One Piece: Madness of Regret

Feels like sleeping on gravels.

Bloody hell! So uneven and I swear some of it is inside my skin. What a fabulous way to start the day.

And I bet a tenner that the gravel is alive and licking me in ways that could make a smut-book lover girl blush. That's right-licking.

Yea, the day is getting more and more fantastic.

Almost as if there are stuff that could make it more and more enchanting.

The blazing sun is directly in my eyes, almost like it has a personal vendetta against me. But beggars can't be chooser. Not like I can just lift a hand to block it.

Why you ask? It's because I can't feel my lower body. Just that my left hand kinda works, almost acting like a engine running on fumes. My right hand, well it is fucked, completely and utterly fucked with loads of buckshot's. I can't even will it to move, like some dead weight.

At least, my heads mostly okay which is a bloody relief. Sure, I can't still hear but at least I can think. I am aware, a big deal considering what I went through. Though some nerves, some pain receptors are probably wrecked. 

Cause I can't seem to feel pain. At least not from the paralyzed lower half and semi paralyzed right hand, I hope I am mistaken. Though I can feel whatever was licking me on my back. Slow. Wet. Persistent.

And I have to say, it is a different feeling. Subconsciously I try to lift my right hand and my lower half and they don't work. Almost like being in a new country trying to start a new life. It needs time to get used to which I hope I never have. I don't wish to adapt. I don't wish to be taken care of by others, needing help for the most mundane of tasks. I don't want pitying glances from strangers nor do I want awkward silences when people don't know what to say.

An afterthought in my own life? 

I don't want to be that. I can't be that.

But that's what happens, isn't it? People start treating you differently. They talk like you're fragile, like you might shatter from the slightest touch. And in doing so, they make you fragile. They stop inviting you places, stop thinking of you as someone who _does_ things and start seeing you as someone things _happen_ to.

You become a bystander in your own home. A burden in your own life.

I would rather die than live like this.

I could handle losing few fingers, even my whole bloody hand, but paralysis? A prison in my own body? No, No. I'd rather not.

Not like this. Not like this. Not like this. 

I don't want to go out like this. A crippled man who could do nothing but stare at his end. A gardener in war, left to sow seeds in the ashes. A musician without sound, lost in the silence. A sailor without a ship, left to drift. A king without his crown, ruling over dust. A weak man in tough times, struggling to carry a world too heavy for him. A bird in a cage, longing for the open skies. 

Not like this. Never like this.

I would rather not be among the living than be like this. 

Hope. Such a grand word, wasn't it? A simple collection of letters, yet it carried the weight of entire lives. People lived and died chasing a mere glimpse of it, clinging to the possibility that tomorrow might be kinder than today.

Parents took their last breaths never knowing what it truly meant, sacrificing their dreams so their children could bask in it. They toiled away, hands rough, backs bent, believing that maybe—just maybe—their struggles would pave the way for something better.

Great men spent their whole lives working tirelessly, not for themselves, but for people they would never meet. They built, they bled, they broke, all for the chance that someone, somewhere, would feel the warmth of a future they never got to see.

Mothers gave everything—body, soul, and spirit—so that their children could reach for the stars they themselves could only dream of. They swallowed their fears, hid their pain, and stitched hope into lullabies, whispering promises of a brighter tomorrow even when they doubted it themselves.

Hope was relentless. It was cruel. It asked for everything and promised nothing. And yet, people still chased it, still believed in it, because sometimes—just sometimes—it was all they had.

And I had hope. Hope that my healing factor—whatever it was—would fix me. It had saved me before, pulling me back from the edge more times than I could count. It had knitted wounds, sealed fractures, and dragged me back from the brink of death.

And now, I hoped it would do it again.

But all I could do was wait.

Wait, hoping that time would mend me. 

Wait, hoping I wasn't just a gardener in a war—useless, misplaced, doomed from the start. 

Wait, hoping that when I healed, I wouldn't just return—I'd come back stronger. 

Wait, hoping... 

Hoping...

Hah. I think I'm starting to resent this hope.

Hope. Hope. Hope. 

Such a small word, yet it had wrapped itself around my throat, tightening like a noose. Why did I have to stake everything on it? Why was I wagering my very existence on something so fragile? So uncertain?

Where did this blind hope even come from? Was it truly mine, or was it just something I'd been conditioned to believe in? A lie people whispered to themselves to make waiting easier? An instinctual reaction to make a little easier?

And yet, even as these thoughts gnawed at me, I still held on.

I exhaled slowly, forcing my mind to settle. If I was right—if my healing was real, if it would work again—then all of this waiting would be worth it. I would wake up whole. I would move again. I would be me again.

But as I lay there, clinging to that hope like a fool grasping at smoke...

I could still feel the licking.

Mindless. Unbothered.

You don't seem too concerned about my situation, do you?

I mean, why would you? My broken body, my silent suffering—it doesn't matter to you. All you need to do is lick. And lick. And keep licking.

I almost want to laugh. 

No—this laugh isn't for you. It's for me. For being chained to something as absurd as _hope_. For believing in the impossible. For fighting against the inevitable.

Hope. Hope. Hope.

A noose disguised as salvation. Why am I still betting my existence on it? Is it even mine, or just a reflex? A cruel joke whispered into the ears of desperate men?

Yet, I still hold on.

Because what else is there?

I exhale, forcing my mind to settle. If my healing holds true—if it saves me one more time—I'll wake up whole. I'll move again. I'll be me again.

But until then, I wait.

And feel the licking.

Persistent. Relentless. Unbothered. 

You really don't know when to give up, do you? 

The whole world could fall and you would still be licking. The ground could crack open beneath us, swallowing everything whole—cities reduced to dust, skies ablaze with fire—and yet, you would keep going. Empires could crumble, oceans could dry up, and mountains could shatter into dust, but none of it would matter to you. You'd carry on, would you not, mindless and unwavering, as if the collapse of everything was just background noise to your singular, relentless instinct.

This much of a persistent instinct... 

The will to keep going, no matter how broken you get was, no matter how much the world tried to bury you. Yet, You just keep on licking. Indifferent. Unstoppable.

Maybe that's the cruelest part. You're doing what I can't.

You endure. You persist. You continue, without thought or hesitation. You survive every second, without fear or doubt. You remain, unshaken by pain, untouched by despair. You exist—simple, constant, relentless, unbothered—while I wither in the waiting. You move forward when I am trapped in stillness. 

You carry on, while I crumble on the edge of my morality and belief.

I am fucking stupid, am I not, my licky friend? 

I am resenting the hope, the power I have that could cure me to my most optimal state. I am resenting the very reason that has kept me away from sucidial thought. Despising the only thing that could make me happy. Loathing the things I got for free. Abhorring my very own existence because I didn't truly depend on myself to survive. 

Maybe that was my bloody problem. I survived because I took some bloody help from unknown. My ego could not take it. I could not take it. I was handed a life by forces out of my control. I was left alive by forces I could have never comprehend. 

No matter what I faced off against, the outcome would have been death. I know it by heart. 

From the very beginning, the sun and the sea sickness should have killed me slowly while draining all the energy I had in me. The Komodo Bastard should have shredded me countless of times in water and a few more times when it jumped on the raft when I was sea sick. My digestive system would have screamed murder as it shouldn't be able to digest raw flesh without punishing me for it. The storm, with its raging current, should have knocked me in the water, left to drift forever until nothing remained of me. 

The brutal chest slam on the raft should have ended me right there and then. The seagulls pecking on my chest and arms should have pecked vital organs and killed me in my sleep. I should have never healed from the wounds I got. The whales gentle harmless flip should have knocked out my lights. 

The baby whale playful behavior drowned me with no escape. Yet, here I am. Alive. Surviving.

By luck? By my actions? By some miraculous healing factor? Destiny? Fate? Choice? Stubbornness? Sheer will-power? Some cosmic joke—some bullshit ROB?

I have no clue.

My mother always did say; "Your ego is the one thing. You need to take control of." 

I just never listened. 

But did it matter anymore now? When every moment feels like borrowed time, when regret gnaws at the edges of my thoughts like a constant reminder of what could've been? It's too late to change, yet there's just enough time left to sit with the anger of not changing when I had the chance.

I apologize, Mother, but I've already become what I am _because_ of my ego. It's been both my shield and my shackle. To discard it now would mean discarding _me_—the stubborn, foolish man who refused to bend, even when breaking seemed inevitable.

Maybe in my own world, I would have reshaped myself—my pride, my stubbornness—just to fit in, to survive, to thrive. Just to make you smile. Maybe I would've chosen comfort over defiance, peace over pride. Maybe I would've been the man you wanted me to be.

But in moments like this, survival demands more than fitting in. Every encounter I have feels like a brush with death, every breath I take feels like a gamble with fate. Out here, ego meant much more It meant identity, the last morsel of control I had on me.

And if I am going to die- if that's the price- Mother. I wish to do it as myself. Ego intact. Unbroken. Not as a shell of what society wished me to become, what others wished for me to become, but as the defiant, arrogant soul that only few knew.

Because in the end when death comes for me. I want it to find me- not the version of what I could be, not the version others wished me to become, not the version of what I wanted to be- but the man I am.

Proud. Stubborn. Whole.