We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
The sky exploded and he screamed again, only this time it wasn’t just in his head…the burning face was coming back and the darkness was dripping with blood.
Someone called out to him and the shadows retreated…cold talons snapping him back into a sunless reality…
“Another nightmare?”
“Shh. He’s still asleep.”
He lowered his voice. “What was it this time?”
Raph shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell me. Closed off completely, just sat there and shook for ten minutes until I made him go back to sleep. I don’t think we need to guess what they’ve been about.”
Closing his eyes, Leo wrapped his hands around the mug, staring at the tea inside. “What time is it?”
Shrugging, Raph glanced at the clock. “Five-fifteen, maybe?”
“I think we should let Mike sleep as late as he needs,” Leo said. “It hasn’t been that long since--”
“I don’t think I like it though,” Don cut in. “It’s a regression.”
Leo glanced at him. “He needs time to heal, Don. He watched people die. He’s—it’s been traumatic. I know, I’ve been there.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, the three of them, listening to the ticking of clocks and the stillness of the air. Then Raph’s head whipped around toward the bedroom door and he scraped back his chair. “Shit…”
“What?” Don stood up.
“Another one. Be right back.”
Raph pushed open the door and ran to the bedside. Mike was curled into a tight ball, arms over his head. Raph touched his arm carefully.
“No--” Mike jerked, his voice a high shudder. “No…go away…”
“Mike, it’s me again. It’s Raph. It’s okay, just relax…”
“No…make it go away…just make it stop…”
Feeling a tightness in his chest, Raph sat on the bed and pulled his shaking brother into his arms. “I’ll try, Mike. Can’t guarantee it, but we’ll try…it’s gonna be all right…we’ll make it be all right again, I promise…”
It was another fifteen minutes before the shaking subsided. Raph wasn’t even sure if Mike had heard him anymore.
“Better?” Don asked when he came back out.
“Not really.” Raph sat down at put his head in his hands.
“What?” Leo asked.
“Nothing,” Raphael whispered.
“Raph…”
“No. Leave me alone. Leave him alone. I can’t…”
Leaning over, Leo put a hand on his arm. “Are you in his head?”
Raph didn’t answer, just kept his head pressed into his palms. “Not like that,” he whispered finally. “He…it’s like he calls me and doesn’t realize. Like it’s automatic or something…”
Leo looked at Don, who looked back. Raph opening up like that…did he actually want to talk?
Don shook his head, as if understanding. No…he doesn’t even realize he is.
“It’ll be okay,” Don reassured.
A shadow appeared in the doorway. They looked up.
Mike was standing there like a sleepwalker, something dark all over his face.
“Shit!” Raph gasped, jumping up, eyes wide. Leo and Don were on their feet in half a second.
Red rivulets ran down Mike’s cheeks, disappearing below his jaw. He held up his shaking hands. They were covered in blood.
April got up, went to the window and pulled back the curtain. It was raining; dark clouds rolled across the sky. But there was no thunder. Rain poured down in sheets, splattering the dark pavements. She glanced at the clock radio. Five-thirty.
Something’s wrong, a tiny voice in the back of her head piped up.
The storm, she thought. The weather…
Something’s wrong, her mind whispered again.
She went out into the hall and got the phone.
Something cool and wet against his face; stinging. He flinched, hands clenching…
“Sorry,” Don’s voice murmured. “I’m trying not to hurt you…”
He sucked in a deep breath. Something hurt…his eyes. Face. The cloth touched again and he made a weak noise of protest. Couldn’t remember.
A hand was closed over his own. “It’s okay,” Leo said in his ear. “It’s okay, just relax. Can you open your eyes?”
He opened them slowly; focused. Stared into Don’s face.
“Can you see me?” Don asked.
He nodded. A little out of focus. His eyes felt as if they’d been pressed, pushed…and something hurt…
He put a hand up to his face. Blood. “What did I do?” he whispered hoarsely.
Nightmare…
The phone rang shrilly, startling the dawn silence. Leo got up to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Leo?”
“April? It’s six in the morning. Thought you were asleep.”
“Though you’d be too,” she said.
He frowned. “What is it?”
“I could ask you the same thing. I woke up, and it felt like something was wrong.”
Leo closed his eyes, sighing; was everyone suddenly turning empathic? “Mike…had another nightmare. He sleepwalked again.”
April paused just a heartbeat. “What happened?”
“He scratched his face up pretty bad,” Leo whispered. “I think…I think he was trying to tear his eyes out.”
Stunned silence. “My god…” April breathed.
“He’s okay,” Leo added quickly. “He’s just starting to come out of it now.”
“Why?” she asked. He knew what she meant.
“Maybe…he doesn’t want to see the nightmares anymore.” He leaned his forehead against the phone, closing his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“But his inner sight is stronger,” she said.
He nodded. “I know. But terror makes you do crazy things…”
“Do you want me to come over?” she asked.
“You don’t have to,” he said. “But it might calm him down if we were all here…”
“I’m on my way,” she said curtly, and hung up. Leo slowly replaced the receiver, trying to count up how many times she had said those four words. Too many. He rested his head against the cold metal again, and went back to the kitchen.
Splinter was there now, hand against Mike’s temple. Mike was breathing hard and fast, almost panicky. His eyes were closed, his jaw trembling.
“What did I do?” he whispered again. “Donnie?”
“Scratched your face up,” Don replied quietly. Mike’s hand groped for something; Raph automatically grasped and held it.
Mike was shaking his head, his eyes open now. “I did that? I…” He pushed them away; got up and all but hobbled into the bathroom. Leo glanced at the others, then followed.
Mike was standing at the sink, staring at the mirror, his hands on his face and his eyes huge without his mask.
“Mike?” Leo asked softly. “You okay?”
“Leo…” he gasped. “I…oh god, I…”
He started trembling again; and Leo immediately rushed forward. “Hey...Mike, don’t worry…it’s okay…”
His brother turned with a choke; blood drying on his face and his eyes deep with fear. “No,” he whispered. “No, it’s not…it’s not…”
“Shh…” Leo put his arms around him. “You’ll get through this, Mikey, I promise. We won’t let you get hurt.”
Uncertain arms went around him, and then Mike was holding on tight. “Leo…sorry…”
“It’s all right,” he said, closing his eyes. “You’ll be okay.”
A minute later, the front door opened, and he heard April run in.
Splinter sealed the wounds with salve, and the bleeding stopped quicker than expected. Mike just sat there the whole time, eyes closed, breathing so slowly and focused that Don figured he was fixing it from the inside.
Mike finally came out of it around nine. He curled up on the couch, cross-legged, and ran his fingers over his face again, an expression of confusion and fear haunting him. Don sat down next to him and lightly touched his shoulder. “How you doing?”
“Better,” Mike said quietly. He took his hands from his face and dropped them in his lap. “Thanks.”
“Any time,” Don said, although inside he was still shaking. Self-mutilation…and he didn’t even know he was doing it…he has no control over his dreams anymore…
“It’s not like that,” Michaelangelo said softly, and Don almost jumped.
Mike bit his lip. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to…to listen…”
“No, it’s okay. What?”
Sighing, Mike played with his bandanna tails. “It’s not that I don’t have control. I just…can’t make them go away.”
Don nodded slowly. “So you strike out the only way you know how…try to fight them off…and the only thing close by that you can fight is yourself…”
Closing his eyes, Mike exhaled. “So I end up hurting myself…and I don’t even realize it till I wake up…”
Don’s hand closed over his wrist. “Mike, what are you thinking? Not dr--”
His brother just shook his head. “No. I can’t. If I take something and I dream, I won’t be able to wake up enough to stop myself…to stop…”
Don felt something inside him tighten. “Mikey…”
“I can’t go to sleep, Don.” Mike turned and looked at him, and his eyes were dark fathoms. “I can’t let myself fall asleep…”
In the dusky light streaming beneath the manhole, he crouched with pen and notebook, hunched into the shadows. The slow drip of rainwater from overhead reverberated across the walls.
Silence is a virtue
Loneliness is pain
Darkness all around
Nothing left to gain
“Philosophy won’t get you anywhere if you don’t make something of it,” the ghost with a thousand voices said in his ear. “Your own mind betrays you.”
Nature is a vampire
Sunless world of blood
I lift my wings, soul to climb higher
Caught forever in the flood
“Poetry,” the ghost murmured. “That’s your life. You are a poet as much as you are a warrior. Maybe even more. The way you fight is poetry. The way you speak belies your denial.”
I am silence in the void
A thousand voices call
My thoughts no longer move alone
No choice but to fall
“Denial of what?” he finally whispered.
“The world,” the ghost said. “You hide your fear behind laughter. You can’t bear to see others in pain, so you take it all into yourself. And what does that leave you with?”
He closed the notebook and stood up. “I don’t have to listen to you anymore. You’ve been dead a long time. All of you.”
He walked back toward the lair. The ghost with a thousand faces watched him go.
“When we get depressed, we do depressing things,” Raph said. “Mike vents in his writing. I just wish I could do that.”
“Who says you can’t?” Don asked.
Raph gave him a look, his legs swinging over the water. “Please. Me, a writer? I’m a warrior, not a poet.”
“Who says you can’t be both?” Don stood up on the bridge, wrapping a hand around one of the steel girders criss-crossing the structure. “I mean, I’m a warrior, but I’m also a scientist and philosopher. Leo’s a teacher, sort of. And you…c’mon, Raph, you can’t just have the soul of a warrior and nothing else.”
“And what if I do?” Raph stood up too, facing him. “Maybe that is my art, Donnie. Has it ever occurred to you guys that Mike and I might be exactly the same?”
Don stood there for a minute, blinking. “Now that you mention it...”
With an exhaled burst of air, Raph gave a slight grin. “Yeah. Thought so.”
Looking down at the river, Don but his lip. “This morning, when Mike…called you. You said you couldn’t help it…you had to answer.”
“Yeah?” Raph said absently.
“Sometimes…” Don sat next to him and tilted his head back. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s like that for all of us. Maybe being around Mike just created a…conduit. We feel each other.”
Raph looked at him, half in surprise, half in amusement. “We always have.”
Don shook his head. “Not like this, though.”
“Yeah…” Raph picked up a gray pebble and tossed it into the water. “I love Mikey to death…but sometimes I just wish the cup hadn’t been passed our way.”
He changed his mind and went up to the streets, moving into the shadows and pulling silence around him like a cloak, until he came to the building he had always called second home.
The roof was slick from the rain, but he didn’t care. He perched on the edge, fingers and toes curled, and carefully somersaulted onto wet tar ground. Sitting cross-legged, he took the notebook and pen from his belt and held them poised.
Sunlight, he thought.
The smell of coffee drifted up from somewhere.
Dance, a voice whispered in his head. The dawn has already been called, but welcome the morning.
He got to his feet, took out his nunchucks, and began to move.
”You’re kidding, right?”
“I don’t know,” Don said softly. “I could see it.”
“Hell no.”
“Raph, come on.”
Stopping, Raph looked out at the slow morning sun. “Well…maybe…”
“Yeah?” Don was looking at him now.
“Sometimes…” Raph started, “sometimes I have these dreams where I’m standin in front of an easel, painting something, and it comes out really good, like a part of myself--”
“And you’ve never tried it? Mike has an easel, some paints…oils and acrylics…c’mon, Raph…”
“Maybe,” Raph repeated, softly, thinking about bloody sunrises and waterfalls…dragons in red skies…
Maybe Mike would be willing to teach me…or Splinter…gotta let the aggressions out somehow, can’t always go beating up on things…
Damn, he thought. Maybe Mike’s startin to rub off on me. I’m getting soft.
Although, as Mike had once put it...maybe softness wasn’t too much of a weakness after all.
The ghost was back, a thousand voices and a thousand faces...but always faceless and never one name. He paused and bent to catch his breath, feeling sweat glisten against his skin. “What?”
“Just watching.” This time it had Carrie’s voice.
“Stop that,” he whispered.
“Can’t,” the ghost said. “We’re in you.”
“No,” he said.
Last time it had Hatcher’s sneer. This time...
“I’m sorry I let you die,” he whispered.
“You didn’t let anyone die. Death happens.”
He shook his head, leaning against the roof edge, staring out at the city. “It doesn’t always have to.”
The ghost came closer. “It’s a cycle.”
He closed his eyes. “I know.”
Gesturing to the notebook, the ghost cocked its head at him.
Mike shook his head. “I don’t feel like writing.”
“How unusual.”
Leaning against the wall of the fire door, Mike looked the apparition up and down. Faceless, really—but a thousand faces, a thousand voices. A composite…why is it all haunting me now? “What are you?” he whispered. “You came from me—I know that. I keep calling you a ghost for lack of a better word. But you’re not. You’re memories. And I don’t even know if they’re all mine.”
“You know I’m more than that,” it said. “I’m the deep part of your subconscious. I’m in you.”
He closed his eyes, running a hand over his face. “Could be that you are me.”
“Perhaps.” The apparition looked again at the notebook. “Write a story,” it said. “Cheer up. Life is too serious to be taken too seriously.”
Mike grinned. “Now that’s me.”
He somersaulted forward, landed on his back next to the book and pen. Picking it up, he began to write from the prone position, pen flying, and barely even noticed when the voice of his unconscious faded away.
“Splinter?” Leo glanced up from the book. “Where are you going?”
“Just to Central Park,” he said, turning. “I need some time for my thoughts.”
Leo grinned. “Like you could really get it in here.”
The rat quirked an eyebrow. “Perhaps one of these days you could tell Raphael to tone down his music even with the door closed?”
“Can do. Are you going to be okay up there?”
“Leonardo,” Splinter admonished. “I will be fine.”
Heard it once, heard it enough… “Just checking,” Leo said.
“I know.”
But even as he opened the door, Splinter was still smiling. Kids…
You let your guard down.
He shook his head, head against cold tar ground. No.
You forgot the warning. You didn’t see it coming.
I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d wanted to, he thought. They were in the lair. None of us could have seen it coming. Don’t even know how they got in…
Pipes. They wouldn’t have had to use the front door. They could have used the back…
He flung his arm out, watching the pen roll, the pad drop. “I will not think about it, I won’t…”
Too late.
In his head, the cyborg’s voice grated like sandpaper on iron.
“Is he dead?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to Sumoto…”
Voices like pinpricks, little flashes of colored noise. He wants to curl up in a corner of his mind and hide…but they won’t let…
“Give me the forceps,” a woman’s voice snaps. A hand against his chest, a sudden flare of pain. But it’s far away; he can’t reach his body; no consciousness. Still hurts. He’s surprised at this point he can even…
Shit!
Another distant burst of pain—they took out the bullets…damn, that hurts…
Rustle of something…bandages. He can actually hear a thread going through a needle.
Why are they helping me? They shot me like they wanted to kill me.
Experimentation, naturally. Of course. They wouldn’t be able to do it on a corpse.
He settles back into the nothingness without pain, only blackness. Nothing but blackness and he can’t feel a thing…damn, this is boring…I’d hate to see what death is like…that must be so tedious…
Then again, he probably shouldn’t hex himself with that…it could actually happen…
No, I am not going to die! I don’t want Raph joining me like that…
Then again, would Raph really have the guts?
Stillno dying tonight!
Like he could actually have a say in that, the way things are going.
I'm just sorry I won't have a chance to say--
An agonizing burst of pain rips through him, and the nothingness becomes everything.
He sat up, feeling the ghost of pain in his side, his shoulder. I could have died...but they made sure I didn't...but I did anyway...just a little...
Just a little. He remembered the pain that ripped apart Raph's heart when he'd seen his brother's eyes-- fear-- anger--
He was scared for me-- he was hurting. And I couldn't do anything...
If it hadn't been for Don's equipment that first time, and then the energy chain the second time...
Oh shit...not that. Not now
He covered his face with his hands, rolling onto his side, drawing his knees to his chest. Not the battle. Not the face of the madman who killed him. Not the pain--
Oh god no, don't make me remember the pain-- I'm not supposed to remember the pain...
The crashing agony, black wave, being torn apart bit by bit-- and then the horrible wrenching tear of being yanked back, almost as bad-- but Raph screaming at him, voices echoing--
Don't die, Mike! Please! Raph again, barreling across a stripped and black wasteland. You can't die, damn you! Don't leave me!
And Don, right behind him... Don and Leo both, calling, their life forces surging... it reminded him of the things Splinter had taught them and made them forget. Urging life with your own. But that time, there had been an outside influence...
Are they still out there, anyway? Could they even hear me if I called?
He remembered the red-haired woman warning him as he slept...the young man urging him to get up and fight-- where were they? Out there somewhere? Still here?
Nakon-- I remember him, at least. And the woman-- what was her name?
He couldn't recall if she'd told him. It didn't really matter, anyway. He was here, they were there, life would go on.
Sitting up again, he reached for the notebook. Another poemless dark, more introspective. At least it's something
He stood up, stretching, and saw Carrie's face again.
Oh shit--
Tommy's face, their voices in his head.
Don't do this to me...please, I can't deal with it...
Conversations with the dead. He sank to his knees with his palms against his eyes.
Splinter pulled the hood a little closer around his head, leaning on his staff and watching the horse-and-carriages go by. The wind was in the trees...he could almost smell nature through the city. Suddenly he missed Japan.
A soft, tearing pain circled somewhere in his solar plexus; throbbing in his head. He closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath, exhaling softly.
On the bench near him, a butterfly lighted like gossamer. The trees seemed to hold their breath.
A deep, despairing loneliness cut through him, and he lifted his head to the sky.
Michaelangelo...
The pain wasn't over. Not yet.
April finished with the dishes and dried her hands, pulling the band from her shoulder-length hair. More and more, she was beginning to feel like a housekeeper
She went into the living room and surveyed. Magazines on the coffee table, plant needing water. She moved to get the watering can.
A tap at the window made her turn. Something in her chest loosened, a slow warmth. Quickly, she hurried over and pushed it open, stepping back.
He crouched on the sill, a little shakily, and raised his head, the light casting shadows over the scars and making his dark eyes stand out against the orange mask. His jaw was trembling.
Without a word, April helped him down and wrapped her arms around him tightly, her heart aching. Sometimes all you need is a shoulder to cry on...
