Oykot Kingdom, East Blue, 4 years after Gol D. Roger's execution

"Lad, are the onions done?" a gruff voice shouted over the sizzle of the pans on the stove.

"Aye," I shouted back and slid the last chopped onion from my little cutting board into the waiting bowl, filling it to the brim. Hopping off my stool, I hurried across the kitchen and deposited it within reach of Old Man Larry, the owner of this little saloon and my Ma's boss.

A grunt and a nod were all the answers I got and the sign that the old chef was focusing on the task at hand.

"See the patties, the way they sizzle?" He asked, and I stretched to look over his elbow.

"Don't touch them, and wait!" he instructed, giving me a side-glance. "Let the fat do its work."

"About half a sack left," I answered after noticing the Old Man's glance toward my little workplace and the onions in the corner, which got me a thoughtful hum and a quick glance at a nearby calendar.

"Tomorrow morning you'll be pickling half of it. Capt'n Florry will want another batch when he comes by next week," my boss slash surrogate grandpa instructed, and I added cleaning glass jars in the cellar to my to-do list.

"Now! See here?" He perked up and pointed his spatula between some patties. "The dark brown fat bubbling, that's the sign you can flip 'em," he paused and did just that to reveal a perfect crust.

"What am I always telling you?" He asked; the question cracked like a whip, while he continued to flip all the other patties.

"Sailors ain't fancy people and don't want no fancy food," I answered, quick like a shot.

"Which means?" He went on, giving me almost no chance to finish, but I replied without hesitation again. Lessons drilled into my head over countless hours in this very kitchen. "Simple food, but good food!"

"Because...?"

"A pirate ain't gonna shit where he eats," I finished Old Man Larry's number one lesson, which had been the mantra in this saloon since the day I could remember.

"Good lad, now get me the mustard, and then you can help your Ma at the bar," about to do as I was told, I heaved the sturdy iron latch of the trapdoor up and was about to go down into the cellar below when I had to pause on the second step.

"The extra spicy stuff for Voigt and his men, right?" I asked, unsure if I was remembering correctly, but better safe than sorry, I reckoned. They weren't pirates or marines, a simple merchant crew, but money's money, as Ma always said.

"Aye," the Old Man grunted as something out of the window seemed to have caught his eye.

Continuing my descent down the rickety stairs, I noticed Larry stiffen. About to ask if something was wrong, his spatula clattered onto the stove.

"Old...," fearing the worst given his age, I tried to shout, a hint of panic in my voice at seeing the unflappable old seaman lose his composure in such a wild manner.

Sadly, the shaky squeak of an eight-year-old was drowned out by a terror-filled shout from the front of the saloon.

Among the rising cacophony of frightened screams from outside the window, the frantic clatter, and movement from the front, I only heard one sentence.

"It's Bluejam's pack!"

Noise, noise, so much noise. A tremble rocked my body, feet rooted on the spot halfway down the stairs; my frenetic gaze was on the kitchen door and the bar behind. My Ma!

A thumb, a boom!

Thunder, I thought, mind addled by fear.

More and more distant booms!

I felt the stairs shake and heard pots and pans clatter, eyes wild.

"Get down!" I whipped my head around toward my grandpa in everything but name. More and more screams, more noise! Despite his age and peg leg, he stood over me, hand on the trapdoor. Over his shoulder, I saw the window light up despite the night sky.

Then I fell into the dark below.

"Aurgh," I blinked awake. I saw only pitch-black darkness, and couldn't help but hold my breath.

It was so quiet, too quiet, apart from the thoughts screaming in my head.

"Wha..?" I had to blink again; my eyelids felt heavy, caked by something I didn't know yet. As I got clearer in my head, I felt this gross feeling on my skin, especially at the back of my head and nape.

My entire head was itching; I let my hand crawl upward in the darkness. It felt like I didn't wash my hair after a swim in the ocean, like dried seawater.

"Wei..," a dry cough, "weird."

And without warning, the silence was back, and with it, the memories.

"Maaaa!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, dry mouth be damned.

"Maaaaaa!" My shout turned scream croaked to a breathless halt.

I held my breath and just listened. And the more I did, the more my heart threatened to burst out of my throat.

No creaking floorboards, no scratching chairs, no sizzling in the kitchen, not a single word. This couldn't be!

There was always some kind of noise! A drunken sailor shambling through the night or bored town guards arguing about this and that.

"Maaaaa!" A deep breath, "Old Man!"

Nothing but pitch-black darkness and my own ragged, scratchy breathing in this damp, cold cellar.

A shudder went through my body, in part because of the situation I could not comprehend, but foremost because of the cold of the stone floor that seeped into my body through my hands and bottom.

Rolling around, I shuffled first onto my knees and then into an upright position. Which was the exact moment the first ray of hope entered my vision. Across the dark, a tiny white spot on what seemed to be the floor, my eyes adjusted slowly, rapidly blinking the crust out of my eyes, dawning realization. It wasn't a spot, but a ray of light.

My eyes flowed upwards, tracing the wisps of dust that trailed through the light up to a crack in the ceiling.

No, not the ceiling!

"The cellar door!" I gasped out loud, and shambled toward it disorientated, mindless of..."Argh!"

Mindless of the clutter, I winced in agony and trepidation as I heard the unmistakable sound of glass trembling on wood. A sound only made infinitely worse by the horrible sound of glass shattering into a thousand pieces on cold hard stone.

My hand shot out; I fumbled but steadied myself at the table I just ran into, breathing heavy at the slight scare and the thought of glass in my foot.

Roping along the table, I began my halting shuffle toward the cellar door and, hopefully, my way out. Every crunch of glass under the sole of my thin shoes was like the crack of a whip in this eery silence.

Who knew how long it took, but I did it. I reached the stairs leading upward, and in a moment of sensibility, I climbed them up on all fours. The thought of falling back down as I ascended the narrow stone steps had crossed my mind rather vividly. Perhaps it had been the sound of crunching glass which had invoked the morbid images of me breaking my neck and skull on the way down.

Fumbling fingers reached up and found purchase on the latch, and with a mighty push egged on by more and more sunlight on my face, I slammed one side of the cellar doors open. The racket and clatter of the old wood were ignored in favor of the warmth on my skin. I sighed in relief and turned; the sight that greeted me almost enough to sap all of my newfound strength and sent me tumbling back down into the darkness below.

Where there should be a sturdy wooden wall of a saloon, I only saw rubble. A pile of charred and broken timber, stone, and on top shattered roof tiles. I fell backward, stumbled over the last step, and out of the cellar entrance proper, the pained gasp not from the fall.

"MAAAAA!"

"OLD MAAAAAAN!"

I screamed at the top of my lungs; the shock invigorating me. I only turned my head a fraction, but just the glimpse from the corner of my eyes was enough to halt the next scream for help in my throat. I was struck speechless by the view that made my heart sink like an anchor.

The saloon was right at the docks. You could stumble down the plank into the embrace of a cold beer.

In front of me should be the heart of Oykot Kingdom, a small but sturdy and proper little town of the same name. It was smoke and rubble.

And bodies.

Without conscious thought, I stumbled to my feet and began my walk uphill toward the town center with our little church. Ma always told me to go there in case I got lost, and more than I ever did, I felt lost in more than one way.

"Hey!"

Not even halfway to my destination, I was stopped in my tracks. That wasn't a figment of my imagination, right? My head whipped around and then again. I stood still.

"Boy! Please!"

Again, fainter, but now that I strained and listened, I could make out the direction. Another pile of rubble, just like all the others lining the street so far.

Except for the hand sticking out that kept on frantically waving at me. I sucked in a breath, one part helpless, one part indecisive. This could be a pirate, after all.

"Hello," I shouted, rooted to the spot in the middle of the road.

"You need to help me, boy," a young voice answered as the arm retreated into what seemed like an opening just big enough for said appendage.

"How do I know you are not a pirate?" I shouted right back with more vehemence than I felt. Instead of a verbal answer, the arm shot back out, but this time it had a white cap in its hand. Marines boldly printed on the front.

"Thank God," I let out a shaky breath and made my way toward what had been once our little post office, I realized.

"Wait," the hole shouted at me, "grab the rifle on the ground!"

I halted in my tracks, at once feeling suspicious.

"For leverage," the voice had gained a hint of desperation, "you need it to move the heavy stuff."

'I guess.' I thought. It made sense, but I remained cautious.

"Keep the muzzle away from you!" the boy under the rumble shouted forcefully, desperate not to see perhaps his only lifeline shoot himself. Something I unsurprisingly agreed with.

"What's your name?" I asked as I dug in and got to work, already seeing that this was going to take some time.

"I'm Ensign Kuro of the 77th Branch."

"The name's Hadley."

"Argh, almost," Kuro panted with labored breath. I could see the sheer desperation to get out of this trap. Late morning had turned to midday, and the sun had kept on burning down on us without mercy, while I had labored to remove the rubble that still kept the young marine trapped.

Over time, the voice became a face; the more broken masonry I removed, the more a bespectacled, lanky teen revealed itself.

"Dammit!" the black-haired youth growled under his breath. Feeling useless, I could only watch from the sidelines as his left foot remained trapped under a log with a mountain of debris on top.

Impatience was clear as day on his features, but as I was about to ask if I should look for help, I watched as he took a single measured breath and calmed down in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

"Hadley," he began, calm, and in an instant, I stood at attention.

"I'm going to break the log with my right foot," he stated confidently, so confidently, in fact, that I even kept my surprise and incredulity to myself.

"Aye," I stated, and even to my own ears, there was a hint of doubt lingering in the background. Something that he thankfully seemed to ignore as he went on, as if he didn't hear me. "When I do, I want you to pull me out as hard as you can!"

I gulped and nodded when he turned to look me dead in the eyes.

"You will pull me out as hard as you can!" He instructed again, his eyes boring into my soul, and I couldn't help but stand ramrod straight. This brought back memories of the time I had talked back to Old Man Larry.

"Aye aye!"

Something Kuro saw seemed to have done the trick because, after a resolute nod, he focused back on the gigantic piece of wood that gripped his left foot in a vise. "Very well, take my hands and brace yourself," he ordered, interlocked his hands with mine, and inspected the enormous stone blocks, that were jammed just right so they wouldn't move a single inch when I put my entire strength against them.

"On three!" Despite his apparent composure, I could hear the tension in his voice. I knew he couldn't see me nod, so I kept my answer short but strong, a last attempt to give him the slightest bit of confidence.

"Aye!"

"One," I watched him raise his right leg in preparation, "two," our hands interlocked and my body coiled like a spring, "THREE!" Kuro shouted, and I could feel his explosive movement. Every fiber of my body was unwilling to fail. My eyes flew shut because of the short but unbelievable strain, so I only heard the whip-like crack and only felt my body flying backward and away from the stone pile. And despite my head smacking against the rough dirt, I couldn't help but sigh in relief, for I heard another dull thud right in front of me.

A short moment of satisfaction later, I was already scrambling to my feet. This Kuro guy surely had a plan.