Water is dripping down his face, looking down he himself can’t even see the difference between his eyes and the water surround him, he wiped the water with his skinny hands and looked at the gray sky, the clouds are so close to each other that the gray color time to time turns blue in a split of a second and his eyes, they see everything, every drop of water that falls on them no matter how blurry his vision is.
He raised his hands taking a last look at himself thinking that this was it, thinking that this dragon of a storm or the void on his inside would finally kill him. He didn’t expect someone to rescue him either after all he’s a pirate, he knew his crimes and even if he wasn’t proud of them he didn’t want to hide them either, no matter if he was just the one who kept his crew alive.
Accepting all this, he rests his hands on his lap and looks at what it was supposed to be the horizon now tinted in a dark gray color but something it’s different, his blurry eyes at first didn’t notice it, but close to the rest of the ship he managed to see a person, his eye wide and he let out a silent gasp but in denial he close his eyes and hands, he’s convinced that it was an illusion or so he thought until a fruity smell caught his nose through all the water, unable to hold it in any longer and with all the strength he have left he run toward it.
The rain stops, but the remains of water on his carbon hair combine with his tears as he eats desperately, and once again he loses, he loses to himself and his morals.
“Shh,” a sweet voice is heard, “eat of me as much as you like, Jeremy,” he pet his head while laying on the sand, watching every second of it with a smile on his face.
~~~
“Captain!” Jeremy rushes into the office.
He looked up to see him without stopping writing, “What’s the matter Jeremy?”
Jeremy shut the door behind him and came closer, “Please tell me that the crew members are lying, please tell me that we aren't going to the Grand Line.”
“Why do you want me to lie to you?” he responded and looked back at his work.
“But captain we are not prepared to go there, you know damn well that the weather there made that place a whole new world,” he came closer and put his hands on the desk trying to call for his attention, “we are not strong enough!”
The captain stopped and directed his eyes at him, “I understand your worries as a doctor but I think we wait long enough,” he got up from his seat and stood beside him resting his hand on one of his shoulders, “we are ready for what the future has for us.”
Jeremy didn’t argue back, if he did it would be considered going against his captain's decision so he just stood quietly, watching as he left him in the office alone with his worries.
***
‘Where is he?’ Jeremy asks himself.
The wounds on his face are wide open but he couldn’t care less about them, instead he’s looking desperately for his captain since he knows that the enemy is strong enough to put up a fight with him and the crew. Worried he ran faster and because of the blonde on his face he couldn't see a cannon bullet approaching him but luckily as he is he managed to avoid it.
“What the hell are you doing here Jeremy?!” the captain yelled at him seeing that he was almost dead.
Jeremy looks up and sees him fitting their enemy’s captain, his eyes wide open as he sees an injury on his captain's lower back and it looks really bad just by the stain of blood on his t-shirt.
‘I need to get up, I need to treat him…’ fearing the worst he tries to get up but can’t, his foot is stuck between the wooden floor. He turns around and tries to free himself as fast as he can until he feels something behind him, it’s one of the enemy’s crew members, he’s holding his sword up to the sky ready to kill him and then.
“Second in command, protect the doctor!” the captain screamed to the top of his lungs.
Hearing this, she immediately jumps from the second level of the boat and kills the enemy, then freeing Jeremy.
“We need to get out of here,” she says while helping him to stand.
“The captain has an injury on his lower back that if I don’t treat him it could threaten his life,” he replied to her looking up to his captain’s fight.
She picked him up and threw him over her shoulder, “I understand your worries but I got orders to protect you and I have to do this.”
“Wait! we can’t go, we can’t leave them,” he tried to break free from her grip but couldn’t, “we can’t leave the captain… My brother! Saera, please.”
She tightened her grip and started running, “I’m sorry Jeremy, forgive our captain for being this selfish.”
~~~
“Antonio!” Jeremy screams, waking up and extending his hand searching for something that wasn't there any longer.
The cold sweet that he’s feeling made it clear that all that was a dream but his shakenly hands says that perhaps they’re his memories reminding him what happened 8 weeks ago. And then, all of them came, all of his memories that he kept in a box looked in the back of his mind came like a punch, beating him so hard that he let out a scream of pain as he almost faded.
“That was a really good scream,” the unknown voice praised him.
Hearing someone's voice Jeremy looked around and saw him, a person who looks exactly just like him.
“Who—are you…?” Jeremy asks with a weak and cracking voice.
Completely ignoring him, he gets up, “You seem better, I’m glad,” a malicious grin appeared on his face as he said this.
He’s not wrong, Jeremy doesn’t feel that hole in his body or the urge to crave anymore but why, he asks himself, it’s not like he managed to eat something… eat, perhaps did you eat something Jeremy? Tears start to fall from his eyes on his blistering hands, he can’t believe how much of a failure doctor and pirate he is, he couldn’t even save his captain, his brother.
“¡Huh!?” Jeremy reacts, as the unknown person caresses his hand on his cheek, taking one of Jeremy’s tears to then taste it.
“Salty.”
Jeremy was taken off guard so he flinched at this and proceeded to look at him in confusion after an unexpected realization, ‘How? How could he be alive?” He asked himself, “I— I eated him.’
He hugged himself, being able to think of this made him so disgusted that for a moment he thought that his body was falling apart and then he saw it, his shadow was moving away, the unknown person was leaving him.
In despair Jeremy reached for him, “Kill me… please,” he asked desperately.
He turns around and looks directly at Jeremy’s soul, “What would be satisfactory in killing a miserable man like you?”
Jeremy couldn’t believe how cold his own eyes could be but that didn’t stop him, “Yes I’m miserable, I lost my honor as a pirate and my purpose as a doctor, I lost everything, that’s why, so please,” he begged.
“Alright,” he simply said, bending down to meet his eyes.
Jeremy wasn't expecting that he responded so fast, “Rea—”
Without letting him finish he grabs Jeremy’s face, “But the only way you could die it’s by my hands,” he said as his sinister smile came back again.
“Wa… wait but that’s no—”
He hit the back of Jeremy’s neck making him fade, “So, for now sleep Jeremy.”
ns 15.158.61.23da2
