No longer surrounded by the pitch black darkness and deafening silence, Luffy made a horrific discovery that nearly activated his fight or flight response in the back of his mind.
"Zoro?! Zoro, why is there so much blood? Hey! It's not yours is it?! Hey!! Speak to me!"
The scenery unfolding right before his very eyes was so bewildering, that Luffy's feet froze up when his body temperature dropped at a dangerously low level, as a consequence of the panic that was settling into him.
Getting closer to a large pool of blood that his Swordsman was sinking deeper inside of, Luffy couldn't walk any further.
Be it a cause of the shock he was in, or an actual emergency, his legs just weren't cooperating with him in the slightest bit.
"I'll take you out! Give me your hand!"
Extending his arm out with his rubber abilities, the Captain got close enough for Zoro to reach his hand, but kept a distance in between them so that he could pull him out of the place he was in.
But taking the man's body out was easier said than done for Luffy.
He was doing all that was in his power to keep Zoro from sinking any further, but his grip was growing weak.
"I feel you slipping away... Zoro, hang on tighter! Hurry!"
Taking a step forward, Luffy used both of his hands to hold onto Zoro's arms, wondering why the man wasn't making even the most bare minimum effort to hoist himself up.
"Zo.... Zor...o.... Argh..."
The Captain clenched his jaw, nearly exerting his muscles as he tugged at the Swordsman's arm, feeling the pressure affecting his legs when they started to slide down to where the sinkhole was.
But the closer he tried to pull the Swordsman towards him, the deeper he sank.
His lower body was being suctioned into the murky pool of blood, and the most concerning part of this happening to the Swordsman, wasn't that his life was on the line, but how unphased the man appeared to be by how close he was to dying; contrary to his behavior when Luffy first found him.
"Zoro?"
Keeping a tight grip on him, the older man caught Luffy's attention when the room fell deadly quiet.
The brunette stopped tugging at Zoro's arm, but his figure continued to sink, with nothing but Luffy's grip to keep him from disappearing, completely.
"Zoro, why aren't you saying anything?"
In the midst of tapping against Zoro's arm, a gush of blood ran down the Swordsman's nose, and erupted out of his mouth in the form of a dark clot, bigger than the size of his own hand.
Luffy's body started to tremble as he begged the Swordsman to open his eye, to make sure that he wasn't falling asleep.
Hearing the boy's voice from far away, Zoro's eyelid fluttered open, but he couldn't see a thing out of his singular eye.
From the inside of his sclera, to the man's pupil, his entire eye had gone red, leaving him blind.
At one last attempt to speak, the man parted his lips and began to move them, weakly, forcing his voice to come out.
"Nmn... Lu... Gugh..."
He coughed, making Luffy stare at him with worry as the boy held him closely, terrified of letting go.
"Blregh! L... Uuf...... Ffy..." The Swordsman began spewing out more blood, feeling his airway closing up.
He breathlessly reached his hand out to give Luffy's arm a gentle squeeze.
That was the last action that the devoted Swordsman would accomplish before releasing his grip and being submerged underneath the thick red substance, with no hope of resurfacing.
"Zoro.."
The minute Zoro's body plummeted into the unknown, the Captain's heart sank along with him.
"Zoro..."
His first mate was long gone, but Luffy couldn't process the tragedy that he had witnessed, first-hand.
By the time he started to sense that Zoro's presence was diminishing, the Captain was left with an empty void, deep within his chest.
He was speechless yet had more words to speak than the ones imprinted on the pages of a book.
His voice had disappeared when he wanted to scream the loudest.
His tears wouldn't fall, despite how heartbroken he felt.
Every part of Luffy's body had shutdown.
From his crippled heart that was hardly beating the way a normal heart should, to his hands that were immobilized, much like the rest of his limbs.
The air was cold, even if the only window in the room around him was sealed shut.
Turning to face the pool of blood that Zoro was drowned in, Luffy could tell how visibly smaller it was getting.
Staring at it with a blank facial expression that lacked emotion, the Captain heard the faint sound of Zoro's voice.
He replayed the words that he had last spoken to him, slowly unfolding his legs from the ground to stand up.
His bones weighed on him, but the young man overlooked his personal problems, no longer feeling pain, or any feeling at all, in his body.
Moving his legs at a time-consuming pace, Luffy started to walk and no longer stopped, until he slowly lead himself to the sinkhole.
Right away, it was clear to him that the area was closing up, noticing how significantly reduced the sinkhole was, than just a few seconds ago.
With a heaviness in his heart and a numbing sensation running all throughout his fatigued body, the Captain held his hand out to the sinkhole and stared at it with a painful smile drawn across his face.
"Maybe you'll be able to reach it this time, Zoro."
He fearlessly stated, feeling his body become weightless while seeping into the sinkhole, hoping to be reunited with his first mate.
But oppose to being reunited with him, the boy finally woke up from his nightmare with tears streaming down his face, and a smile still lingering on him.
"He's okay. Zoro's still here."
He reassured himself, thinking back to his traumatizing nightmare.
"Back then when I was falling, why did it feel relaxing instead of scary? The feeling of sinking and not being rescued usually scares me. But this time, I felt calm. Really calm..."
~~~
