Chapter 2 – Life Finds a Way
Being born is the worst miracle anyone can go through. I whole heartedly praise all mothers that can look at the squirming alien they just shot out and smile. I, as a person that has gone through it twice and witnessed it many more, can tell you that its the single worst thing you can go through... and I got to experience it in all its glory with a working memory.
...God, I hate you.
It began with nothing, it always does. Just like being in a void, no light as far as I could see, just this blankness wrapping around me like a blanket. It's like being nothing while aware. Aware of you, who you are but in the loosest terms, like a smudged picture. You can make out what it once was but its just not that clear any more. The weirdest thing about all of this, was that my earliest memories shone through the clearest to me, it was like I had perfect vision as a baby that gradually grew worse, as I did up. I could watch everything like it was HD up until just after my first birthday had passed. I never did understand that.
It wasn't much at all to be honest with you, just some clear but limited snapshots of my previous when you have nothing, anything can become everything, my friend. It was enough to be everything. I had an identity, well sort of, and so I latched onto that like a lifeline. But even that didn't clear up where I was. I couldn't see shit at this point nor feel anything. I don't exactly have any evidence but knowing what happened after, I think at this point, I was only a soul. Only a little wisp of soul keeping itself sane with its stories, not that it could now what was true. Only the emotions from the past saying it is so. It had no choice but to follow and go along with whatever was happening.
That wasn't the worst thing though.
The worst thing about this wasn't being physically born again, having to grow up again so you don't have to be manhandled by clumsy giants after you shit yourself because you don't know how to stop your asshole, or even the blank void you start with and that, believe me, was bad. The worst thing was the sheer fucking boredom throughout the first 2/3 months. I don't exactly know how long, time was kind of hard to workout when you don't even have a body (as far as I knew I could have been a ghost). But those 1, 2 or 3 months were awful. Being alive with nothing that you can do is the worst fucking thing in this world.
However after those god-knows-how-many hellish months, I found out I could sleep. It was like a miracle from the books, a blessing from god. A literal godsend if you will. I genuinely believe that someone up there took pity on my sorry ass and helped me out. And boy was I glad they did, after that I slept like the baby I technically I was, any time I could get, which was all my time at that stage. This was another of those times I didn't mind leaning into the stereotype.
Looking back on this now, half of me believes that they must have something to do with how I had ended up here otherwise why feel bad for me? I'm pretty sure there are other people in worse situations than this…?Well, I'm pretty sure anyway. But even if I knew for sure they had, back then, I wouldn't have cared. I would have rolled over to go back to sleep. Because. That. Was. Heaven.
One miracle from god and I had found my personal haven.
… Wait if he/she could do that why didn't he/she do that for everyone? Hmmm… nope, I'm not going to get into this again. I'm just happy they did for me.
Anyway after this Revelation I would sleep to my heart's desire, waking up once in a while to see if anything new had happened. And for about another 2 months that was how it would go. I would wake up every 2/3 days and feel for any change, notice nothing different and then go back to doing my most favourite thing ever. I began to feel bored again when I couldn't feel much of anything really after the first few times so I would sleep for a little bit longer each time, slowly days became weeks and each waking moments more brief.
The evolution of living beings took place over millions and millions of years, improving gradually until we had arrived, another species among thousands but nothing would ever be the same. A species so dominant we wanted to conquer the stars and the never ending darkness, just because we can. What I'm saying is it takes time, patience and a lot of luck before life was able to produce such results and in my ever so finite wisdom (as I keep finding out) never believed anything would change. I never knew of my own evolution, something so minute, the increase so gradual just like water flowing can carve through stone. So when I concentrated back on to what was for the first time in a month, I smashed into a cacophony of emotion and feelings just smashing into me. I had been sculpted by these changes into something more, something wondrous. An Angel (… I'll explain later).
The new simulations gave me a whole different life, something I can process, something for me to do. It took me awhile to get all this under control and understand how to make sense of all the information. I see this step as a necessary for me because me doing this, having to organise what I felt and sensed to understanding, it really helped me pick up Haki a lot easier but even then it took 3 and ½ years before I had the basics down, before I could set off on my own to perfect my Haki against the world.
I had been blank for a while, only way I can describe it. It was weird, I can't really explain it but just know that it was a while before I could start actively thinking about myself, before my self awareness had become what it should be. I would only be able to string 2, or pushing it, 3 sentences at the beginning. It was here where I would exhaust my self with my past memories, going over them all with a fine tooth comb just because I could. I had access to more after I had evolved (Pokemon reference without even being born). I learned of my past, my life and my death on the tarmacked earth. I didn't know this but soon I would emerge and grow to learn of my future, my life and my death on these blue seas.
A few moments before the blank though, I had been on a slightly warm evening with nothing but the red sunset accompanying me on what turned out to be my last day on that world. I had been walking down a narrow cobble stoned path past tiny stores on their carts wheeling their goods to anyone out on the roadside in the old parts of London, the capital of the country that had produced the biggest empire in recent history.
I remembered being satisfied for the first time in a while as I walked the uneven street, happy that I had done well with my gym sessions, studying and writing throughout the last 2 weeks. My thoughts turning with the path, the right turn at the crossroads after the bakery was normal, some days I would stop by the bakery just to speak with the owner but I was starving so I carried on to the first window on the left side after the right, a long open window which you could just about see someone out of after the top half of it was covered by the menu. Not that I needed it.
"Hey there, can I get a number 1 and a mocha with 2 sugars please?" I was on autopilot, she knew who I was and had known for the last 2 years.
"Yes, I do remember," she rolls her eyes, ringing up the order, the till clicking as it does.
"..." I just smile as we go through the same old routine. She doesn't even bother to respond, just sighs and prays for my health under her breath as always… Well, I hope that's what she was mumbling about.
I pay her, waiving away the change and await for my food. A quick smile at her as I pick it up, before a nod goodbye as I leave. I walk out into a day that was slowly winding down, carry on for a further 3 or 4 feet before I heard heavy thuds behind me, then followed by wheezing of someone who really was out of shape. I naturally assumed it was a jogger behind me, I mean what else could it have been? So using the food as an excuse, I slow down while I bite into the sandwich, thinking it would allow him an easier time to pass by me, but instead the thuds stay right behind me getting closer and closer. The short gasps fill my ears so I begin to try and give him even more space, assuming he was just that tired or slow, only to nearly stumble face first into the pavement as he jumps into the back of me, pushing something into me as he does so.
I froze and my arms had already risen halfway when I hear a gunshot a little way away behind me. My hands are fully up when I hear another, much closer bang. And that's when I felt something dripping down my back.
Just as the evening gradually took a turn for the colder, just so that the few who were heavier of breathe now had little clouds accompanying their journeys. I was bleeding out on the cobbled streets, staining it for mere moments probably before inevitably the wet British weather will wash away my blood, gradually turning colder as well, In the little old city of London. My house keys glinting had been coated as it fallen away and had down right in front of me. I remember mindlessly trying to reach for them. I don't know what I wanted to do with it but it was so very important to me, so much so that I moved to it while my life was ebbing away.
I was probably just another statistic for most people, they only ones who are supposed to care and solve such problems will only twist and shape into what they want to show, to further their agendas, not to understand what it really reflects. The most affected ,again, not really shown any help in this. I remember thinking how unnecessary it was, I promised myself if I ever made it out I would live my everyday as if it was my last. I would do whatever I wanted, even if it was something stupid. I would be Iceburg and Franky combined in my craziness. I will be Free. I will be the Pirate King!
… Hah, I was dying. What do you want me to say? I didn't actually mean that, I just wanted to be free. Free from expectation, free from money worries, free from what other people wanted me to do. Free from this dull boring existence.
Well, I was going through a whole different existence now. One that I had not even fully grasped yet. I had no idea of what was going on but I kept myself busy with trying to grasp what I was experiencing. This and my beautiful, beautiful sleep was what kept me going. The simulations and challenge was exhilarating for a guy who didn't even had a dick to beat. The time passed as it is does and I got better at separating what I was being bombarded with. I could hear soft whispers, could decipher that there was something pushing me back when I tried to move through it, feel the warmth around me. The blank that had covered me was no longer there, ripped apart to bless me with heaven. The warm, loving sounds. The careful pressure around me. I really did feel like I was in heaven.
Then I was born to an Angel.