I am Raphael. Ninja Turtle. Ninja fuckin’ Master! I ain’t afraid of nothing! So why the hell am I stood frozen like this?! Especially over something so… damn insignificant! If only I’d spotted it before I started takin’ my damn belt off. Now I’m stuck, a belt-end in each hand, no way to grab my weapons or do any fuckin’ thing without moving. And if I move, it might move. And if I lose sight of it…
No way am I taking my eyes off it. What I can see of it anyway; only the tips of two little jet-black legs stickin’ out from under my pillow. From under my damn pillow!! If it retreats there’s no telling where it could disappear to. And if I don’t kill it I’ll be feeling it crawling on me all night.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I move. Bring my right hand up, my left down, so when I drop the lower end of my belt it doesn’t hit the floor, only brushes over the coarse skin of my leg with barely a sound. It’s enough to make me wince, but the bug doesn’t react. Carefully I ease a sai free from its’ leather restraint, sink into a half-crouch to place the belt silently on the floor and ready myself. I can still see it. Just. It hasn’t moved.
I don’t have a plan; beyond ‘kill it!’ Probably not the best way to go about this, but nothing else is comin’ to mind right now. I move, lightening-quick, don’t wanna give it a chance to get away. Flipping my pillow off I drive my sai home. The hammock absorbs the force of my strike then rebounds. My blade stays caught in the canvas, but I get thrown backwards a step. The step becomes a run as the friggin’ bug flies up then down straight at me!! Fuck it!! How could I miss the little shit?!
I spit the metallic taste from my mouth as I peel myself off of the far wall. I didn’t bite my tongue hard enough to really bleed, but fucked if I was gonna scream. I glare at the bug. It stares back at me, mocking me from the middle of my bedroom floor. Friggin’ smug little thing still ain’t moving. I still ain’t letting it outta my sight. But I ain’t standing for this shit any longer either.
Easing towards my weight-bench the cool metal of the bar feels oh so good as I run my fingertips over it, curl my hand under it to heft its’ weight. I freeze a moment as the weights on either end clank softly, but the bug still doesn’t move. Big mistake li’l bug.
‘WHONK!’
I whack the little fucker again, and a third time. The weight of the metal with my force behind it should have shmooshed it into a smear of goo by now. But instead it… bounces?! Lands on its’ back in a sick parody of how it was sat before, its’ eight legs quivering slightly in the air.
Then I hear it, barely through my door. That unmistakable giggle.
“MIKE!!!”
I swear, if anyone else hurt my bro, let alone considered doing anything like what I intend to do with the rubber critter I now have clutched in my hand, they’d be dead. But at this moment, Mikes’ shrill scream as he flees before me down the stairs is like the sweetest fuckin’ music to my ears.
