Symbiosis

|Chapter 26|

~Three Months After Leaving New York~

(At the Farmhouse)

POV 3rd Person(Donnie):

'Leo still hasn't woken up. For the past three months, everyone has been doing their own thing, doing anything to fill the empty hours, for hours on end I would stay inside the barn, working on the formula to perfect the retro-mutagen, yet nothing was working. I worked on this projection day after day after day, I had no time to rest, I had to save Kirby, April was depending on me and I can't let her down, she needs me...she finally needed me'

'Yet as the weeks and months merged, I could tell how long I was in that barn, I didn't even remember when the last time I ate, I couldn't stay in the cramped barn for another second, I needed a new atmosphere, a new space, and for two weeks I've been working inside the living listening to the TV as the two kids sit on a nest of pillows and blankets, the older one eating the small snack April made him over an hour ago, I wonder why they're not with Mikey.'

'Mikey hardly ever comes inside the house, always working in the fields, working close with the crops and animals, he's always busy with something whether its chores or these kids. Casey fills his time working on the vehicles we have, checking the party wagon, and fixing up the old truck in the barn, but whenever we are tired, we sleep on the barn couch. April stays in her room for hours on end and only comes down whenever the kids need her, which is rare since Mikey's the one caring for them, yet...as I listen, taking just a moment to listen, for small moments I swear I could hear something pounding on the wall and just barely the sound of something crying. But she's not the one that worries me the most, its Raph...'

'For the past three months, he has not once left the Leo's side. No matter what we try whether that's making him come to bed or even eating a freaking meal, Raph won't leave the bathroom, and...as time goes on, I don't know if we'll be able to take our city back...'

"Yayyy!!!", Jay threw his arms up in the air, and pushed himself up to his knees, crawling closer and closer to the screen, "Shhhhhhh April's asleep kid", looking at the boy, he watched as he nodded and stepped back from the TV, Donnie continued to work on possible recipes, thinking of any possible ingredients that would help yet the task was deemed impossible, he had no way to prove his hypothesis, he didn't have the right tools, and whatever chemicals he had was used to make a medicine for Leo when he woke up, yet in addition all he had was the testing rods and mutagen he brought here from the lair. 

'Alright... let's look this over one more time', pulling one of his hands away from the keyboard, Donnie reached into his pouch. He pulled out his small trusty notepad, "Mutagen: originally found in its purest form from the kraathatrogons, produced to feed its young. Mutagen contains different proteins and non-proteins, as well as some chemicals. Components so far identified: proteins are casein, α-lactalbumin, lactoferrin, secretory immunoglobulin IgA, lysozyme, and serum albumin. Non-protein nitrogen-containing compounds, including urea, uric acid, creatine, creatinine, amino acids, and nucleotides, comprise ~45% of the kraathatrogon's milk nitrogen-", as Donnie named off each ingredient, he wrote them down on the notepad, writing them underneath their groups, "-The mutagen underneath a microscope contains chemicals that look alike or have similar structures like bisphenol A, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, hexachlorobenzene, and the cyclodiene pesticides, which include dieldrin, heptachlor, and chlordane-"

*RINGING* *RINGING-*

Donnie stopped speaking at the sound of someone's phone beginning to vibrate on the table, looking through his satchel, he noticed that he still had his own, so..., "Oh! That's Uncle Mikey's phone!", pushing himself up, Jay ran straight towards the table and grabbed the phone, answering it before he even looked at the screen, "Hello?"