I died somewhere in my 80's, not completely remembering who I was.

Not at the time anyway.

I knew I had lived a careful, peaceful life as I wasn't exactly the bravest soul. That I had been rather reclusive and perhaps more than a bit self-absorbed. That my friends were few and my family, well I was only close to a select number of the otherwise large group of blood relatives. I could even remember some of my hobbies. Mostly being that I was an aficionado of all things animated and collecting figures of my favorite characters.

I knew that I liked to write, though what I had written I wasn't exactly sure. Yet, I remembered it was more for the thrill and sense of accomplishment that I did so. I think?

What I couldn't seem to recall were little things at first, such as where I lived or how old I was. Things progressed slowly from there and before I passed on, I had forgotten things such as my favorite food or the name of the beach I used to spend two weeks every summer at with my siblings and parents as a child. Sometimes I found myself not even being able to recollect all what had happened the day before. It was scary.

No, forgetting was more than that. It was petrifying.

So, when I finally let myself drift from this world, surrounded by my remaining family, still able to put names to most of their faces - I was happy.

I was startled from death by the sound of loud wails of a baby and hysterical shouting. The world was around me was blurry, the only thing I could see was twisting, splotchy colors that reminded me of some sort of Jackson Pollock painting. One of the first things I truly managed to comprehend being that I couldn't breath. My lungs burned, my skin hot with exertion as I struggled to inhale.

The screaming around me only seemed to rise higher with each passing second. I couldn't understand the panicked words that were reverberating around the room. They were spoken fast and the language was nothing but gibberish to me. I could feel my heart beating against my chest, my vision becoming even worse as I began to hyperventilate.

Then there was a flaring pain.

Someone had begun tapping me on the back with enough force that I was sure I would have a lovely, molten bruise later. It hurt, but it did dislodge whatever was blocking my airways, as I sucked in the stale air. It smelt disgusting like rusted iron, antiseptic, and rubber mixed. It reminded me of those joke candles that had popped up awhile ago.

I scrunched my nose in disgust, a tiny cry of displeasure escaping me.

The screams stopped, only the wails of the baby remained.

The giant hands that held me placed me into what I assumed was another person's arms and the new person cradled me close to their chest. The embrace felt warm, safe even, but I couldn't help the thought in the back of my mind that something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Why was I so small? Better yet how was I even alive when I remembered dying just moments ago? My mind was as foggy as my vision, I couldn't think straight. My muscles began to lock up as I felt my anxiety skyrocket faster than Superman flying towards danger. It once again became harder to breath, leaving me once again gasping for air.

I didn't like forgetting and I certainly didn't like not knowing what was going on. The ear-splitting sobs of the baby was doing nothing to help calm my nerves either, only making everything feel that much worse. It was awful.

I started to choke. Rough, wet coughs escaped me, making my throat and chest ache with their force. The sensation could be compared to when you swallowed a half-chewed food product and it slithered down your esophagus the wrong way, except a million times worse. The large, slender arm that was encasing me tensed before relaxing once again beneath me.

A soft humming permeated across through room, cutting through the cries and coughing of the baby and I. My own body began to loosen as the soothing sound washed over me. My breathing slowing down, the baby also started to calm down. It was peaceful. So very, very peaceful.

I felt my eyelids grow heavy, the excitement and terror from the last few moments finally catching up with me. I struggled to stay awake, desperate to figure out what was going. Afraid that if I closed my eyes, I would lose this feeling of serenity.

It wasn't long before I lost my battle with the Sandman and found myself drifting off into the oblivion of a dreamless sleep.

Author's Note:

Currently unedited. I should probably look into getting a beta reader for all my One Piece stories. Though I have a tendency to disappear sometimes, so that might not be a great idea. XD

The OC in this story is probably going to be the closest to an self-insert that I will ever write. Sure, some of my other OCs have certain aspects from me, but this one here will have the most. Of course, not everything about this OC will be true to who I am, otherwise we probably wouldn't have much of a story, but this came about when I thought of which character in One Piece I most closely resembled. So, because of that, I thought it may be fun to have a little fact section at the end of each chapter stating one thing that this OC gets from me.

Here it goes.

Fun Fact: I do collect anime figures here and there. My favorite being the genderbend figure I have of Trafalgar Law made by Bandai's Megahouse.