One Piece: Madness of Regret-Chapter 33: Rain, Storm and Whales. Again!(6)

It was a hard fall. A brutal fall. The kind that should've snapped my neck, shattered every bone in my body, and left me floating, lifeless especially when I landed on my face.

But I was still alive.

And I wished I wasn't.

Pain. That was the first thing I understood. A raw, searing agony that spread like wildfire through my body. My ribs were shattered, splintered, but somehow still intact, a broken cage barely holding my lungs together. My face took the worst of it. My nose was crooked, broken in all probability. My eyes felt like they had burst from the force of impact. They likely had. My teeth few of them came loose. I could tell from the pain from my gums. I could taste blood thick on my tongue, coppery and warm, mixing with the saltwater that had forced its way into my mouth.

I should have screamed. Every nerve in my body wanted to.

But I knew better. I had to know better.

I had been thrown into the water before often times from necessity and choice. Far more times than I cared for, more times than anyone should. And I had learned something. The first mistake people made when hitting the ocean unexpectedly was screaming. It was instinctual. The pain, the shock, the sheer _terror_ of suddenly being plunged into the unknown—it made people open their mouths. It made them exhale, waste precious oxygen.

And then they drowned.

So I clenched my jaw shut. Kept my lips sealed tight, even as the icy water slammed against me, even as my body screamed for release. My chest heaved, my ribs protested, but I held. Because if I lost the air in my lungs now, I was done.

My lungs were already damaged, courtesy to the barnacles. I was in a much worse position.

The ocean swallowed me whole.

There was no gentle descent, no slow sinking like a weightless object drifting in the current. No. I was plummeting. Falling. The force of impact had sent me rocketing downward, dragged deeper and deeper from the sheer velocity from which I was thrown.

I could feel it. The rapid descent, the way the cold became colder. How the water became thicker and clanged tight to me, dragging and crushing me to its desire.

The pressure grew. It crushed down on me from all sides, squeezing my body, making every wound and bone burn with unbearable intensity. My ears popped with a sharp sting that felt like needles piercing my skull. The deeper I went, the worse it got.

It reached a point where I couldn't take it anymore.

My lungs collapsed in on themselves.

I coughed.

A mistake A fatal one.

I felt it instantly. The way the precious oxygen I had hoarded rushed out of me in a flurry of bubbles. And how the water rushed to take its place.

I choked.

My throat clenched as the saltwater invaded, burning its way down, filling my airways with liquid instead of air. My body reacted before my mind could—every muscle in me fought. My arms flailed, my legs kicked wildly, desperate to propel me up, to the surface, to air.

But there was no direction in the deep. No up. No down. I had no sense of direction. Nothing seemed to work in the deep.

The weight of the waters, dragged me to their depths.

My mind blurred.

My instinct didn't. My arms and legs went against the direction of resistance.

My vision was already failing from the moment I hit the water, but now—it was worse. The agony in my skull, the fire in my lungs, the sheer lack of oxygen—everything blurred into a distant haze.

My limbs slowed. My body felt heavy.

I knew what was happening.

I was drowning.

The first signs of hypoxia were setting in. The lack of oxygen was shutting down my brain. Soon, my thoughts would stop making sense. Then I'd feel a strange sense of calm, an eerie kind of peace.

And then, I'd be gone.

No pain. No fear. Just... nothing.

And yet—some part of me refused.

A deep, primal part of me, something beyond logic, beyond reason—refused to go quietly.

My body kicked again, weaker this time, but still moving. My hands reached for something, anything, grasping at the water as if I could pull myself back up. My lungs burned, my heart slammed against my ribs, but I fought.

Because I didn't want to die.

Not here.

Not like this.

I still had a regret to fulfil. A pinky promise to complete.

But the ocean didn't care what I wanted. The dark waters had taken countless before me, and they would take countless after.

And then.....

Something _moved_.

Something... big.

I was being chartered to the surface. The ascent was too fast. Too sudden.

One moment, I was sinking. My body being crushed by the weight of the waters, lungs screaming for air that didn't exist. The next moment, I was being dragged up to the surface at speeds I could never reach.

No. No. I was losing pressure too fast. Too fast for my body to adjust. Too violent for my body.

I could hear pops in my body, crack in my body. My lungs were swelling violently, like a bomb nearing detonation. My veins. Some if not most had all exploded.

My heart was spasming. Air bubbles clogged in my brain. My thoughts grew even more fragmented, scattered, burned. Pain surged through my joints. My stomach bloated to its limit. No, it was bloating past its limit.

The sudden change in pressure had forced every single gas in my body to expand, like a balloon about to burst.

My legs twitched uncontrollably. My fingers locked. My body had lost control of itself. My body was spasming.

It wasn't just that. My lungs had overinflated. The breath I took to escape my fate nearly sealed it instead. Even the cold ocean felt warm in my lungs. There was too much warmth. Blood. Blood had started to flood my lungs.

Everything was slipping. Slipping into the cold, dark I could see.

Then, in a single instant

I breached the surface.

An unwelcome mixture of seawater, cold air and the pitch black.

I gasped, choked, vomited, convulsed. My body didn't know how to function anymore. Every nerve screamed out signals of pain, my brain was too foggy to comprehend them all. My limbs didn't work. My lungs fought to take air, but were too filled with blood and foam.

I was alive. Somehow.

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But, I wasn't surviving.

My lungs were too fucked up. Too inflated and filled with blood to function properly. My heart convulsing, spasming out of control. My body out of control. My nerves doing the better work of transmitting pain, at least the working ones.

I could think now, somehow. Barely.

No matter how much I think, there still was the fog in my head. Thinking felt more like treading in the fog. Treading on just fragments of thoughts. None of them were any good. None told me how to survive.

I had two things. Two things that could theoretically help me live.

One, my healing power. It could heal to me full health. Patch me up in hours, days. But time was a luxury to me.

Two, the ones watching me. I knew they were. I didn't need to see them, hear them. I could feel them. Lurking. Observing. Waiting.

The healing power was a carrot for me and the encounters with dear life a stick.

I didn't know what they wanted from me. For me to be a chess piece in a scheme so grand I could never comprehend it? A conduit to travel in my dimension? Just a fun piece to play around?

I clenched my fists.

No.

Fuck that.

I wasn't going to beg.

I wasn't going to grovel. I wasn't going to plead. I wasn't going to cry out for some unseen hand to reach down and save me.

If they wanted me alive, they could make that choice themselves. I am not asking. I am not going to give them the satisfaction.

I had pride in me.

Pride that was being broken down, wilted down piece by piece from all the encounters I have been in. But it was still there. I had been thrown into impossible situation one after another. I had fought, crawled, bled, drowned. Over and over again. I had survived out of sheer luck and spite. But it was still there.

Wounded. Broken. But still there.

My pride was still here.

So what if I was blind in the dark? So what if my bones were broken, my lungs shredded, my mind fogged? So what if I drowned again? So what if I fought, suffered, and bled? So what if I was alone?

No, Fuck all that.

Fuck all this.

If I was going to die, I was going to do this in my own terms.

I was not going to die a chess piece, tossed around a board. Played like a puppet, a pawn to death.

If I was going to live, I was going to do it spitting in the face of whatever cosmic bullshit had been playing with me from the start.

The pitch black night atoned for my loneliness. The cold rain battered against my skin. The wind cut through clothes. The storm raged on, howling. The waves reminded me of my place in the world.

I didn't care.

I stood up.

Shaking. Barely holding myself together. Every nerve screamed for me to stop.

I stood up anyway.

On the back of the behemoth that carried me to the surface. On the edge of death itself. I stood.

And I raised my hand.

Not to pray.

Not to plead.

Not to ask for mercy.

I raised my middle finger to the sky.

A silent, defiant FUCK YOU.

To the ones above.

To the ones playing their games.

To whatever gods, demons, eldritch abomination that were watching, laughing, waiting.

FUCK. YOU.

Let the waters be my judge. Let the storm be my witness. Let the Leviathans be my spectators.

I am done being your pawn. I am done being a puppet in your game.

I am done.

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It's been a year nowThink I've figured out howHow to let you go and let communication die out. I know, you know, we knowYou weren't down for forever and it's fineI know, you know, we knowWe weren't meant for each other and it's fine. But if the world was endingYou'd come over, right?

Anyway lyrics aside. I don't know why I wanted to write it(lol). Anyways, its been a month and more. So I think I figured out how to end Volume 1. Volume 1 was supposed to be around 50ish Chapter but I cut it short because of lack of readers and because I think I don't have enough writing skills to write the Lovecraft bit in more detail for now.

I was thinking of ending the volume in 3 Chapters or less but this Chapter of defiance makes me want to write a fight scene. Because the MC needs a punching bag. Without a punching bag the Mc is going to get a whole lotta mad latter on which doesn't won't match the thoughts in my head. So, a fight scene it is.

I even asked a someone if they wanted a fight scene on novelkiss but he didn't reply. I was planning on making him the main villain for the fight scene. But oo well a opportunity missed, I guess.

And thats all folks. So a little more lyrics and you are good to go.

You'd come over and you'd stay the nightWould you love me for the hell of it?All our fears would be irrelevantIf the world was endingYou'd come over, right?The sky'd be falling and I'd hold you tightAnd there wouldn't be a reason whyWe would even have to say goodbye