Then She Opened Her Eyes, and Remembered.
Who am I?
A question she wished her conflicted mind would keep locked tight somewhere deep and dark until it was no longer.
She wanted desperately to be LaFiamma Eulalie, the daughter of a blacksmith and a disowned, noblewoman. She didn't want to have these useless memories that didn't belong, and forced her to grow up too fast.
Most of it didn't make sense anyway. She wanted it to be simply some odd dreams, but then she started dreaming of an interest of hers: One Piece.
In her dreams, her other self was into lots of things, like anime, and she could recall the strangest references about pieces of literature or movies despite them not actually seeming to exist in this world (Not Earth, her mind whispered). So One Piece shouldn't have been any stranger than remembering about Shakespeare's works or Quentin Tarintino movies or Dr. Seuss' children's books.
Except…the memories she had of that one story – one in dozens she could recall – seemed to come up in the stories her father would tell her about the world and his adventures on the seas as a pirate.
She heard tales of the Four Blues… sky islands…her home in South Blue…the Grand Line…Gol D. Roger, the Pirate King.
It wasn't possible, was it?
She leaned back, closing her eyes. Yet, here she was a little girl with memories of a past life with knowledge she shouldn't.
She wanted to be in her car, driving away with a tank full of gas, stereo blasting, and chowing down on the beef jerky she had stopped to get. She wanted to be anywhere but here, laying on the ground amidst mute loudness.
If only she could blame the man, hell, even her snack, but she couldn't bring herself to tell herself such a horrid lie about what happened.
This was her fault, after all, the man across from her was just the trigger she had enacted. The events following as a consequence of her foolhardiness.
She couldn't even hate the man for what followed, because she understood to a certain extent why. He was lost and hopeless, only doing what he did because he couldn't see another way out. The world wasn't as forgiving and nice as it was painted on the surface.
He didn't want to be here anymore than she did.
Lafiamma Eduardo couldn't help but gasp at the ocean blue eyes – a mirror of his wife's – gleaming with an enigmatic intelligence and focus that should not belong on the face of a newborn. He found himself enraptured by the babe's stare.
The baby was not crying or screaming like one should, but simply staring at him with intent-filled eyes.
Even as his wife lay unresponsive on the bed, he couldn't help the small smile that graced his lips as his little girl wrapped her tiny hand around his finger. The focus flickered and she soon lulled off into a serene sleep, exhausted.
"Eulalie…Lafiamma Eulalie…" he whispered, testing out the name he and his wife had chosen for their child to have. He smoothed her tuft of purple hair down lovingly, which she had too gotten from his wife, unlike his own brunet. Tears ran down his face as he did so, some happy, some sad. "Isn't she beautiful, Marie?" He choked and grasped his still wive's hand, "I'm sure one day she'll be as beautiful as her mother, and I'll have to beat up all the boys who look at her," he let out a humorless chuckle and held his daughter closer, "Right?"
And Lafiamma Eduardo, a South Blue blacksmith, mourned while his daughter slept and his wife lay dead.
She was dying; it wasn't a pleasant death either, and completely avoidable. Why had she been so stupid? She struggled to breath with wet, heaving chokes. She never thought she would drown outside of water.
She was so foolish, playing hero when she had no idea what she was doing in reality. She hadn't even bothered to take a moment to think before leaping when the glinting metal was drawn on the cashier.
She couldn't hear anything except a high-pitched ringing noise. Her ears had muted the screams and frantic shouting of the world around her, stuck in the aftershock of the gun's bang.
She hadn't even bothered to notice someone press their shirt to her bleeding chest and shoulder.
There should be sirens blaring closer, she knew, but the flicker of alternating blue and red light were registered in the haze of her peripheral.
Her eyes met the ones staring parallel to her. Desperation and agony boring down into her own dazed gaze.
God, how dying sucked.
Little Eulalie scowled at the suggestion from her father to go play make-believe with all the other children in the park. She plopped defiantly on the grass, letting her father know her displeasure at all the slimy and sticky kids playing.
He had never known a child that disliked – not so much playing, but… playing with other children. His little girl, with all the might contained in her tiny fist, hated children despite being barely out of toddler-hood herself.
Eduardo heaved a sigh at his daughter. She was so strange, and far more developed than the other children were at her age; the other children had caught onto her strangeness well. She seemed to have a much easier time conversing with adults, and her attempts with communicating with children her age was met with frustration or awkwardness.
Eduardo had tried his best to help, especially when the other children started viewing her as 'unfun' and stopped trying to include her in games, but after an initial flash of hurt, his daughter got over it and contented herself with spending her time with him or around his blacksmithing shop.
The genuine interest in his work she showed with sparkly eyes, caused a swell of pride when she would adjust the furnace to the proper temperature or mimic his actions with a toy anvil, hammer, and some odd object she was 'shaping'. He couldn't help but chuckle at how serious she took her mimicking and how ridiculous she looked wielding a bright green, squeaking mallet on an equally colorful and soft orange anvil.
If she kept this up, he would have to teach her his art earlier than he had anticipated. He could even show her how to use the weapons as she learned to craft them like he planned, as the earlier she started, the better it was for her to get used to the variation of uses.
He glanced down back at where his daughter had been and let out a snort seeing the spot empty. With practiced eyes, he spotted and watched her climbing up a tree– away from all the other children. He wasn't concerned. The brat had been climbing before she was running.
Eulalie plopped lazily reclining on a branch, watching the clouds in the sky.
Honestly, sometimes Eduardo swore he had a tiny adult on his hands rather than a child.
One more year…then he would start teaching her more seriously than having her memorize metals, materials, and proper procedures. It was earlier than when he and his older brother each began at nine respectively from their father, but his daughter was ready and he knew she wouldn't disappoint.
He looked fondly at his little girl again; sleeping. It was time to go home before she rolled off during her nap from one of the places she decided to perch on again.
They both knew this was the end, both drowning and suffocated by their own blood.
Three bullets was all it took. One lodged in her right lung, another having passed through her shoulder tendons. The last had tore through the man's throat, causing his airway to be flooded and making breathing a losing battle without anyone knowing how to stop it.
The two of them stared from across the floor at each other, both of their bodies drowning from their own blood and straining with burning lungs and throats.
He was scared, it was simple to tell, and she was scared too. Yet she pushed a reassuring smile for the man' sake, hoping to soothe him in the last moments of his no doubt hard life. She wished to let him know it was okay, he shouldn't feel guilty, but lacked the power to do so.
Somebody lifted her off the ground into a stretcher. The man was gone, faded, and soon she will follow.
…Truly foolish as she hadn't realized what those eyes meant before she leapt into action.
Blue eyes snapped open, as a small, sweat-covered figure sprang up with a strangled sob coming out of her raw throat. Her father came bursting into her room, scooping her into his arms instantly.
"Shh…Eulalie, it's okay, Papa's here." Eduardo rubbed his daughter's back as she woke again from the same nightmare she had. He listened absent-mindedly to her incessant babbling about jerky and guns and robbers.
It shouldn't have been such a big deal, but her words and that look in her eyes sent chills down his spine. His daughter's words almost like she was recounting a terrible actuality rather than an imagined torment.
I killed him, Papa, I-I didn't mean to! He killed me too! B-but, it was an accident…I didn't mean to. I only wanted a snack, but then everything happened. And it hurt, it hurt so much. She would clench at imaginary wounds. I-I'm sorry, and he's sorry too! I just wanted some jerky, Papa. And then I was hurting so much.
The only thing that seemed to calm her down, oddly enough, was giving her a strip of jerky and her cries would quiet and leave, like the nightmare had never happened. A mind's solace was a mysterious and nonsensical thing.
He carried his daughter into the kitchen, taking care to whisper coaxing words, and pulled a strip of the homemade beef jerky from a jar he had taken to making sure stayed crammed full since his little girl never could get enough of the stuff.
True to the past miracles the dried meat performed, little Eulalie sniffled and whipped the snot and tears away. The child wordlessly nibbled on the dehydrated meat, her fluttering heart steadying with the familiar taste. Eduardo bounced her gently until she finished the strip and snuggled back into him, ready to go back to bed. Without further ado, he glided back to his room with his daughter in his arms in case the recurring nightmare struck again and needed to be warded away.
He hadn't wanted to use the gun, and neither had she wanted to be shot. It was never his intent, he had expected them to cower and cave under his gun. But it was already too late; her actions couldn't be undone.
Being rolled away on a gurney, the woman finally let her smile fall and her lips quivered as tears finally fell from her eyes.
There was nothing they could do, and she knew it. Accepting death and being ready for it was two completely different matters.
She wasn't ready, but that didn't matter.
One last strain of breath.
She was dead already.
Then she opened her eyes, and remembered.