Summary: "And he'd certainly never apologize for fighting to remain unshackled." Jack reflects on how society has pushed him to change, just to defend a right every man should have. Short one-shot.
Prompt: Write a story where the start of every paragraph is a song lyric.
Song: This Is Me from The Greatest Showman. Great movie, by the way.
Don't Run Away, Fire Away
"I am not a stranger to the dark." He'd lived in it all his life. Locked away in it at the Cove during his childhood, each time he was thrown in a brig or fort cell. Every time some aristocrat sneered at him, every time someone he wanted to protect turned their nose up at him, every time he was called foolish.
"Hide away, they say. Run away, they say." He'd wondered for the longest time why it was so wrong to think differently than the rest of the world, to be different. It seemed that the world didn't want freedom; no, they wanted to conquer. They wanted to destroy. But he didn't. While the others used nooses, he used words. But the nooses, the guns, the swords...they got further than his words ever did. In the long run, words would never prevail.
"No one'll love you as you are." They called him a pirate. He didn't care. They called him a monster. He tried to ignore it. They began to hunt him. He ran.
"But I won't let them break me down to dust. I know that there's a place for us. For we are glorious." But each time they caught up to him, he fought. He evolved away from his words, reluctantly seeking protection from his trusty cutlass and flintlock. They did their job. He remained free, uncaptured, unchained.
"I am brave, I am bruised." But, alas, he was never left unmarked. Each pointless kill stung at him like each of the cuts across his chest, like each of the little round holes in his breast. He hated killing. It made him feel like the monster they called him.
"Another round of bullets hits my skin. Well, fire away 'cause today, I won't let the shame sink in." But he took solace in the fact that he was alive, fighting for what was rightfully his: his freedom. That's one thing he'd never let them take, something he'd fight for at any cost.
"I make no apologies, this is me." And he'd certainly never apologize for fighting to remain unshackled. Freedom was a right every man had, regardless of whom they were. And he would die for his any day.