Cold Fire Rising

Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

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Really, it was the water balloons that showed the proof more than anything. Later.

Later.

Much, much later.

After the despair, after all the horror of opening the floodgates, after days and days of screams and sobbing and denial and bargaining and reluctant acceptance, there were water balloons.

There was gentle, supervised acrobatic martial arts exercising. But nothing compared to the battle of the water balloons much later on.

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Mikey and Leo had daily sessions in Mikey's bedroom, meditating, coaxing out the emotional trauma already sealed off by scars and sutures and walls. Mostly, it ended with miserable, anguished crying. But Leonardo was determined, and put all of his strength and power into it. Sometimes that meant lying flat on the bed with Michelangelo curled against him, shivering, discussing each nightmare word by haltering word, as hours went by and they eventually fell asleep wrapped around each other, the moon adding extra glow to the sun. Even in sleep, Leo traced the outlines of his little brother's scars, as if they were a map that could lead him to a key to break apart the scars inside Mikey's mind.

At night Mikey slept hard, and long, and reacted every time when he woke up. A gasp, a whimper, a wail, a howl. Walls and doors were slowly breaking, cracking, shuddering, crumbling. Part of him shrieked in pure adrenaline-driven fear, while part of him stood strong and prepared to face the explosions.

Later, Raphael, walking past his room, heard a long, low moan that rose in pitch and exploded as he rushed into the room. But.

Mikey was bleeding. Literally. Physically. Curled up, hands over his face, thrashing from side to side. Some of the small cuts on his arms and legs had somehow reopened, scars bursting fresh. Blood was starting to soak into his sheets. Raph howled for his brothers and grabbed a towel and wrapped it around Mikey like a cocoon, pulling him against his chest, desperate and frightened.

"It's too dark," Mikey gasped like he was drowning. "It's too dark, I can't see, I can't feel, I can't do this! I CAN'T DO THIS. It hurts! Make it STOP." And Raph could only rock him and murmur that he was here and he would help him. And then at Don's command, Raph carried Mikey to the infirmary, and they hooked him up again with the pads on his chest and his head and the IV lines in his veins and the oxygen mask over his face. Deep inside his own mind, Raph could feel his brother, crying, somewhere in a smoke-filled void, and he couldn't touch him. Whimpering himself, Raphael cupped his brother's cheek. I...Mike, I'm here, I am here, little brother. Please hear me. Please feel me. I will never leave you. I will never let you go.

After bandages had been applied, Raph gently lifted Mike's shoulders and head and held the younger against his chest, against his racing heartbeat. "I'm here," he panted, "I'm here, I'll do whatever it takes, I'll keep you safe, just please stay with us. Don't leave us again."

A voice cried, distantly, Help me! And Raph's muscles stiffened as something reached out and grabbed his mind and pulled him down, down, dark and deep, and all he could think feel, or experience was I AM COMING FOR YOU, MIKEY and so the universe tilted and he went flying, he went into freefall, and he was screaming, and he needed to get to the sound of the crying, and it wasn't far now.

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Leonardo realized what was happening and sat on Michelangelo's other side, grabbing his hand in both of his. He launched into meditation and astral projection so forcefully that he lost his bearings. He barely had to think when the psychic implosion sucked him in and he went tumbling, stretching and twisting, falling and spinning, his mind instinctively reaching for the thing that wanted to grab him and he let it pull him down into the depths.