Portgas D. Ace

for three of you, the light of the sacred flame shines true and bright as it takes the shapes of your memories. it inspires. it brightens - it casts light through the dim dungeon in brilliance. your steps ahead are assured. the truth lies in the flame - the undeniable feeling of the fact that you’re almost there. you’ve nearly found your way back to the city, back to your friends, back to the life you want to have. you just have to hope a little longer, and move forward further in the dark.

for one of you, there's nothing like that at all. you are a few steps behind, still holding the black bow. your injuries aren’t bothering you. your body doesn’t hurt. but something is wrong. you are so lonely. you're left behind in the dark. you're alone, like always, and you wonder why nobody came for you like the rest of them. it hurts.

all four of you press through the shrine towards the sound of the whimpering. and, as the ghosts of your inspiration and lights melt away, back into your lanterns, you find something curled up in a deep, dark corner of the shrine, at the very, very back. at first, it’s hard to see. but as you approach, you realize what’s facing you is... a monster.

it is huge - the creature’s protruding vertebrae nearly touch the ceiling of the temple, but unlike in the sprite, the monster is collapsed in a heap on the ground, breathing heavily. it looks badly wounded - arrows stick out of its torso, in the space between its protruding ribcage bones, and the fabric of whatever torn asunder thing it wore at some point is dirtied and bloodied, though it’s hard to tell if its human blood or something else. black shadow pours off of its figure, and it stares at you with its eerily glowing, pinkish purple eyes, its tongue lolling out of its mouth. its head is flat on the ground, and each breath it takes comes on a wheeze.

all of you, just by looking, can tell whatever this thing is - it’s miserable. dust sprinkles off of it in pieces, as if it is very slowly disintegrating, but it is so, so slow.

Kill… me…

it looks at you. and for a moment, it's not a monster, it's him, tall and grinning, freckles splashed across his nose and cheeks. his eye's a little worse for wear this last week, but it's fine. he tells you that he can see just fine, and that he'd have to be some kind of weakling to get taken out here. he grabs his hat and puts it down on your head, and for a second, everything is okay.

and then it's not. you see, for a second, you see portgas d. ace struggling to breathe, taking his last, staring up at you and asking you to kill him, and.

your lantern goes out.

and you scream.