’t going to win. So why was he still doing it? Probably for the same reason these stupid cops were trying to arrest the criminal who broke into a gas station. What else was left to do? There was no way in hell Raph was going to be a servant of Shredder. These cops down there, still searching the area for evidence, could probably relate. If he was going to go down, he was going to go down fighting. There wasn’t a cause anymore. There wasn’t even anyone to save. It was a dog eat dog world now. But Raph wasn’t going to lay down. Not until his last breath left him.
\t“YAAARRGGHH!”
\tRaph shouted in surprise as something grabbed onto his shoulders and shook him. Adrenaline pumping into his veins, Raph swung the half empty beer bottle at his assailant. His attacker pulled back just in time to avoid the blow and the bottle flew from Raph’s hand, down the four-story building to shatter on the ground below.
\tSeveral officers nearby were startled, their flashlights swinging to where the broken bottle landed.
\tRaph haphazardly tried to get to his feet to face his opponent, but his ability to hold his liquor was not that strong yet and he found all of New York had been built on a merry-go-round.
\t“Oh my god! You should have seen your face!”
\tRaph growled and plopped himself back down upon realization that he was not being attacked, but pranked by his youngest sibling, Michelangelo Hamato.
\t“Damn it, Mikey! You were lucky I didn’t bash your head in.”
\tMikey snorted with laughter as he eased himself down next to him. Raph didn’t miss the subtle wince that crossed Mikey’s face as he did so. Reminding him that they were no longer spring chicken anymore. Nor turtle for that matter.
\tThey had a generous amount of years left to live. More so than the average human, thanks to the mutagen still swimming through their systems. But the fact that they weren’t genetically capable of surviving in this world naturally and then you add that to the amount of abuse their bodies take on a daily basis, they were finding themselves experiencing a lot more aches and pains sooner than expected. At the age of thirty, they were feeling more like fifty. He wasn’t looking forward to what sixties would feel like.
\t“Yeah whatever, you moved like my grandma.”
\tRaph glared at him, “Very funny Mike.”
\tMikey smiled at him as if the world wasn’t slowly dying around them and snatched one of his beer bottles from the carton. He popped open the cap much like he had and chugged back a brave amount. A few short seconds later, Mikey spat back out the contents.
“Ew, nasty! Seriously, how in the hell do you even drink this stuff.” Mikey coughed and wiped his lip with the back of his hand. He sneered at the bottle and tossed it to the side.
The two turtles watched the almost full bottle fall and crash to the ground a few feet away from Raph’s, narrowly missing the two police men examining the bottle. Their heads jerked up along with their flashlights in search of the culprits and Raph and Mikey quickly ducked behind the wall as their beams passed overhead.
“Real smooth shell-for-brains.” Raph snarled.
Mikey grinned. “What? It’s not like it hit them.”
Raph shook his head and went to sit back on the edge once the coast was clear. “I don’t understand why you keep trying to drink beer. You never liked it before, why would you like it now?”
Mikey shrugged his shoulders. “I could ask you the same question.”
“Touche.” Raph sighed and grabbed for another bottle. They both knew why Raph drank. Mikey was dumb but he wasn’t stupid. He didn’t need to spell it out for him.
The two remained silent for several minutes as they watched the cops below began rounding up groups to go search the neighboring buildings for suspects.
Then the silence was broken as Mikey said, “Dude, I don’t even know how you call yourself a ninja when you don’t even use stealth anymore. He’d be so disappointed in you.”
That last part was muttered but Raph still caught it. His brow raised, he didn’t know if Mikey was referring to their father or Leo but he chose to ignore the obvious invitation to ‘get real’ with Mikey as he did every other time.
Instead he said, “You’re starting to sound like Fearless.”
Raph snorted at the irony of that nickname. Their ‘leader’ didn’t seem so ‘fearless’ anymore. Not after he hauled ass to the other side of the friggin planet.
Mikey chuckled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
The two didn’t speak much about Leo. They spoke even less about Don though.
Raph felt a sour feeling heavy in his gut at the thought of the second youngest of his brothers. It had been eleven years since Donatello Hamato’s unpredicted and unexplainable disappearance. He had left no trace behind, no clue, of where their purple banded brother had gone. It simply looked like he just vanished into thin air. Poof!
While the rest of them were left to wonder whether he had been kidnapped, ran away, or been killed. Even to this day, he couldn’t provide you with any theories on Donnie’s disappearance. It was simply an unsolvable mystery.
They had been only eighteen at the time.
The brothers had spent three years frantically searching for him. Having assumed that Don had been kidnapped by the Shredder, they had attempted to rescue him. Only for them to find out that Shredder never even had him in the first place; and at the expense of Casey’s life. Mikey had been taken prisoner as well that day. And the rest of them barely escaped.
Raph chewed his lower lip and glanced at the stub where Mikey’s arm should have been. They had eventually got him back again, but their little bright-eyed jokester had never been the same since. Oh sure, he continued to play pranks after he recovered from the ordeal, but the familiar brightness and innocence that made up his little brother was missing. Leaving behind this dark, rugged, scarred up, shadow of the person he used to be.
That was the year that everything went to hell. With the loss of his brother and his bast friend, plus the threat of loosing another brother; Raph had been a grieving, raging mess. That was when the arguments started. When he had used his own mate as a punching bag for his emotions. Leo had tried desperately to keep their relationship from falling apart. They had managed to stabilize things again after a year and they survived for another two until, on their twenty-fourth birthday, Splinter had fallen ill.
Leo had began distancing himself from Raph. They never spoke and soon Raph had rarely seen his older brother. It was obvious, the rat was old and was dying. However, Raph refused to see reason. April had attempted to talk to him several times, but at this point, Raph had convinced himself that the two of them had fully given up on Splinter. The anger had sprouted back again and continued to grow as Leo locked himself up, never to come out, not even for meals. Raph had made several attempts to talk things out with him, but the grieving turtle had continued to push and push him away until he had just popped.
The argument went on for hours, but it was only until Leo started shouting he never needed him, he just wanted to be left alone, when he lost it. The words had hurt even as Raph had realized they weren’t honest, but in his state at the time he had only felt vengeful. Raph had then returned the slap by placing the blame of their father’s death on Leo.
Shut up! Fuck you, Raph! Shut up! Leo had roared in anger. God, I hate you!
That had been the first time Leo had said that to him, even in a fit of anger. Raph hadn’t cared at the time. He had returned that as well.
They officially broke up at the age of twenty-five. Five minutes after that particular argument finally ended.
The rest of the family split apart. Finding new homes of their own in separate locations. They didn’t talk much for another year.
By age twenty-six, Leo left for Japan and Shredder had pretty much claimed all of America as his own.
Four years later they were all in their thirties. Mikey was the only one with communication to Leo. April and Mikey had moved in together. And Raph lived alone where he fought the foot police as his night time job. Where was a good time traveling device when you needed it?
“Will you quit that?” Mikey said with disgust. Drawing Raph back to the present. He glanced at him curiously.
“Quit what?”
“That.” Mikey pointed a finger at him. Raph stared in confusion. “That face your making. The one that says your thinking about something depressing. Your giving yourself wrinkles, man. More than you already have anyway.”
Raph rolled his eyes and slapped his hand away. “And I should care about my appearance, why?”
“No one wants to look at your old mug Raph.”
“You are literally the only one I ever see anymore Mike. You and the foot soldiers, but I don’t think they care.”
“And what makes you think I want to see your wrinkles? You keep this up and you’re not going to have anyone to bring you chicken noodle soup when you get a cold.”
Raph smirked. “Like you look any better.”
“Puh-lease. I’m as beautiful as always. I haven’t aged a bit.”
Raph laughed. “Yeah, whatever get’s you through the night.”
Mikey glared. “Okay, that’s it. No more soup for you. And no calling me to pick you up medicine either.”
“You never picked up medicine for me and I’ve never called for it either.”
“Yeah well, if you do. Don’t count on me to pick it up for you.”
“Right.” Raph chuckled. The alcohol must be kicking in. He was actually starting to feel a little normal. Glancing at his almost empty bottle, Raph tipped back the last on his beverage before allowing the bottle to drop from his hands. Like the last two, it shattered on impact and alerted three more police men.
“Hey! You kids! Get down here, now!” One of the men called as their lights flashed on them. The two rose up to their feet. Raph a little slower than Mikey.
“Aw, how sweet! He called us kids!” The three cops entered the building they were on. It would only take them a few minutes to get up here.
Mikey stretched as he said, “Well, anyway, nice catchin up with ya Raphie-boy. Glad to know you’re still not dead. By the way, you need a lift home? You look wasted.”
Raph smirked and waved his brother away. “I am wasted, but no, I don’t need a lift. Thanks.”
“If you say so. Oh, and call sometime will you! April has been asking about you lately. She really misses you.”
Raph grimaced guilty. “Yeah, yeah. Sure.”
Mikey rolled his eyes. “You say that, but you never do.”
“I promise this time.”
“Yeah, you said that last time too.” Mikey said dryly. He sighed and shook his head. “Just, be safe Raph.”
“I always am.”
“That’s a big pile of croc shit and you know it.” Mikey laughed and took off into the night. He probably wouldn’t be seeing him again for another few nights. What Mikey did when he wasn’t pestering him, he didn’t know, but he didn’t bother asking. Somehow, Raph had never felt like it was his business. As if Mikey had an entirely different life from his. So, he did what he was always good at and kept to himself.
“Freeze!”
\tAll three of the cops from down below, piled out of the roofs doorway. Their guns pointed on him.
\tRaph grinned and raised his hands in the air, palms out. Swaying a little. “Welcome to the party gentlemen.”
\tTheir eyes widened upon sight of the mutant turtle. He could see their automatic fear of him. The unknown. The unusual. It always scared the newbies. And these cops, the ones still trying to fight for justice, had a lot to be afraid of. Luckily for them, it wasn’t him.
\tRaph turned and was about to jump for the next roof when one of the officers shouted, “W-Wait!”
Raph turned to him curiously, “Yeah?”
“W-What are you?”
He’d been asked that question many, many times in his life. He wasn’t going to bother trying to explain it them. “Just some guy.” He said and hopped to the next roof. They didn’t fire.
Raph jumped down the appropriate alleyway that lead to his home. His feet so silent against the cement below despite landing from a two-story drop. He didn’t bother being sneaky anymore. At this time of night, this area was bathed in darkness regardless of the dim, flickering street lights posted on each block. Very few windows glowed with light and even fewer cars would pass by. This was Raph’s favorite section of the city. People used to call it the ‘bad side of town’ but the city had gotten so bad everywhere that it was just known as the ‘quiet side of town’ instead.
Raph walked up to the apartment building in front of him that had five windows on the bottom floor, he opened up the third window that lead into his apartment.
He had kept an anonymous profile with the landlord, who was surprisingly understanding of his ‘predicament.’ He had fed him a fake story of suffering from a near-fatal car accident and despite the wounds had healed, he wasn’t comfortable being out in public. He had told him his ‘wife’ had left him and he needed a place to stay for a while. It took Raph some time to create a fake profile of him and his ‘past rentals’ without his genius brother to draw it up for him. But with April’s generous help, they had managed well enough. Once the landlord had agreed, he had paid him in cash, by mail, every month as he had promised. The man slowly but surely trusted him more and more.
There were only a few incidents where Raph had to answer the door, to which he dressed from head to toe, with the excuse of sun poisoning as his explanation.
Other than that though, he had no problems. His neighbors weren’t overly fond of him. He never made noise, so they had no complaints, but he was never friendly with them the few times they had tried to welcome him home.
Out of force of paranoia and just plain curiosity, Raph had done a background check on his neighbors, just to be safe. He had found out that a pretty blonde woman lived in the room on his right. Her name was Zoe Some Last Name He Didn’t Know How To Pronounce, who was a student in law school, had a couple of abusive boyfriends in her past, and parents that barely tolerated her. The girl had never committed a crime aside from a few speeding tickets and was, as far as he could tell, innocent.
In the room across from him, lived a little old lady who had an unhealthy obsession with potted plants and would go into anaphylactic shock around anything furry. Thank god Raph only had scales. He had researched a little on her past and was pleasantly surprised to find out the woman used to be a biker back in the day. She had been charged multiple times with vandalism and had dated copious amount of men who were decked up with tattoos and piercings. Nowadays, the woman would go to her yoga classes three times a week and her knitting classes only two.
Then, there was Frank Smith, who lived to the room on his left. Frank was a middle-aged bald man who had accomplished growing a beard down to his nipples and topping the world record for the amount of coke cans you can drink in a day. Raph had often gotten complaints from his brothers back when they were teens about the volume of his snores at night, but Frank would have shocked all of them with his obnoxious sawing noises at the dead of night. And these paper-thin walls did nothing to cut the noise. Frank had easily convinced Raph that he was a felon despite his ‘harmless’ appearance. So other than Frank, Raph had zero problems with his home.
Raph stiffened right as he stepped into his apartment. He had the sudden sense that someone was watching him.
Slowly, Raph pulled his leg out from his window while his hand drifted over to where his sai was tucked in his belt beneath his jacket. His eyes scanned the buildings that surrounded him but he saw nothing out of sorts.
Then, past the noise of Frank’s thunderous snores and television static, he heard the creak of metal above him. Raph’s eyes darted up just in time to see the black figure jump from his buildings fire escape and land on top of him. The weight of the figure surprised him and his knees ended up collapsing from beneath him. Going with the momentum, Raph continued to roll, knocking his attacker off of him.
Raph immediately regretted the amount of alcohol he had consumed as he attempted to scramble back to his feet. The sweat on his palms making it harder to grab for his sais. The world was spinning before him and he swore there were three figures in front of him instead of one as he had first seen. He couldn’t make out any details. The shadows seeming to hug the person, hiding away his physique. Plus, his eyes were beginning to blur up.
“Who the hell are you?” Raph snarled. Unaware of how little his words were decipherable past his slurs.
The figure didn’t answer him. Instead it lunged for him. Prepared for this movement, Raph attempted to raise his sais for an attack, but for reasons unknown to him he couldn’t quite get them up fast enough before the figure tackled him. The air departed from Raph’s lungs as the two went tumbling down. They wrestled on the ground for a while. Raph slowly getting irritated by the slipperiness of his opponent, he just couldn’t quite get him pinned down. Finally, his assailant seemed to have had enough of him, and raised his fist up in the air and hammered it down against Raph’s temple.
Raph’s drunk brain rattled in his skull, momentarily stunning him and leaving him vulnerable. He blinked rapidly as black spots began to fade over his vision. He could feel his attacker moving above him, but he wasn’t sure what he was doing. Wasn’t he going to finish him off?
Right as that thought left his brain, Raph felt something sharp press into the side of his neck. Heat began spreading from the puncture area to the rest of his body, like when you drink something hot on a winters night. Raph attempted to move but was startled to find he couldn’t. His limbs felt as if they were pinned down with weights. The pounding in his head slowly beginning to fade away along with his care.
The realization was instantaneous. He had just been drugged!
Despite this conclusion though, Raph couldn’t remember why this should bother him. He couldn’t feel if his attacker was still on top of him or not. He was sure this was a bad thing, but he couldn’t remember why. Perhaps, this was another mad scientist looking for a subject to test on. Perhaps he was working for the Shredder.
A bit of panic stirred within him and he tried to fight against the bondage, but it was no use. The drug was far too powerful.
He panted and blinked against the spots that were threatening to consume his vision. Through them he could barely make out the dark figure of his attacker hovering above him. He saw it move as if reaching for something and then it pulled out a knife. The silvery blade reflecting against what little light could reach them from behind the building. The figure bent down beside him. Raph tried to pin-point any substantial features, but he still couldn’t see anything.
The figure pressed the blade against Raph’s skin. “I’m sorry, but I need you to bleed for me.”
The voice was male and somewhat familiar, but with Raph’s drugged up brain, he couldn’t remember. Raph moaned, the only thing he was capable of now and his eyes began to grow heavy. He couldn’t feel the blade anymore, and it was only until he could see the figure holding a plastic cylinder container filled with his blood that he ever realized he had been cut.
Raph knew he was going to die. It was nothing how he expected his death to be. He thought he would at least go out fighting. Instead he was going to be murdered in an alleyway because he was drunk. He briefly wondered how long it was going to take for Mikey to find out. He wondered if Leo would. If he would care. If he would grieve.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Whatever happened now, Raph didn’t seem to care anymore. He just wanted to sleep. And sleep he did. The drowsiness overcame Raph and his eyes drifted closed. The sounds of the city in the distance muting.
Raph awoke groggily. His head pounding and his body aching. He had experienced some massive hang overs but this one took the cake.
Groaning, Raph pried open his eyes, but quickly shut them at the bright light above him. It took a few more minutes, but eventually, he got used to his surroundings and he found that the light above him was the sky turning dawn. The sun hadn’t quite reached over the buildings, but it lit up everything enough for Raph to identify where he was. He was not in his bedroom as he had first suspected. Instead, he was lying on a pile of trash bags next to a dumpster in an alleyway behind his apartment building.
Confused, Raph slowly pushed himself up and was surprised by the soreness of his body. His limbs were trembling, sweat dampened his skin, and his stomach roiled. He’d had similar symptoms from a hangover before, but never to this degree. What had happened to him last night?
Raph’s eyes landed on his lone sai sitting a few feet away from him, half buried in the trash. Bending down, he scooped it up and examined it. There was no blood. Nothing to indicate it had been used besides the few scrapes it had gotten from the pavement. He slipped the sai into his belt and realized that its twin was missing. Raph immediately started rifling through the garbage in search of it but it was nowhere to be found. He wondered if someone had stolen it. If it had landed out here in the open instead of hidden like his other one was, then most likely some homeless guy or drugee passed by and found it.
Raph sighed irritably but chose not to worry about it. This wasn’t the first time he lost a sai. Hence the reason Splinter never gave him special made like he did for Leo and Don. Mikey was just as bad.
Raph stumbled over to his apartments window that was still ajar and slowly crawled through.
“Great. Just great.” Raph growled to himself at the mess his kitchen was in. Just as he’d expected, someone had ransacked his place. It was never a good idea to leave an opening to your home at night. Pots, pans, and cooking utensils he never used were strewn about the black and white honeycomb linoleum floor. His kitchen never had an update since the 70’s apparently, with its migraine inducing sunshine yellow cabinets, to its floral wallpaper backsplash, to its old antique stove. Raph didn’t mind the style too much just because he was never in here longer than five minutes. He never cooked anymore and he doubted he would be any good at it if he tried to. His gourmet meals mostly consisted of microwavable burritos, tv dinners, and Chinese take-out’s.
Deciding he would clean up the mess after he patched himself up and had a good, long nap, he shuffled through the debris and into the living room. His living room was empty to begin with. He only had three pieces of furniture; his brown leather reclining chair, his side table that held a lamp, and the entertainment cabinet that held his twenty-one-inch Panasonic television . . . that was no longer there. Of course, his one valuable object in the house would be taken. Not that it was that big of a loss, but still.
Raph continued on through the living room and into the bedroom which was just as empty. His only means for a bed was a futon which had a pile of red sheets and pillows stacked on top and a nightstand with a small lamp and a digital clock.
Across from the bedroom was a door that lead into the bathroom. He went into it and opened the medicine cabinet behind his mirror for the pain medication he supplied specifically for hangovers. He closed the cabinet and poured a good amount of the little white pills into his palm before tossing them into his mouth and grabbing a plastic cup from off the sink, filled it up with water, and chugged them down.
Raph sighed and allowed the sink to support his weight. All that walking had made him exhausted and weak. He really shouldn’t drink that much at night, but he needed the distraction yesterday more than anything. Last night had been his and Leo’s anniversary. Or it would have been had they still been together. Either way, he couldn’t afford the memories now.
Raph turned on the sink and splashed water on his face. When he raised his head to look at himself in the mirror, his eyes immediately zeroed in on the foreign bandage around his left bicep he was certain wasn’t there before. A spot of blood had soaked through the material.
Hesitantly, Raph reached over and unraveled the bandage from around his arm to reveal a cut about the length of his index finger. The wound was already all scabbed up and healing.
It took Raph a moment to wonder how that had happened and why this was such a concern for him, when memories came flooding back at once. He was heading home and he was drunk when he had been attacked by an unknown person. He had gotten his ass handed to him and then, he had been drugged. He remembered the figure had told him it wanted him to bleed and in the next moment it had a vial that contained his blood. But the figure didn’t kill him. Why?
Raph groaned at his returning headache and dropped his head into his hands. This was bad. He didn’t know what that thing wanted with his blood, but for whatever reason, it couldn’t be for good. He needed to find that guy and get his blood back before he does something stupid with it. Like make more mutagen and more monsters.
“Fuck.” Raph moaned pitifully. He felt horrible. He wanted nothing more than to say there wasn’t anything to worry about and crawl back into bed to sleep for the rest of the day, but he knew that would be a lie.
He might have just started another apocalypse.
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