The Shadow's Secret│TMNT

TSS First Draft

Hey everyone!

I'd like to share the very first draft of The Shadow's Secret in case anyone is interested in reading it! (it's only 19,000 words so it won't take up much of your time lol) There are a million typos and very poor grammar choices, and it's hella cringey and hardly any planning went into it so please no judging lmao I wrote it two years ago when I was fourteen and it only took me like two months so (forewarning) it's gonna be pretty bad!

The Shadow's Secret First Draft

No one believed me.

They dismissed my story as a mere dream or tale to gain attention when I was younger.

But as I grew older, they all thought I was insane.

But I never gave up.

I spent years trying to find him again.

I couldn't give up; not when I'd witnessed something incredible.

I was walking home from school one day, back when I was around thirteen. I decided to take a short cut because I knew there was pizza waiting for me at home, so I turned down an alleyway. Everything was fine until these big smelly guys with beards suddenly formed a circle around me. I tried running from them but one of them grabbed me and threatened me with a knife to stay quiet. I kicked him in between his legs but when he dropped me, his buddies just grabbed me and tied a rag around my mouth so my screams were muffled. Then, this guy darted from a shadow and past one of my attackers. The big dude fell to the ground. The rest formed a circle around me, knives out. The guy came at them again, picking them off until only the one who had threatened me remained. In desperation, he grabbed me and held his knife to my throat, drawing a thin line of blood. I didn't dare struggle against him. A silver streak hit his knife away from me. I punched him and dove away as the shadow guy took him down. I squinted through the dust that hung in the air and tried my best to see what he looked like in the gloomy, sunless alley. He was bigger than the guys he just took out. He was really muscular too and he had a bald head, with dark skin and a sort of hunchback. He bent and picked the silver thing off the ground, he turned to look at me. And through the cloud of dust I glimpsed a pair of glinting, alien-ish blue eyes. And with that, my saviour disappeared into the shadows from whence he came.

I had gone after him of course, but the dark alley I followed him down led only to a dead end. As did most of my research. The few leads I got only remained stable and reliable for a short time before tapering off into nothing. I filled notebooks upon notebooks of notes, newspaper articles, photos, (possible) evidence, ideas, theories, stories, and anything I could find, no matter how ridiculous it sounded. It was my life. Those eyes had pierced through the shadows and into my mind forever. And since that memory was my only solid evidence, I had researched eyes for hours, trying to learn everything I could about them. I scrolled through countless pictures of all sorts until I made the unusual discovery that my saviour's eyes appeared to be those of a reptilian humanoid; reptilian referring more specifically, to a turtle.

"Pizza's here!" Olivia called. Yes!

"Bring it over here!"

"That delivery guy was so hot, I almost tipped him my number instead of cash." She set my boxes down in front of me and took hers over to sit on the couch in front of the TV. Netflix lit up the screen. I looked up from my notebook in time to see my sister giving me a concerned look,

"You should take a break Raiy, come watch a movie."

I shook my head, "can't."

She raised her eyebrows and selected a movie for me to see, "are you sure?" She drawled. The movie started playing. I snapped my notebook shut, snatched my pizza up and ran over to the other couch. Olivia laughed and threw me my favourite blanket. There were few things that made me pause my research, and one of them was Now You See Me. I had this uncontrollable love for it and I didn't know why. Olivia fell asleep halfway through the movie and began to snore so loud that I had to throw a pillow over her face. When the movie came to an end, I put all the pizza in the fridge and my notebook in my room. Then, I stumbled back to the couch where my spot was still warm and I fell asleep there, while gazing over the city that never sleeps.