Chương 12: Chapter 12: The hallway
Dialogue "sample"
Thoughts 'sample'
Author notes -sample-
Disclaimer: One piece and all of its characters belong to Eiichiro Oda.
Chapter 12: The hallway
She found herself in a room. The walls were decorated with posters and a couple of paintings.
There was a shelf filled with books and manga. A small bed for one person and a simple desk with an old computer on top.
"This is my room!" She exclaimed.
"Why am I back here?, didn't I die? And then woke up in…was that a dream?" She could not help but think.
She examined herself and recognize her original body. She looked at her reflection on the screen of the computer, she didn't have any mirrors in her room since she did not enjoy looking at herself.
The figure reflected on the screen was the one she was used to. Just a plain girl with brown hair and brown eyes.
"Old boring me…"
Her apartment was very tiny, with just one bedroom and one bathroom. The neighborhood was also terrible. There were many drug dealers in the area and it was very dangerous to walk around at night. But that was the best she could afford with her low-paying job at the gas station.
What little extra money she could get, would be used for her hobby. She liked reading fantasy stories that would take her away from here and into more interesting places where she could be free to live and explore.
Her childhood wasn't good either. Her mother died when was a child and her father was a drunkard who lived in a trailer park while He wasted his little inheritance on alcohol.
She got out of there as soon as she hit eighteen. She got a stroke of luck for once and landed a decent job as a secretary in a big office.
That all changed one day when one of her superiors tried to take advantage of her…She broke his nose. As a result, He was sent to the hospital and she was fired.
The job at the gas station didn't pay much but at least the other employees left her alone.
She preferred to be alone, no one could hurt her that way. She had enough company with her stories….
She was then distracted out of her thoughts by a noise coming from her living room/kitchen.
Shen went to investigate and found a familiar figure, sitting at her kitchen table and tapping her cane on the floor. It was the old lady that she meet the day of her death. The one who promised her a wish.
"You!. What are you doing here?!" She demanded.
The old lady looked at her and smiled. She didn't say a word but that smile gave her a sense of uneasiness.
"What happened to me? Am I dead?...did I even go to that world? or was it all a dream? Or maybe I just went mad…" Her mind was a mess at the moment.
The old lady rose one finger in the air and then moved it to point at the entrance door.
"Uh? are you telling me to leave my apartment?" She was getting angry now. How dare she!
She walked quickly to the front door and opened it. She was going to tell that homeless lady to leave immediately.
"What is this!?" At the other side of the door was supposed to be a small, barely illuminated corridor that lead to the stairs. Instead of that, She was looking at a majestically decorated hallway that seemed to belong in a palace.
"Lady!, what did you do to my apartment?" She turned around to confront the mysterious woman, but she was nowhere to be seen. Her apartment was quiet as a tomb.
She turned her gaze back at the luxurious hallway and realized something.
"Wait…I know this place!"
She has seen these walls before, those decorations were part of the Royal Palace of Arabasta. The place where sh- Vivi had grown up.
"This can't be real…"
She looked back once again…and gasped.
Her apartment was gone now. Behind her was nothing but an empty void. The only piece left was her door and the few floor tiles where she was standing.
With nowhere else to go, She decided to explore the hall.
The beautiful decorations seemed to repeat and she started to see a pattern after walking for a while.
There were windows every so often but everything outside was pitch black.
The only illumination came from the few torches on the wall.
She consider for a moment turning back to where she came from, but there was nothing there eighter, just more black void. So she continued walking forward.
She kept walking and walking for what felt like days. Then, out of a sudden, she spotted something in the distance that wasn't the usual darkness of an endless corridor.
As she got close, it became clear that it was a door. A very peculiar-looking door. The wood was light blue but didn't seem like it was painted but more like it was the natural color of the wood. She realized that this was the same door that she has been seeing in her dreams before.
She approached the door and put her hand on the handle. As she turned the knob, she heard the noise of the door being unlocked.
As she started to open it, the light was coming from inside the next room and she started to hear a voice calling for her.
"Princess!" The voice said.
The more she opened the door the louder the voice got and the brighter the light became.
"Vivi!."
It got to the point that the light was too much and she had to cover her face.
And then…she opened her eyes.
"Princes Vivi, you are finally awake!"
She looked at the familiar face. It was Igaram.
'I'm back here?'
Vivi tried to stand up but found it difficult to move.
'Am I tied down?'
"Ah, Princess wait. You can't move much. The doctor said so."
"What happened?, am I in the palace?" Asked Vivi, feeling very confused at the moment.
"Yes, you are in the infirmary of the palace. Your friends brought you here. You were very injured by then… oh, it's been three days." Said Igaram.
"What about Luffy?, is he?..." Vivi could not finish her question for fear of the worst.
"He is fine, Princes. He was also very injured but recover quickly. He has been emptying our food reserves for the last two days." Said Igaram with a weary smile.
Vivi could finally relax a bit and smile.
"He is alive…what about the war?"
Igaram made a sad expression.
"It's over. We suffered a lot of casualties but it's finally over. Your friends defeated all of the higher-ups from Baroque Works and the Marines did the rest. They also revealed the entire ploy with the fake King and the rain powder. Everyone knows the truth now. It was all the fault of Crocodile."
"Where are Luffy and the others? I want to see them." Asked Vivi.
"They are not here anymore. We held the marines out for as long as we could. That Captain Smoker was also trying to stop them, but another Marine Captain came in and insisted on arresting them, so they had to leave. They wanted to wait until you woke up but could not wait any longer." Said Igaram.
"What?, they left already?!" Asked Vivi with anxiety.
"Not yet. They said that they will be waiting for you until dawn in a hiding place at the Sandora river. They said that you knew the one. There are still around four hours left until then. You can go say your goodbyes, but let me call the doctor and your father first. You won't be able to move with all of those bandages."
Ingram left the room and Vivi had time to examine herself. Her arms and legs were all covered in thick bandages, that's why she could barely move.
A minute later, an old man that she recognize as the royal doctor came into the room.
"Ah, Princes, Is good to see you finally awake. You had us worried." The doctor said.
"Doctor, thank you for your help. Igaram said that I was gravely injured when they brought me here." Said, Vivi.
"No need to thank me. Most of the work was already done by that friend of yours, Doctor Chopper. He is quite the talented physician I must say."
The doctor started to remove the bandages on her left arm.
"He said that you had most of the bones on your limbs broken. But when you arrived here, we could not detect any broken bones, just a few fractures. The scars on your belly were also disappearing fast, it was quite an odd case. Oh?"
"What is it, doctor?." Asked Vivi at seeing the doctor's expression change after He was done removing the bandages on her arm.
"Let me see." He started to poke and prove at her arm but she didn't feel any discomfort.
"Are you sure it was broken? feel fine to me." She asked.
"Indeed. I can't detect any issue here. It seems perfectly healed. Let's see the other one."
The doctor then removed the bandages around her other arm and then her legs. They all seemed perfectly healthy.
"I have never seen anyone recover so quickly. If I didn't know any better I would say this is the work of a devil fruit." Said the doctor.
"I have recently swam in seawater, so that's unlikely. "
The door then opened again and Her father entered, followed by Ingram and his wife, Terracota.
"Vivi!." King Cobra smiled and ran towards his daughter to hug her.
"Your highness, be careful. She is still injured!." Said Terracota with worry.
"Not to worry about that, my King. I just finished my check-up. Princess Vivi is in perfect health." The doctor said.
She hugged her father back. She felt a bit sorry for him, even though she has some of Vivi's memories, she is still unable to see this man as her actual father. If she were to stay here and live as a Princess, she would feel like an impostor for her whole life. That's why she had already come to a decision since the first day that she opened her eyes in this world.
"Father, there is something we need to speak about. Alone, please." Said, Vivi.
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