Chop Liver

Chapter 1: Bloodshot

I stared at the ceiling with my mind drowning in its thoughts while I lay in my hammock. It was probably 2 or something in the morning, and tomorrow, we have early training.
Ughhhh.
It's really not my fault for not getting enough sleep. It's just that my mind won't shut up. I've tried taking sleeping pills that Donnie made for me, but they don't seem to work. I didn't want to tell him that because it would just crush his sweet little genius heart. and I didn't want to be the reason he's all shell hurt. Plus Splinter would just yell at me like he always does, giving me lectures about the safety of the team and how I'm being a terrible example of a leader and why I wasn't the one chosen to lead the team in the first place. But I just can't help that I don't sleep.
I mean, I guess I can. But. It's just. Well. You see. I have these night terrors. And every time I go adrift. It's all I can see. And it's horrifying.

That one day I'll wake up and everyone is gone because of an old once trusted and beloved friend of mine. A friend that I used to tell everything to, a friend who wouldn't see me as a monster or freak, a friend I could rely on, the only person who truly knew me inside and out. He was my pet snapping turtle, my little buddy.
Well, not anymore, at least. But, his name was Spike.

Ha, notice how I said "was". It's because now he goes by the name Slash.
You see It all happened on this fateful day when Donnie brought a canister of mutagen home that we found while we were on a mission. Well, let's just say Donnie almost killed Spike with it by accident. so I took the canister and put it in my room with Spike. Alone, like and idiot, not using my head at all whatsoever and went downstairs to go eat dinner.

Ha, how stupid of me, right. Well, it was stupid indeed, because little did I know one small stupid decision would change the rest of my life. When I came back, Spike wasn't just a normal little snapping turtle anymore. No, he was now a large giant walking two-legged mutant. like me and my brothers, but much bigger and scarier with a much darker aura to him. He could talk now too, and his voice was deep. He told me that he changed his name to Slash.

I didn't really like that. But I did think it was cool that he became a mutant. At the time, I thought that because he was like us, we could go on so many different new adventures together and go on patrols and fight crime like the bestest of friends.
But Spik- I mean Slash - he had different plans. He told me he wanted to get pay back on my brothers for treating me like crap throughout all the years we've been together. But that was only because Slash had only ever heard my side of the stories because I had always vented to him when things went wrong.

Well, cause you know, he was the only one I could vent to. Everyone else would have just jugged me and turned it into an argument because they just don't understand. They never do. But Spike did. He always did, that was until he turned into Slash. Listen, I love my brothers, and I would do anything for them, even give them my life.
Now do they bug the shell outa me sometimes, yeah, and do I wanna throw a punch at them here and there for being jerks. Yeah.
but I would never want them to die. Sure, you know, I would want them to be punished for their wrongs, but never for them to be hurt. Truth is, I couldn't survive without my brothers. I'd take a bullet for any of them. Tho. I don't blame them if they never did the same. I know I'm an asshole sometimes.

But when I told Spike these- Shit I mean Slash these things, he didn't understand that part. He took everything I said to him previously as if I wanted them dead. So he tried to kill all of them off one by one. Did I know what he was going to do at first. No. I had no idea. That was until we were on patrol the next day, and he started beating the living shell outa Mikey. I was in complete shock and betrayed. I had to help my brothers and get them to safety, so I had to do something I had never in my wildest dreams imagined doing. I had to hurt Slash and realize Spike wasn't Spike anymore. He was just Slash now, and he would never be the same again.