The Rising (final book of The Call series) ~ TMNT Fanfiction

Chapter 30: Living Nightmare

Leo's POV: 

I wake up sobbing. My heart is racing, and I feel dizzy.

"It's okay, Leo," Mikey says softly. "It was just another bad dream. Everything is okay."

Once my heart rate finally goes down, I close my eyes.

"Are they the same?" Donnie asks quietly.

"No," I say. "The dreams are getting darker." I know we have to have been gone for at least a few weeks. I'm not entirely sure when the nightmares began, but it was sometime after Sullivan's nephew came to visit us.

"Do you want to talk about this one?" Mikey asks.

I stay silent for a few moments, still trying to comprehend reality. My heart rate is slowing, but I'm still shaken from my dream. I look up, and see Mikey and Donnie looking at me expectantly.

"They found Lexi. She was walking to the lair; she was alone. The Dark Angels...they found her and they took her. They beat her, and they tortured her..." I trail off, and close my eyes. The images remain in my head, no matter how much I try to cast them out. "Even worse than anything they've done to us. She was screaming, and there were people around but nobody heard her. The Dark Angels were in plain sight and yet nobody did anything."

"It was a dream, Leo," Donnie says softly. "You know people would do something in real life."

"I know," I whisper, shaking my head. "It was just...hard to see. They took her to the Brooklyn Bridge. She was screaming the entire way. They tossed her off the bridge. I woke up while she was falling." My brain hurts from the replayed images. Lexi's tormented and terror-ridden face. Her screams. Melinda's look of satisfaction.

And the fact that I could do nothing to help.

"Were you there in this dream? Could you do anything?"

"Nothing," I say. "It was like...watching a movie. A sick, twisted movie. I could only sit there and hope that the ending turned out alright. I wasn't in her reach – couldn't do anything." I squeeze my eyes shut. "I couldn't do anything..."

"You've been having a lot of those," Mikey says. "Do you think there's a meaning behind it?"

"I don't care if there's a meaning. I just want them to stop," I say. I feel helpless. I haven't had nightmares like this since I was young. And even then, they were much less graphic and less frightening. Most importantly, they were less likely to happen.

"I think it's a reaction to you being away for so long. It's a sense of helplessness. Not only are you unable to be near her physically, but you have no idea what's happening right now. Even if she is safe, your mind doesn't know that. So naturally, it roams and your imagination can come up with a lot of different things. But like I said, it's out of your reach. So it's showing itself through dreams," Donnie explains.

I don't really ask him to explain or give me his scientific reasoning, and quite frankly, I don't want it. It doesn't change the fact that I've been having these nightmares for what I'm pretty sure has been weeks, and they're only getting worse. But for some reason, his explanation helps a little bit. Even if the dreams don't go away, the explanation puts me at ease for now.

My brothers and I always tease Donnie about how he always acts like he knows everything. And usually, he does know nearly everything. It can get annoying sometimes. But it's times like this that we're grateful for his explanations. Even if it's just him trying to reassure himself, it gives us some sort of security.

Lexi's POV:

I don't delete things and I don't throw things out. It's one of the biggest problems I have, because my life is one cluttered mess of memories. I have phone numbers from people I haven't talked to since the seventh grade, and I'm still holding onto selfies I took on days where I didn't look as good as I thought I looked at the time. My room is a canyon of cards and notes. I've got a rock that a boy who had a crush on me in the 2nd grade gave me, and doodles from the 6th grade, when we were learning about Mesopotamia. I don't delete things and I don't throw things out.