Disclaimer: Dizney owns all except for Sarah, Mary, Ben, and Jeremy.
The first steps were the most difficult. Leaving behind one's only home and loving family can cause terrible agony in the mind and heart. Only imagine leaving them behind you, dead, not even having time to perform the proper burial rites. Imagine running away from that which you once loved, because that which you once loved betrayed you. That is the worst kind of hurt. Still, the steps took effort to make, but once going, I could not stop.
As soon as I stepped through the gate that fateful morning, I could feel that something dreadful had happened. Unfamiliar boot prints marked the ground, heavy like a soldier's tread, yet light, as if the person had been trying to be silent. A metallic smell permeated the air, reminiscent of the village slaughterhouse. I went up to the door and slowly pushed it open, but wished that I had not. My family lay all in pools of their own blood, dead. Stricken, I searched their faces: my two eldest, Mary and Ben, lay by the stairs; my youngest, Jeremy, lay in his mother's arms. My wife was alive, but barely, she would soon join the ranks of the dead.
Kneeling beside her, tears running down my face, I asked, with choked voice, "Sarah, who did this?" Her last, forced, words to me, "Cutler… Beckett… he said… you… were a pirate…" Then her eyes rolled up in her head, and she passed away, like all her children.
Beckett, the name that even now leaves a foul taste on my lips. Beckett, the nephew I once loved as my own son. Beckett, the traitor to his family. Beckett, whose vile deed scars my heart and leaves it bleeding to slowly rot my body from the inside out.
I made my way to Beckett's house, revenge growing on my mind. Climbing in through the window, I stood over his bed, poised to strike. I couldn't do it, much as I hated him. Instead, I went to his prized collection of irons for branding criminals. Selecting one, I heated it in the fire, and crossing the room, left a seared M in the flesh of his wrist. "There, murderer, we've left our mark on each other."
Then I ran. For days I ran, not caring where, or how. Months later I found myself here in Tortuga, a drunken wretch, running into the rum bottle. But that was 10 years ago. What's your story, mate?
The man in the ragged sailor's uniform put his feet up on the table, "Take what you can, give nothin' back."
"Aye." Grinned Jack, "That's a good story."