I awoke in a pool of blood. I sat up and looked at my arm. 'Why am I covered in blood?' I wondered as I looked around. I was in the middle of a ring of half-burnt candles. There was a bloody flute and dagger on the floor to my right and my mask on my left. I felt something around my eyes. I reached up to touch it. 'Salt?' I looked up and saw my family blankly blinking at me. Master Splinter helped me up. "What's goin' on?" I asked, turning to my brothers. "What was that, Bro?" Mikey asked, pulling something out of his ear. My father and brothers pulled something that looked like wax out of their ears. I repeated myself.
My brothers all tried to answer at the same time. I couldn't exactly make out what they were saying, but Mesa kept getting mentioned. "Huh?" I cocked my head. "Look!" Mikey said, pointing behind me. I turned around, afraid of what I was about to see. My heart skipped a beat. It was Mesa, bleeding on the ground. "What happened?!" I ran over to her, turned her onto her back and listened for a heartbeat. It was there. I sighed in relief and sat next to her. "She brought you back to us." Master Splinter answered. "What?" I was having trouble wrapping my head around this. Donny walked over to us and tended to Mesa. "You were in some kind of trance. You kept screaming and moaning. Mesa somehow brought you out of it." Donny told me as he cleaned what looked like stab wounds. "What did she do?" I expected Donny to answer, but instead it was Raph. "She used her blood to get that black stuff outta ya and her tears to wake ya up"
That was when it hit me. That mark, the cloth, the nightmares. It all came back. Mesa stirred and sat up. "Oh good! You're awake. I honestly didn't think it would work. Sorry about the mess, Sensei. I'll clean it up as soon as Donny's done with my hand." She now had a band-aid just under her neck and Donny was wrapping her hand. "I will explain everything after I clean up. You may want to wash that off, Leo. It really stinks after a while." I got up to leave. "May I have my cloth back?" I looked down at my arm and started trying to figure out how to untie it. When I finally did and gave it to her, she wadded it up and stuck it into her mouth. My brothers and I looked at her strangely as she sucked on it, swallowed then spit it back into her hand. It was cleaner than it was before this whole episode. "What?" she asked. I just shook my head and left to get a shower.
(POV Change)
I peeked over the couch and watched Mesa work. She only used the cloth she had in her hair earlier. She first cleaned the flute. She bent her head, thanked it and put it on the couch. She did the same thing with the dagger. I didn't understand why, though. "Mikey, could you help me gather the candles?" 'There's no getting past those ears of hers. I wonder how good she is at hide and seek.' I went to join her.
I handed her the candles one at a time. Every few candles, she would put the cloth back in her mouth. Every time after she got the blood off a candle, she would dip her head and thank it before setting it on the couch. "Why do you thank the candles?" I asked. She paused for a moment. "I thank the candles, because they protected me from the darkness as I brought it into me. I thanked the dagger, because it linked me to your brother to draw out his darkness. I thanked the flute, because it gave me passage into the darkness and safely led both of us out." I cocked my head at her explanation. She giggled at my puzzled look. "My mother taught me to thank everyone that does something for you, Mikey. Even if they don't respond." She continued cleaning the candles.
After all the candles were cleaned, Mesa started cleaning the blood stains on the floor. She started on the smaller one first. The cloth soaked it up like a sponge, turning it black. She put it back into her mouth. She did that about four more times. For the bigger pool, she did that at least twenty times. When she finished, she picked the dagger, flute and half the candles off the couch and went to the dojo to put them away. I took the other half.
(POV Change)
The rest of that afternoon, I tried to prepare myself to tell my story. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and went into the storage room. I selected a small log that was about a foot long and about four inches wide. I sat and began to whittle. Someone knocked and came in. It was Donny. "Hey, Mesa its time fo- Whoa! What are you making?" I looked down at the rough egg shape I was holding. "I'm making an ocarina." I answered. "Cool. Well anyway, it's time for dinner." "It's been that long already?" I looked at him wide-eyed. "Yeah. Come on." I followed him out the door. We were having spaghetti, since I couldn't have pizza. It warmed my heart that they would think of that. I prepared my mind for the past.