It was 8 AM on Sunday, April 5th, 2020. Vincent suggested that Dill, Delilah, and the turtles all go home for a proper rest.
Dill went to their apartment for a shower and a long nap. They offered for Delilah to join them, but she declined. She and the turtles went back to the Lair.
Of course, Delilah could not sleep.
She had never sat alone in the dojo before. It was a nice place, and it was perfect for meditation. If only she knew how to properly meditate- she learned, but she was really choppy at it. Either way, she gave it her best shot.
The room was full of the turtles- all at different ages. She smiled as she watched them start their first day of training- they were using different weapons than the ones they have now- and all were made of foam in this memory. Donnie had Sai, Raph had Katana, Mick had a bo staff, and Leo had nunchucks.
She watched them all hit each other- mostly accidentally, sometimes purposefully. If it was purposefully, she heard a stern voice call to them- but the voice seemed like it went through autotune three times. She saw the owner of the voice, and though the owner was blurry. Through the blur, she was able to make them out to be a rat. She remembered a drawing of him- Master Splinter- from Leo's journal.
"Boys, please stop hitting each other! Michelangelo, please stop hitting Raphael before you hurt him! Leonardo, stop swinging your nunchaku around like a helicopter! Donatello, the sais are not three-pronged forks! Boys! Boys!" Splinter bellowed. All of the turtles stopped, weapons frozen in mid-air.
The memory moved to a few years later- many years, actually. It seemed to be only a few years ago. The weapons wall had many more weapons, and she could hear a lot more of Donnie's technology whirring. But... It was all destroyed. Raph entered the dojo, and he was crystal clear. He was carrying something. No- someone. It was Splinter- she could tell by the small frame. A girl followed behind Raph, and she- like Splinter- was blurry. Delilah was able to point out a bright, yellow jacket.
Raph put Splinter onto a slab of concrete and spoke to the girl.
"Get the first aid kit! On the shelf! Hurry. Hurry!" Raph's voice was not changed. The girl grabbed the kit as Splinter's, thrice-autotuned voice spoke.
"Raphael?"
'I'm here." Raphael searched through the first aid kit.
"You must save your brothers. Stop Shredder."
"Sensei-" Raph was cut off by a loud, annoying beeping. The girl looked to Donnie's monitors.
"It's some kind of tracker," she said. Her voice was also like it went through autotune three times.
"It's Donatello!" Raph confirmed. Splinter looked up at Raph.
"Go, Raphael." There was a long pause before Raph responded.
"Let's go save my brothers." He stood up straighter.
"We need a ride." Raph looked at the girl. "I'll call Vern."
"Thank you, April."
"Ahh," Delilah thought. "So this is April O'Neil..."
The memory moved again. It seemed to cut to a few hours later as if that evening. All of the turtles were surrounding Splinter. He had remained on the cement slab and seemed almost dead. Donnie, Raph, and Mikey were crystal clear, and their voices were not changed at all. Leo was blurry, and his voice was also like it went through autotune.
Donnie was holding a bottle containing a green, gel-like liquid that Delilah could not identify.
"Okay, the mutagen is now entering his bloodstream. Master Splinter?" Donnie asked. Mutagen...
"Nothing's happening. Why isn't it working yet?" Mikey asked. He was pouting.
"Mikey..." Delilah could tell Splinter was very weak as he spoke.
"Huh?"
"Mikey, come closer."
"What did he say? What did he say?" Leo asked, almost frantically.
"He said, 'Please get your knee off my chest.'"
"Sensei! You're alive! It worked!" Donnie exclaimed.
"I'm sorry. This was all my fault," Leo admitted.
"You were right. We weren't ready," Raph admitted as well. Splinter stopped them, gaining more energy.
"No. It was I who wasn't ready to let you go. All you needed was to discover that your true power lies in believing in one another," Splinter explained. Mikey put his hands to his head and motioned for his mind being blown.
The memory skipped a few hours later. Delilah could tell- the turtles were gone, and Splinter was sitting up on the cement slab. He seemed to be meditating and was very deep into it. He exited the meditation and looked around at the destroyed Lair. He sighed. He looked to his feet and found a broken stick of metal as if from a scaffolding. He picked it up and stood up. He used it to help carry his weight as he walked around the dojo, looking at every broken piece.
He seemed to walk directly toward Delilah. She felt shivers as he approached- his figure became more and more clear. He stopped right in front of her and seemed to not look through her, but directly at her.
"My what a curious eye, gaze into the past to find the future. Must I be your new tutor? Learn what you can for I must be gone, you will know before the day is done."
Of all of the things that Delilah had heard him say, this was crystal clear.
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Delilah thought she just had just been sleeping- she had forgotten she was meditating. She stood up and stretched. She checked her phone for the time. 12:33 PM; Sunday, April 5th.
"That was the weirdest four and a half hours I've ever experienced..." She whispered to herself. "But they were also pretty cool."
Delilah went into the living room. Mick was passed out on the couch with a pizza slice in her hand. Her make-up was smudged a lot.
Delilah continued to the kitchen. She grabbed a container of orange juice from the fridge and a pack of Eggo waffles to go, then went up to Leo's room. She'll talk to the turtles about the meditation later when everyone wakes up.
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"Wait... You saw master Splinter?" Donnie asked, baffled. "In meditation?"
"Yeah. I... It... It seemed more like I was seeing memories that were contained in that room. If I did it in other parts around here, I would see memories and stuff from the immediate area."
"What does that mean?" Mick asked curiously.
"I have no idea," Delilah responded.
"What'd you see?" Raph asked.
"Um... Three memories and one... Something else."
"I first saw you three and Leo training when you guys were very young- probably one of your first lessons. You were still using each other's weapons, and they were made of foam. Then I saw Raph and that girl, April, helping Splinter. The Lair looked destroyed, and it looked recent as Donnie's tech was still at least somewhat functional. Then I saw the four of you injecting mutagen into Splinter's bloodstream to save his life. Then I saw Splinter find a metal rod to use for support, stand up, and that's when he looked directly at me and spoke to me."
"Woah woah woah, he spoke to you? Directly?" Donnie asked, stopping her.
"Yeah, and it threw me off. Before he did, Leo, April, and Splinter were all blurry and their voices seemed to have been put through autotune. But the moment Splinter directly to me, his voice was clear as day and he wasn't blurry at all."
"What did he say?"
"He said, 'My what a curious eye, gaze into the past to find the future. Must I be your new tutor? Learn what you can for I must be gone, you will know before the day is done.' I have no idea what it means," Delilah responded.
"He said that to Leo, right? Once or twice growing up?" Raph asked, looking between Donnie and Mick.
"Yeah, after we met with April and Vern after that fight with Shredder the first time," Mick responded.
"But how did he say it to you?" Donnie asked.
"I don't know!" Delilah wrapped her arms around herself. "I didn't look around, maybe Leo was standing behind me in the memory?"
"No, he was near the weapon wall, not the center of the room when Splinter said that to him," Donnie said. "Besides, we weren't even back yet, right?"
"Right, I forgot... It was just Splinter..."
They stood in silence, all lost in thought.
"Dee, you were meditating, right?" Donnie asked.
"Yeah. Deep meditation," Delilah responded.
"What if you went so deep into meditation that you basically went into a seance of sorts?" Delilah thought.
"Maybe I went so deep that I did enter a state of a medium?"
"That seems... Scary," Mick whispered.
"If you think about it too hard, then yeah," Delilah shrugged. "But it's logical... Right, Don?"
"Right. Very, very possible..."
"Could you meditate in Leo's room?" Raph blurted. He seemed like he had been holding the question back for a while.
"Maybe we all should, that way you could see what I'm seeing?" Delilah suggested. Mick, Donnie, and Raph all remained quiet. "Or I could do it on my own and relay the message."
"Yes," said Raph.
"100% agree," Donnie said.
"Please!" Mick whined. Delilah chuckled.
"Let me just eat something and then I'll go do it."
Delilah went into the kitchen from the living room and got a bowl and some cereal. She didn't pour any milk and started eating it with her fingers.
"Can you ask him questions when you see him?" Mick asked, almost excitedly.
"Sure," Delilah chuckled. "Fire away."
"Me first!" Mick smiled. "I technically have two: What it's like on the other side and what it's like to die?" Delilah took a mental note.
"Okay. Raph, Don- any questions?"
"Um... Where is it?" Donnie asked.
"Noted. Raph?"
Raph looked to the floor and sighed deeply. He didn't look up at his siblings or Delilah.
"Just... A statement. It's been chaotic here, and I miss him."
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Delilah made herself comfortable on the floor between Leo's desk and his hammock. She started meditating.
She saw Leo on his hammock, holding his katanas. He was somewhat blurry but not nearly as blurry as he was in Splinter's memories.
He was throwing his katanas into a board on the ceiling, and then sitting up and grabbing them. He laid down and repeated the process. He soon stopped, then stood up and moved to the curtain door. He looked around, then took his desk chair and put it next to the furthest wall. He stood on it.
He moved the poster of Masaaki Hatsumi to reveal the small compartment door, grabbed the most recent journal, and went back to his desk.
"March 13th, 2020..." he whispered, writing the date in Latin. Delilah's heart started racing.
It moved to what seemed like a few hours later. Leo was gone, and yet it didn't feel like much time had passed. She heard someone enter the Lair, then enter the bedroom
"Thank god these are still here..." Leo whispered. He had blood dripping down the back of his head, and a bullet we stuck where the wound was. "I can't believe I'm about to die-" He started shimmering, but then seemed to disappear into thin air.
Delilah's heart would not slow down. He didn't know he already died.
The memory seemed to shift again. This seemed like weeks later, like the present day. Leo was sitting on top of his desk, reading what seemed to be a Harry Potter book. He looked up and noticed Delilah. He smiled.
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