You thought back to that day constantly.

Hot sparks fell like snow from the dark cloud of your burning home. Her form was crumpled in your arms, like the support beams that had collapsed around you. There was no trace of life left, only the distant echoes of her screams for your help, and the cries of your infant daughter that had vanished in the fiery debris.

Chaos reigned that night, and left nothing but sorrow in its wake. How is one supposed to pick themselves back up when literally everything they held dear has been cast beyond their reach? You have become a shell; only left with sadness and regret to cling on to.

Nothing existed anymore.

You search for a way to recover from something so tragic. It is difficult when guilt has wrapped cold tendrils tight around your heart, and does not relent. So you do the only thing you can possibly think of. You try to block out everything, clear your mind, and shut yourself away.

Move across the world, move to another country, move away from the memories, and escape into a land of mind-numbing noise. All done to avoid the pulls of melancholy, and the absolute sense of failure. The bustling metropolis of New York City was the complete opposite of the expansive green fields you once knew.

No matter how far you traveled though, dread still loomed over you like the soot clouds that filled the air that evening. Every bit as suffocating, making it difficult to breathe. You had thought distance and time would have been a cure to the pain you had been feeling, yet the ache was still raw.

So, alone you wandered through the city. Lost in a maze of steel, glass, and self-pity. You berate yourself for allowing such dark emotions consume you. As a master of Ninjutsu you were taught to control your emotions better!

You were well aware of your mistakes. Those mistakes would be a permanent scar on your soul for the rest of your life. To think you would ever be able to hold another heart in your hands again seemed utterly impossible.

Stop!

You knew that your train of thought was becoming unhealthy. Nothing could be done to change the past, but steps could be taken to better the future. An abrupt, yet welcome resolve that shone like a dim light out in a stormy sea. You look up from the gum-spotted, cracked sidewalk to a glass window with a large, white cardboard sign hastily taped on.

"Baby Turtles for Sale," the sign read in sloppy, handwritten letters.

You noticed that you had wound up in front of a pet store several blocks from your apartment. You had never cared for pets before besides some koi fish in the pond back in Japan. But perhaps you could learn. This could be a distraction, something positive that you could direct your time to.

Without realizing it, you had already started toward the door. A bell jingled as you entered the store, and immediately you saw the aquarium housing the young turtles being advertised. Only four remained in the tank, and at first you think about just taking one.

Gently, you pick one up from the tank to hold in the palm of your hand. It tucks its head into its shell, and the others look slightly distressed from their sibling being removed from the tank so suddenly.

Carefully you place the turtle back with its siblings, and go to the cashier to inquire about buying them.

"How much for the four turtles?" you ask the young man at the desk.

He looks at you like you have spoken in another language. Although you are fairly certain you spoke English that time. "You want all four?"

"Yes," you nod. "I do not wish to break them apart from one another. It is difficult to be pulled apart from your family."

"Uh, sure dude. Whatever you say," The cashier retrieved a glass bowl filled with colorful pebbles and a tiny palm tree from behind the counter. You watched as he moved over to the aquarium and grabbed each tiny turtle, one by one.

He placed the bowl on the counter, and punched some keys on the register. "That's gonna be twenty bucks for the four of 'em."

You take your wallet out of your pocket, and hand the cash over to the boy. In return he hands you a paper receipt and the bowl of turtles. And as you exit the small store, you realize these little beings are dependent on you now to care for them.

You begin walking back through the city, you watch the turtles crawl about in their bowl. The sun had started to set, so you cut down an alley to get over to the next block quicker, but immediately stop as two men in suits stand before you.

They are speaking to each other, their words odd and repetitive. Then once they turn you see they are practically identical in every way possible, right down to the color of their ties. In their hands was a canister that glowed a radioactive green, something the men apparently did not want you to spot. There was something unnatural about the entire situation.

The strangers advanced toward you, speaking fast and threateningly. Quickly, you hold the turtles with one arm and stand prepared to fight. But the first strike you land was met with much resistance. Almost as if you had struck metal. However, you managed to knock one of the men off balance, but unfortunately he does the same to you.

Suddenly both the canister and the baby turtles are sent sailing to the concrete. Green ooze splashes up onto you as an alley rat runs scared across your foot. The turtles are coated in the thick slime, as well as you, and the peculiar men vanished.

You thought the trouble had ended, until you were struck with immense pain as fast as lightning streaks across the sky. It felt as if your muscles and bones were being stretched, and twisted, making you double over onto your hands and knees. Your skin buzzed with the feeling of white-hot pinpricks, and the distant sound of clothes being torn and numerous cries of pain reached your ears.

Moments passed. You did not know how long, only that it had been significant amount of time. By the time you were able to open your eyes the sky had become completely dark. The excruciating shock to your body must have caused you to pass out.

A cracked mirror by a dumpster caught your attention. The reflection was not one you recognized, but the gaze mimicked you exactly. And in that moment the shock that the strange creature in the mirror was you hits you like a runaway train. Hard and fast.

You had been transformed into a beast.

More noises catch your attention and you fear people from the street will spot you. You move behind the dumpster as swiftly as your new legs would allow you to move. It would take some time to adjust to the new form.

Yet it was not humans from the street, but in fact your infant turtles causing the noises. Or at least you assumed that was what they were, given there was no other possible explanation. The strange creatures at the end of the alley were once the pets that you planned to take home, but were changed just as you had been. The turtles had become larger. About a foot tall, and appeared to have developed human-like characteristics. Fingers, toes, longer limbs, and they were sniffling and crying quietly like infants would. You observed their eyes had become more expressive too; each pair taking on a different hue.

In a turn for the bizarre, your life had been transformed. But maybe that was something you had been searching for all along. Not specifically in this way, but something to push you to move forward from the grief that had been possessing you.

In the most literal sense, you had been changed. Certainly you never thought that it would stem from buying four turtles, and being somehow transformed in an amalgam of man and rat. But that was exactly what happened.

You moved closer to the baby turtles and see the shards of glass around them from when the bowl fell. You noticed one of them had an injury to its shell, most likely sustained in the fall. Something you would have to take care of later. The others appeared unharmed, just terrified.

And then you came to a second realization that you had been charged with taking care of four little lives. They were no longer common pets.

"Come little ones," you beckon to them softly. They look at you, and slowly crawl into your open arms. "We must move on where no one will see us."

For a second you think of where you should go. Venturing into the city would be a death sentence; to survive you knew you had to remain hidden, underground.

You looked to the manhole cover in the alley. The research you had done on the city at one point revealed the miles of tunnels and subways beneath the streets. You pried the cover back. The sewers would become your refuge until you had a better plan.

You retrieved a dusty blanket from a wilted cardboard box in the alley, shook it out, and gathered the turtles within it. Once safely tucked into the makeshift rucksack, you tied it around your shoulders, and began your descent into the cool tunnels.

Silently you put the lid back in place and continued down the thin, damp ladder. Though you had lost so many things to the fire, and sorrow remained deep within your soul, new priorities had started to eclipse it.

Concealed in the shadows you would pursue your life anew.

This started out as a 500 word drabble thing...and exploded it to a much longer story. Inspired by the song "Things We Lost in the Fire" by Bastille. Give it a listen. It's awesome!

I've been wanting to write something about Splinter for a while now. Obviously this is just my take on it. I didn't want him to be resentful of his mutation because the boys needed him more at first. He didn't have a lot of time to dwell on it.

Also, I used this to experiment more with second person POV. Tense shift is the hardest thing for me when writing in this style, and I combed through the story like ten times before posting. So I hope there aren't too many errors still left in there.

Enjoy! And let me know what you think!