I was floating.
Not swimming, not drifting. Floating.
Like a feather caught in the endless breath of the sky.
Above me, only more sky. Below me, the sea stretched forever in every direction. It shimmered like glass, calm and vast, so perfect it looked like a mirage.
An ocean without end.
There was no wind. No sound. Not even the beat of my own heart.
Just silence
Just the sea.
Just… me.
Was this... peace?
"Oi. Wake up."
The voice cut through everything. Not loud. Not soft. Just there. It rippled through the world like a pebble tossed in a still pond.
"Seriously kid, you're starting to make this dramatic. Wake up dumbass."
I blinked. Or… thought I blinked. Could you blink in a dream?
Suddenly, the world lurched.
I gasped—but no breath came. Cold wrapped around me like a second skin. My limbs felt heavy. I couldn't move. Couldn't feel my fingers.
Couldn't feel anything
Light shimmered above me—a soft, greenish-blue—and bubbles floated past my vision.
Was I underwater?
No.
I was in something.
Glass.
I could just make out its curve. I was some kind of tank—liquid gently swirling around me like syrup. There were tubes connected to my arms, chest, even neck.
Panic swarmed up my spine. My eyes darted around wildly, looking for some kind of explanation.
And then I saw him.
A figure, cloaked in shadow, sitting in a worn leather chair directly in front of the tank. Arms crossed. Head slightly tilted to one side. A black mask covered his face—featureless except for a thin grin painted across it, and a pair of mismatched lenses. One red. One white.
I screamed.
Or, at least I tried to. Nothing came out. My mouth wouldn't move. My throat didn't work.
I was a prisoner inside myself.
"I wouldn't bother. You can't move or talk yet," the masked man said casually. His voice sounded like a smoother version of Darth Vader (who?).
Waitaminute.
He hadn't spoken.
Not aloud.
"And no, I'm not reading your mind," he replied, tilting his head to the other side. "You're just easy to read."
A thousand and one questions clawed their way to the front of my mind, all bottlenecking behind a single thought: What the fuck is happening to me?
"Oh, and you're dead, well, were dead. But I managed to grab your soul before you could pass on."
Time stopped.
There was no emotion in his voice. No cruelty or malice. Just... blunt honesty, like he talking about the weather.
Dead?
No.
No, that can't be right.
This is just a dream.
Or a nightmare.
But...
Then the memories began to stir. Flickering, hazy, broken.
A road.
Rain.
Headlights.
Pain.
Blood. So much blood.
My breath hitched—if I even had breath.
I remembered the crash.
I remembered the cold.
I remembered lying on the pavement, staring up at a grey sky that never blinked.
I remembered thinking—this is it.
And then... nothing.
Nothing but the sea.
Who am I?
The thought came unbidden, and I reeled from it.
I didn't know. I couldn't remember. My name, my family, my life—there were so many holes. Holes and shadows where there should be a person.
The figure in the chair shifted slightly.
"Alright, that's enough. Stop being such a sook."
The absurdity of those words snapped me out of the spiral. I wasn't sure if should be grateful or offended.
Stop being a sook? What kind of masked person would use a word like that? Especially a guy who looked like he got rejected from the Akatsuki.
The guy in question leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head.
"Okay, I know the getup looks a bit edgy, but c'mon don't lump me in with those bozos. Look, I get it. Waking up in a tube isn't something on most people's bucket list, but you'll live. Figuratively speaking."
The sarcastic tone made me want throw something at him. If only I could move.
"Why am I here?" I thought, forcing the words out in my mind.
The masked man stood and walked slowly towards the tank. As he moved, I noticed the shadows around him ripple like waves, as if they didn't quite belong in the same space.
He stopped, inches from the glass—inches from me—and placed a gloved hand against it.
"You are here because you were chosen," he said. "You are not from this world. You are not even from a real world. You are—were, a denizen of a place called the Watching World."
What.
"The Watching World. A neat little pocket dimension where you humans sit around telling stories about other worlds. Most of the time, those stories are just that—fiction. But," He raised a finger. "Every now and then, a tale slips through from a real place. A memory, a dream, a glimpse."
He tapped the glass lightly with his finger.
"Your people think they're just imagining things. In truth, you're actually observing echoes of other realities. Reflections. Predictions. Warnings. The Watching World was created for that. To create adaptable, unpredictable minds. To forge survivors. Seekers."
Seekers?
"That's what you are now. A Seeker is a soul from the Watching World reborn into another reality—not just reincarnated, but reshaped. Reforged. Made into a living weapon, with knowledge of the world they're entering."
He stepped back and bowed slightly with a flourish.
"I am known by many names, but may know me as the Weaver. I pluck the strings. I shape the fates. And you, my blurry little amnesiac friend, are my latest project."
I just stared.
Dead.
Dreaming.
Reborn?
I was losing track of what was real.
'What world are you sending me to?' I thought weakly.
The Weaver's mask tilted ever so slightly. The painted grin seemed to widen.
"One Piece."
I felt the name strike me like a thunderbolt.
Images exploded in my head. A laughing boy wearing a straw hat. A flag with a skull and crossbones grinning at the world. A hundred memories that weren't really mine. Or were they?
It felt... familiar. Comforting. A fragment of something I loved.
'I... I know that place...' I though, and for the first time, I felt something other than fear and confusion.
"Good," the Weaver said. "Then you've got a fighting chance. Jerry!"
He turned suddenly, waving to something just out of sight.
From the shadows came another being,
It—he?—wore a flowing robe, shimmering with countless shifting colours like oil on water. Long sleeves dragged across the floor, concealing the arms within—except for the occasional glimpse of way too many hands. A single, lidless eye hovered where a face might have been beneath the hood.
"This is Jerry," the Weaver said cheerfully. "He's a bit dramatic, but he's good at what he does."
"Jerry" gave a slow blink. Then, with a series of gestures, he began to weave strange glowing symbols into the air.
"Jerry, do the thing!" the Weaver waves his hand.
Jerry paused. Then rolled his giant eye in a universal gesture of cosmic frustration.
A light bloomed beneath me. The same symbols I saw in the air etched themselves in a circle on the tank's floor. The light suddenly flared, and the glass began to dissolve into mist.
The liquid drained in an instant, and I collapsed to the floor, coughing and gasping. I was... breathing?
The Weaver looked down at me.
"Hmm... can't have you going around buck-naked, sooo here's some free clothing."
He snapped his fingers, and I suddenly found myself wearing a blue jumper and grey jeans.
Shaking, I looked up at the Weaver.
"Wait—" I croaked, my voice barely a whisper. "Why... why me?"
The Weaver crouched beside me, his painted grin just inches from my face.
"Because you know the shape of the story," he said "Not all of it mind you—your memory's got more holes in it than a pincushion—but you'll remember enough to guide your choices and stay alive. Hopefully."
"Wait what do you mean by hopefully?"
The portal beneath me began to crackle and shimmer like whirlpool of made of stars. It began to tug at me like gravity itself had teeth.
The Weaver stood and gave me a lazy two-fingered salute.
"Good luck kid. Try not to die too fast!"
I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant by that, but the floor vanished.
I fell.
Down, down through stars, through sound, through silence.
I saw glimpses.
A kingdom made of clouds.
A boy impaled by a fist of magma as a battle for the ages raged.
A man with soul-less eyes laughing on a throne of bones.
A girl singing as the sky shattered.
A ship with a lion's head sailing a sea of adventure.
And then—
Darkness.
The last thing I heard, echoing faintly behind me, was the Weaver's voice:
"...Oh shit. I forgot to tell him why he's going."
A pause.
"Ah well. He'll figure it out."