Work Text:
When Brook woke up, it was so dark that he couldn’t see anything. When he tried to move, he hit something next to him, then above him, and he started to panic when he realized that he was locked up in a wooden box.
He tried to push the walls to open it, without success. The worst part was that he didn’t even remember how he got there in the first place. And why would he be locked up like this, when he did nothing wrong? He drank a bit more than usual, sure, but it was a party, he was supposed to enjoy himself at this kind of event, so why was he here now? Who hated him so much that they decided to lock him up in a box while he was asleep?
He worried for his nakama too. He couldn’t see but when he was looking for an exit, he had realized there was no air current, not even a simple breeze.
Brook would be fine, even if it was really scary, but his nakama were alive and needed air to survive.
“HEEEY!” He screamed before coughing.
He didn’t need air to survive but he needed it to speak. He hit repeatedly the wooden wall above his head but it didn’t bulge. Same as the one next to him or behind him. He was trapped.
He still had one last card in his sleeve, and he let his soul leave his body. It was always eerie to see himself as a skeleton, even more when he was looking at himself out of his body like that, but it had its perks too. Now, he could go through the walls and escape his little prison to look for his nakama.
When he first went through the wooden wall, he gasped. He wasn’t just locked up in a box, he had been buried alive! He finally reached the outside and looked around him to find out where he was. He stayed silent a moment when all he could see were tombs as far as his eyes could see, even though he didn’t have eyes anymore. He was in a cemetery, not too far from the village where he had been to enjoy the party. He didn’t know what happened exactly, but he couldn’t really be angry at the people who took the time to bury an unknown skeleton after they lost so many people during a pirates’ attack. The Sunny arrived just in time and Luffy had saved the village, but clearly, the villagers didn’t realize that Brook could still be alive.
If they found him dead drunk after the party, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to believe that they thought he was truly dead and were kind enough to bury him with their own dead.
But now that Brook was awake, and very much alive, he had to find his nakama to get out of his own tomb, unable to do it himself. He wandered in the cemetery, frightening a few small animals, and when the sun began to set, an old man ran away at his sight, frightened by his ghostly appearance.
Finally, he found the Sunny. Usopp was up, still a bit drunk, and he screamed when he saw Brook, before fainting. Brook was a bit upset because, seriously, after all this time, wouldn’t his nakama be used to this already? At last, Robin joined them and she smiled when he explained his ordeal.
Really, no one on this ship took this situation seriously. He was in grave danger, damn and blast!
Robin finally woke Usopp up, and they went back to the cemetery. At some point, they crossed path with their first mate, watching him carefully to not lose him along the way, and Brook sighed when they found his tomb, relieved. His nakama started digging, Robin joking about the creepy situation they were in, as she would often do. Usopp and Brook screamed together in fear when the old man from earlier asked them what they were doing, digging the corpse of an unknown dead in plain sight, fearing they wanted to scavenge the other tombs, and they tried to reassured him.
Maybe it was because of the three swords of Zoro by his side, the creepy comment of Robin about rising the dead, Usopp’s unreal explanation, meaning lies, or just Brook himself floating in the air, but the man simply gave up and ran away like he feared for his life.
“Maybe we should finish this fast and get out of here before he comes back with torches and forks?” Usopp suggested and they all agreed.
They really didn’t want to be part of a witch hunt, especially if they were going to be the hunted.
Finally, they touched something hard and once completely freed of all dirt, they forced open the coffin.
“Thank you, my friends!”
Brook came back in his body and stood up, cleaning quickly his suit.
“Now, shall we depart?”
And they all nodded.
They managed to not lose Zoro on the way, even when the villagers saw them and started to scream at them like if they were the devil and his servants, and it brought back bad memories.
Brook really didn’t want to remember this part of his life at all.
They ran away and jumped on the Sunny, and fortunately for them, everyone was still sleeping on the deck, meaning that they could leave immediately before the villagers began to torch their ship.
“What’s going on?” Nami shouted, but she quickly helped them to sail away from the island when she saw the angry crowd. “What have you done again?” She grumbled between her teeth and Brook shivered. “I can’t believe it, they were so nice yesterday! You’re lucky I was able to steal the mayor’s treasure before!” Nami complained out loud, but now, Brook was glad they left immediately.
Clearly, they wouldn’t have been welcomed anyway because of their navigator.
He looked at the sun and breathe the fresh air, happy to feel alive. Even as a skeleton, he enjoyed life and if had his way, he clearly didn’t want to be buried just yet!