Raph's Nightmares

Leo

The beginning is always blurry.

No matter how many times I rub my eyes, or how hard. It's blurry.

I take a deep breath as I look out from the window, to see exactly what I expect to see. In front of me, a building. Down there, the alleyway, five floors underneath my feet. And I'm floating.

First thing, get to the floor, I hate flying in dreams.

Clouds rush past me and I open my arms, but I can't feel them. The scenery is changing, and I'm walking along a deserted street, surrounded by trees. I can hear the birds and some squirrels jump from branch to branch, in the same direction I'm heading. I look up and realize the sky has a very sepcial tone of blue, it's cloudless, although there is no sun. I force my feet to stop, slowly gaining conscience. It is me the one who has to be in control of the dream,  and not the other way round. I lean against a tree and take long deep breaths, trying to think straight. What I am here for. Why can't I just wake up the minute I'm starting to panick. I squeeze my eyes shut and ignore the squirrels nibbling on my head. A sudden realization makes me smack them off me, and I start running, being positive that the crawly-creepy sound I hear are cockroaches.

I have pissed the dream off. Now we are talking.

I concentrate on both leaving the roaches behind and change the scenery. Last time Leo was mumbling in his sleep he didn't talk about a place like this. He was in the sewers. That is a place as good as any other to start from. It takes a toll, though, to change something so powerful as this stupid nightmare. I feel my energy draining and I can imagine my body tossing and turning as I sleep on my bed. I just hope that Mikey doesn't come with the brilliant idea of waking me up, or I'll kill him. For real this time.

I stop running and crouch down, holding my head, creating a powerful image of the sewers. Trying to at least. The image glitches when the roaches creep all over me and I start to panick. I don't know how long it takes, but I finally give in and roll on the floor screaming my head out and smacking my arms and head. I'm good. I'm good. I keep repeating myself as I swallow hard and look up.

"Took you long enough, knucklehead"

I take the hand Leo is offering me and pull myself up, looking around. I'm in a place I don't recognize and I have certainly not thought of. And he is looking at me, smiling brightly, his arms crossed across his chest, as good as new. I stare at him for a long while, slouching a bit. He starts to laugh a bit, and I try to reach for my anger and slap him, but I'm too astonished to do anything like that. I keep staring until I can shrug it off and come up with something to say.

"Took me long - what?"

And that's the first thing I say to him. I'm brilliant right?

"Come. I need to show you something".

I grab his arm and yank him back.

"No, you're not - nothing. You are going to answer all the questions I have for you, starting from what the shell is going on with you".

"With me?"

His eyes look into mine, utterly confused. I let go and cross my arms, not knowing what to think any more.

"You're passed out back home. And you have all of us worried sick. What is going on?"

"Home?" He blinks a few times and his reaction starts to sink in.

"Leo. You're asleep. This is a dream".

"Oh." He frowns and looks down, rubbing his chin. "That explains so many things. Like why I  keep repeating the same things so many times. Or why I can't find you guys."

"But you were waiting for me".

He brightens up and grabs my arm.

"I was! Because I knew you were coming! After all this time looking for all of you, she finally told me you'd arrive today!"

I smack his hand and stand rooted to the spot, not feeling very attracted by the idea of following Leo into his world of madness.

"She? Who is she?"

"That's what I want you to see! Come!" He tugs at my arm again and I give in, annoyed. After a few minutes I stop him one more time.

"There's something else. This" I lift my hand, the blue mask is tied around my wrist. He looks at me, then at the mask, and shrugs.

"I guess it's mine?"

"I found it in the real world. And you never took yours off back there".

He rubs the back of his head, thinking.

"I - I don't know Raph. I have just realized we are in a dream, so... I don't know how to answer that. But maybe she can."

I growl, starting to feel annoyed by that 'she', that I can't help but picture as another Karai.

"One more thing." I look down and take a deep breath before I can speak again and muster the courage to look into his blue eyes. "Whenever I come near you in Donnie's lab... You try to attack me. And only by standing in the same room you get all crazy and restless in your sleep. No idea about that, either?"

"Uh..." He looks clueless, and I grumble under my breath. So much effort for this...? There's only one card I can still play, just to prove to myself that the dream trip hasn't been useless. I tackle Leo and start to slap him as hard as I can. It takes him a few moments to react and try to push my hands off.

"H-hey... RAPH! What are you doing?!"

"I'm. Trying. To. Wake you. UP!"

"Well that's clearly not working!"

I stop and slouch a bit, still pinning him down to the floor with my knees. He rubs his face and looks startled at me.

"Can I get up now?"

I roll my eyes and get off him reluctantly.

"Jeez, looks like there are many things you guys aren't figuring out". He seems to realize all of a sudden the consequences that his state could bring along.

"Wait... what happens if I never wake up? Uh... Will you even wake up again?"

"Well you... Wait, what?!"

I haven't thought about it, to be honest. What if I can't wake up either and Donnie has to pull another desk next to Leo's in his lab to plug me to the monitors? What if he can't even do that because my body can't be near Leo's without him tossing and turning? Oh, please, Mikey, throw a water balloon at my face now. Please. Right now.

I hear a laugh in the distance and I gulp, feeling goose bumps. It sounds somehow off and supernatural, as if it wasn't attached to any body. I draw my sais out and look over at Leo. He's grinning, and that scares me a bit more.

"Oh, good, finally you can meet her!"