One Piece: Madness of Regret

It was a bad idea. 

I should have done it while lying on my face.. I could at least prevent losing out so much blood or the brain fluid. 

I shouldn't have done it while standing. Now I can't feel my nose at all. Not that I feel anything other than pain. 

Good news for the pain receptors, I guess. 

I could go on whining, bitching about how I should have done that. Not that it matters anymore. The matter is done and finished. All I need is to wait for my healing power to work. 

Few minutes later.

Come on, I even did it with SpongeBob impression. 

Just work, damnit. Do I really need to blackout for it to work? Any major injuries, I have ever recovered I just needed to sleep it off or black out due to other causes. So, Do I sleep hoping that the bullshit powers cures me?

Could I even sleep with blood and brain matter flowing through a barnacle size hole in my head. Even the pain receptors are starting to work and I am experiencing one of the worst migraine, no all of the worst migraine at once in my brain. Even my eyes feel hot, scalding hot. Blinking never felt so hard and the darkness from closing it never felt so nice.

Man, I just want to rest.

Life was hectic but never this odd. I would be sitting in the chair working on shit that would give me just about enough to survive a month after working a month non-stop dreaming of getting out of my comfort zone. Now here I am day and night fighting to survive on impossible odds that a 100% would have killed me. Day by Day, Encounter after Encounter I am getting way and way out of my comfort zone. 

Hell, I can't even say I hate it. Its just necessary. Just survival. I am losing my sanity. 

Oo, hardish, softish, salty ground or whatever you are,

I don't want to get up at least not yet.

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How cold and I don't even have someone to snuggle against. 

I like the cold breeze during the sunny day cause its refreshing. Not when its cold at night. Especially if its a wet, moisture filled breeze. 

Its gonna rain, once again or going with my luck. A fucking storm.

I need to get up even if I can't. I need shelter or whatever I can find to shield me from the rain. 

I felt like a zombie standing up. I was alive, I know. I was aware. I was surviving. Yet, all of it seemed so fickle, so fragile. I didn't wish to survive. No, I never wished or aimed to just survive. 

I aimed to thrive.

I aimed to...

Hah, Like anyone would listen to me monologue. 

How I wish to thrive not just survive. I can even hear chuckles from those who would scoff at me, mocking my resolve, my monologue. Yeah, like they know what I am going through. Yeah, like they understand. Like they know what it feels like to be stranded. Like they know how it feels like to be so pariah, a nobody clawing, Just to not get a slow, drawn-out death.

Like they know what it's like to be so far away, without even doing the things you swore you'd do

Like they know what it's like to drown in regret. To carry the weight of unfinished dreams, of words left unsaid. To wake up every day knowing they could have done more—but never did

O, Who am I kidding? They know, They know it much better than me. They know what regret feels like. They lived so long, lived so long with it that it doesn't hurt them anymore. They've numbed themselves, drowned their regrets with silence and excuses. They would rather mock others for trying than admit they never did.

Life is harsh, people are harsher.

Not like they would listen to a guy monologuing anyway.

I need to find something for the storm.

At least, I have the starry sky to accompany me. Their brilliance and beauty piercing even the darkest of the dark, illuminating the path for me to thread on. I could gaze upon you day and night and never tire. Just get more and more entranced with you, only sink deeper. So far yet always in sight. 

I could write poems and stories of you but not one could reach the epitome of what you are. How could words be enough to describe you, something so vast, something so infinite, so unchained. How could I, a fleeting existence, ever hope to grasp something that has watched civilizations rise and fall, that has seen the birth and death of a thousand worlds?

Yet, here I am. Admiring you. Envying you. 

You are just you.

No wonder I envy you.

I could go on and on about you, lose myself in your radiance, but I am needed on reality. I am needed in a world where I need to bleed, where I need to ache, where survival needs attention. You will be forever on the skies, waiting, untouched. 

And I? I must keep moving. 

Shelter. Or some protection against the storm. I needed to find it. And in my field view of nothing but barnacles, five flipped buggers and just the starry sky light. I am hard pressed to find any shelter. 

Doesn't matter. I need to try anyways. 

Before all that I checked the back of my head. Blood or any sort of brain fluid had stopped pouring out of it. A good news. The hole hadn't healed and was all exposed. Bad news. 

I needed a sort of cover for the hole in the back of my head. Can't let any more bacteria or anything go in my skull. I took of my shirt. God my clothes have gone through disaster. The shirt had shrink and hardened in some places. But it was good enough to cover my head. I checked my jeans. They too had shrink. Thank god, my mother taught me how to buy clothes a size larger. 

I only had one shoes, now that I think of it. I guess one got lost in the chaos. I still had my first trophy, the victor spoils, my two severed finger in my pocket. They had decayed a lot more but they were still there. 

I folded my shirt into an bandana style and wore it like one. Just hoping that the shirt bandana doesn't have any bacteria or it does more harm than good.

My heads good for now. My legs and body work just fine. I can see, smell, feel and hear. Looks like my ears healed at some point and I can hear. My neck is healed too. So I am basically fit if my hole in the skull us ignored.

Now for the voyage. Where do I go? Lets see. One side is filled and littered by barnacles and barnacles with some occasional patches of no barnacles. Other two side opposite to each other are in a slope but nothing on them. Makes me look like I am in a passage of some sort. The last direction is empty, except for something at the far end. Something artificial.

So do I go into the barnacle infested area with only one shoe as a form of protection or do I go up the slope or do I go to the artificial stuff in the distance? Barnacles would tear up my foot. The slopes? Probably a waste. Not that they're tall enough to hide much. So the artificial thing is what I must go after.

I could even do both direction by climbing the slope and going towards the artificial stuff. 200% reward with 150% effort. 

And so I went on my voyage. I trekked the slope which elevation could not even be ten meter. Ten meter elevation in the span of a hundred meter. At least that's what my guess is. And what do I see above the slope. I see shitload of barnacle, buggers and empty patches of ground. A little further my line of sight, I swear to almighty I never felt so thrilled and scared at the same time.

I saw the ocean. And goddamn it looked a mirror to the starry skies. So calm and so bright. even my eyes reflected the starry skies from the ocean. You really had to one up the starry skies, didn't you?

My estimate would put you about two kilometer away from my slope and a little farther away from the other slope. I can't help but worry. Feels like you are calling for me, aren't you? Asking me to jump in the waters with you? 

But I don't need to worry, do I? The only reason I am going to jump in the water is because I have no other way.

I set up a red flag, did I not? 

Fuck, let's just focus on the artificial thing. I walked towards it. And lo and behold a barnacle field right in front of me. I could go around the barnacle field and lose some precious time or I could just walk through the field of sharp, pointy top with tongue licking at anything that would move to save time. 

I will take it as surveying the field. I went around the barnacle field. Goddamn how long is this barnacle patch. I feel like I have been walking forever. 

Something fun seems to be happening in front of me. Some buggers playing with the barnacles. The buggers fighting with the barnacles. Or at least that's what it looks like to me. The buggers striking the barnacle hard shell with their exoskeleton. I could even hear some little dang between them two. 

I walked closer to them. I was pretty confident that I could out maneuver both of them now that my legs are working. Few barnacles were uprooted from the ground while few buggers were somehow flipped and resting on top of the barnacles.

I could see the buggers climb the uprooted barnacles while the barnacles take their tongue towards the flipped buggers. Two carnivore eating each other. Though I could understand the buggers but how could the barnacle tongue penetrate the hard shell of the buggers. Do they have soft underbelly or something? 

Curious. I went near them and picked the bugger resting on top of barnacle. Strangely enough, the resting bugger underbelly had a hole in it. Something I didn't see in the buggers that were feasting on my leg. And this bugger was dead. No movement at all. 

I picked up another resting bugger and the same result. I squinted my eyes a lot and I could see a hole even in the starry lit environment. Just big enough for a tongue to slip in and mess up the inside but still a hole. 

Holy fucking macaroni! The barnacle tongue can pierce the exoskeleton or they have some unknown tactics for it. They feast on buggers. How the fuck is my brain ok after a barnacle was licking my brain? 

If barnacles can kill buggers, then can buggers kill barnacles? I could see some buggers walk from one barnacles to another. The buggers would then sit a top it and then leave a minute later. I approached the barnacle that the bugger left and I could see the barnacle was hollow in the inside. How did the bugger eat everything in a barnacle in a minute? Could the bugger mouth even extend that long? And how the hell is the eating that fast? 

I have so many questions but no answers. This only questions and no answer is getting a little too annoying. 

Just leave it to the future me. He is a good looking dude, who has both brain and brawn and is never afraid of challenges. He is a rizzler that could make get a W for any level 10 gyatt. He will give me answers. 

Did I make a Gen Z joke? Or was that from Gen Alpha or whatever this generation or another generation is called? Cause goddamn I am rizzard with words. Call me Harry Pogger now. Though no diddy but I feel its a L thinking and talking like a Gen Alpha beta.

Wake up to reality.

I need the artificial thing. Whatever it is, my future plan depends on it. 

So I walked around the bugger and the barnacle fight and the field. It was a longer walk than I anticipated. The buggers kept coming to the barnacles and I had to make way. It was interesting to say the least. I would have loved it if I was a biologist or something.

There was the price. I was near the artificial thing and I could even see it, it felt so familiar and looked so unfamiliar. Rectangle in shape, it had a almost slope like structure.

I walked towards it. It had a red layer or at least that's what it looked like. Buggers, tens and twenty's of them on it scraping it. I touched the red layer. It was slimy, sticky. It's smell reminded me of something. Iron. 

Blood.