Disclaimer: I do not own POTC or any of its characters. If I owned it, Dead Man's Chest would have been released now on Spain, and I wouldn't have to be waiting until August.

Summary: "I've forgotten what is love, what is happiness..." A short one shot fic about a crewmember of the Flying Dutchman. Written in response of a challenge at CrossingBlades

The Cabin Boy

Fear.

Since I began serving at the Flying Dutchman, I haven't known any other feeling. I was ten years old then, travelling to the New World with my parents.

I still remember the first time I saw it. I cried with fear, as I had never cried before. It was like as if I knew that there wasn't any opportunity of salvation.

The cannonballs flew from the Flying Dutchman to its target. One of them threw the mast over my parents. I still can hear their pain cries as if I had them engraved with fire on my soul. I knew I would be the next. There was no salvation for me. I was going to join my parents, the sooner or the later.

But I didn't.

Something hit me, and I fell to the water. I didn't drow. I floated in the water, who rocked me as a mother rocks her baby to sleep.

The next thing I remember is me lying on a table. I opened my eyes, and saw a man looking at me. Well, that wouldn't be the opportune word to describe him, since he lacked of any human feature. His face was full of tentacles, just like if an octopus had replaced it. One of his arms was a crab claw, and the other, althought seeming more human, ended in more tentacles. He looked at me, and then I knew that it would have been better for me to die, for I knew that I was in hell, and that creature was the Devil. But I didn't look away. Then, he laughed, and said:

- There we have, a brave laddie.

That day, I began working in the ship. That was ten years ago. Now, everyday that passes, I feel less human, both emotionally, and physically. My head has turned into a puffer fish, my left arm into a lobster claw, and I've got corals in my legs and my right arm… Bill Turner told me it was beacuse I'm losing my human feelings, and that reflects into my body…

He's right.

Now, I've forgotten what is love, what is happiness… I have forgotten everything… The only thing that reminds me that I'm still human is fear…