Leonardo rolled onto his side as started to wake up. Ugh, what a night; he can't remember the last time he'd slept that deeply. Feeling the area around him without opening his eyes, he noticed that someone was immediately off. His bed felt… comfier and cleaner than he remembered. And not one but two pillows rested behind his green head. That's funny, where did the extra pillow come from? The comforter also felt fluffier and warmer…. Something was off, but what?

"Hello? Are you awake yet?" Whose voice is that? Leonardo yawned dozily. It wasn't one of his brothers'; it was feminine. Maybe April? But why would she be in his room so early… or at all? "Can you hear me?" Leonardo yawned again, finally forcing himself to open his dreary eyes. When he did, he unconsciously let out a blood-curdling scream. "Whoa! Calm down!" I tried to ease him by lifting up my hand, which did nothing. The blue-masked turtle simply continued to panic.

Leonardo found himself in a stranger's bed- a pink bed, with pink sheets, pillows, and comforter. The room was a small dorm room, like a room one would stay in at a boarding school. Standing beside the bed was a girl; a woman. Me. From the looks of it, he did not recognize me at all, which made two of us. "Where am I?! Where is this?!" He demanded, speedily looking all around the room in panic-mode. "You're in my room." "Your room!? Who are you?!" "Uh, I'm Alcmene. Wait! What am I saying? Who are you?! And why are you in MY room!?"

"How should I know?!" Leonardo thundered angrily. "How do you not know?! You have no idea how you got here?" "You mean you didn't kidnap me?" "No!" I gasped in horror. "I woke up two hours ago to find YOU lying with my bed WITH me. You're the one who came here; I had nothing to do with this obviously!" "Two hours…. Wait!" The turtle frowned, narrowing his glare at me. "If you've been awake for two hours, then why did I just wake up? Why didn't you try and wake me, if you were so scared?"

"I did!" I retorted in blatant irritation. "I screamed so loud that I thought I woke up the whole building. I tried waking you for like an hour, but you didn't come to, so I didn't know what else to do." "So you're telling me that you woke up with me in your bed and couldn't wake me up for two hours?" His eyebrow suspiciously rose. "Yes! And now that you're up, you can tell me what you're doing here. How'd you even get in? Both my window and door were locked." "I…." Leonardo's eyes drifted off into nowhere. "I don't know…. the last thing I remember is passing out in my bed." "You mean….. you have no idea how you got here?" "No? And also, where's here?" He was almost afraid to ask.

"Um, my room?" "I mean where am I? Where is this? Are we still in New York?" "New York….. USA?" "Yeah? Where else would it be?" "Uh, well we're not definitely not the US. This is Edinburgh; like Edinburgh, Scotland." "E-Edinburgh?" Leonardo blinked in utter disbelief. "I'm in Edinburgh?" My head gave a slow nod. "Uh, n-no! No, it can't be! I can't be across the ocean! It's not possible!" His big, green hands started to grasp all over himself frantically. "This isn't happening! This can't be happening!" "Calm down! We can figure this out; don't worry."

The turtle shot me a monstrous glare. "Don't worry? Don't worry?! You're not the one who woke up on the other side of the world with no clue how you got here!" "I…..!" Before I could respond, a folded paper fell out of his shell onto the ground. Curious, I picked it up in his place. It read: Don't worry. All will be well. Interesting, I read the note over a couple of times. "This is your writing?" I asked the very confused turtle sitting on my bed. "N-no, uh….." Leonardo examined the paper closely. "I don't know this handwriting." "Neither do I. Maybe whoever brought you here wrote it." "Possibly…."

Leonardo then sighed and rested his head against the back wall in defeat. "I have no clue what to do," his hands ran over his face. "I don't know how I got here or how I'll get home….. I'm so lost." I watched the sad turtle for a moment before deciding to offer some comfort. But this was cut off by the loud growling of his stomach. His cheeks immediately turned a bright red. "Uh…. s-sorry." He didn't realize how hungry he was, and neither did I. I couldn't help but grin for the first time that morning. "I'll get something to eat." "Y-you don't have to do that!" Leonardo flinched as I turned around to my desk. "It's no trouble; it's a lot easier to deal with than waking up to a large, mutant turtle in your bed," I uttered under my breath.

To my surprise, there was an unforeseen box sitting on my desk. It opened to reveal a bunch of cute little candies with "eat me" written on them. Interesting, I don't buying these, I examined them with a little suspicion. Figuring that they were harmless though, which was beyond stupid in reality, I popped one straight into my mouth. Tasted normal enough to me. "Want one?" I then offered one to the turtle, which took one once he saw I had already eaten one. "Thanks." "Ok, I'm going to go get some real breakfast. Just wait here and….." I had just enough time to grab my room's key until my sentence was cut off with loud pounding on my door. "Alcmene! Alcmene, I know you're in there! Open up this instant!" "The porter!" I gasped and we gave each other a horrified look.

"Hide!" I instructed in a whisper. "Where?" Leonardo scanned quickly around the room. "Uh! Uh!" "I'm coming in, Alcmene!" "Oh, shoot!" I was about to toss a blanket over the turtle when my door suddenly burst open to reveal a very annoyed porter. "M-Mr. Lederhosen!" I made a protective dash in front of blue-masked reptile, who looked beyond petrified. "You know the rules, Miss Lauser! No overnight guests! Where is he?!" He marched right past me. "I-I can explain, sir! He's wearing a costume for Halloween!" "What are you talking about, Alcmene?" Both Leonarda and I blinked in disbelief as he inspected the room, ignoring Leonardo's presence like he wasn't there. "I don't see anyone," his big hands planted firmly on his hips.

"You don't….. you don't see him! I mean you don't see anyone!" It suddenly hit me like a lightning bolt. "S-sorry, I… I just woke up; still a little dozy." "He doesn't see me?" Leonardo gasped. "That so?" Mr. Lederhosen's eyebrow raised in my direction. "Or hear me; he can't see me or hear me!" To test it, Leonardo waved his three-fingered hand in front of his face. "Stop that!" I said in a rushed whisper to the turtle. "Stop what?" The porter demanded. "Uh! N-nothing! Nothing, sir!"

Mr. Lederhosen sent me a very intimidating expression, tapping one of his feet on the ground. "We've had several noise complaints this morning, Miss Lauser. Mind telling me what you were screaming about earlier?" "U-uh….! Um, I… I had a nightmare! I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was being that loud," I tried to look as shy, meek, and innocent as possible. "You make that kind of racket over a nightmare?" "I very, very scared, sir. I woke…. in quite a shock you could say." It wasn't a total lie; I was beyond shocked when I woke up this morning.

The scary porter eyed me for a moment like he was deciding whether or not to believe me. But eventually he sighed- an angry sigh- and brushed past me heading to the door. "No more noise, do you understand?" "Yes sir. I promise it will never happen again." "It better not; unless you want me writing to your father about this." "Yes, sir." Muttering to himself, he slammed the door loudly behind him. What happened to no more noise? I guess it was ok when it was him, but who cares?! He didn't see the gigantic turtle on my bed! Wait, he didn't see the turtle… so maybe… I peered back to him with suspicion. Maybe the turtle really wasn't there and this was all in my head.

"What?" His eyebrow rose. "Are you real?" "What do you mean? Of course I'm real," he sounded slightly scandalized. "He couldn't see you." "That's not my fault… is it?" "Why can I see you but he can't?" "I don't know! I have no clue about any of this!" He showed me his hands in a fashion of honesty. I still wasn't convinced. "It doesn't make any sense. I wake up to an oversized turtle in my bed; a turtle which only I can see," my feet paced the room side-to-side thoughtfully. "How could this be real if I wasn't hallucinating it?" "You're not hallucinating," his eyes gave a dramatic roll. "How do you, or I know?" "Uh, for one, I can eat your food. For another, we can touch each other." Curious, my fingers lifted to gently bump the tips on the front of his shell. "That's true." I don't think either of those would happen if I was dreaming.

Sighing, I fell onto my desk chair and wiped my hand over my eyes exhaustedly. "Ugh, why? Just why?" "I don't know," Leonardo finally pulled himself off my bed, giving me a chance to see his height for the first time. He was taller than me, nearly under six feet. "I don't know what's going on, but I'm going to figure it out," then he looked down at me. "Your name's Alcmene, right?" "That's me. And you are?" "Leonardo." "Oh, that's a nice name." If not a little exotic for a turtle. "I know we just met and everything, and that I just kind of appeared out of nowhere for you, but…. would you help me?" Leonardo asked me in a desperate tone. "I'm in a strange country and have no idea how I'll get home, so would you please….. please…."

Awe, the poor guy. It suddenly dawned on me how scary this must be for him. Waking up in a foreign city with no family or connections. It must be terrifying. This made me only want to help him more. A small, comforting smile rolled across my lips. "Yes, of course I'll help you, Leonardo." "R-really?! You will?" He seemed surprised by this for some reason. "Yes. Yes, I'll do what I can to get you back to New York. It was New York, right?" "Yes. That's the only place I've ever lived in." "Alright! New York it is. But first, we need food." And Leonardo nodded in agreement as his stomach rumbled loud enough to echo through the whole room.

I was busy typing away on my laptop at my desk. Leonardo was sitting on my bed gobbling as much food down as he could. "Don't worry about it; I'll buy more food if we run out," I told him earlier. He took this literally as he rummaged through my food cupboard in the communal kitchen. "Food is sooooo good over here!" He exclaimed, shoving another pie into his mouth. "It's because you're hungry. Food always tastes better when you're hungry." "I'm serious! This is the best chicken I've ever had! And the chocolate! Don't even get me started." This made me smile as I continued working.

I was currently looking for safe yet affordable ways to get Leonardo back to New York. All options were either out of my price range or too risky. I contemplated just getting him onto a plane; it'd be easy enough since he was invisible and they usually had spare seats. But I couldn't help but worry if someone actually did see him; what would happen then? He'd likely get shot and that's a situation I wanted to avoid. But the alternatives weren't helping the situation. I didn't know what to do… Nothing seemed to work, no matter how I twisted and contorted it. Leonardo noticed my growing stress.

"You ok, Alcmene?" "Yeah, I just don't know what we're gonna do. Nothing I find seems to work," I pushed away from my desk and through my head back. "This is a nightmare….." "I'm sorry, Alcmene. I didn't mean to bring this all on you." "It's not your fault, Leonardo….. it's not your fault, right?" "No!" "I know," I sighed gazing up at my ceiling in defeat. What am I going to do? He can't stay here, can he? No, he doesn't want and he should be home. I can't imagine how nervous his uh, reptile family must be.

But I was so mentally tired and it wasn't even noon yet! On top of which, I had class this afternoon. But this was more important than class. Ugh! What am I going to do?! What?! "Is there anything I can do?" "I don't know. I've looked at every option I could think of online." "Hmmmmm," Leonardo considered the situation for a minute. "Maybe we should try contacting my brothers." "Do you have their numbers? Do… turtles have phones?" "Well, sort of; they're t-phones. My heh, younger brother invented them. They work like regular phones only…."

To the blue-masked turtle's face contorted to one of alarm. "I don't have mine!" He let out a loud gasp. "That's ok, we can call them on my phone. Do you know their numbers?" His eyes scrolled shyly to the side. "No." Oh boy. "Well, do you guys have FaceBook? Or know any humans that have phones?" "Well, April, but I don't know her number either and she doesn't use FaceBook." "I wonder if there's a way we could get a private plane?" I thought out loud. "No, I don't have that kind, or any money." Leonardo watched me for a second, then tried to force a smile. "Thanks, Alcmene. I do appreciate this." "I know," I mirrored his forced grin. "Don't worry, Leonardo. We'll think of something."

It was then that I had yet another knock on my door. I didn't have time to say "come in" before it opened. A man- a childhood friend of mine- came inside. Without so much as a "hello", he shut the door behind him and came up to me. He was tall, pale, and slender; his hair was a dark brown with red streaks at the ends. He did not look happy, but then; he never did. He just walked inside, stopping near me to place his hands on his hips and frown over at me. "Ok. What's this about you screaming?"

"Who's this guy?" Leonardo did not look at all impressed. "How'd you know about that?" I asked as I shifted my position in the chair. "That porter of yours, Lederhosen, told me all about it. How you were shrieking out of your mind early this morning." "Of course he did," I rested my hand over my eyes. It never ends….. "He doesn't have to give you a hard time about it. You were scared, that's all," Leonardo frowned, folding his arms still unimpressed. "This is Tom, a friend," I explained, not remembering that Tom couldn't see or hear the turtle for a second. "I know my name, thank you," Tom frowned. "Huh? Oh sorry, Gair; it's been…. a long morning."

"I bet. So, mind tellin' me what you were so upset about?" "Uh…" I hesitated. I didn't want to tell him; both for Leonardo's sake and so I didn't sound super crazy. But I didn't like keeping secrets from him either. And he could tell I was. "Come on. You gotta let me know if something's wrong," Gair prodded a little. "This isn't….." I couldn't finish my sentence; the door reopened again. Another man entered; this one with longish blonde hair that got progressively darker. "Alcmene!" He burst through the door. "Are you alright?! Did someone come into your room?" "Fionn, what are you doing here?" "Same thing as you. I'm checking up on Alcmene," Fionn answered as he came over to kneel down in front of me. He scanned me once over for injury. "You ok? You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"

Leonardo eyed the two men over. "Another friend of yours? Wait, and how'd they get into your room?" I peered at the turtle before turning my attention back to Fionn. "I'm fine. I just… had a nightmare." "A nightmare? You've never had problems with nightmares before." "Yeah….. but last night was different. I was dreaming about…. turtles." "Turtles?" He cracked a grin while Gair stayed stone-face. "You love turtles." "You do?!" Leonardo blinked at me in surprise. "Uh, these were different turtles. They had uh….." My eyes peaked back to Leonardo for inspiration. "Weapons! Ninja weapons." "I see," I couldn't help but blush a tad as Fionn's hand rested gently on top of my head. "You have quite an imagination, Meny."

"Seriously, Alcmene," Gair's voice was firmer. "If you're that scared, you should call one of us. Don't try and shoulder everything alone, like you always do." "Hey!" This caught Leonardo off guard, in a bad way. Fionn also seemed put off by this. "Easy; don't be a jerk, man. I mean she had a nightmare and was scared; it's perfectly normal. What do you expect from her? I know you're worried but give her a break," he then turned his head back to face me. "Now then, you want us to walk to the café later?" "The café?!"

I'd completely forgotten! This week was our school's cultural festival; or our equivalent of a cultural festival. Our club was doing a Japanese-style maid café; our club leader was really into anime and stuff. I forgot I signed up for a shift every week! And it would look really bad if I canceled since I use the club benefits more than anyone. I had to go! But…. My eyes wandered back over to Leonardo, who was busy fiddling with something in the background. I can't just leave him here, and I really should be working on getting him home. That's when a brilliant idea popped into my head.

"Uh, r-right! The café, um yes! I mean yes, I'm still doing my shift today." "You work?" Leonardo asked, listening back in on the conversation. "But wait! I thought we were gonna find a way to get me home!" "We will!" I replied, forgetting that they couldn't see him again. They blinked at me in alarm. "A-are you sure you're alright, Meny? You seem a little… off," Fionn noted. "Huh? Oh! I'm fine, really. I just had a bad sleep last night; I'm pretty tired." "You should take today off," Gair said with finality. "It might not be a bad idea…" Fionn agreed. "N-no! I think I should. I promised I would and I think I just need to wake up a little." "Would you stop being so stubborn all the damn time? You should listen to your body if you're tired." "Uh, I'm not that stubborn, am I?" "Are you kidding?"

Leonardo's arms refolded. "What's his problem?" He distinctly frowned at Gair. "It's ok, Gair. If she wants to work, then we should respect that," Fionn grinned at him. "We'll come by to walk you later." "U-uh no! That's fine!" They blinked at me in surprise for what felt like the millionth time. "I mean, you guys have class and everything; that's why I took this shift. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." "Alcmene….." "I promise, you guys," I gave a sincere smile. "I'll even text you once I'm there if it'll make you feel better." The two looked at each other and then at me. "Alright but promise that you won't hesitate to call if you need us." "I promise!" "Ok then," Fionn got up to leave. "Come on, Gair. Let's get to class." Gair sent me one last look- a genuine expression of concern- before following Fionn to the door. "I'll see you guys later." "Bye, Meny. Take care of yourself, ok?" "Ok, thanks Fionn. I'll call you this afternoon, Gair." He didn't respond, shutting the door quietly behind them.

The blue-masked turtle turned to me in confusion. "You're going to work?" His eyebrow rose. "At a club booth, yes." "I thought you were gonna help me!" "And I will! This is the perfect opportunity!" "Huh? What do you mean?" "You come to school with me." "Are you out of your mind?! I can't leave the room!" "Why not? You're invisible." "Oh yeah," he blinked in remembrance. "It's perfect. You come to me to work and stay with me. It's almost Halloween anyways so if anyone sees you, I'll just say you're wearing a costume." "Uh huh. Where are you going with this?" His hands planted on his hips. "Think of it as a trial run. If no one else sees you, then I don't see why you can't get on a plane. If it works today, then I don't see why you can't be on a plane home tomorrow." "I see you point," Leonardo's thumb moved up to rub under his chin ponderingly. "Do you think it'll work?" "It's worth a shot. We're kinda out of other options."

Leonardo thought it over for another minute or so. Then his head gave a resounding nod. "Ok, let's do it." "Alright," I got up from my chair. "So you'll come with me today. And if everything goes smoothly, we'll have you flying home in no time!"