Hello all! I have enjoyed reading your stories so much, that I thought maybe I'd try my hand at writing one. Comments and reviews are welcome, and thanks for taking the time to read! I love Raphael and wanted to write a story about him that I hope is sort of unique. If anyone has seen the movie "Sliding Doors," I guess you could say it inspired me, as I liked the way it explored the "What Ifs" in life.

Oh, and I hate to do this but I have to warn you now - I will do the best I can but I cannot promise really rapid updates, due to having a very busy lifestyle right now. I apologize in advance.

Disclaimer: I never have, do not now, and never will own the TMNT.

There it was again, that same dream. He had no idea of its significance, or why it plagued his subconscious mind every few nights. It seemed to be composed of unrelated thoughts, the way dreams sometimes are. Here a flash of gleaming metal, there a red flag flapping in a breeze. Sometimes snatches of conversation among voices he failed to recognize. Occasionally as he watched, the color would drain from the flag, turning it to a white so brilliant that he would have to look away.

The dream always followed a basic pattern, and he always chose to forget it the moment he woke up. However, today after waking, something… something nagged at his brain. He mentally scanned through the series of thoughts again. Then he realized what was new. Although it had never occurred to him before, on this particular morning something was stirring within the deep recesses of his mind. He felt that he had possibly – yes, definitely – recognized someone, a face in his dream. However the more he tried to recall it, the further it receded into ambiguity.

For the first time, he found himself wondering whether these dreams were not composed merely of thoughts, but of memories…

His reverie was interrupted by a familiar shuffling noise, like the sound of a rake scraping leaves off the pavement, only quieter and more deliberate. Great, he thought sourly, here comes Miss Conversation herself. Probably tossing and turning all night in anticipation of the morning meal, the highlight of her day. He sighed… too bad his one companion in the cramped glass enclosure had about the mental capacity of a turnip.

So, what'll it be today? Lemme guess – lettuce and tomato? Maybe they'll get real crazy and throw in a few peas. She wouldn't care – variety was beyond her comprehension.

Why were they so different? He had given a lot of thought to this because there didn't seem to be a reasonable explanation for it, and it bothered him. He and the female turtle looked almost identical, though he was at least a third again her size. They had to be from the same species, had the same dietary and environmental needs, yet as far as he could tell, his mental capacity was advanced far beyond hers.

Not that he was able to attempt conversation with her, of course – it was not anatomically possible for him to speak. Still, it was obvious in other ways. She spent her day wandering back and forth between the salad bar, as he called it, and the spot where she spent the vast majority of her time warming under the heat lamp. He could just tell that, as far as she was concerned, that was all there was to life. Sure, if the Human reached his hand in towards them, she'd suck her head inside her shell for a moment, and occasionally she'd shift positions under the comforting heat of the lamp, but it really didn't vary beyond that.

He, however, was different, he knew that much even though he had no idea how, or why. When the television was on across from the aquarium, he saw the figures on the screen and understood what they were. He knew that the Human was from Brooklyn, even though he had never seen that part of New York City or even anything outside of the Room, as far as he was aware. He dreamed and remembered his dreams; he had preferences about tomato color and water temperature.

But perhaps most alarming of all was the fact that he could feel, and with intense emotion at times. Frustration was his constant companion, frustration over the fact that he knew, he knew very well that there was a whole world out there full of color and space and companionship and life, yet he would never experience any of it.

His world was simply the cool glass walls in a neat and sparsely furnished room, with a companion who just simply wasn't there. The knowledge that this would be his life, for days and weeks and months and years to come, threatened to suffocate him until, sometimes in the middle of the night, he woke up in despair.

*******************

He was in a room, free from the glass cage! His heart beat loudly in his ears with the recognition -- he'd seen this room before. Just as he began to register the tapestries on the wall, the warm glow of flickering candlelight and the scratchy feel of carpet beneath him, he realized he was not alone. The other presence was mysterious, he could not tell who it was at all. However it felt comforting, and strangely… familiar. Suddenly, it spoke.

"Why are you so angry? Always such a fire burns within you, my son. Come, sit, calm yourself and simply tell me the source of your frustration."

"I dunno, Father, it's just that… well, I feel like I don't contribute nothin' to this team. Nothin' positive, 'least. Everybody's got their special talent… somethin' to really help us in battle, and all I got are these weapons and a lousy sense of timing… it don't seem fair."

"My son, do you forget so easily, over and over? Do you forget your strength, your loyalty, your unshakeable resolve? There's more steel to you than what you hold in your hand, my son."

He looked down and saw… some type of metal gleaming in the candlelight. It was partially bound with a red cloth. As he watched it, the red shimmered and began to glow, a bright white that burned his eyes…

Abruptly, the world shifted impossibly. His eyes snapped open. Disoriented, he waited for his night vision to kick in. The room, the room! He looked around wildly, and his heart sank. He could barely make out his reflection in the glass walls, but it was enough. His prison. He strained to remember, to snatch back pieces of the dream before it disappeared into oblivion as they all had in the past. Father? Team? Weapons? He had longed to see the face of the one who spoke to him so tenderly. My son.

He had seen weapons, sharp ones, in his dreams. He was holding them, it had felt natural. Did he know how to use them? He remembered that they had colored wrapping around the handles . These handles, they had started out red, but turned to white, before his eyes. He found the change unpleasant, almost frightening, and wondered why.

Red. Such a suitable color for him, he had always felt it suggested power, strength. Yet it reminded him also of anger, an anger born of the frustration that was welling up inside him. If these dreams were not memories then why, why, did everything they contained seem more real to him than his own life, than reality? Why did he long to return to the candlelit room, to the indefinable figure who spoke to him with authority, yet so gently? The more he pondered this, the more the aquarium walls closed in on him, until he wanted desperately to release all his pent-up emotion in a scream. As if that were even possible.

He looked around the silent room as dawn began to peek in through the curtains. The sofa facing a blank TV screen, clock ticking on the mantle, shelves stacked with books bearing a light layer of dust. In the midst of the peace of the early morning, he was plagued by an inner turmoil. Here in the sand where he awoke every morning, staring around him at sights that greeted him every day, he became utterly convinced that something was terribly wrong.

Yet there was not a thing he could do about it.