AN: Hello! Just wanted to say that this is my first fic, so I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm still sorta playing around with things, so feel free to take this as seriously as you want. As always, constructive criticism is welcome. Or any thoughts or comments you have for that matter.

**WARNING: just wanted to add that there's quite a large chunk of text in here that I now realize sounds suspiciously like depression and/or suicide, so if you're in anyway susceptible to that kind of thing, I'd appreciate it if you took caution.

Thanks!

I stared at the screen, the moving pictures and images mesmerizing me and dulling my senses, silencing my brain activity to a low murmur. My eyes burned and started to droop, and I let sleep start to take me, before my brain decided sleep was not such a good idea, and that I should start thinking about life and all the universes mysteries. Like why do birds know where south is? And how do hens eat their corn? Like is it popped? Steamed? Maybe it's buttered and served at Thanksgiving dinner... maybe corn is thanksgiving dinner to hens. And what about roosters? Do they even eat corn...? Does corn even exist..? And how do you eat vegetables raw...? Anyway, you probably get the point.

Sleep eventually swept me away, and dumped me in a dark abyss where I assumed my dreams would start forming. Any minute, random blurs of color will pop up, and some how they'll shape themselves into dreams, I thought. I was wrong.

Nothing happened, and the dark just got darker. I could feel it, like when someone's about to touch you and the hairs on your arm stands up, and you can feel a strange warmth radiating from the other person. Except, it was cold. I could feel my blood start to freeze. It lurked, just beyond reach. I was terrified. So I ran. I ran from this imaginary monster, threatening to grab me, just wanting to eat me up. I could feel the walls closing in. I went as fast as I could, but I didn't even know if I was going anywhere. I didn't feel anything solid underneath me, and there was no proof that I was even going forward. The tension kept coming, closer and closer until any second I thought it would touch me, I thought I would feel claws ripping me apart. Finally, I got my relief. A small white light gave me proof that I was moving, or at least doing something right, so I pushed on. The terror didn't subside, and it gripped my heart like a vise. The light got bigger, which I hoped meant it was getting closer, and I realized if I kept going I'd run strait into it. I didn't know if being in the light would be any better than being in the dark, but the dark was so overwhelming I decided that even if my demons didn't go away, at least I'd be able to see them. The ball of light was only a few feet away, and it took up most of my vision. I reached out to touch it, I longed for relief like it was air and I was drowning. And then I touched it.

I felt its warmth as it cascaded over me, sweeping with light touches like a butterfly's wings, soft as a baby's breath. It tickled and danced, and I knew there was no way demons could follow me into something as heavenly as this. I couldn't help but smile, and let myself relax into the strange lights beauty, and eventually it engulfed me. It was bright white all around, and I still couldn't see anything. I had to stop and wonder if maybe I was dead. The terror I had in the darkness was long gone, replaced instead by the safety of the light, so if this was death, I honestly couldn't say I minded. It only lasted for a few moments, before my eyes adjusted and that sense of security betrayed me. It let me go and dropped me into darkness yet again. Except this time, it was different. There were small white dots that looked an awful lot like stars, and splotches of purples and blues littered the not-solid blackness. Unfortunately, I didn't take the time or effort to notice this because I was falling. Literally.

Gravity had popped up out of nowhere and started to drag me down to a ground I had never seen before. At least, not from this angle anyway. It was only then, as I was falling to what could very possibly have been my death, that I realized I was conscious. I could feel the wind whipping past my face. The way my stomach dropped and eyes stung was too real to be something I just dreamed up. The scream (or more like yell) rasping through my throat was much too loud to be the muffled thoughts of speech that occur in dreams. But at the same time, there was no way this could be real. I was speeding toward a flying ship, IN THE MIDDLE OF SPACE. As cool as it would be if that were possible, it just isn't. Not where I come from anyway. But nobody really has time to think about that when they're kind of falling to their death. The only thing I was thinking about in that moment, was screaming, and trying to figure out how in the world I could stop myself from belly flopping onto a ship, and probably killing myself in the process. The ship rushed toward me, and the person - no, the... multi-eyed... alien... thing... in the crow's nest heard me yelling and looked up with a bewildered look that I'm sure I would have too if I saw a random girl falling right out of the sky. The alien and the crow's nest passed by in a blur, and the... things... on deck started to take notice of me as well. I came up to some ropes that were loosely strung between the masts, and flailed my arms and legs, trying to grab a hold of one of them, but I just ended up entangling myself in a few of them and taking them down with me. I didn't even slow down. So I started to yell again (I'd stopped when I was trying to grab the ropes), and brought my hands in front of me in one last attempt to save myself. The ground was only a few feet away when the ropes tightened, tying my hands behind my back and pulling tight at my waist. It circled around my foot, turning me upside down, but ultimately stopping my fall. It did not, however, stop me from hurting myself, as it swung me straight toward the mast that I assumed it was attached to.

"No, no, wait, wait, wait!" I yelped, finding I couldn't move my arms to avoid crashing into the mast. I slammed into it face first, the momentum from my fall having made the collision forceful enough for my vision to blur and small stars to start to dance. I was hanging, upside down, waiting for my head to clear and trying to recover when I heard the sharp, clear-cutting, female British voice cut through the fog of my brain in a very no-nonsense tone.

"What is the meaning of this?" She said, and something at the back of my mind told me this was not the situation I wanted to be caught in by this person.

"Oh, shit." I muttered, knowing I was in trouble. The rope started to turn me around, and the first thing I saw was - Captain Amelia?! I thought, shocked. But she's a cartoon character! I couldn't believe my eyes, but I, once again, didn't have a whole lot of time to think about it. The second thing I saw was a sword being drawn.

"H-hold on!" I exclaimed "I-I can explain! I'm not a-" I was cut off. There was the sound of her sword slicing through air, ripping fabric, and metal finding its home in the wood with a sickening crack.

A/N: it's not over yet! I do plan on continuing this, but I'm not really sure when I'll be able to update, but it should be fairly soon. I'm also not entirely sure where I'm going with this story, so if you have any suggestions or things you'd like to see happen, feel free to let me know. Thanks for reading! :)

And Happy Holidays!