#mindbreak tw

Though, to be fair, you didn’t think your friends would let you drift out so far. It’s hard not to panic, looking around to see how far out you’ve gotten. You can still hear people, still see them dotted on the shore, but it looks so distant now. Fear claws it’s way up in your chest, making a home there as something brushes along your foot.

It’s a fish, you think, has to be. The thought of it being anything else is too much for you right now.

“Hi,” A man’s voice says, right next to your ear. You give a sharp scream, jerking so hard you almost fall off your float, but a strong grip on your leg and shoulder have you set to rights again. You turn to look at who scared the shit out of you, only to see the most handsome man you’ve ever seen in your life. Broad shoulders, sandy blonde hair, green eyes that are watching you curiously, pink lips that are- hold on, moving, shit he’s been talking this whole time you’ve been ogling.

“I’m sorry?” Eloquent as ever.

“I said do you need help getting back to shore?” Even his voice is hot, almost disturbingly so. You give a mute nod, not trusting your own voice to speak. He beams at you, adjusting his grip on your float before the two of you move forward. He cuts through the water easily, and you find yourself wondering about what sort of legs he has that it doesn’t even look like this bothers him at all. He stops just a few feet away from all the people.

You can hear your friends calling to you, see them waving their arms. You turn around to look for the man, to thank him or offer to buy him a drink, but he’s gone.

You think you see a tail disappear under the water, but that just must be a trick of the light.

You think about the man for the rest of the day, until your friends convince you the only solution in the face of a near death experience is to get completely and utterly obliterated on alcohol.

Near death it was not, but you’re not going to argue when it gets you free drinks, the consequence of your friends feeling bad they lost track of you. At a certain point you need air, waving off anybody who tries to follow you. You’re not as drunk as some of them, and they really need to start drinking some water.

It’s how you find yourself alone on the beach, toes in the sand as the water laps at them. The moon is clear and full and bright overhead. Despite the alcohol, despite your day, you still feel a sense of peace here. It’s so quiet right now, nothing like where you live back home, where there’s nothing but concrete and buildings. You let yourself lay back, the water coming up just a little bit higher, your eyes closing as you take in the moment.

“It’s dangerous to lay out on the beach alone,” You know that voice. You open your eyes to see the man from before, your savior, sitting next to you. You raise yourself up on your elbows, drinking him in. He’s not wearing a shirt, you note. He’s got muscles on top of muscles, tanned skin reflecting the drops of water that still cling to him. He’s mouth watering. You let your eyes drift further down, trying to play innocent.

“You know, I think I might be drunk,” You say, still staring at just below his waist.

“What makes you say that?” His voice sounds amused, teasing even.

“It looks like you have a tail but- that can’t be right, can it?” You dont listen for an answer, reaching over to trail your fingers along the scales there, ignoring the way his breath hitches when your warm skin makes contact to him. He’s colder than you would have thought, eyes mesmerized by the iridescent scales that cover a long tail.

“You’re right,” He agrees, though this time his voice is a little huskier now, “I think you might be drunk.”

“Oh,” You say, looking back up at his face, “Well in that case, I’ve always wanted to kiss a mermaid.” It’s all the warning he gets before you throw your arms around his neck, pulling his face to yours. He’s stiff at first but when your lips brush his, he all but melts into your touch, large hands coming to hold at your waist, shifting you until you’re straddling him.

He’s not a half bad kisser, you think, for a fish. His tongue traces the seam of your lips, and you obligingly open them without a second thought. His mouth tastes like salt, like the ocean air, like something a little less than human. Your hips move on their own, the thin fabric of your bathing suit bottom not giving you the friction you crave. Something wiggles against you, causing you to shiver. He pulls away from you, pushing you to the side.

“I should go,” He says, not looking at you. He uses his arms to push himself out into the surf, until it’s deep enough to start swimming.

“What’s your name?” You call out, laughter carrying through the air towards you.

“Miche!” You think you hear, before the tide takes him.

You write it off as too many drinks and an overactive imagination.

You vacation ends and you head back home, to a life of spreadsheets and mundane dates. First kisses that lack the spark you want. You think about that kiss on the beach a little more often than should be healthy, but hey, what else are daydreams for? You think about going back, even, but the time never quite seems to be right and then before you know it a whole year has past before your eyes.

You feel more than a little lost in your life, adrift in the current of an unsure future. The seasons change but it feels like you stay the same, like you’re simply just stuck now. You plan a vacation, returning to that beach just to get away from it all, even for a week. You don’t tell anybody that you’re going, save for your parents just to be safe. You get there it looks the same, which does something to ease the tension in your chest. Your first day is spent lounging on the sand, soaking up the sun, leaving before it gets even close to dark.

But that second day, something compels you to come back. There’s no lights down this far, nothing but the moon and stars to guide your way. You feel silly scanning the water, looking for signs of him. At least you’re alone, with nobody to see you, or hear you when you give a soft call of “Miche?” out into the darkness.

It was stupid, you think, putting aside the fact that mermaids aren’t real at all, even if he was a mermaid that doesn’t mean he’d still be here after so long. It- he- was just a product of an overactive imagination from an office worker who dreamt too much of adventure. You’ll finish out the rest of your holiday, maybe hook up with some mediocre guy and go home and- wait, what was that in the water?

There, you can see it just barely, a head bobbing along the water, towards you. God, you really hope it’s not some random stranger who went out for a weird night swim who’s been watching you have a break down this entire time. But the person grows closer to you, and then closer still and, hey, you recognize that face.

“Miche!” You squeal, running into the water, ignoring how wet your clothes get. He swims a little faster, meeting you halfway and letting you throw your arms around him. “I thought I hallucinated you!”

“Maybe you’re drowning right now,” He says, voice serious but eyes dancing with mirth. “I want to show you something.” You think you nod your head but his lips are already on yours and he drags you under the water.

It’s like there’s a bubble around you as you get pulled deeper and deeper into the water, down further where the light doesn’t penetrate as much. Down, down, down, until your feet hit the floor and you jerk away from Miche.

“What the fuck,” You say, looking up, only to see inky black water everywhere around you. “I take it this isn’t like the little mermaid.”

“I didn’t want to be disturbed,” Miche replies before pressing his lips to yours, “The transformation can be quite unpleasant."

“I’m sorry, the what?” You ask, or try to before he bites you, square on the neck, like he’s a vampire and not a man with a tail. There’s an incredible pain that surges through you, more than you’ve ever felt in your life. You push him away from you, clawing at your clothes, your skin, the water finally reaching you. It’s too much, too painful, fire ripping it’s way through your veins. Your world narrows down and down until all you can do is let the water flow inside your lungs, the world blissfully going black.

You don’t quite wake up when you hear him talking.

“I thought about you. I thought you were never going to come back. But I knew it- I knew we were soulmates from the moment I first saw you. You don’t know how happy I was to see you on the beach yesterday- and tonight? When you came looking for me? I thought I would die. I could smell you that night, did you know? I could smell how much you wanted this- wanted me-

And now, don’t you see? We can be together, forever. Just like I wanted. I practiced so much while you were gone, trying on all the humans that I could. None of them came close to you. They all resisted. They all ran screaming from me, or, well, they tried to. But you didn’t. You’re perfect for me. Do you know how long I’ve waited for someone like you?

-Centuries.”

It’s a relief when the darkness takes you again. You dream, of the open air, of the land, even of your dingy apartment back home. The dreams become your memories, your parents faces fading gently the more you try to concentrate on them. All the memories of your life start to slip through your fingers. You try to concentrate on anything you can remember- but you can’t even think of your name. Instead it’s only him, all consuming, tearing through your consciousness until nothing remains.

You open your eyes to a whole new world, Miche there by your side.

“I thought I had messed it up,” He breathes. You can’t find your voice, numbness seeping through your skin. Your hand drifts to your throat, and it’s with horror you realize he didn’t bite you- he used his teeth to make gills.

“Did you hear me? When you were asleep? I practiced so much.” He asks, hands grabbing tightly to your waist. “But you’re perfect, aren’t you?” His nails dig into your skin, leaving little crescents of pain. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes,” You hasten to reply, relaxing when his fingers grip you a little less tightly, “Never better.”

“I knew it!” Miche tilts his head back, giving you a look at the long line of his throat. “I knew I picked correctly!” His hands lift you up easily, like you weigh nothing, spinning you around him. HIs eyes leave your face, dipping lower to take in your skin- your clothes having been torn off you. “Look at yourself!”

You do look.

It hurts, a lot, to look, but you do. Your skin doesn’t look different, but you barely feel the water on you, the coldness of it doesn’t bother you so something has to be different even if you can’t see it. Below your waist your legs are gone- though it feels like the tail has simply been pulled over them, all the muscles that made up two legs before have merged to become one tail. It’s iridescent in the low light, soft shades of white and pink and purple. If it wasn’t attached to you, it might be beautiful.

Instead, it’s a reminder of what you’ve lost.

“What are you thinking about?” Miche asks, bringing his face close to yours, “You can tell me. We have forever together, now.” Forever. Stuck away, hidden in the ocean. What do mermaids even eat?

“My family,” You take what you think is the safest route, but Miche’s smile freezes in place, the light dimming from his eyes for a moment before-

“Okay. Tell me your mother’s name,” He suggests, the look in his eyes a little crazed, “Come on, tell me!”

“I- Her name is…” Your voice drifts off as you struggle to recall the simplest detail about one of the most important people in your life.

“If you tell me her name I’ll let you go!” He says, moving so close you can’t even look at him, “The change isn’t quite yet permanent. You can go home. Just tell me her name.”

It’s on the tip of your tongue, but you choke on it. You can’t think of your own mother’s name. It feels like your life is just a blur, only really starting a few moments ago. Like nothing before this was real. Maybe you just imagined it?

“You don’t have another life besides this,” Miche tells you. You can’t find a fault in his words. The heart has been burned out of you. “But it’s okay. I’m here. All you need is me.”

I was thinking of how to hurt the Goddess. I am really into a scenario of someone breaking her mortal shell and enslaving the Entity within.

Of course, I can’t imagine how that’d work. Maybe they wouldn’t even break the shell. Maybe they’d just find a way to suppress the Goddess’s powers by placing her in a realm that has more hate and cruelty than love. Maybe a personification of hate is needed!?

Regardless – imagine a poor, broken little Lenora with her mind shattered just sort of…this empty shell of a slave, abused and tormented. Forced to do whatever her captor says.

When he attempted to move his arms, he felt that they were chained, most likely to a wall. The same with his neck. So...typical day, huh, Leonardo? Captured, chained, and unable to decide whether you’re conscious or not. Wonderful life, isn’t it? Leo really hoped that it hadn’t been worse-case scenario, aka, Darius Dunn.

If that had been the matter, however, as Leo reminded himself, he probably wouldn’t be alive. An oddly familiar voice made itself clearer as the fog in the leader’s mind slowly began to clear. Raspy, yet deep and throaty...

Wait...no. No, no, no, no, no way in hell. It couldn’t be. He’s dead. Blown up and reduced to little chunks on the moon. But, as his consciousness and subsequently his robotic eyepiece became active, he saw that it was. Sh’Okanabo. The bastard who’d made him.

Luckily - or then again, not so luckily - the cyan turtle couldn’t see any of his brothers. They were cowards when it came to this kind of thing, but he’d much rather have them flee and himself be caught than the other way around.

“So, as I’ve heard from recent authority reports, my creation, I do believe you’ve done much to help your master. Or, perhaps not. Either way, I have reclaimed you, whether that filthy human likes it or not. It’s a shame, though. Your siblings decided to flee, although reluctantly. What exactly have you done, you imperfect turtle, you? What’s become of such a stone-cold creature to make him protect the miserable reptiles who he believed to be hindrances?”

Dark Leonardo cringed. Once upon a time, yes, he did think his brothers were little more than liabilities to him. Nothing but a trio of imperfect clones that didn’t deserve to be called his brothers. That had changed, though. As much as he hated to admit, though, the turtles had done more to him than he first thought. “So...you were captured, were you?”

The hell...? How does he know- “That you were captured? That, dear turtle, is because I installed a certain memory chip into your eyepiece when I created you.” Shit. Shit, shit, fuck, fuck, FUCK. “Initially, I believed you to be the superior of the four of you, even more so than that brilliant clone of Donatello. You were the leader, after all. I kept a careful watch on your battles with the turtles and your spats with Dunn ever since you left to fight those blasted terrapins. Really, I don’t blame you for leaving, as you put it, the fat bastard. I do believe you’ve grown up, for only being in existence for two years or so.”

He dared to open his eye slightly. He still couldn’t see much. But, what he did see wasn’t very nice to look at. Memories of forming in the test tube he had popped out of started to come back...so tiny...so helpless and vulnerable until his body growth had been rocketed up and he reached full size. Or, as full size as he could get, anyway.

“I’m surprised. You retain memories of when I began to mold you from that miserable turtle’s DNA...intriguing.” Leo gave a low growl. He hated having someone in his head. It was just...it felt so wrong. It was exactly why he had been so aggravated at the hypnotic suggestion he’d been placed under by Darius. “Get the hell out of my head, you fucking bastard.”

“Why should I do such a thing? I find what your memories hold to be rather intriguing. And certainly very interesting, most especially pertaining to the clone of-”

“Quit calling him that! Just fucking call him Donnie!” The kanabo turned his head to the turtle who laid behind him. He knew he hadn’t put any kind of protective instinct into that terrapin’s mind. Or anything of the sort. He certainly had grown since Sh’Okanabo had sent him off to serve Dunn... Perhaps too much for his own good. Mayhaps a memory wipe was in order...

Maybe. For now, though, it was too entertaining to toy with him. At this point, Leonardo’s eye was fully open and glaring harshly at the alien in front of him. The Dark turtle was absolutely seething with rage. Hearing his own memories talked about as if it had all been a normal childhood...it was disgusting.

Leo hoped that he might be able to stall whatever Sh’Okanabo was planning for him long enough for his brothers to find him.

“I do believe you’ve forgotten how you got here. Would you like to see? Just so you know how improbable it is that your siblings will not rescue you?” Without waiting for a reply, the parasitic alien began to tap away at his keyboard until the screen above him began to move backwards. After finding the correct point to begin, he lowly chuckled and began playing the video that had been recorded.

Looking back again, he saw Dark Leonardo had clamped his eye shut and turned his head away. I can fix that little clone’s behavior quickly. The parasite walked over and kneeled down next to the terrapin. His steel-gray claws held the leader’s eye open and turned his head to the monitor. Even though Leo writhed and attempted to wrench his head away from the other kanabo’s grasp, he still couldn’t make himself look away from that forgotten memory.

“Oy, frog tongue! You done yet? We don’t have all night!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’! Gimme a sec...”

A noise off to the side made his head turn. There was Don, cuddled up against him, one set of claws gently clutching his wrist. He’d giggled, and that laugh just made him smile, too. “Mikey will never be back before the movie starts. He’s Mikey, after all.”

“HEARD THAT! GAY-WADS!” The comment prompted both of them to laugh this time. This is so much like a cheesy romance movie, I swear, it’s not even funny. Just with a couple of gay turtles instead of a guy and a girl. About five minutes went by without any sign of the yellow turtle. The movie started up - it was an old 19th century horror movie called ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’. Leo knew that he and his brothers would be laughing at it more than being scared by it since most movies that old were horrible in terms of effects and realism.

Which was perfect, given that Raph was such a crybaby. A loud yell off in the distance put Leo on alert. It sounded like Mikey. The other two didn’t seem to be very concerned at first until another cry sounded. Then all three were up and running towards the direction of the yells. They split apart, and after about ten minutes searching high and low, Leo finally turned the corner to see the outline of his little brother in the shadow of an alley.

“Mikey! Jesus Christ, you idiot, what happened?” No response. The outline of his brother just moved up and down, as if he was breathing heavily. No, no, no! He’s...he’s hurt... Agh! You stupid, stupid, poor excuse for a brother! Leonardo ran forward, only to start backpedaling away again, stumbling backwards and falling. The outline of his brother wavered and turned into a hideous blob with sharp teeth and something somewhat resembling a face.

He heard the younger three yelling behind him, but didn’t dare look away from what was in front of him. “Leo! Get the hell away from that thing!” He turned his head to glance at his brothers before he felt something sticky grab his ankle. His head snapped back to the purple blob for an instant before flipping himself over and trying to claw at the concrete to try and get away. Donatello started to run over to help. “NO! Stay-mmf!”

The same thing that had grabbed his ankle was quickly enveloping his legs and had wrapped around his mouth and arms. He continued to struggle until the purple goo completely engulfed his body. Still, he fought, kicked, and resisted until he fell out of consciousness.

As the black returned, Sh’Okanabo released his hold on the turtle’s head, which was viciously yanked away. A wide grin spread on the alien’s face. He could plainly see it in his clone’s body language. He’d been broken, if only a little. But that was how he had been made. Stoic, unmovable. He could fix it. He would break and shatter every bit of the leader’s being until there was nothing but a hollow shell left for him to remold.