"When the days are cold
and the cards all fold
and the saints we see
are all made of gold - "

The sky was red.

Oddly, that was the first thought that went to Nami's head, when she woke up in a secluded, well-hidden alleyway. She had slept in a sitting position, her legs drawn to her busty chest and a gun resting on her lap.

Her burnt ginger hair had been mussed up in her sleep, and her face was covered in soot. Frowning, she swiped a dirty hand across her cheek as she stood up, her aching legs groaning the entire time.

She looked around. There didn't seem to be any demons around, so she guessed it was safe to step out and scavenge for food. Her throat was dry, her stomach already getting hunger pains, though she was reluctant to step out of the safety of being hidden.

Her black boots thudding lightly on the cracked pavement, she looked around cautiously. Good, the streets were clear -

Out of nowhere, a woman with long, stringy black hair appeared beside her. She was dressed in a ragged pale white dress, stained with mud and dirt, and torn beyond repair. Underneath the hair, one of her eyes were missing, a horrible bloody socket, her skin a pale green, her face sunken in like she had clawed out of a grave -

Nami screamed, squeezing the trigger and aiming the gun at the woman. Was she a demon, or a spirit? Not that regular bullets worked on spirits. It needed to be made of salt. The gun pushed backward as she fired the bullet, jarring her arms and making her stumble.

The metallic bullet flew clean through the woman without any signs of damaging something, and the woman's figure swirled and disappeared, as if being made of mist.

Nami let out a long exhale, her right hand falling above her pounding heart as she tried to calm her fear. It was only a mirage...calm down..calm down. When her breath had finally returned to a normal level, her heart ceased pounding a thousand times a minute, and the adrenaline had left her veins, she started scavenging for food.

It had happened roughly a month ago. That day, her alarm clock had gone off at the wrong time, the skies were borderline black, and there were a few minor earthquakes.

And then, suddenly, volcanoes around the world exploded at the exact same time. Dust had flown in the air, the temperature dropped almost immediately thanks to the dust blocking out the sun's rays. After that, strange creatures had started to appear. They always looked half-dead, and seemed to want nothing more than destroy every living thing on the planet. They had strange abilities, like being able to breathe fire, freeze a building solid. Nami had even seen a particular one who had literally melted her ally into a puddle of skin-colored water, his last screams still ringing in her ears.

The world fell into disarray. Many animals had gone extinct. The human society crumbled.

To survive, you needed to be strong. The weak died in this world.

Already, Nami had lost her beloved sister, Nojiko, was well as her mother, Bellemere. Her parents had divorced when she was young. Not like she particularity cared for her father.

Nami shook herself out of her thoughts as her efforts to find food were fruitless (no pun intended). She sighed, her brown eyes scanning the deserted city, and the crumbling walls. She had been running around, moving to one place to sleep for the night, if it had a lot of food, she would stay until the supplies ran out. Simple as that. And then she went to look for another place with supplies.

She had gone through at least thirty cities already, seeing as the supplies ran out very quickly. Fruit was all but gone now, as well as fresh produce. The only food available now was meat, from an animal that wasn't dying (extremely unlikely) or manufactured food. Salt was considered a delicacy, as many of the large bodies of saltwater were dirtied and rendered unusable thanks to the soot in the air. Nami figured that it was pretty unhealthy to continuously breathe in the dusty air each day, but there was no alternative.

Despite all the places that she had gone though, all had one thing in common.

They all possessed the reek of death.

Sighing, Nami resigned to looking in the forest for some animal that was immune to the soot that she could eat. Her boots crunched against the ground, snapping twigs and crinkling dead leaves. The trees' branches were bare, the leaves having all died at the first round of volcanic explosions. Nami felt oddly exposed, standing in the midst of a cluster of naked trees.

It was then that she realized she was being watched.

He was hungry.

And, sitting there, he decided to let his brother know, too.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!"

"What is it?!" Luffy made a sound of triumph as his brother finally looked up from studying a ripped, dirty map.

"I'm hungry."

"You just ate five minutes ago!"

"That doesn't count. It was barely a snack."

"Luffy, shut up." The green-haired man beside him, who was previously sleeping, cracked open an eye. His face was set in a permanent scowl. He wore a white t-shirt with a black hoodie slung over it, a belt, which held three swords - spoils of war with another group of people - and black pants and boots. He had three identical piercings in his left ear, and donned a bandage clumsily wrapped around his head.

"But I'm hungry..." Luffy whined. The boy had a straw hat sitting on his head - a treasured item given to him by his role model when he was just seven.

Before the explosion that made clouds cover out the sun, Luffy and Ace had lived together in a house, his brother in his third year of university and Luffy failing twelfth grade. Zoro was his best friend, though they had only met because Zoro had been held back twice.

Now, after the explosion, the three men constantly relied on each other to survive, find food, supplies, and navigate to bigger cities where it was more likely to have supplies.

Or, Zoro and Luffy relied on Ace to survive, find food, supplies, and navigate.

Luffy slumped against the wall. They were in a wedged space in between two buildings, which was where Ace had dragged them when he had gotten ahold of the map. Bored, he started picking his nose.

"Hey, Ace, when are we going to go to a next place with meat?" This city had almost no meat, much to his unhappiness.

"Shut up, Luffy, I'm trying to look for a city." under his breath, he muttered, "Even if I can't even see the difference between the roads and the buildings."

In the distance, they heard a scream, then a gunshot. The three men sat alert immediately, and Ace, who was closest to the road, poked his head out and looked around. After a while, he shook his head. "I don't even see a body. They're probably too far away."

Luffy hated this new world. Why did people have to die? They didn't do anything bad enough to get killed.

"We're in the eastern suburbs, right?" Zoro suddenly cut in, interrupting Luffy's thoughts, and Ace's.

"Hm? Yeah, I think," Ace replied absentmindedly.

"Why not head to the bigger cities, so southwest?" he pointed.

"...that's north."

"Same thing. Anyway, the bigger cities usually have a lot more supplies, survivors and food, right?"

Ace grimaced. "But the demons there are more vicious, as well as the people. I've heard people there have those abilities - like ours."

"There's other people who have...that?" Zoro asked disbelievingly.

"Yeah. I've only heard rumors, but I'm not risking it, not until we have more people, at least. The three of us won't stand a chance alone there."

Zoro scowled at that statement, but Luffy knew that the three of them knew it was true.

There was a slight pause of silence. Ace went back to studying the map, Zoro went back to sleep, and Luffy returned to his gold digging. In that moment of peace, they heard something that shattered it just as fast as it had appeared. And this time it was closer, the three of them could hear it clearly, every last tone of terror.

A bloodcurling scream.

Luffy shot to his feet before anyone could react. His eyes fell on the forest where they had looked earlier for meat, to no avail. There were now two figures there; one was small and trembling, the other an inhuman shape and easily towering over the first figure.

He sped up his sprinting and tackled the girl over, her brown eyes flickering momentarily from absolute fear and terror to confusion at his sudden arrival. She had short orange hair, and was wearing a black jacket and pants, complete with a messenger's cap and a curvy body.

He looked over to the large demon facing her.

He was humongous, with green reptilian-like scales and insane yellow eyes. Luffy's stomach grumbled a bit, thinking of all the meat that he could eat if he killed the demon. A trickle of drool went down his chin.

He grinned and cracked his knuckles. "I found dinner!" he declared, laughing.

When the reptilian-like demon emerged from the shadows, drool dripping from his lips, Nami thought immediately that she was going to die.

He towered over her easily; he was at least five meters tall. His teeth were long and wickedly sharp, as well as his claws. Judging by his neon green scales, she was guessing he could shoot poison, too. She rapidly scanned her surroundings. The bare trees left no room for coverage, or to use as a shield. He was probably much faster than she was, and she couldn't exactly sprint her fastest speed with the uneven ground of the forest.

Briefly, she wondered which one would be more painful: being speared by the claws, poisoned to death, or eaten alive?

She didn't really know. She didn't really want to know.

She tried lifting her gun to shoot him, aiming for one of his eyes. At least, if he was partially blinded, she could try an escape through his blind spot. However, the only thing that greeted her was a hollow clicking noise.

She had thrown away her last bullet shooting the mirage.

Icy cold terror renewed as her fingers trembled so much the gun clattered to the ground, useless. She felt a sinking feeling as he reached a clawed hand, probably to pick her up, watch her struggle with twisted delight, and then eat her.

When, suddenly, before the demon could touch her, she was tackled over by something. Or someone. Momentarily, her fear was replaced by confusion. As she looked behind her to see her savior and/or assaulter, her eye caught the brim of a straw hat, followed by a bit of black hair.

As she landed, not too gracefully on her bum, she had a full view of him. The boy was maybe seventeen, a year younger than she was. He was average height, with a head full of black hair, a scar under his left eye, and a straw hat on his head. He wore a red hoodie, zipped up, with blue jean shorts. For a moment, they both studied each other. Unlike other men, this boy's eyes just flickered over her, his eyes glossing over her curves as much as her feet.

Then he turned to the demon. Nami heard a stomach rumble, rather loudly. Huh?

The boy was drooling. She gulped, somehow getting the idea that the reason why the boy had survived the volcanic explosions, and the aftermath, was probably not his rational thought.

He grinned, which only made her dread skyrocket.

"I found dinner!" He laughed.

You're kidding.

So this is my first One Piece story, and I do realize the antagonists are cliché. Don't worry, I'll fix this. I know it was really hard to read through this horrible first chapter, but can you let me be more selfish and leave a review? Thanks!

-alittlebitlate