Living In Fear

The Brink of Insanity

The Demon was so pleased with the turtle called Donatello. The foolish turtle was playing directly into his hands, stubbornly convincing himself that the Demon was simply a hallucination that his mind had created to punish himself for what was done to the Michelangelo.

And he was supposed to be the most intelligent of the turtles...

It was amusing, really, watching the young turtle wonder whether or not he was going insane. And the Demon did whatever he could to make sure Donatello continued believing he was. Because as long as he believed this, he did his best to avoid his brothers, scared of what they would think if they found out.

Getting his brother's involved could very well foil everything the Demon was working so hard to accomplish, and there was no way the Demon was allowing that to happen. Donatello's mental walls were strong, but the Demon was wearing him out.

With each dream, with each new burst of fear, Donatello grew weaker and the Demon stronger. It was only a matter of time before the Demon would kick the genius into the far corners of his mind and claim the turtle's body as his own...

Only a matter of time...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Donnie bolted upright in his bed, hands shaking and heart racing. He looked about and quickly realized where he was, falling back onto his pillows moments later.

As April's screams began echoing through his mind, he threw up his hands and clutched them over his head, hoping to drown out the sound. He could still picture the fire in his mind, as real as if it had happened, and no matter how hard he tried to block it out, the dream stayed burnt into his memory. He knew that this dream, alike to the others he had suffered through for the past week, was now embedded in his brain.

Removing his hands from his head and breathing deeply, he pulled himself into a sitting position, curled up and placing his arms over his knees before leaning his head against the cool wall.

He hated to admit it, but these dreams were starting to affect him. He'd originally thought that he'd be fine as he used to missing a couple of hours of sleep due to his old habit of stay up late.

Yet, for a reason he couldn't figure out, he woke up each morning feeling more drained than when he'd gone to bed.

It was obvious that his brothers were beginning to notice his new behavior. Leo wouldn't stop asking him how he felt or if he was okay; Raph pretended he didn't notice, but Donnie caught the slightly worried looks he sent in his direction. Mikey was almost unbearable. Donnie had taken up locking his lab doors because Mikey refused to leave him alone.

Donnie wished that he could act more natural around them, but he was finding it hard to do anything lately. Tasks that used to take a couple of minutes seemed to stretch out for hours. His concentration seemed to be failing on him. The worst part of all of it was, no matter how hard he tried, he was getting nowhere in discovering why he was slowly losing his mind.

"Ah, so he admits it."

Or why the Demon insisted on sticking around...

"Go away." Donnie snapped in response, refusing to look up and find the creepy hallucination he knew was lurking nearby.

"I'm glad you're finally beginning to realize your insane. Are you going to tell your brothers now? Let them know how unreliable and crazy their brother truly is?"