It was unfamiliar: the feeling of being completely alone. Sure, he had felt lonely on several occasions. That sensation was not a stranger by any means. But truly being alone, utterly, felt new and painfully heavy.

The aura of the city had changed considerably now; the veil of darkness and the chill of the night were troubling instead of a welcomed cover. Donatello moved slowly and hyper-cautiously through the blackened alleyways. Each step was placed with a paranoid glance to the rear, and at intervals he would seep into an empty corner or a boarded-up doorway and stay there for long periods of time. His usual confidence in his abilities to navigate the night unseen and unheard had mysteriously faltered during the past couple of hours. Though, as a turtle, mutant or not, he had no personal apprehension of any cultural taboos of nudity, being without his bandanna did make him feel vulnerable. All of the logic centers of his mind could not rationalize it, and he dealt with it by skittering timidly along and taking extra care.

It was not just the physical issue of his bandanna being lost, but the general mistrust he now had in his own judgment. He had, for his part, been acting entirely on feeling-- something Donatello did not typically subscribe to.

Donatello ducked quickly behind a rusty green and yellow dumpster that sat square in the center of a damp and empty alley. Nearby, the complacent yowling of stray cats signaled that there was more than likely no humans around. Donatello peeked around the garbage receptacle, immune to its considerable stink from years of living under septic systems. Beyond, he saw where the alley met a main street, still relatively bustling with cars and trucks despite the late hour. Donatello made a quick observation of his surroundings: a dumpster, several service entrances, a large bay with wooden skiffs piled and sizable metal double doors. At any moment, a small truck could come cruising along to make a late night delivery. Any number of things could happen to blow his cover or cause a disturbance. His overactive mind ran logical algorithms for what seemed like a million scenarios that could occur right then and there. All of which resulted in the fact that he was alone, and no one who cared two licks about him knew where he was.

How did Raphael do it?

Before Donatello could ponder further, a high pitched screech that he could only guess was feline in origin split the stillness of the alley. It was followed instantly by a loud "clanging" of tin against concrete, and the gruff voice of a human.

"Durn cats! Git outta here, scat!"

Donatello turned quickly to the opposite end of the alley, where he had come from earlier. Damn it, he cursed silently to himself. Someone's coming. I didn't see anyone when I came through there! What am I doing? Where am I going? This is crazy. This place... it's like a cage...

He tilted his head up and took one look at the massive bin of unsanitary refuse and felt a wave of dread wash over him.

"S'just a couple of cats, Ross," another masculine voice came from just around the corner in the distance. "Sheez, they got just as much right t'be here as we do."

"Well, I dun like 'em. Who knows what kinda diseases they've got."

"Don't mean ya gotta chuck yer last good pair of shoes at 'em, idiot. Now c'mon, this way."

Whomever the voices belonged to, they were coming in Donatello's direction. Damn it. He quickly rose from his crouched position and lifted the black rubber lid of the dumpster. With a scowl, in he went.

Immune to funk or nay, the foul stench of rotting food scraps and who knows what else was now unbearably close to Donatello's face as he practically bathed in the filth. This isn't any good, he thought desperately to himself. After they leave, I have to get back onto the rooftops or somewhere. It's only going to get worse in a few hours. They'll be swarming all over the place. How does Raph do this?

"Put yer damn shoes back on. Honestly, Ross, this ain't the park."

"I got 'em, I got 'em. Pfft, I'd rather walk barefoot back in this dump than in Central Park."

"Point taken. C'mon, let's get somethin' t'nosh."

The voices were now oppressively close to where Donatello hid. Though he knew they were just a couple of humans, the turtle felt uneasy by their presence, as though he were evading something much more dangerous. It took every bit of control over himself that he had not to jump when the lid of the dumpster suddenly jostled.

"Fool! What are you doin' now?"

"What's it look like, Reggie? You finally talked yourself blind?"

"Don't start with me."

"S'thing's next to a restaurant. You know them wasteful bastards throw away stuff that's still good. Jus' gimme a hand with this top."

The lid lifted a few more inches and Donatello was beside himself. Should he burst out and sprint past the humans? Should he knock them out before they knew what was happening? Should he climb out and politely apologize for being a mutant turtle and be on his way? He slid his hands over his head and clenched his temples. He had been in much worse situations than this. Why was is so terrifying?

"Git away from there, idiot. I got a full pocket of change. We'll hit up that little all-night joint down the street there. Cheap coffee, good donuts. Maybe a cop or two in there at this hour but least y'know it's safe. The broad they got workin' in there at night is real sweet. They won't bother us. Now c'mon, let's get some real food, ya nitwit."

"All right, all right. Damn, you got an answer fer everythin', don'tcha?"

The dumpster lid slammed closed again, and Donatello was consumed by darkness and putridity.

He waited for what seemed like another full eternity before he could no longer hear their quarrelsome voices. With new found zeal, he batted open the dumpster's lid and somersaulted out onto the asphalt. In the next instant, he was running back into the heart of the alleyways.

Too close. Got to get to the roofs. Yechhh... what is this?

He plucked from his shoulder what appeared to be a greasy, rotten banana peel, and then wiped away a large mass of gelatinous goo that was clinging tenaciously to his bicep. How embarrassing.

But it was difficult to be embarrassed when there was no one around to see you parading around in a lovely coat of hot garbage. Up ahead, Donatello spotted a parked van that he had passed on his way towards the main street. Instead of hiding behind it timidly, he would now use it to escape the lower world.

He leapt from the ground and landed awkwardly on the top of the white vehicle, nearly slipping due to whatever gunk was still clinging to his feet. With another determined thrust, he flung himself toward the adjacent building, reached out with his arms and grasped onto a window ledge. His hips followed quickly and he braced his legs and feet to make the softest impact against the hard brick wall as he possibly could. To his relief, he felt no pain in his hand and made hardly any sound at all. This small victory was an inspiration and it drove him to haul himself quickly up the side of the building, climbing quietly but efficiently from window to window.

It was a moderately long climb to the roof, but Donatello felt utterly winded when he finally scaled his way to the top. On the roof, there was a billboard with flood lights shining dutifully on the image of a woman with too-perfect teeth, cheesing her way into your heart so you would buy whatever product that was floating next to her head. Donatello welcomed the sight, for while he cared little for orange-scented dish soap (though he surely could have use some at the time), the pocket of darkness in the crevice beneath the billboard was a perfect place to rest.

It was there that he caught his breath, continued to groom the lingering filth from his person, and did some deep thinking.

Fine mess I've put myself in, he mused while using one of his arm bands to buff some unknown substance from his plastron. Stumbling around like a scared child. Covered in trash. Sheesh.

He leaned back against the foundation of the billboard and gazed through the openings in the metal platform above his head. The colors of the sky were mixing playfully from navy blue, smooth violet, to a deep orange. Donatello sighed, admiring its beauty, but remembering that it always meant that he and his brothers must make haste to the underground. It was rare, with the exception of Raphael, that they even stayed out in the night long enough to see the first signs of dawn. It was a soothing sight; even if the dormant meteorologist in him knew it was destined to cloud over with a drab city-gray as the day moved on, it was still awe-inspiring. Either way, he was never really meant to enjoy it. The loathsome feelings of self-pity rumbled discontentedly in his stomach as he laid there. But then, his mind suddenly returned to the conversation he had heard while hiding, oh so proudly, in the dumpster. He had cursed the presence of the two intrusive humans, but, from his analytical assumptions, they were not all that different from him. They must have been down on their luck for one to entertain eating from the garbage, and most likely without a home and traveling late at night for safety concerns. Shunned by the day-walkers and finding a small niche where they felt safe and could belong, even if just for a short time. It was starting to sound painfully familiar. And the worst of it was, it still seemed as though the two had senses of humor and sarcastic yet preciously genuine optimism.

Perhaps Donatello could not assume all this from just a few moments of faintly overheard dialog, but the prospects of it made him consider his own situation and how he was handling it. He had chosen this estrangement of his own free will-- left Michelangelo in veritable despair and abandoned his home without a word to his other brothers or his father. Who knows what circumstances had befallen the two humans below, but what Donatello did know was that he had little right to be moping and feeling sorry for himself.

If he was to honor his word, he would spend this time improving himself, quash his anger and inhibitions about his own strength and worth, and be able to confront Leonardo with stability and control. Yes, that was the plan he had laid out for himself. This was what Splinter had expected of him all along. And boy did he have his work cut out for him.

Donatello shifted his weight and rolled onto his side. The surface was cold, metallic, and damp-- nothing compared to the comfort of his mattress in the lair. But this was the beginning of his journey- a similar journey that Leonardo had been on, but much closer to home. It was Donatello's intention to figure out what had gone wrong on his brother's pilgrimage, and not to go down the same path. He closed his eyes and tried to ease his active mind, wanting to get a few more hours of sleep before he decided his next move.