The morning air hung heavy with sea mist and charcoal smoke.
I sat on the front step of the hut, staring out at the ocean. Salt still clung to my lips. My clothes were stiff with dried seawater. My limbs didn't feel like they belonged to me—like they'd been borrowed from someone clumsier. Weaker.
But I was alive.
I just had no idea where "here" was.
Behind me, I heard a steady rhythm—something being chopped. Wood, maybe. Or fish.
"Hey," I called out, my voice hoarse.
A pause.
Then came the old man's voice, gruff and indifferent. "What?"
"Where… is this place?"
He stepped into view, slinging a string of silver-scaled fish over one shoulder. A cleaver was tucked into his belt. He gave me a quick glance, then looked toward the shoreline.
"Village called Konomi," he said. "Little island off the coast of Dawn. Somewhere in the East Blue."
"East Blue…" I repeated, the words feeling strange in my mouth. Like marbles I couldn't quite swallow.
It didn't hit me all at once. Just little bits, breaking off from memory and floating to the surface.
I knew that name. Not from a map. From something else.
"East Blue… like the sea?"
The old man—Jiro—gave me a sideways glance. "What else would it be?"
I didn't answer. My chest felt tight.
Not a dream. Not a delusion. Not Tokyo.
This wasn't my world.
Jiro tossed the fish into a bucket near the steps and crouched beside it. He started slicing the first one open like it was second nature.
"You washed up here like a dead crab," he muttered. "Could've been pirates. Could've been a storm. Could've been both. Don't matter."
I looked down at my hands. They were still trembling a bit. Still pale, still bony. Still useless.
"I don't remember much," I said, barely above a whisper. "Just… water. Cold. Then sky."
Jiro grunted. "Happens. Sea takes and gives on its own terms."
I stared at him. "You're not gonna ask more than that?"
"Did you fall off your ship?"
"I wasn't on a ship."
"Then what's the point in asking?"
He just kept cutting, completely unfazed. Overhead, the gulls cried out, circling lazily above the water.
I looked away.
This place—this island—it wasn't on any map I'd ever seen. But "East Blue"? That name tugged at something deep in my memory. Something from old forum posts, endless anime threads. Stuff I used to talk about online.
Stuff that had no place in real life.
But the breeze was real. So was the ache in my ribs. The reek of fish guts. The scratch of sand between my toes.
This world wasn't waiting for me to catch up.
Later that afternoon, I tried helping gather firewood. Tried.
I tripped once. Nearly dropped an armful of sticks twice. By the time I stumbled back, my hands were red, my arms scratched raw by bark and thorns.
Jiro didn't laugh. Didn't say a word. Just took the bundle with a nod and dropped it beside the stove.
"Soup'll be ready by sundown," he said. "You eat, you sleep, you help with nets tomorrow."
I nodded. I didn't know what else to do.
So I ate.
The soup was hot. The fish, tender. The rice was plain, but it warmed something deep inside me.
And when night came, and the waves whispered against the shore like some ancient lullaby, I lay on a straw bed, staring up at the wooden ceiling and whispered to no one but myself:
"East Blue…"
Still trying to understand how a dead man from Tokyo ended up alive in a place like this.
To be continued…