Characters: Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael. I could only choose two characters for the story when publishing so I picked Mikey and Raph, but all four are in it.
Inspired by a Prompt from the 75 Dark Fics Table over on LiveJournal – #014. Coffin/Buried.
Rating: M – For language, and graphic descriptions of gore. Honestly, I'd rather over-rate than under-rate this thing and have someone stumble upon it and get traumatized! :-)
Author's Notes: I do not own or financially profit from the Ninja Turtles. I write stories featuring them for my own amusement. If I choose to share the stories publicly and others enjoy it in the process all the better! Welcome to my mind: Tread carefully, enjoy your stay, and for god's sake - quit pestering the cats! ;-)

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The pungent, sickly sweet smell invaded Michelangelo's olfactory sense every time he went inside Raphael's room. Despite Raphael's insistence to the contrary to anybody who would listen; he and Michelangelo were the closest, and so he often freely went into the very room that was forbidden to the other two brothers. As a result of this, he considered himself somewhat of an expert on the new smells turning up in the secretive hot-headed turtle's domain.

"Dude, something reeks in Raph's room!" Michelangelo expressed his concern to Donatello during breakfast one morning after he realized the smell was only getting worse without any visible reason. His more intellectual brother shrugged his shoulders and continued spreading the butter on his toast, "Well, look at the way he keeps his room, Mikey. There's probably some old food rotting in there." He smirked and added, "Somewhere under all that mess."

Michelangelo sighed, it didn't seem like Donatello took him very seriously. "His room isn't that bad, man."

Unfortunately he had a retort for that, too, "Well, given the comparison between your room and his …" Donatello let it end there with another shrug, "I don't think I need to explain my point."

The conversation attracted Leonardo to the kitchen; and as usual he had to be a part of everything going on in the lair, "What's going on, guys?"

Donatello focused on eating his toast, while Michelangelo sat down and sighed, "I think something died in Raph's room, dude." He decided to keep things vague out of reluctance to let this brother in on the situation. For one: Leonardo would gleefully latch on to any excuse available to go into Raphael's room, and two: he knew Raphael would go postal on anybody who gave Leonardo ammunition in his quest to control his rebellious streak.

Leonardo sat down and gave that smirk he used to let everybody know he was right over all others. Michelangelo could almost count down to the second the start of each lecture, soliloquies he could recite word for word after a lifetime of hearing them.

Three … two … Michelangelo counted in his mind, one. "You know," Leonardo started, right on cue, "Maybe we ought to have a serious spring cleaning. The whole lair smells like a musty coffin."

Michelangelo leaned back, hands behind his head. He addressed Leonardo using a deliberately bad Kung-Fu movie accent, "Ah, so it is to be the 'we need to take pride in our home and keep it clean' lecture today, then, Oh Enlightened One." He gave his brother one of his disarming grins and didn't break eye contact while waiting for Leonardo to either continue with the canned lecture, or offer up a retort, because he knew he could handle whatever the leader threw at him.

Donatello stifled a chuckle and muttered, "Oh, man…" before taking another bite of his toast. Michelangelo glanced at his brother briefly; he knew he spoke up for the silent underdogs when he poked fun at Leonardo. As long as he made someone laugh, even if it was just himself, it was all worth it.

"Mikey, I wish you would take things seriously sometimes." Leonardo's retort was a weak one compared to some of his past zingers.

Michelangelo leaned forward, letting the front legs of his chair scrape the floor as they landed. "Aw, what's the fun in that?" It was his turn to enlighten The Enlightened One, "When you're too busy focusing on all the details and bein' so damn serious, you miss the cool things in life, man." He grinned at Leonardo, who only offered a small, tight smile in response.

Now Michelangelo was in it for the performance, the dramatics, and he continued with relish, "The smell of a flower, that crazy deeper than usual blue color the sky seems to get sometimes, a baby's laugh, the way the air seems to feel before a storm …"

Donatello shook his head, but said nothing. Leonardo looked indignant, like he was about ready to fire off a retort, or a lecture, or some impassioned speech to prove how he really did look at the small things and probably did it better than everybody else.

Michelangelo let himself trail off a lot more quickly than usual, because he had other mysteries and adventures to get to that day. The sooner Leonardo lectured, the sooner Michelangelo could be free to pursue what he wanted.

After a relatively mentally pain-free and shorter than usual lecture, Michelangelo excused himself. He wanted to focus on the one mystery that plagued his thoughts for the past week, which was the terrible smell permeating Raphael's room. He wasted no time going to Raphael's room, being sure to hide his apprehension behind silly, exaggerated stalker movements as he went.

Before Michelangelo got down to the serious business of snooping; he leaned back out through the doorway of his brother's room and checked the area for Raphael. The last thing he wanted to encounter while opening drawers and moving things around was a certain pissed off sai-wielding ninja turtle brother of his.

Leonardo's slightly playful observation, delivered with that smug smile, "You are terrible at the whole being stealthy thing, Mikey" made him flinch slightly in response. He had been so caught up in trying to mask his guilt with exaggerated behavior and goofiness that he wasn't paying attention to his other two brothers. Leonardo chuckled at his own comment and continued on his way to the bathroom.

Finally, alone in Raphael's cluttered space; Michelangelo closed the door behind him. He was going to use his natural investigative abilities to get to the bottom of this. For a moment he wondered if the smell wasn't Raphael, dead or dying somewhere. After all, he hadn't seen his brother in a couple days at least, now that he thought about it. He gulped, willing away the vivid thoughts, and tried reasoning with himself, "Somebody's seen him, or one of the other two would be saying something by now."

Michelangelo spotted some food on the floor, and cautiously sniffed at it. He was immediately able to rule the old pizza out as the culprit. After sniffing around the perimeter of the small room; Michelangelo noticed the smell seemed stronger on the right side, behind the crudely-made dresser. First he checked inside the drawers and after finding nothing but clothes and a couple porno magazines, decided to move the dresser aside to check behind and underneath it.

What Michelangelo found hidden behind the dresser was completely unexpected. There was a hole in the wall just large enough for one mutant turtle to crawl through. The now more potent stench wafting from the blackness drove him to dry heaves. He held his breath and bravely crawled through the hole to further investigate.

The smell became stronger, to the point Michelangelo could taste it in his mouth. His arms were shaking and his head felt light due to lack of breath. Finally, just when he thought he couldn't crawl another foot, he made it to the dimly lit end.

First thing Michelangelo noticed was the tiny space was lit by a single candle. The next sight that rewarded his exploring gaze was so gruesome it caused him to involuntarily inhale a lungful of breath. The walls had been painted by what looked to be carnage. Chunks of flesh, blood in all stages of the clotting process adorned the walls in this macabre manner of decoration. The swarms of insects feasting on the sticky, rotted mess made Michelangelo feel more claustrophobic than he already was. The whole room was something out of a psycho killer movie.

Michelangelo coughed violently, his body trying to eliminate the rancid rotting odor from his lungs. As he took in more of the foul air, the coughing turned to dry heaving which then rapidly progressed to vomiting. His claustrophobia increased to panic levels. He needed to get out of there or else. Tears streamed down his cheeks. Frantically he started to back up, but after a couple paces back he encountered a problem.

Something blocked Michelangelo's retreat. He whispered, voice shaky with emotion held back, "Oh, shit." The candle light still reached him, despite his being about a foot into the black corridor. He knew if he turned around he could probably see what was there; which he knew with unerring certainty wasn't before. He slowly turned around, which was a bit awkward in the tiny crawlspace, and geared himself up to face whatever lurked behind him.

The last thing Michelangelo expected to see was a blood-soaked Raphael staring back at him with wild, wide eyes. "Don't you wanna stay?" As his oddly vacant brother herded him backwards into the chamber; the realization hit him with just as much force as the smells in this place of horrors. It was none other than Raphael who was the sinister mastermind behind whatever violence took place in here. The first hint of emotion revealed itself in a cruelly twisted sneer, "See, I am God here. I show the criminals to hell, both before and after death, Mikey." His tone was more holier-than-thou than Leonardo's ever could be, and it made Michelangelo shiver to hear it.

"Holy shit, dude!" Michelangelo suddenly feared for his life. Survival instinct kicked in; he knew if it didn't get out of there, somehow, his clearly delusional brother was going to kill him. First he decided to pretend to support Raphael's ideas, "Hey, I can help you capture the bad guys!"

Unfortunately Raphael didn't want any body's support, "You aren't here to help. You were sent here to try and stop me."

Michelangelo didn't understand what his brother was saying; it was obvious nobody sent him to do anything. It starkly revealed the frightening depth of his brother's insanity.

Michelangelo resorted at last to pleading with his brother, "Just let me go. Please. I beg you, man. I promise I won't tell anybody about this place." He desperately implored in hopes there was still a piece of the old Raphael somewhere inside that disintegrated psyche, "We're best friends! I mean, I know I am annoying sometimes, but if you let me go I will knock it off. I will do whatever you want! We would do anything for each other – you know that!" In response to this Raphael remained calm.

Raphael's voice didn't seem to be his. It was breathy, manic, tinged with a madness that wasn't there before. "Maybe ya should have left the buried things alone, Mikey."