A/N: This has to be one of the most disturbing things that I've ever thought of writing, or at least it will end up that way when I'm finished. Remember, this is not the fun loving, joking Mikey we all know so; I'm trying to portray what he'd be like if horrible things happened to him. I'm going to start each chapter with a 'Mikey's thoughts/dream type thing, so don't let it throw you off too much. This first one is probably going to be one of the longest, let me know if it does bug you and I can cut it out. Hopefully I can keep the plot juicy enough to keep your interest!

Chapter 1

A special day

The world. For uncounted days, weeks, and perhaps years, I had a diminished world. Five foot by five foot. What was the world outside like right now? Were the humans still milling around, hurrying to do nothing like they were before? It's amazing how days on end with no one to talk to can expand your thoughts. Do things with your mind. How, if I concentrate, I can remember every hair on my father's face, every word ever said by my family...

The human soul. That's what was going through my mind. The human soul. Is it tangible? Can you touch it, hear it, see it, smell it? How do we know if we have one? What does it mean? Do we have it? Technically we're not human. Some people argue that animals do not have souls. Are we animals? We may have mutated genes, but human is something that we are not. We are turtles. But then again, we are unlike any turtle on this planet.

Do animals have souls? Do mutants count as animals? What does it mean to die? What does it mean to live? What is it that we are doing now, other than using the resources given to us by nature and expelling them back as foul waste? Simply moving bodies going through the motions, how do we know if we're living? What if I'm dead right now? Where do we go when we die? Is there a heaven or do we just blip out of existence like our life force wasn't even there? We always picture it as a bright place with puffy clouds and angels clothed in gold and silk singing their happiness. What if your idea of heaven is a sewer? I don't think the heavenly angels would appreciate me smearing sewer grime and shit on their pristine white clouds. Or maybe they don't have shit in heaven. We just eat and eat and eat great food to make us happy but it goes nowhere. Then again, who's to say that we even eat in heaven? The place is sounding worse and worse by the minute.

Then there's hell. Supposedly full of fire and burns you as demons torture you for eternity or something. Constant screaming and vile things. I'll bet there's shit in there. What if you're a narcissist? What if you enjoy pain? Then traditional hell would be like heaven to them. Maybe they could be sent to heaven for a punishment instead...

I know someone who's going straight to hell.

He's a person who takes delight in torture, even makes new instruments and devices specifically for that purpose. I haven't had a day without pain in so long that I'm used to it. I expect it to happen each day and feel that there's something missing if there is none. What is that? Would it be considered a good thing, adapt and overcome? Well, then again who says that I've even overcome? I'm still lying in this horrible cell, if only it would allow even a single beam of sunlight I would be happy. I think I've forgotten what it feels like, what it looks like. Even a glimpse of the sky in any condition would make me happy. Just one little thing...

Sometimes I wonder why I continue on like this. Why can't a being just turn itself off like you would a defective clock? Why can't we just switch our hearts to the 'rest' position permanently? There were so many times that I wish I could do that...

Is there any purpose to life or is it just God's version of a cruel joke to play on mankind? I wonder if there is a God...

So many questions.

And to think that they will be answered by the days end.

For I have somehow managed to adapt. Now comes the time when I will overcome.

Hey. You pissed yourself again.

The hazing dream parted and the real world reared its ugly head once more. I mumbled, struggling to stretch with my hands bound the way that they were. I managed somehow, as I always do. "Oh well, at least it's a little warm." I glanced at the warm pool that I was sitting on, grateful as always for the heat of the stuff in comparison to the chilly cell around me.

Yeah, but it stinks. Plus once it gets cold, you'll be colder than you are now.

"Shut up, Al." I growled, trying to arch my back. It crackled defiantly, angry at being in one position for so long. You'd think that my bones would be used to it by now! "Life is hard enough without you constantly reminding me about my troubles." I was getting angrier by the minute, my teeth clenching together, eyes flashing. "It's not like I have access to a bathroom. I can't even move from the DAMN wall!" I yelled, jerking the chains so they made a loud clatter. The shackles gave me just enough room so that I could sit down. Flexing my fingers, I could feel the tingling sensation as the feeling came back to them. My arms hanging limp on them constantly, cutting off the circulation in some points made it painful sometimes. But the scar tissue that had built up around my wrists from countless cuts and abrasions made it more bearable. I still twisted restlessly, keyed up with pent up energy.

Damn. Sorry, Mike. Just thought you should know. I could go if you want to be alone...

Immediately my heart skipped a cold beat and my eyes flew open. "No, no Al! Please don't go! You know that you're all that I have! I don't like being alone." I stared at the figure sitting in the corner, erethreal and calm. He was an older turtle, with mottled skin and overhanging eyes. He had spotted skin, more so than mine; or so he says. He never carried any weapons, he never needed to because he was the ultimate ninja, though I've never seen him strike a single blow. With a single thought he could vanish in the eyes of my enemies. He was my only friend in this world and I just can't imagine what I did before him.

I blinked and he appeared by my side, leaning on my shoulder as he peered at the floor. At least the crap you did last night shifted to the side. He said, chuckling, looking at the brown pile sitting by my side instead of under me..

I grinned at his words and grimaced at the smell at the same time. "Yeah, but it still stinks. It always smells worse than pee."

Shit usually does.

"So what day is it?" I asked in monotone, still doing my little stretching routine.

He rolled his eyes. You ask me that every day and I tell you the same thing every day. I don't know. I looked up at him and saw that he was sitting on the wall again, something no ordinary mortal could do. Man, he was amazing. His smile flashed brightly at me. I know why this day is special, though...

I grinned at the thought, but for some reason the unknown of it forced my mind to skitter back from it. I looked at my plastron while managing to scoot up enough that I could scratch my head. It had been itching all night. "Well, like I've said before, I must've been caught a long time ago, for those surgery scars to heal." The sloppy surgical scars crossed my plastron at various places, I knew what they were each for. The one on my right chest was when they took my lung, the one across my abdomen was part of my liver, then there's that other one for the segment of my intestine, and the one for my kidney. I shuddered when I thought about it.

Al looked at me. Thinking about the kidney again?

I nodded, smiling. He was so observant and understanding! The kidney was especially bad. You see, Bishop didn't use anesthesia. He gave the paralytic agent to paralyze you that regular hospitals used, but saw the drug that put you to sleep as a 'waste of money.' The kidney was worse than the others because he couldn't take it out through the back like he did with humans because of my shell, he had to start at the front. It was one of the many times that I wished I wasn't a turtle. The pain was always intense, I was in shock for a couple of weeks after the first surgery, but sadly after that I slowly became used to the pain. I expected it. I even began to feel that something was missing when a day went by without it.

I still say that you embarrassed yourself with that one.

My temper flared suddenly and my eyes flashed. "What the fk do you expect! I knew he was going to cut into me again!" I snarled, jerking my body so the chains rattled loudly. Against my wishes, my mind drifted back to that time I had begged him, pleaded with him, practically sobbed at his feet. All for a simple drug to make me fall asleep. I know that he enjoyed it, it was the first time that I had broken down in front of him and I know that he had rejoiced for it. He had won that day.

Well, just be happy that there isn't much more that he can take out with you living. Despite all that he's doing he obviously wants to keep you alive. Then again, he tapped his chin, I do remember a story about a girl who could live with half a brain...

"Stop it, Al. We go through this too many times. You can stop it, please." I whispered with my eyes shut tight. Horrible images danced through my mind of forceps, needles, scalpels, knives, different instruments of torture and burning... I blinked and for some reason looked at my skin. It was unrecognizable from what I had before, this I knew but only vaguely. I hardly remembered what I looked like before, hell I haven't even seen sunlight in God knows how long. My skin wasn't smooth in any place, it was puckered, dimpled, raised and swollen permanently. Scars were laid upon scars, in some areas the scar tissue made my skin so thick that I had no sensation in it. I blinked and looked at my friend. Even as I opened my mouth to speak I knew that it wouldn't be the same voice that I probably grew up with. Through different experiments and chemicals my voice would forever be raspy, scratchy and rough. "I wish I knew what you really looked like, Al."

What are you talking about? I'm right here.

"You know what I mean, what color you are and stuff. I miss color. I hardly remember what it's like."

Hey, this is a day of celebration, remember?

I looked to the side, shifting uncomfortably in my shackles. "Oh, I don't know..."

Immediately he was in my face like a spirit, glaring at me. I cringed beneath his stare. What are you talking about, Michelangelo? We talked about this! Now is the perfect time! They have become complacent, used to you. Bishop is even getting bored with you...think about what that might mean. Today you will bathe in their blood and dance upon their corpses. You have trained for this. What about all those hours in the hamster cage?

I looked at him, wondering. What was wrong with me? He was right! If ever I needed to act, now was the time. When I first got here, they had me under lock and key. Now that I've been here so long, they've become lazy, they made mistakes. Even worse, I was getting complacent. That's what was wrong with me. I was uneasy about the world outside, it was the unknown. Furiously, I forced myself to think of the room that we had dubbed 'the hamster cage.' To keep me in relatively good health it required exercise, so daily they'd lock me in a room full of different instruments to be used for exercise, even a 'hamster wheel' for running; hence where we got the name. I had trained diligently in that room, honing the skills I knew with Al as my faithful tutor. Even as my prisoners packed up and moved every so often, the hamster cage never changed. "You're right. I'm getting lazy, too. I mean, here I am stronger than I've been in a long time both from training and experiments and I'm double thinking myself!" I let out a single sob. "This isn't right, promise me you'll help me, Al! Please!"

All at once he was a soothing presence. I could almost feel him touch me gently if I concentrated on it. Of course, my friend. What else could I do other than help you? I could never survive without you, you know that. We're like zig and zag. You can't have one without the other. We are inseperable. He smiled, showing his teeth in what was almost a snarl. Together, you and me, we will massacre this entire building. Their corpses will rain from the sky. Everyone who hurt you, who stood by as you were suffering, they will all pay. We will make them pay together.

My heart thudded excitedly against my plastron as I shifted in anticipation. "Yeah, it'll be great..." my eyes dilated and I stared at the door where they would come to collect me. I could just imagine their sneering faces as they went about the daily task of collecting me. Al was right, of course. They were complacent. They had long since stopped drugging me every time I was moved; though that was mostly my fault. In an attempt to disconnect myself from a potentially very painful and or at least humiliating and degrading experience, I had learned to 'turn myself off.' My eyes would glaze over, and my mind would wander to somewhere other than the present. I was never able to become completely separate from my body, I was always painfully aware of what they were doing to my body, but at least it was more bearable. It was during one of these episodes that I met Al, actually…

Shaking my head, my thoughts returned to what was to come. The death. The vengence. They would pay for the crimes they committed against me with their lives. And I would enjoy it, separating their souls from their physical bodies permanently. "Man, I wonder what my family would think about what I'm going to do today..."

DON'T THINK ABOUT THEM!!

I blinked. "Hey. Sorry man. Didn't mean to make you feel bad, you know. Sorry." I looked at him seething and looked away. How could I keep hurting him like this? This is so wrong...

Hey, Mike? Sorry about that. I just... he shook his head. After what they did to you...I could never forgive them. I don't understand how you could ever have good thoughts about them at all but you're such a wonderful person that I guess that I shouldn't be surprised. He smiled warmly at me. That's why I took you in. Because of your golden heart.

I smiled back at him. "And I love you for it, man. I can't help but think at least a little kindly of them, they gave me many good years before they abandoned me." Shaking my head, I fought back the old sorrow. "I just can't believe that they'd do something like that..."

Well, they did! I saw it with my own two eyes! Why else would you still be in here? Why didn't they rescue you? For every other brother they went through hell and high water to protect but when you get taken down what happens? They leave you here to rot like a piece of old trash! They are scum!!

I winced but nodded. Of course he was right. He was always right.

What could I be thinking? Kind thoughts of my former family…all that they'd do would be to abandon me again. I don't matter to them. That's why when I escaped, I would go to live happily alone with my only family, Al.

Suddenly the old lock on the door jiggled slightly. They were coming! I tensed, yet at the same time the lull began to cast itself over me. I resisted it, but wasn't entirely sure how. I had welcomed it so often, this 'turning myself off' feeling, it had kept my sanity. Though my mind strained against it, my body struggled to relax against it.

What are you doing? We need to get ready for the attack! We need to escape! You will be disposed of soon, do you want that? MICHELANGELO!!

But it continued uninhibited. I hadn't anticipated this, going against my learned survival instinct, battling against my own mind. I could even feel my eyes start to glaze as the two men approached me with hard hands.

Al screamed in my ear as I sighed. Maybe I just wasn't cut out to escape, maybe I was meant to die. At least then there'd be peace…

A/N: Well...how'd you like it? PLEASE let me know, I've been fretting over this thing for so long that I MUST know! It'll encourage the second chapter that I already have nearly finished. I welcome anonymous reviews and adore ramblers, so feel free to give me your thoughts, predictions and complaints so I know what audience I'm working with here.

Toodles!