Under Pressure

Unappreciative

Once I'd found what I could from that scrapyard, I started searching the city for a new one, having gone to all the scrapyards I already knew. I saw a family and hid, not wanting to get spotted by them and deal with whatever problems that might've brought. "Thank you, dad!" A little boy cheered.

"You're welcome, kiddo." The father hugged his son. "Did you have a good day?"

"Yeah!" The children cheered, there was three of them. They were all similar, none of them seemed to be an outcast. 

"I beat the strength test! I'm so strong!" One little boy grinned, he reminded me of Raph with the determination. 

"I got a comic signed by the original creator of space heroes!" Another bounced up and down, exactly like Leo. 

"I got so much pizza I think I'm gonna explode!" The final boy seemed very happy despite the fact that he said he was going to explode, which was exactly like Mikey. 

"I'm glad you had fun." The dad patted each of their heads as they walked away. It seemed so peaceful with just three of them rather than four, it seemed so nice without someone like me. Maybe it wasn't my family that was the problem, maybe it was just me. I sat down while I thought about it, still in my hiding spot so I wouldn't be seen. Why were those children able to be happy but when I was a kid, I wasn't? Was it something wrong with me? I wasn't the way I am now back then, what did I do wrong? Was it purely because I was born differently from other children? Raph, Leo, and Mikey were all able to be happy as kids too even though they were born differently, was it just because I was always too different from them? Master Splinter even had moments he liked to look back on from his childhood, why didn't I have things I liked to look back on from when I was little? Why did I have to look to recent events that I had to work extremely hard to get to? Maybe I wasn't meant to be happy, maybe I was just supposed to do whatever it took to make others happy. If I couldn't be happy, I could at least get whatever was closest to being happy by making other people happy. I hadn't been doing that lately though, I'd been making other people upset and making them feel guilty because I was too selfish to think about them.

"What's wrong with you?" I mumbled to myself. "Why can't you do anything right? You're such a jerk all the time and you expect other people to treat you well, how stupid can the supposed smart one be?" It made no sense that I was talking to myself yet again, but it helped me sort things out, so I did it anyways. I finally got out of my hiding spot and went to a new scrapyard, just outside of the city. It was nice to leave New York actually, going somewhere I didn't know helped me think about other things, New York only looked like a battleground since whenever we went to the surface, there was almost always a fight. 

"Why do you think you're a jerk, that you can't do anything right, when you're the main one finding solutions and putting up with the way they treat you?" The voice returned again.

"Can you please stop sneaking up on me?" I wasn't in the mood for yet another talk with a mysterious person I didn't know at the moment. "And how do you know my name and the names of my brothers? I never said any of that, especially not the full names because we never use those. Who are you?"

"I suppose an introduction is in order." The voice said. "I go by many names, so you can choose one for me if you'd like. I know you all because I've kept an eye on you, I've always known there's something special about you. You're not happy because you're not where you belong, you don't fit in with them because they're cruel and unempathetic towards you. You could be among people who're exactly like you, you could have everything you need to flourish. I just want what's best for you."

"I..." I wanted to be able to believe them, but it was far too good to be true. "I'll just call you Voice I guess, since all I ever know about you is your voice."