"Mommy told me you were imaginary, but the pain of losing you was unimaginable." ~Unknown

"Hey Minette, what if Life and Death were people?"

"Just go to sleep, Shi."

"No - I'm serious. What if they're really out there… just observing."

"Are you going to ask me if Death is on this island with us next, or can I sleep now?"

"So you admit that he could be a person."

"Whatever, Shi."

"... Hey, Minette?"

"Mm?"

"What if Loneliness was a real person too? What if Despair, and Sorrow, and Happiness, and Love were all real physical beings?"

"Can Slumber be real?"

"Sure. Maybe… I don't know. What do you think, Minette?"

"Right now? Ha, right now I think you're possessed by the entity Wonder."

"More like the young spirit Wanderer."

"What does that mean?"

"What if I told you, I don't actually exist, Minette? What would you do?"

"I don't want to think about this anymore, Shi. Go to sleep."

Perched atop her lookout post, Minette was ensnared in a daze - her grey eyes trapped by the clear sky as she ventured through her own mind. It's been awhile since she's last been so engrossed within herself she couldn't help but get lost from time to time. There was of course a bit of clutter, old memories packed away in boxes - stacked in shelving units, but it was cleaner - tidier - than before she was rescued. Before, there weren't any shelves, there weren't any boxes or bags. There was only a space full of unorganized details of her past, fragments of conversations that replayed over and over and over again in the forefront of her mind every hour of every day.

But one little phrase -I wasn't my fault - seemed to be... unmanageable, even now without the mess. No matter how mard she tried to tame the wild thought, it would always slip from her grasp or somehow escape from its labeled box - and now, it had a companion:

She wasn't real.

Of course she was real!

The cannibals, they even saw her - they taunted her with the knowledge of having killed her from the moment they first tried to capture her. They saw her, they killed her, and they were the ones who left her out for Minette to find unintentionally.

I wasn't my fault.

There it was again.

She wasn't real.

She needed a bigger net… she needed Sanity to help ease her train station into a crawling halt, but Hysteria was all that came.

She hung her head with a sigh, "I'm possessed by Insanity."

"It's hard not to be when you're hanging around this crowd all day."

Minette screamed, falling back from the railing she was previously sat upon and landed with a thud. Groaning, she glanced up to find Vivi staring down at her, concern swimming in her hazel eyes.

"Oh gosh, I didn't mean to startle you," Vivi gaped, helping the young girl stand.

"Is everything alright up there?" Luffy called up.

Peaking over the railing, Minette could see all their faces morphed into concern - Zoro more or less garig at Vivi with his hand on his sword though. "Yes," she called back, "Everything's fine!" And with that, everyone went back to chatting and playing on the bottom deck.

Minette sighed, a small smile gracing her freckled cheeks as she turned towards Vivi, "You got me good, Princess."

Vivi chuckled, "Yeah, you were really lost up there," she poked Minette's forehead, "What were you thinking about, anyway?"

"Death."

It grew quiet before Minette realized why it was so uncomfortable. She was quick to throw her hands and shake her head as she gave a nervous chuckle, "I-I didn't death as in I'm gonna kill myself or anyone, I was just…"

She sighed, looking out to the ocean again, "Never mind. Just ignore me."

All grew quiet again when Vivi turned her back to the railing and sat. She leaned her head back and smiled up at Minette, "You're a lot smarter that what people make you out to be."

Minette sighed and sat across from her, her back against the post, "But I don't know how to count, or read, or write or do anything else that other normal people can do. Nami can do all of those things and predict the future - I can't do nothing but get the people I love kil-" she clamped her mouth shut before she could finish the sentence and looked to Vivi to make sure she didn't hear it. Luckily, she was still catching up to her words.

"Nami can predict the future?"

Minette nodded, her thoughts vering from depression to amazement within seconds, "Oh, yes. There was this one time when the sky was all blue and pretty but Nami said it was going to hail. I didn't believe her but after a short while, guess what, it started to hail." Minette leaned back, having leaned forward in her serious story telling, and crossed her arms, "Usopp tells me Nami's magic, whatever that means, but she tells the future everyday and she's always right."

Vivi chuckled and chose to keep Nami's true identity as a natural born weather forecaster a secret for now. She smiled to the young girl, "But Ms. Minette, you can still be smart and not know a lot of things. In fact, you know what normal people don't have a clue of - and that's amazing."

Vivi could see the scepticism in Minette's eyes and so continued on. "You can feel water currents out of water, you can pull all nighters without an ounce of sleep in months, you can fight any beast and win, you can throw a knife miles away and hit your target, and - best yet - you can never die-"

"NO!" Minette stood in a flash, all previous amusement lost as she glared down at the startled Vivi, a wildfire in her eyes. "None of those things are smart, none of those things are normal! You don't understand what it's like to not be able to die when the person you care most about does!"

She's been thinking about life and death a lot recently, even if it's never been in the forefront of her mind up until now. She's been scavenging her boxes, looking for answers within her memories to put some meaning behind Ms. All Sunday's words, but all she found was fear, anxiety, and depression. Reviewing all of those old memories, seeing herself thinking about life and death after Shi had been murdered was unbearable.

She wasn't real.

But she had to have been.

It wasn't my fault.

If only her power was to go back in time and stop her death from happening then these thoughts and memories wouldn't be haunting her in her knew life today. Why can't they just allow her to finally be happy and stay in tucked away boxes? Why did her island have to inject her with poison, curse her to always remember the worst and forget the good?

She promised Shi a life when she boarded the Going Merry, promised to live for herself as well - but these type of things just won't go away no matter how far she is from her home island. She's growing sick of all the back and forth - can't she just choose happiness?

Blinking from her thoughts, she wiped her tears and sat back down. "I-I'm sorry," she sniffled, "You were only trying to cheer me up. You can forget I ever said anything."

"No," Vivi hushed, "I'm sorry, Ms. Minette. I didn't take into consideration your own thoughts. I shouldn't have assumed anything."

Minette held herself together in a tight ball, her head resting on her knees. She didn't mean to take out her frustrations on Vivi, she didn't mean to get so angry - even her own monster scares her.

Both were quiet again, both feeling a guilt of their own - and Minette wanted to be alone, wanted to hate herself for what she's done - but she was selfish enough to keep Vivi here with her to know she wasn't to only one feeling this way.

What a selfish little monster she was.

"Hey," a hand fell on her shoulder, making her irritated and puffy eyes lock on Vivi's, "how about we enjoy the company of our friends and step away from these sad thoughts. Because if those guys can't cheer you up, nothing care."

Sniffling, Minette picked herself up and followed Vivi now the latter. She was right, what good will wallowing in the past do if it's just going to destroy her future? It's best the clean and repack the tipped over box right away before another falls and adds to the mess.

Another hour flew by of Minette distracting herself from her thoughts by playing Tag and Vivi speaking with Nami about Minette's cute thoughts of her ability to see the future. Everything was okay as the air was filled with laughter and joy but one thing led to another, and suddenly Nami was lying unconscious on the deck floor.

Minette was the first to notice, having felt the thud of her ungraceful fall vibrate between her toes. "Nami!" She raced to her, as fast as she could and soon found herself crying all over again.

"Nami?" Vivi called as Zoro pulled the sobbing child away, "Nami wake up. Please!"

Minette didn't get to see her sister dye, she was already dead when she found her - and when she found her, she grew numb to everything around her, this was not one of those feelings. This was her heart being ripped from her chest, a jackhammer shattering her ribcage. Her skin crawled, danced with fire as the smoke stung her eyes with tears.

Nami wasn't waking up…

This is what she had been afraid of since the beginning.

"NAMI!"