They were lucky—they passed a sporting goods store within the hour. They found it dark inside—none of the lights worked, and they had to search via the flashlights they found by the door. Pushing past floating basketballs and soccer balls, they eventually found the display of inflatable rafts and an airpump.

"This'll beat walking through all that," Michelangelo said, laboriously pushing air into the raft. "'Course, don't know where we'll float to, but at least we won't be wet."

Unfolding the raft, holding it at the water's surface and clear of any sharp debris, Leonardo didn't answer. He stared into the water, watching the ripples expand out.

Michelangelo paused, watching him, then quietly finished.

"You go in," Leonardo said, tossing the backpack of supplies to the front. "Keep everything from falling out."

"You're not gonna get in?" Michelangelo asked, gingerly entering the raft and kicking the droplets from his feet.

"You need to conserve your strength," Leonardo said. "You're not feeling it yet, but those burns are going to flare up pretty bad. There's pain killers in the backpack. Best to take some now. And change out the wet bandages if you can."

Michelangelo didn't argue, letting his brother take what little control they had left. As they moved through the shop, he swiped in armloads of food and grabbed a big red umbrella on the way out.

When they were floating in the street, he understood why Leonardo hadn't wanted to get in. The water level wasn't high enough to support both of their weight, but it did bring Michelangelo's wounds out of the salt water and give him time to rest. Now that he wasn't walking, Michelangelo felt how the burns had been slowing him down, dragging with every step.

They made slow progress—to where, neither of them knew. Sometimes Leonardo hopped on the edge of the raft as they floated over huge craters in the street, sometimes paddling them down another lane.

"Where we headed?" Michelangelo asked.

"I thought maybe April's place," Leonardo said. "See if it's still standing. Maybe they left a message for us."

"That's...not a bad idea," Michelangelo admitted. "At least we don't have to cross the river."

"Looks like the bridges are still kind of standing," Leonardo said. "But maybe we'll find a better boat."

"What's wrong with the raft?" Michelangelo asked. "I don't think a boat'll float like this thing does."

"A raft's fine for now," Leonardo said. "But the water's been getting higher. I think we'll need something bigger pretty soon."

Leonardo pushed a little harder, sitting quickly beside his brother as the raft soared over a vast crevasse of broken pavement and fish swimming by. As they watched, gold koi as large as themselves swam in lazy circles, brushing their fins against each other and disappearing back under the shadows.

"Okay..." Michelangelo murmured, his voice low so nothing would hear him. "I know that isn't normal. Koi? And that big?"

"Mutagen? Radiation?" Leonardo shrugged. "...Donatello would know."

"We'll find him," Michelangelo said. "I promise. I'm sure him and Raph are somewhere safe. They're probably holed up trying to save the world with alien technology and a tooth brush."

Leonardo gave him a half-smile, but it faded by the time they reached the other side of the street.

The walk took another hour, but they saw no one in the silent city. The water gleamed silver as they came up to April's building.

It was nothing but a single wall standing over collapsed brick. They didn't bother to explore. But they did see, painting in bright orange and blue letters, graffiti across the front that said to "Come back."

They stared at the letters of dripping paint, and Leonardo touched the streaks of color with a fingertip. It came back wet.

"The paint's fresh," he said. "That...doesn't make any sense."

"What's it even mean?" Michelangelo asked. "'Come back' where? Home's underwater. This place is gone. Maybe they thought we left the city?"

As they stood still, the sky rumbled. They looked up, and where there had once been endless blue, the sky now rolled with gray thunderclouds.

"You should get in here," Michelangelo said. "If there's gonna be lightning."

"Not yet," Leonardo said. "There's a museum a few blocks down on the waterfront. I want to see what it has."

"That's...a transit museum." Michelangelo craned his neck back, glancing at his brother. "Trains, right?"

"There's other stuff there," Leonardo said. "Transportation stuff. Hopefully something that floats."

It was good a choice as any, Michelangelo supposed. He unfurled the umbrella and held it over them both just as the rain began to fall. The steady drone of water pouring down made them fall silent, and Michelangelo had to bail with one hand so the raft didn't sink. It let him feel less like dead weight as his brother pushed the raft along.

They were almost to the river when the huge tail appeared up out of the ocean. Gold, covered in barnacles, it rose dozens of feet into the air and hovered over them for a terrible moment.

Michelangelo gasped and dropped the umbrella. Leonardo had stopped pushing, but there was no time to try to escape its reach. Instead he jumped into the raft and grabbed his little brother just as the tail came down, slapping the water with so much force that they were briefly stunned, holding onto each other for fear of losing the other. The raft rolled with the wave, capsizing, turning over, leaving them in the wake of glimmering scales.

When they looked up again, they were sitting on the street, the water to their chests. Neither of them moved, clutching at the other and not feeling their own wounds. The raft was gone, their supplies were gone. The huge koi swam away through water barely a meter high. And the tail must have knocked over the weaker standing walls because the closest buildings were piles of brick.

"I'm starting to think this is how everyone died," Michelangelo whispered. "Not in a bomb. The ocean got 'em."

"...maybe." Leonardo chuckled ruefully. "Look up."

Michelangelo did. And he started to laugh.

They were somehow outside the public library that had been miles away. It had to be the library. The stone lions sat on either side of the doorway, regal in the light reflected off the water. The doors had been ripped from their hinges in the blast, and a slim wooden boat was slowly tipping out of the library, coming down the waterfalls made by its staircase.