TMNT- Worlds Below

Fog falls heavy on the early morning city, and frost clings to the high reaches of those privileged silver gleaming high rises. No cleansing silver frost has settled on the broken rotting brownstones of the slums, but the citizens are not perturbed. They continue about their myriad affairs. Eating, sleeping, loving, dying, and unaware of the other lives that surround them. The unknown citizens, the sewer dwellers.


Like the rest of the “surface dwellers” cliché though the name may be, Laurel was convinced that the what she saw daily and what was drummed into her head each time she sat through one of Professor Brook’s lectures on applied logic, was the empirical truth. There are no ‘other worlds’, there are no phantoms, no unexplainable events, no spiritual planes. All of life is facts and science and evolution and repetition and decay.


And somehow, Laurel found this outlook on life unfulfilling.


(Disclaimer: The Teenage Mutant Turtles are not my property, and I don’t purport to own them one bit.)

1

Life Before

Her tiny apartment is cold and it is furnished with only a few books, boxes of comic books, a bed with threadbare sheets and a large cage where Samson, her beloved only friend, a common garden hedgehog sleeps most of the day. She is sitting on the bed, wrapped in layers of ancient sweaters and second hand blankets, reading the newest issue of Ultimate Avengers, thoroughly disappointed with the introduction of the female Vision. It seems to her that females in comic books or any popular fiction are often somehow vaguely shallow, even robotic ones. It’s a shame. There is so much potential in the character of the female psyche. Or at least that’s what Miss Mahanoy, her Woman Studies prof is always saying. She sighs, finishes the book, and goes to the kitchenette literally three steps away from her bed. The micro waved noodles she makes taste hot, but without any discernable flavour. She is feeling very, very low. Although it is seldom that she ever feels anything more than mediocre. She feels the sudden need to medicate herself with an issue of Bone, or perhaps some shoujo, something light and airy to lift this heavy fog of inexplicable depression that has been clinging to her shoulders for two years now. She grabs a thickly insulated windbreaker, says “See you soon,” to Samson’s sleeping, prickling back, and heads down the filthy stairwell of her cut-rate apartment block. She heads to the warm light of the comic shop a few blocks away, pulling her hood close against the icy seeping fog. She walks in, assailed with light, warmth, and the sounds of a raucous tabletop Rpg in the backroom.
“Hey, Laurie.” Says the large goateed man behind the glass counter. He is typing something on the curiously high-tech computer system, presumably looking up back-issue prices. “Two times in one day? It’s not a record, but…” He trails off gawking at something on the unseen screen.

“I’d like…” She begins quietly, barely hearing herself above the shouts of the concealed gamers.

“Let me guess… You just read that Avengers right? You’ll need a pick me up.” He cuts her off, guessing exactly what she needs, “How about this?” he pulls a thin monthly issue from under the counter, its plastic wrap sending up a glare under the fluorescent lights.
“It’s a zero issue, reserved press copy, but for some reason I got more than I need. They’re doing a reprint of The Frogmen. It’s the sorta thing you like, right?” She takes the book from him, studying the cover. It’s a new edition of her favourite comic book as a kid. She feels nostalgic, anxious to get home and tear open the plastic, sink into her old happiness.

“This is great, Sandy. I can’t believe they’re starting up this old franchise again after so long.” She smiles at him, possibly for the first time ever, and hands him more money than a monthly issue should be worth. But she doesn’t care. The Frogmen, she can barely believe that it’s being printed again. She walks the blocks home, clutching the cheap teal plastic bag to her heart, a warm glow in her cheeks, burning the close fog away.
And then in the distance, near her apartment, outlined in the fuzzy sodium glow of mist enshrouded street lamps, she sees four hunched silhouettes moving towards her. And she realizes how very late it really is and how very helpless she is. She freezes, an unwise decision, but she does. And the shadows move in.