When The World Ends

One Month

Pain was the first thing Jade registered.

A deep, relentless ache pulsed from her skull and spread like wildfire down to every battered inch of her body. Her limbs felt like lead. Her mouth tasted like copper. And her skin—god, her skin—burned wherever fresh wounds throbbed against stiff bandages. Her body screamed, but it was the silence that pulled her awake.

She wasn't alone.

Voices hummed from just outside the infirmary door. Familiar.

Donatello's low tone. Mickey's more casual murmur. Then a sentence, muffled but sharp enough to cut through the haze:

"Can't believe it's already been a month."

Her eyes snapped open.

A month?

Her mind fractured like glass hit with a hammer. No—no, that couldn't be right. Days. Maybe a week. Time had blurred in the chaos, in the pain, in the screaming and bruising and breaking. But a month?

She blinked again, the fluorescent light above her humming like a fly buzzing inside her skull.

Movement. A shifting shadow by the bed.

Mickey slouched in a chair beside her, elbows digging into his knees. Leonardo stood near the small metal table, his hands moving through the motions of preparing medical supplies with practiced ease. Neither of them spoke. Just watched her. Quiet. Tense.

Jade licked her cracked lips, tasting old blood. "I'm guessing you're here hoping for either my wake... or to put me down?"

Her voice was hoarse, half-gravel, half-sarcasm. A short, dry laugh escaped her lips—but neither of them answered.

Which meant she was right.

Mickey exhaled, sitting back with a sigh heavy enough to carry regret. "Shit, Jade. I know I took it too far."

His voice lacked the usual edge, stripped of its cocky bite. He sounded almost human—like someone who hadn't meant for it to get this bad. Like someone surprised she was still breathing.

"I shouldn't have done it."

Jade just stared at him. For a guy who usually wore violence like a badge of honor, he looked like someone who'd kicked a dog too hard and didn't know how to apologize for it.

Before she could respond, Leo stepped up beside her, med kit in hand.

"Hold still."

His voice was softer. Steady. That strange calm he always carried like a second skin. And for some reason, maybe because she was too broken to argue, she actually obeyed.

The bed dipped slightly as he sat beside her. His touch was gentle, too gentle. He wiped the dried blood from her cheek with quiet efficiency, tilting her chin with surgeon's hands to inspect the cut above her brow.

Jade kept her eyes on him—watching.

Leo wasn't like the others. Raphael hit like he was made of war. Mickey loved the thrill of the fight. But Leo? Leo was control. Purpose. Precision.

She wondered if he fought the way he moved now—if he was as cruel in the ring as he was kind in the silence.

The sharp tug of a needle pulled her back into her body. She barely flinched.

"You should've let me bleed out," she muttered.

Leo didn't answer right away. Just cleaned the deep knife wound on her arm—one of Raphael's finer pieces of work.

From the corner, Mickey scoffed. "And miss out on round three? No way."

Leo glanced at him, irritation flashing through the quiet. "Mickey."

"What?" he shrugged. "I mean—I'd let her rest a few days first."

Jade rolled her eyes. The two of them fell into a low back-and-forth argument she didn't have the energy to follow. It faded into the background, like static.

But something new took shape in her chest. Not fire—she was too tired for that. Not hope—she'd long since abandoned that idea.

No. It was a cold, heavy weight.

A month.

No one had come.

The next day, they didn't hold back.

From the second she stepped onto the mat, she could feel it. The difference. The shift.

This wasn't training.

This was war.

Leo didn't say a word when he handed her a knife. Mickey gave her a slight nod before lunging. She dodged, barely. The blade in her hand felt too heavy, her body still recovering. Raphael caught her off guard and slammed her down on the mat with enough force to knock the breath out of her lungs.

Donatello circled her like a wolf. "We're not training you anymore," he said. "We're finishing you."

Every punch was a lesson. Every strike a punishment.

They beat her until her vision blurred. Until her knees buckled. Until her muscles screamed and begged to give out.

And still, they kept coming.

She fought back. As much as she could. She swung. Blocked. Bit. But she was losing.

Every time she rose, Raphael knocked her back down.

Mickey dragged her up, only to slam her down again.

Over.

And over.

And over.

But she didn't cry.

Didn't scream.

Didn't ask them to stop.

When it was over—when they left her there, panting and bleeding on the cold floor—she didn't try to crawl back to the cot. Instead, she dragged herself to the nearest wall and pressed her fists to the concrete.

Then she punched it.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

Until her knuckles split and the skin tore and pain lit up her arm like lightning.

Her voice trembled—raw, quiet.

"No one's coming."

And something inside her—something fragile and waiting—shattered.