Work Text:
Statement of Sanji Black, regarding his childhood experience of being shipwrecked on an inhospitable island.
Recorded direct from subject, 21st of September, 20XX.
Statement begins.
This is probably a shitty idea. I know that, it’s not like you can help but… But I need to tell someone, and it can’t be any of them…
I love the Shitty Old Geezer. I love my friends. They’re… everything. I would die for them… I would do so much more for them. Even the Shitty Marimo has his merits…
[Pause]
Don’t tell him I said that.
Actually, while we’re at it, don’t tell any of them about any of this. If they ask, it’s best if you tell them my statement got destroyed in a fire or something. They don’t need to get involved in… this.
[Pause]
I can see it on you… that you don’t actually know what this is either. Probably best if you didn’t. Or maybe it isn’t… regardless, it's a shitty situation and I don’t have much time. I promised I’d make dinner for everyone tonight, and I need to start prep early. Maybe another time…
[Sigh] Do you mind if I smoke?...
Right.
I figured, but it was worth a shot.
I guess I should probably start from the beginning…
I’ve always been fond of the sea. The… vastness of it never bothered me much. It always felt endless, but in a freeing kind of way. I didn't use to have much of that when I was little, and I took any crumb of freedom that I could get my hands on… even if it was looking out at the horizon through barred windows.
There’s another long story to be told there, I suppose… but this isn’t the time for it. Suffice it to say that by the age of eight, I was on my own, and I managed to weasel my way into working in the kitchen of a luxury cruise ship. Maybe the ease in which they allowed me on board should have clued me in that something was going on… No one in their right mind would listen to a brat claiming he has no family and decide that the right course of action is not to call the authorities. But I was a shitty brat with a shitty attitude and an even shittier past, so I took whatever I could and ignored warning signs because it was easier than the alternative.
Everything seemed great at first. For two years, things went smoothly. Or as smooth as they could considering… Well, regardless, it was nothing worse than what I was already used to, so again, I ignored it.
I always loved cooking. The kitchen has always been my haven, even at times when I wasn’t allowed in one. Even when faced with the threat of violence, I came back to cooking. So being in that kitchen was like a dream come true, and I desperately wanted to keep my place in there.
The only one who ever questioned me being there was the Shitty Old Geezer. Not for my abilities… he was actually one of the only people there who treated me like I wasn’t an idiot. I mean, he was a rude bastard who always yelled and had something to say about every little thing that I did. I used to hate him, took me a while to realize he did it because he wanted me to improve…
But like I said, he was the only one on that shitty ship to ever question why a ten year old brat was working on the seas instead of being in school or something.
He got there two years after I started working there and started asking questions. Every time he did, people just brushed it off with excuses and scurried off somewhere else. I think the Shitty Old Geezer thought… thinks it’s because he was there as part some sort of parole deal. He had some run–ins with the law way back, robbed some places, and found himself in prison. After a few years of good behaviour, they suggested him for parole. And since he used to work in the kitchens there, they got him a job as a cook on that ship…
In reality, whatever was leading us to that place probably had something to do with it. Probably had us both marked from the start.
[pause]
The details of the next part isn’t as important I guess. I’m sure you can look up the story yourself. It was big news after all. There was a big storm, mysteriously out of season. There was something about a lack of proper maintenance to cut costs, and next thing you know, The Orbit sank.
I don’t remember much after the initial panic. All I know is that I woke up at some point on dry land with the Shitty Old Geezer.
It was a tiny island… or a really big rock, I guess. Barren, no plants, no animals, nothing to eat or make shelter with.
The Old Geezer had managed to save two sacks of what I thought was food. He threw the smaller one at me, said that’s all I was going to get, so that I should ration it. I did, of course, but even then, it didn’t last very long.
I know what you’re thinking by now. All I did was tell you some shitty sob story about neglectful adults, a freak storm and a whole bunch of shitty luck. None of that is supernatural! And if you’re unwilling to count the all the little things I already told you about, I guess you’d be right.
But the thing is… I know how it feels, the whole… supernatural thing. You don’t believe me, I can tell, and it's fine… but it’s the truth. I don’t mean that I can summon the dead or that I can read minds or some shit like.
My… biological family had been involved in some occult shit for generations.
No, I’m not going to tell you who they are. I know your type, you’re a curious lot. And this shitty institute’s whole thing is ‘investigating’ isn’t it? You’d try to waltz right up to their doorstep with your questions and… someone will end up slaughtered .
I don’t want that.
My point is, I’ve seen how the supernatural works, I’ve been around since before I was born. I know that feeling of creeping fear and unease, so on edge you feel it in your teeth… And that shitty island reeked of it. It reeked of ozone and ashes and death. I could smell blood as well, though… that one wasn’t really for me.
[Pause]
You sure I can’t smoke here?
[Sigh]
I know… ignition sources and papers, I get it. Just so you know, I’m only listening because Robin-Chan would get mad if she heard I put books at risk of burning…
I guess I’ll just have to get this over with…
You know how sometimes you can look at something and just... know? Not think you know, Know . A bone-deep knowledge that seeps into your core, an ultimate and all-encompassing truth that you can’t deny, even though you have no proof otherwise?
Looking out at the sea, I knew there was nothing there. No land, no people, not even animals.
Just a vast and endless expanse of blue blue blue All Blue …
The day after I ate my last piece of rotten scraps, I woke up and the sky was gone, and all I could see was the sea... It stretched on forever, and I knew that there was no land anywhere in this world.
The burning of the sun didn’t help either… It’s funny. How a world without a sky can still have a sun that never sets. But it was there, merciless, constant, and cruel…
Still, those weren’t what frightened me the most. Like I said, the sea had always been comforting to me, I was used to the heat, and I knew there were worse things out there…
It was the thought of dying there that most terrified me. Watching my food supply slowly run out and knowing there was no one coming…
I really thought I was going to die there. I was sure I escaped my shitty life for a taste of freedom, that I fought to find and carve out a place for myself, only to have it snatched from me…
[Pause]
Starvation is a horrible way to die, you know?… your body will use everything it can to sustain itself… but once those reserves are gone, it will start eating itself.
I felt it. I felt every second of it like I was being eaten from the inside out. Not in the metaphorical sense... I could feel my body waste away, feel my bones creaking every time I moved… They sang to me on that island… They sang lullabies about how they couldn’t wait for the moment they could be free, for the moment I could finally sleep forever. It almost sounded tempting you know?...
[Pause]
The Old Geezer had told me to stay on my side of the island. But my food ran out, the sun wouldn’t set, my bones were loud and I… didn’t want to die alone…
So I went looking for him.
I’m pretty sure I walked for days, even though crossing that rock couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes. Between the starvation and the lack of a day-night cycle, it was hard to tell. Though I'm pretty sure it would have taken days regardless…
Turns out the old bastard gave me all the food, that the sack he had was filled with some valuable shit he salvaged for some reason…
I wasn’t there to see how he lost his leg, and he never told me. But knowing what I do… It’s probably for the best…
He might have been angry if it weren’t for the fact that we were both tired and starving and hopeless… So instead I just sat next to him and we waited for whatever would come…
We both fell asleep at some point. And when we woke up again, the sky was back, and a ship was passing by…
This part you can probably find in the papers too. We were rescued, taken to a hospital, and rehabilitated. The Old Geezer took me in after that, said he couldn’t let me go into the system and be taken in by someone who wouldn’t understand. He opened his restaurant with the money we got as compensation… He taught me almost everything I know…
I think in the end that’s what saved us… sticking together. We became each other’s anchor… You should remember that Archevist… It’d probably do you good in the future.
[Long Pause]
I’ve always had an affinity for heat, you know?… Fire is like second nature to me in the kitchen… So I used to think that if I ever… I still probably will…
But there’s just something so comforting about that All Blue …
[Statement Ends]
[Archivist’s Notes]
Mr. Black insisted we do not follow up on this statement with his friends and family, as they either know nothing of this event or would ‘kick our shitty asses if we asked’ as he so elloquently put it.
From what we could discern from this statement, the ‘Old Geezer’ refers to one Mr Zeff Redleg, adoptive father of Mr Black.
According to official statements and multiple news articles, the luxury ship The Orbit sank twelve years ago, as a result of cost-cutting measures and what was described as an out-of-season storm that hit the ship.
The only two survivors of that incident were Mr Redleg and Mr Black. They were found eighty-five days later, after a ship passed near the small, barren island where they were shipwrecked. They were taken to Grand Line General Hospital, where they were both treated for severe malnutrition, dehydration, and severe sunburns.
I would be inclined to dismiss Mr Black’s statement as the delusions of a starving child if it weren’t for the fact that, according to the medical records and what we know of starvation, it is rare for adults to survive seventy days without food. Children more often than not do not survive as long… especially not children small and thin as Mr Black seemed to have been, if the old photographs of the kitchen crew at The Orbit seem to indicate…
Additionally… Both Mr Black and Mr Redleg indicate that for the duration of those eighty-five days, not a single ship passed near the island on which they were shipwrecked…
This strikes me as odd, as it seems that area is well traversed, and many shiplogs indicate that several vessels passed nearby during this time. According to the testimonies of the crews of those ships, not a single person saw them on that island despite all of them being on high alert after the sinking of The Orbit.
Strangely, many of the crews report that the area smelled unusually of ozone, blood, ashes… or death.
Recording Ends.