Sorry for the delay. I've been busy dealing with addiction counseling for the past couple of weeks and just been generally busy. On top of that, I hit a small writers block but finally overcame it when I decided to stop eating shit today. So here's another chapter, it's shorter than usual but I hope you all enjoyed.
When I regained consciousness, I was laying in a bed in a white room. It was cold, but not too cold. I took a deep breath and immediately after said, "I want a dog."
I looked around the room. It felt empty. That might have been due to me being the only one inside the room, or due to the lack of furnishing and decoration.
I looked down and my eyes met my bandaged body. I hadn't realized it, but my hoodie had been removed from my body, and in its place were bandages covering my arms, neck and chest.
I sat up and tried to stretch but ultimately failed due to the decreased mobility of bandages compared to my hoodie.
I shivered from the cold, hugged my body to keep warm and as I did so, a man walked in.
"Ah!" He nearly yelled in surprise when he saw that I was up. "I wasn't expecting you to be awake for several hours."
"Are you a doctor?" I questioned, still shivering from the cold. "Where's my hoodie?"
"Yes, I am a doctor. And your hoodie is being washed right now. It was stained with blood so we're washing it to get rid of any biohazards."
"Hmm. Fair enough. Join my crew."
"No," he answered without hesitation.
"It was worth a shot."
He was unamused. He tossed me a white t-shirt and said, "your friends are outside."
I hastily put on the t-shirt and made my way to the door. As soon as I opened it, I was blinded by the bright light of the sun.
I shaded my eyes with my hand and walked outside, closing the door behind me.
The streets were mostly empty. I was fairly close to the town square so I saw where they had barricaded the destroyed buildings and were making an attempt to clean the rubble, albeit it didn't seem like they were making much progress.
'The doctor told me they were outside. Now where are they?' I wondered as I wandered around. Technically, he hadn't lied, but after walking around for a good ten minutes, frustration started to set in.
Just when I was about to say fuck it and light up a joint, Jenni walked around the corner with Melly right beside her.
I looked at the joint, thought, 'this can wait,' and got up.
"Captain!" She exclaimed, running up to me. Then, she changed her expression to a confused one, and said, "I thought you weren't going to be awake for some time?"
I shrugged and said, "the doctor said the same thing."
"Well, that's not important. The citizens wanted to wait until you woke up to thank you," Jenni informed me.
Now, it was my turn to wear a puzzled expression. "Thank me? Why?"
Melly spoke up. "Well, you did sort of save the entire town. No big deal, right?" he asked, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
"Exactly, it's not that important," I agreed, not sensing the sarcasm in his voice.
"Are you stupid? It's a huge deal!" He snapped.
"I just beat up some pirates, saving the island was unplanned," I explained. "Tell them if they wanted to thank me, I'm in need of a new ship. I'm a pirate, not some kind of idol."
"Beat up is kind of an understatement," Melly commented, but his words fell on deaf ears.
I turned to Jenni, then enthusiastically voiced my thoughts from earlier. "Let's get a dog!"
To that, she smacked me upside the head and yelled, "Are you stupid? We're broke!"
"So? We can just steal one. It's not like we aren't already criminals."
"That's not the point," she said with a hint of annoyance.
"Whatever, I'm getting a dog on the next island and there's nothing you can do to stop me," I said stubbornly.
"You're too much."
We walked over to a local restaurant to eat lunch while I waited for my hoodie to finish getting washed.
While we waited for our food, Jenni produced a map of the East Blue.
Melly observed the map for a few seconds then put his finger on Mirrorball Island. "So we're here. The Polestar Islands would be our next location, where Loguetown is. There, we would stock up on supplies and go to Reverse Mountain, and enter the Grand Line."
"Are you a navigator?" Jenni asked.
"Well, I do know a thing or two about navigation," he humbly replied.
"That's a coincidence. Neither of us know anything about navigation, so having you on our crew would be a big help," she said.
"Speak for yourself. I at least know how to tell east from west," I cut in.
"Shut up."
Our food came after a few more minutes of waiting, and we all happily ate. I finished first, since I hadn't eaten in over a day, or so they said, and then ordered more.
The plates kept piling up, until finally I was full. I looked at the table and saw several plates stacked on top of each other. I hadn't even realized it, but in less than 30 minutes I had eaten a Luffy-sized serving.
"Sorry about my captain, he's kind of hungry," Jenni told the waitress.
She smiled and happily responded, "everything is on the house for our saviors. It's the least we could do."
Is that what they were calling us? Either way, I didn't care. Better for us.
I retrieved my hoodie and from there, we made our way to the docks where my plants were.
A crowd awaited us at the docks. As soon as they saw us, they began to cheer as loud as they can, surprising us, and slightly irritating me.
"We owe you our lives for saving the town. We can never hope to repay you, but we hope you will gracefully accept this gift from us instead," one of the townspeople said, and with that, they split apart to reveal a long and sleek ship, which lessened my irritation.
"Our own ship!" Jenni cried out in excitement. Melly smirked at the sight while I just looked on in disbelief.
Never in my life would I have expected anything like this. In my previous life, nobody did each other any favors. My own gang wouldn't even give me anything for my birthday. Not that I cared, because I found it good enough to be able to get high and spend time with my closest friends.
We boarded the ship not long after that, and Jenni and Melly waved at the townspeople as we set off. Jenni stopped waving after a short period of time, but Melly didn't stop waving until he couldn't even see the island anymore.
Satisfied, Melly made his way to the wheel where he would stand until we reached Loguetown.
I climbed up to the crow's nest and lit one up, savoring the taste and enjoying the feeling of the mellow yet energetic high that could only be brought on by a sativa-dominant hybrid strain.
With that, I closed my eyes and took a nap.
