Fantasma

Chapter 5: Fight in the Sewers

Donatello sat up from the couch, having fallen asleep there, after movie night. He sat up, listening intently. To his surprise, Leonardo sat against the far wall, staring attentively at his hands. The rest of the lair remained silent.

"... Leo?" Donnie walked over to his older brother and gasped osftly as he caught fall sight of his brother. "I-I-Is th-that b-bl-blood...?"

Leonardo looked up, his eyes moving from his ensanguined hands. "D-Don... I didn't mean to-" The blue cladded turtle shook his head, his lips beginning to quiver. "I--I don't want to be like this, I don't want to... I should have just died."

"I'm going to get Master Splinter-"

"Stop."

Donnie froze as all of his muscles tensed, his limbs becoming immobile. "W-What the...?"

Leo walked towards his younger brother, his sapphire blue eyes slowly clouding over. Donatello shook in fear, and for the first time in all of his life- that fear was of his eldest brother. Almost as if he read his mind, the elder turtle flinched and turned away.

"Sleep and forget."

"... N-no... Leo."

The command became more firm. "Sleep and forget!"

"Leo..." Donatello fell to the floor, his body crashing uselessly to the cold pavement.

"I thought you might wake up." Donatello didn't glance away from his laptop's screen. The glow gave his face an eerie, blue cast. "Come here, I want to talk to you."

"Huh?" Michelangelo made his way from the doorway and into his brother's laboratory. "You okay?"

"I've been having these odd dreams," Donnie replied, his eyes not moving from the electronic glow. "They're about Leo. I've been having them for a while, and I've been trying to brush them off, but-"

Mikey swallowed once, both nervous and feeling the brush of Leo's command closing his throat. "You will say nothing of this- you will not communicate this in any way, do you understand?" He uttered the only syllable he was allowed to.

"Yeah?"

The purple-clad turtle tilted the screen, "Lucid dreams. Leo, he's always coming back from the sewers in the dead of night and- sometimes he's crying, but..."

Mikey started to speak, only to have his teeth snap shut of their own will. He winced and put a hand over her mouth, giving a single questioning, "Hm?"

"-but I can smell blood."

Finally, Donatello looked up at Michelangelo. In the overly blue light, he appeared exhausted and drawn. "And I want to comfort him, to help him... But I don't know why..." His face twisted, closing in on himself. With a shudder, he turned the screen so that his younger brother could see it.

The orange cladded turtle's brilliant, unassuming and cunning brother had left his tablet somewhere unobtrusive, out of sight and quietly recording everything that happened in the room. The form of their brother emerging from the sewers late at night, blood covering his shaking hands as he locked eyes with a bleary-eyed Donatello. Then Leonardo's mouth moved, and the sound was muted, but Michelangelo wondered if they'd be forced to forget again even if the command was just on a digital file.

"He's not going to let me figure out... whatever this is." Donnie looked up at him, "What's he doing? How is he...? I'm not going crazy, am I?"

Mikey pressed his hand against his mouth. Every part of him wanted to speak, but where Leo's command to sleep had been weak, the command to stay silent had been deliberate. He couldn't think of saying the words without his throat closing up.