• The Haunted Hour •
Years ago in the East Blue, there was a phenomenon was described by Vice Admiral Garp through Axe-Hand Morgans' account as a malicious entity that stalked the roads around Shells Town at 3 at night. It would hunt, torment, and even kill anyone brave enough to ignore the tales and travel home alone at such an hour. If these individuals were unfortunate enough to come across the dreaded ghost they call, "The Bad Hour Ghost" and gaze headlong into it, they would be driven hideously and irreversibly insane.
And because of this, this particular spirit is said to be more feared than the sea devil himself. Most of Shells Town flat-out refuses to talk about it, even the Marines, and changing the subject or simply referring to it as "an evil thing".
The Bad Hour Ghost takes great pleasure in driving its victims mad. Not only this, but it will often attack helpless travelers, paralyzing them in their tracks and brutalizing their weakened forms. After being suffocated by the fiend their bodies are left at the side of the road.
In the southern part of Shells Town, the insidious entity is told to take the form of a beautiful woman, sometimes dressed in white, sometimes in black. This incarnation and its diversely gruesome behaviors come across like some demented enemy gone rogue. When dressed in white The Bad Hour Ghost is said to be gentler and more graceful. She hypnotizes weary wanders who, if they don't notice the space between her feet and the ground, or the fact that her toes are backwards, or the fact that their lanterns have stopped working and all sense of direction seems lost, will follow her obediently into wherever peril she chooses.
When dressed in black, The Bad Hour Ghost is more aggressive. She will stop a traveler by any means and attack directly with her pointed nails. The strong-willed should hope to meet her on a "white night," while no one should hope to see her in black.
One particular story has been circling on Shells Town for quite some time, earning The Bad Hour Ghost along the way. In this story a Marine Captain named Axe Hand Morgan goes on a marine business in town. On the way he bumps into a woman in the road who, begins scratching fiercely at the Marine Captain.
Days laters, he was then investigated by Vice Admiral Garp, who happened to be in the East blue at the time. He talked to Morgans in a holding room, Morgans told the Vice Admiral he got away as quickly as possible, and that he has seen The Bad Hour Ghost, the spirit who only appears when death is close. Garp thought he was out of his mind, so he ordered the Marines to keep Morgans in a mental institution. Norgans stayed for weeks but eventually he was freed to go, but shortly after he was he find dead in another area of Shells Town.
