A/N: The Mouse owns everything.

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The ocean was bright and blue, and the sky was cloudless, seeming to stretch on forever. The Marauder cut through the calm ocean effortlessly, carrying its cargo ever closer to its destination: Port Royal. A young woman stood on the deck of the ship, looking out over the water. She wore a pale green dress and carried a closed parasol in her right hand. The small umbrella was meant to protect the girl's fashionably pale skin from the harsh Caribbean sun, but the girl obviously had different ideas. Already there was a smattering of light brown spots on the bridge of her nose. She seemed to be lost in some distant memory that was trying to surface in her mind. She jumped when a stern looking woman garbed in navy blue said her name sharply.

"Katherine, where have you been? I almost died of worry when I woke up and you weren't there!"

The young woman came out of her reverie. "I'm … I'm sorry, Mrs. Lucas I should have left a note" she said softly. Katherine highly doubted that the older woman in front of her was very worried when she awoke from her afternoon nap to find that her young charge had left the cabin.

"Left a note? You shouldn't have left the room at all! A young lady wandering around a boat without an escort! It's improper! And open your parasol. You're lovely skin is getting those freckles already." Mrs. Lucas said the word "freckles" like it was a expletive.

"Yes, Mrs. Lucas." Katherine reluctantly opened the lady-like parasol to shield her face from the sun. Just as always, she thought. Always protecting me from some evil thing that will mar the lady you have so diligently made me into.

"Come, let us go back to the cabin. This heat is positively repulsive." Mrs. Lucas took Katherine by the arm and began to walk towards the cabin they shared.

As they were strolling along the deck, the ship as abruptly rocked by what felt like the earth trembling. It was as if the water had shoved the ship violently to one side, and then became calm again. Katherine slowly picked herself up from the filthy deck that she had been so unexpectedly thrown upon. All who were on deck, crew and passengers alike, looked at each other fearfully. Some sailors were muttering counter curses to ward of bad luck, while some people seemed to be fingering their rosaries. The captain of the ship rushed our from his cabin and began to bark out orders to the apprehensive crew.

Suddenly a giant tentacle came up over the side of the bait and wrapped itself around a shrieking crewman. The sailor stabbed at the gigantic tentacle with his knife, but was pulled, screaming, into the sea before he could free himself. There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Dear God, help us." Mrs. Lucas' whispered prayer brought everyone on deck back into motion. The crew grabbed every weapon in sight and began waging war on the many tentacles that were creeping up the sides of the ship. The air was filled with the symphony of screaming men, firing guns, and breaking wood. A small tentacle suddenly slithered towards Katherine and Mrs. Lucas, and ensnared the latter around the ankle, pulling her into the now fierce ocean. Katherine added her high-pitched scream of horror to the din. She turned to run away and saw, on the edge of her field of vision, a man being dragged towards her by one of the monstrous tentacles. Before she could react, the man crashed into her, sending her flying overboard.

The churning ocean closed over her head, creating a sudden soundlessness that chilled her to the bone. She realized with terror that she was drowning. Kicking and clawing at the water above her, she managed to surface just in time to hear a horrifying crack. The ship that had carried her from England along with more than one hundred souls was broken in two by the enormous tentacles as if it were a twig. Katherine began to sink in the water again, dragged down by her heavy dress. She groped blindly for something to keep her afloat. Oh God, I don't want to die.