When Shadows Rise | I

Ch. 43 | Complications

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It felt like an eternity before Talia felt her eyelids slowly crack open like a clam. Her vision was blurry and there was the weirdest feeling in her head yet. It wasn't exactly pain, but felt more like pressure. There was someone looking down at her, but she couldn't figure out who it was. And the overhead stage lights. . . it was a nuisance for her eyes, so she used her hand to shield some of the light away.

"Dude, I think she's starting to wake up!" The person turned their head and shouted behind them in a familiar voice. "What do I do?!"

"Then help her out, genius!" Another familiar voice responded gruffly.

"Hey, hey." Talia then felt the person grab ahold of her shoulder and shake it. "Come on, you can do it. Earth to Talia."

Talia opened her eyes. She blinked several times before seeming to zero in on the person's face. It was of a familiar-looking brown-skinned boy, revealing a dimple on each of his cheeks as he broke into a smile of relief. His freckles reminded Talia of a constellation of stars. He was—

"Mikey?"

"Yay! You're alive!" Mikey gently helped Talia get to her feet.

Seeing Mikey alive and well caused Talia to suddenly hug him like he were a friend she hadn't seen in forever. Although she and Mikey probably hadn't made it to the 'hugging' stage in their one month-old friendship, she couldn't pretend that him coming out fine after the two were caught in a life-or-death situation meant nothing to her.

And speaking of that life-or-death situation. . .

"Where are Shredder's ninjas?" Talia questioned, pulling away from Mikey. She turned her head every way (which was torture for her head), worried that they were still in the area. "Where did they ago? Are you alright? Is Raph alright? Is anyone alright—"

"Woah. Slow down, Tals," Mikey said. "I think ShredHead's errand guys are gone."

Hearing that, Talia tried to calm herself down. "Okay, okay." But then she shot Mikey a slightly panicked look. "You think?!"

"Definitely. Definitely gone, is what I meant," Mikey immediately corrected himself. "Raph and I are okay, but—" he then cringed "—the question is: are you okay?"

Talia drew her brows together. She didn't know what Mikey was talking about until her line of sight fell on her shoulder and suddenly, felt the memory come back to her. Oh! That's right.

The wound inflicted by the arrow had stopped bleeding, but the jagged skin unzipping a thin layer of visible soft and pink tissue glistening red underneath was hard to miss.

"It's just a graze," Talia said. "I'll be fine."

"That's not what I mean. There's a— there's a—" Mikey pointed specifically at her face, staring at it as if he were looking into the eyes of an extraterrestrial being.

So Talia brought her fingertips to her forehead, them flinching back when she felt something hard and round. Pressing on it made Talia wince in pain. It was already a giveaway— experiences of splitting her head open at primary school and tumbling down the grand staircase because she ran too fast in her beloved mansion let her know that she, in fact, suffered a bump to her head. As to how big it might be. . .