Dark Waters
Disclaimer: The great and powerful Mouse has spoken. (It owns Pirates of the Caribbean)
Nightmare Memories
A/N: Well, welcome to my series of morbid oneshots! Yes, they're all going to be filled with angst and sadness.
This is dedicated to the one and only mypiratecat, who inspired me, with all her wonderful oneshots, to write this.
People often wondered why he drank. They thought he liked the taste, he supposed. It wasn't really true. He drank to drown out the pain. Living was always pain, but for Captain Jack Sparrow, it was worse than most others. The memories he had to live with tortured him too often.
Especially at night. Too often he had tasted the exquisite poison of the night. The blackness stirred his memory like nothing else. The pain always came rushing back at night. That was why he drank so much then. It was much better to feel the gentle burning of rum and the wake up with a headache the next day, than to live the memories.
He grew to enjoy this feeling, as the warmth of rum drowned his consciousness, the feeling that he was avoiding thinking of something, he couldn't exactly remember what, and didn't want to look closer.
The worst times were when he awoke in the middle of the night, his mind clear of alcohol, and everything came flooding back.
It was one such night, when he awoke a little past midnight. His head throbbed, but he ignored it. The darkness was more pressing. It seemed to close in around him, impenetrable, black, like the sea under clouds. He almost found it hard to breathe. He realized that his head wasn't the only thing that hurt, the brand on his wrist burned with memory. He winced. Not his worst, though.
He fell into the semi-conscious state between sleep and wakefulness, drifting between dream and reality. And he was on the island again, that first time. His memory presented him with disconnected, horrific images and feelings. The cold against his wrist, the wet pistol lying in the sand, the blood…
Oh, no! God, no! Anything but that…
He knew he was dreaming, yet he was powerless to wake. He struggled against the dream, but it stayed.
He was sitting aimlessly on the sand. How strange that he couldn't feel anything. Only the physical things, the things that weren't important. He could feel with perfect clarity the enchanted warmth of the sand, the rough feel of it; he could hear the roar of each wave as it broke upon the shore and the hiss as it retreated from the sand, leaving it damp; he could feel how wet and clinging his hair was; how hot the sun beat upon his back… But he didn't feel any pain. He wondered why. Surely he should feel something. Well, he did feel one thing. The loss of will to live. It was one of those moments, when life seems worthless, not worth the pain of living. One of the moments when life seems an easy thing to throw away. What was the point?
Suddenly, he felt the hilt of the knife tucked into his sash. What was the point, after all? There was no point, of course. He took the knife out and set the blade against his wrist. He looked over at his pistol, but realized that the idea was pointless, the powder was too wet to shoot. He could feel the cold of the steel against the sensitive skin on the underside of his wrist. It was so easy. So quick. He saw, very faintly, the blue veins beneath the skin, pulsing with blood, with life. Hypnotizing and tantalizing at the same time. How easy to just… slip away.
He brought the blade down and slashed his arm, wrist to elbow. The blood flooded, but again, there was no pain. It was so strange. He could feel the hot blood against his skin, flowing down into the sand, but no pain.
Without any warning, it caught up with him, and engulfed him like a wave. The pain in his arm and in his heart hit him at the exact same time, and he screamed. It was a deserted island, after all. There was no one to hear. And so he cried out in agony, even as the wave retreated, taking most of the pain with it.
He stared at his arm, wondering why he had done it. He couldn't understand it now. What had prompted him to commit the greatest sin, and try to take his own life? And he was tearing his shirt into shreds, binding his arm, until it stopped bleeding. The desire to live was back, because he had a purpose now. Revenge, revenge, revenge…
Finally, he struggled free of the nightmare. Why did he have to live that moment over and over again? Wasn't once enough? Would it haunt for the rest of his life?
Rum. Yes, he needed the soothing warmth of rum, the gentle ebbing away of consciousness to soothe the pain. He had to stop thinking about it.
He got out of bed, and went below to get the rum.
Please review! If you review, Jack will feel better... and so will I!