Disclaimer: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to Disney. No infringement
is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from this story.
Summary: "You know nothing of Hell!" And maybe Jack didn't, but the crew of the Black
Pearl did.
Author's note: Written as a Secret Santa fic for Biz.



Of Hell
by Hereswith


Sometimes, it all seemed like a dream to them, the past as well as the present, the days
before as well as each and every day since. A dream, from which there was no escape.
A nightmare, from which they could not wake, because they did not truly sleep.

They knew, of course, that there had been a time when the world had been real, not the
shadow of a shadow. But that was years ago and though they clung to the memories, like
they would have clung to the debris in the wake of a shipwreck, they could not hold on.
Could not keep the edges from becoming blunted, or the colours from bleaching into grey.

Touch and taste and scent, though lost to them, still lingered in their minds: the warmth
of the sun on their upturned faces, pastries melting in their mouths, the cloying sweetness
of certain flowers that bloomed in the jungle. Yet even Barbossa, sinking his teeth into
an apple, could no longer be certain that what he remembered was the truth and not his
imagination.

In the beginning, in rage and despair, some of them had thought to test the boundaries of
the curse. Pintel had stabbed himself, over and over, repeating the motion until Barbossa
grew tired of the spectacle, took the knife from him and threw it overboard. Koehler, raving
like a madman, had climbed up to the crow's nest, one night, in the middle of a storm, to
see if the rain and the wind, the wind or the rain would rent, rip and tear him asunder.

None of these things made a difference.

They often talked, among themselves, about finding the coins that were lost or what they
would do when the world was given back to them. They seldom spoke of other matters.
Not of the doubts and regrets that plagued them and certainly not of the fear, the terrible,
terrible fear, though they all battled with it as fiercely as they ever had any of their foes.

Ragetti had screamed, seeing himself in the moonlight, that very first time. Screamed and
screamed and screamed, for the better part of a week, his throat not raw enough to make
him stop. And Barbossa, silent and grim, had flexed his fingers, clenched and unclenched
his hands, watching the white bones move as if they did not belong to him at all.

But now, in the long since barren depths of the Pearl, there was life, again. A heart that was
beating, again. And the sound of that heartbeat echoed like the sound of a bell that was tolling,
from the bow to the stern, from the keel to the top of the mast. The wood could hear it, the
canvas could hear it and so could all the men. They waited. They hovered, drawn to that slip
of a girl: ship, crew and Captain, as if they were one and the same. A single lost soul.

And they had hope.