Cries of fury and pain, the desperate ringing of steel on steel, even the staccato explosions of musket shot and cannon fire all were drowned in one terrible moment as the H.M.S. Interceptor herself groaned under the weight of the battle on her deck. The main mast, a timber 60 feet high, as wide around as a man in girth and designed to withstand the shearing forces of ripping, hurricane winds, collapsed with finality onto the deck, jarring every nail and bolt from its place, sending death spasms down the skeleton of the ship.

Those on the surface dove out of her way as she fell. She struck and bounced, splintering the port gunnels and crushing the deck under her weight. Then the moment of death and danger was past.

But Will Turner wasn't on the deck when she fell. He had gone into the belly of the beast, and would find her dying jaws shut tightly behind him. The blow had thrown him to the floor, rendering him momentarily senseless. But frigid ocean waters and the din from the deck quickly roused him and he stood, drunkenly, crying out in pain as his eyes were seared from salt-water spray in every direction. The cabin was leaking-already the level was up to his knees….and water, water everywhere angrily hissed and poured in spouts and streams.

But the medallion was down here. Their only hope of barter or rescue…

A strange, chirping cry, not made by any man. He wheeled, squinting through the scintillating spray to see a doused monkey, dressed in a silken jacket, holding the medallion by the chain. Will lunged after it, throwing aside all questions of where it had come from and how it had found the necklace in the churning, white water that was now lapping towards his heart. It scampered nimbly away, into the light of the hatch.

Will ran to the hatch, cursing inwardly as the creature slipped deftly through the iron thatch work, beyond either reach or hope. But then a matter even more pressing leapt suddenly to his mind: the hatch.

The monkey had fled up a solid beam that even moments before, hadn't existed. The sunlight streaming in through the iron cover was at half-light: what could only be the remains of the mast lay heavy, dead, and impossible over his only means of escape. He was trapped---and the water was rising so quickly…

"Hey!" Will shouted, desperate to be heard by those fighting above. "Hey, below!" He shoved all the force he could into his shoulder, willing the rough wood to bend, to break, to move, every muscle in his legs, back and neck straining with the force.

It was not enough. Would never be nearly enough.

"Hey!" Will cried again. "Below!" It was selfish, he knew, and utterly futile. Every man on deck—even two women, one he loved so dearly—was now locked in battle, fighting for their very lives. He was more alone now than he had ever been before. Even Elizabeth—Elizabeth!—was less than twenty feet away, and yet farther away and more impossible to touch than she had ever been in Port Royal, powdered and curled, corseted and laced, smelling of honey and roses…He shoved desperately against the beam, his feet sliding along the slippery floor, losing balance and force as the churning waters rose higher and higher around him. But he had to move the beam, had to be freed, had to live, to love, to marry, to save Elizabeth…

"Will!" And suddenly she was there, her slender fingers reaching longingly for his own, shoving her pale, white shoulders against the mast from above, bracing all the force in her bones and her love to free him.

And for a moment, as their dark eyes met, he really believed she could.

"I can't move it!" Elizabeth shouted down to him, her twisted face inches from his own, her voice barely audible over the rushing of water and the shouts and explosions on the deck. There was horror in her wide eyes, horror and love, so desperate and so beautiful mingled together. She would stay. He could not be freed, but she would stay…

He felt his heart would burst in fear, bracing himself against the beam as the water choked around his throat. But he could die, looking into those eyes, knowing she knew he had done everything to save her, had failed her, but had been forgiven…Elizabeth had come. She would stay…

"No!" Hands gripped her and wrenched her away. "No! Will!" It was a dying screech, straight from her soul, echoed in his, the sound the Interceptor herself had made as her mast tore from her, voiding her of purpose and meaning and life. Her hands scrabbled once across the grate, desperate for his…

And then she was gone.

Gone.

But—she had come for him. Forgiven him. Surely he could die, content, knowing that she loved him…surely that would be enough…

But her love itself could never be enough. He would be a fool, a selfish, blinded, arrogant fool not to surrender even that love to know she was safe. Her life, and not her love, was the only thing worth saving, worth dying for. He braced against the beam again, knowing even then it would be just as in vain as his failed attempt to save her.

Dark water churned all around him, lapping gently around his face, caressing his neck, lulling him into its cold, eternal embrace. He sipped the air, sweet against the salty brine, then took one last, deep and heady draught and dove.

Will braced against the heartless beam, forcing thoughts of Elizabeth into his head, terrified to die selfish, a coward, here at the very end. A dark, desperate wish to live, to live struggled against all rational thought or reason. His lungs burned, his heart ached, pulling, struggling….drowning.

Darkness.

Above him, light, like air, had disappeared.