"Gent, there it be, the Isla de Muerta." Barbossa proclaimed, standing in front of the ship's wheel.
The pirate crew stared in awe and worry as they admired the giant, rocky island in front of them, one in the shape of a skull if they could see it from above. All around them, a thick natural fog surrounded the claimed island of death. Looking around, Barbossa and the crew could see countless shipwrecks adorning the entrance to a large carven, as well as the fins of sharks popping over the sea from time to time. Though, this brought some sense on unease into the more cowardly crew members, Captain Barbossa's determination was ever vivid, burning like the sun. They wouldn't just turn tail and waist a weeks of travel for some ridiculous superstition spread by drunken sailors on Tortuga trying to get some easy drinks.
Sure, in his lifetime of sailing across the seven seas he had seen and face many weird things, things that would end up as another tale sailors would teach each other over long voyages. But it would be an utterly childish thing to believe every single story of cursed treasures and ghost ships he heard, there were a bit of truth in some of them, but most were just fabricated stories.
The pirate Captain slightly shifted his head to the right, where Jack calmly sat down as if he was a parrot. They had found some rags to put on top of his brown fur so he wouldn't get cold. Barbossa gave a small smile as the capuchin monkey happily chattered. Years ago, he had previously owned another pet monkey, her name was Polly. Funnily enough, before her, he owned a parrot of the same name, a fine bird he was, but he would mess up the shoulder of his jacket. He remembered her fondly, a pretty little thing she was, she'd understand every word he would tell her. Unfortunately, Polly had drowned after his former ship, the Cobra, was sunk by rogue pirates, he had though she had been holding on to his shoulder when they plunged down into the sea. She was wearing her little blue dress, but suddenly she was not there and he couldn't see her. He had swum under, groping through water and the wreckage, trying to find her, but the was gone.
He petted Jack's head, much to his likeness. That wouldn't happen again, never again.
"Alright, men!" Barbossa spoke up, getting the full attention of his fellow pirates. "We be not scared by a bunch of drunken sailor stories, no wont we?"
"Aye!" The crew answered back.
"Good! Ready the longboats, we move now!"
"Aye, Captain!"
It was a silent ride as they travelled across a narrow river inside of the cavern structure, looking around for any warnings of danger. Holding a torch up, Barbossa could see white crabs side walking across narrow stone pathways, old swords and weapons laying around, and the remaining skeleton of what Barbossa assumed to be Aztec guards. Even though he wasn't worried about any ghosts haunting the treasure, he was a little on edge about any traps left behind by the natives to protect Cortez' treasure.
The cruse didn't last them more than ten minutes until they reached a rocky shore that led into many interconnected pathways. Once all the men had come down from the longboats, Barbossa took the lead and headed into one of said pathways that appeared to take them into an open area.
After taking a couple of steps they entered into a large cave, it's natural ceiling filled with many rocky stalagmites and few holes that showed the sky above them, allowing for the golden rays of the sun to enter in. As Barbossa stared at the center of the cave, his mouth shifted into a large grin, exposing his yellowed teeth that showed decades of lacking proper hygiene.
Surrounded by a ring of shallow water and placed above an elevated rock a meter off the ground was a chest, a stone chest, with four figures imprinted on to two of it's side, as well as other Aztec symbols. Above it, there was a large naturally forming hole, the Pirate Captain wondered if the specific location was meant to be part of some ritual of sorts. He shook his head, question for later, now it was time to get his riches.
Passing the torch to Bo'sun and ordering him to follow him, Barbossa and Jack claimed walked towards the treasure of Cortez until they reached the chest, calmly placing a hand on top of its lid for a second. Nodding with his head, he told the strong African man to open it, pulling the top off with a single kick, revealing it's content that shined under the rays of the sun. With his eyes wide opened and his mouth agape, the pirate Captain admired the treasure bellow his gaze: Adore than a curse, the stories said that the Aztecs had delivered eight hundred and eighty two identical gold coins in a stone chest to Hernan Cortez as blood money to stop the slaughter his armies wreaked upon their people. With his own eyes he confirmed that part of the story, taking a hold of one of the countless gold coins, neatly filled on the chest.
Imprinted on to the coin, large then Spanish reales, was a smiling skull at the center, surrounded by two circles. The smaller circle had eight symbols that were too small to distinguish, while the outer ring had eight arrow heads pointing outward, with four of them ending in circular edges. Barbossa calmly rubbed a thumb across the Aztec gold, admiring it's design while both Bo'sun and Jack took a piece of the gold for themselves, the capuchin monkey trying to take a bite out of it.
"Gents, we be the richest pirates in the Caribbean!" Barbossa chuckled, rising both of his arms in exclamation, the crew cheering all around the echoing cave. "I told you men, the curse was nothing but some childish superstition, now come and take your slice of this fine booty!"
The pirate crew opened up the sacks they had brought alongside them, each one respectively taking their perfectly even part of the treasure. After ten minutes of ransacking the stone chest, Bootstrap Bill Turner was the last man to walk over to the treasure to gather his cut, unfortunately for the Englishman, all that remained in the Aztec chest was a mere single, gold coin at the empty bottom. Bootstrap turned around to face his new Captain, giving the half Irish a confused look.
Barbossa simply crossed his arms and gave the man a smirk. "Sorry, Bootstrap, but as Captain I respectfully deserve a larger cut and one man had to charitably give his as tribute and I charitably chose for you, to which you be havin' my thanks."
The Captain and some his closest men chuckled while Turner hold the Aztec gold in front of his eyes to get a closer look at it. Bootstrap couldn't tell why but looking at that grinning skull at the center of the coin was giving him a terrible feeling, a knot forming on his stomach, swearing he could swear the creaking of bones near his ears. Had it been worth it? Had it been worth siding with Barbossa and his mutiny to betray Jack? He shook his head, no matter what happened it was better than to die alone in a patch of sand in the middle of nowhere.
Bootstrap placed the Aztec gold onto his coat's pocket as the rest of the men were returning to the longboats.
Just as he was about to leave, Barbossa froze to a halt, turning his gaze back to the opened up and desecrated Aztec chest, his eyes frozen on it until his name was called by Twigg and Kohler. He blinked for a moment before walking back to the long boat and taking a seat on the front. Down on the bottom of his soul he suddenly felt the great urge to grab all the gold they had taken and toss it back in the stone chest. Even when it was no longer visible, he still had his eyes focused upon where the chest would be, much to the confusion of his fellow pirates.
Through out the entire ride back into the entrance of the cave, that urge only ever grew, having to actively fight back the sensation o jumping of the boat and rushing back to the cave, taking a grip of the edge of the wooden hull. Much to his relief, that urge finally died out when they left the cavern section into the outside world, where the Black Pearl waited for them, momentary closing his eyes and taking a sigh of relief.
"Nonsense superstition". Barbossa reassured himself, quiet enough that it was camouflaged with the sound of the oars waving against the sea. Looking to his right, he saw one of the many hammerhead sharks that swam around the entrance, started swimming in their direction. Quickly, he pulled out his flintlock pistol, taking a shot at it, startling the crew at the sudden and loud bang. If he didn't kill him, he taught him better to swim in another direction.
It didn't take them long to return to the Black Pearl, Barbossa leaning over the ships' main beam as he watched the men hoist up the boat into the deck. The half Irish man took one of the golden coins from his sack, staring into the practically laughing, golden skull, falling into a trance of sort. He didn't know for how long he stood there like that, but it was enough to be approached by two of his men.
"Cap'n"
"Huh?"
He look up to see Weatherby and Scratch standing a meter away from him, a confusing look on their faces. The former was a completely bald man, wearing a memorable tattoo that run from his head, down into his left eye and into side of his face, wearing a sleveless a light gray coat above a dirty white shirt, as well as a pair of dark brown pants, buccaneer boots and a necklace. His was the Pearl's primary navigator.
"Be ya right, Captain?" Scratch asked. He was a young man with tan skin, blonde dreadlock and a trimmed down beard, wearing a brown overcoat, pants and boots of the same colour, and a black under shirt. Funnily enough, he was the Pearl's actual Bo'sun, unlike, well Bo'sun, who had taken the position of First Mate since the mutiny.
"Aye, aye." Barbossa said.
"What be our heading?" Weatherby asked.
"Make way for Tortuga." Barbossa commanded, his vigor returning back to him . "It be time to presume our wealth to lesser pirates, as well as acquirin' some wenches."
"Aye, aye, Captain!" The men said, Weatherby heading to the ship's wheel, while Scratch went about relaying orders.
Barbossa looked at the coin again for a second, then at the island, before tossing the Aztec gold back into the sack, proudly walking into the Captain's quarters. Though, for some reason beyond the pirate's interest he was feeling a strange sensation at the back of his head. That didn't matter, there was nothing a nice bottle of rum couldn't swish away.
It had been four days into to the voyage back to the pirate haven of Tortuga, a silent night with calm waters and not a single cloud in the sky, allowing for the silver rays of the moon to shine brightly upon the black hulled vessel. Like most of the crew, Hector Barbossa peacefully rested on his quarters, the bed firmly attached on to the hull, a luxury among sailors. Though, it really didn't matter to him where he slept, due to a lifetime of sailing he could sleep wherever he wanted with little to no effort, but he did enjoy the benefits the rank of Captain gave him.
Jack himself took sleep on top of the wooden rafters above, like himself, the capuchin monkey had no problems sleeping wherever he wanted, wrapping his long tail around the short wooden beam.
For most of his life, unless he was extremely focused on something like treasure or vengeance, he really didn't have any interesting dream, the majority were only ever boring and dull thing he would wake up with no memory off the next day. And for the first couple of hours on to his sleep, that seemed to be the case, until the moonlight shined over him through a small gap in the window he slept next to.
Those dull and boring games suddenly melted away, replaced by the most vivid and horrific creatures the human mind could imagine, completely inhuman screeches cutting through the area around him like wind, anxiety built around him as the Black Pearl was consumed by a tidal waves bigger than the tallest mountain he had ever seen. Even with the Pearl was nothing more than wrecked and debris, none of them had died, in incredible pain from the force of the wave impacting them and filling their lungs with sea water, burning them, they were still alive. No matter how much they tried to swim or how much they fought and kicked, they were pulled down to the depths of the sea, unable to move a single muscle yet still standing up, And the worst came as they stared at their own hands, the flesh and bone painfully falling from their hands, nothing but their bare boney hand remining as well bluish-grey skin and untethered rags hang on to their bones.
Barbossa's heart raced as fast as a shark could swim, seeing this process go through all his body, he tried to scream but nothing, but gargled nonsense came out from his mouth, that same heart disappearing a moments later in conjunction with all of his other organs, exposing his open chest cavity. The skin on his face fell down as a crab was tearing it away with it's pincers, yet both of his eyes, his now rotten tongue and his mangy hair remained. The pain was no longer here as he stared into his bony hands, but something even worse took it's place, a complete void of nothingness runed across their expose, to the bone bodies, not the coldness of the sea touching their bodies. There was nothing. Looking around, he saw that Jacoby, Weatherby and Monk suddenly exploded out of nowhere, their bones scattering all around, Koehler fell to his knees as a sword appeared out of nowhere and stabbed him in empty chest, then falling down face first to the wet sand, Bo'sun and Twigg placed their hands on to their nonexistence as they were lifted a few feet of the ground, kicking their legs.
And then it was his turn. Something ripped through one of his ribs, spreading small pieces of bone. Suddenly and unexplainedly blood spewed down on to the ground, like if he wasn't in the middle of the ocean. He then dropped down to the sand, staring aimlessly at the giant, silver moon above.
And he woke up.
He woke up in a cold sweat, sitting right up on his bead, taking deep breaths as he starred at his arm. For a moment he could swear his arm was nothing but that of a skeleton, but after a few seconds of adjusting his eyes to the dark and using the silver rays of the moon as a light source, taking a deep sigh at the sight of his fleshy arm on him.
It had been some time since he last had a nightmare, but never in his many decades of existence had he ever had one as bad as this one, he would never forget that, even with his eyes fully opened, he could still remember the nightmare as vividly as it had been moments ago. Barbossa reached down to the ground taking a half dunk, onion bottle of rum, quickly gulping down the alcoholic beverage until nothing drop remained inside. He then calmly placed it back on the floor, making sure he wouldn't drop it with his shivering arm.
Barbossa closed his eyes, he wouldn't lie, he couldn't lie to himself, he was afraid. He was afraid to fall back to sleep and return to that hellish nightmare, he was afraid that there may have been some truth of the curse placed upon the treasure of Hernan Cortez', he was afraid that what happened at the end of his nightmare would come and he could already guess the identity of who had fired that shot … No! No! NO! He was Captain Hector Barbossa. Pirate Lord of the Caspian Sea. The life of a pirate brought the danger of death whenever one would go, the possibility of getting stabbed, shot, drown or hang until the last ray of sun had died out where things that could happen at any time, and he had live with those possibilities with out a shear of fear through his entire life as a pirate.
If he wasn't stopped by the very real East India Trading Company, he wouldn't be stopped by some ridiculous superstition. He wouldn't. And Sparrow? Sparrow was dead, his body probably being eaten by a bunch of maggots at the moments. That would be a good though to sleep on.
"Aye." Barbossa said to himself in a soft tone. "Just a few days from now, I'll have a beautiful pair of wenches by my side."
He smiled before falling back to sleep, the rum aiding him in the process.
Barbossa stood up on the crow's nest, using his spy glass to admire the approaching pirate island of Tortuga. He always loved a familiar sight, even more when he had something good to bring back and something good and very shiny he had brought back. He closed up the spy glass before climbing down the starboard ratlines, into the Pearl's main deck, where the crew was sweeping down the wooden floor, keeping the vessel on the finest condition, the finest condition that a pirate ship could get to.
As Barbossa walked up to the upper deck, Bootstrap, mopped down the deck, under the strict orders of Bo'sun, who had no quells on threatening the crew to keel haul them if the Black Pearl wasn't in pristine condition when they made port on Tortuga. Looking around, he recognized the name of many of the men around him. To his right was Katracho, a young man with dark skin and black dreadlocks, he only had one good blue eye as the other one was milky white. Other than a cutlass, he would also wielded a large blunderbass into battle.
To his left was Dog Ear. His real name was unknown to him, according to him, he's been going under that name ever since a dog jumped on top of him and bite clean off a piece of his left ear, not by choice at first, but everyone only ever called him that, so he went with it. He was one of the youngest men crewing the Black Pearl, though he appeared older due his face covered in so much dirt that it was practically black. His dirty blonde hair fell down from his brown bandana on to his shoulders, meeting his dim yellow coat.
In front of him was Clubba and Hawksmoor, the first man being a bald man with light tan skin, while the latter had darker skin and black hair, as well as wearing as an alleged monster tooth on a necklace.
"Boy, it be good to finally be back in Tortuga." Dog Ear said.
"Aye to that." Katracho said, sweeping some sweat off his forehead with his arm before going back to work. "And it even be bette' to be back with somethin' shiny unde' ou' pockets."
Dog Ear nodded, then looked at Bootstrap, who hadn't said a single word the entire morning. "Oi, Bootstrap, why so quiet today?"
"Just had a bad dream yesterday." Bootstrap said. "Left me a bit spooked."
Dog Ear rouse an eyebrow. "Really? What was it about?"
"I was drownin', not matter what I did I couldn't swim." Tuner explained, wetting his mop on a nearby bucket. "After that, this sea star suddenly glues itself into my face, a bunch of barnacles and seaweed too, couldn't get them off eithe'."
The young man shrugged. "Weird. I too had a bit of a bad dream as well, I remember getting shot in me head with a pistol."
"I be havin' a dream like that too." Clubba said. "'member gettin' stabbed with a sword, then bein' toss overboard."
"That make four of us." Katracho added. "In my dream I was on the gallows, next thing I know I drop down and my neck brakes."
Dog Ear's face paled, not that anyone could tell, but his body language helped. "All of us had dreams of dying? You don't think be the curse?"
Bootstrap placed a hand on hi shoulder. "Oi, don't worry about that, kid, we were all a bit spooked about that foggy island, so we just dreamt of the worse, it's nothin'."
"Hope so, mate." The blonde said, a bit reassured now.
"Aye, don't get ya spirit down, lad." Clubba said. "We gotta a lot of shiny to spen, myself I'll help ya find some good wenches to pass some nice time."
The blonde smirked.
"Oi! Quit the chatte', ya see rats!" Scratch passed by, forcing them back to work. "Ya'll have an entire day for that, now I want that deck cleane'!"
"Yes, Sir." The pirates said, increasing the speed and quality of their work.
It didn't take long for the Black Pearl to reach the port of Tortuga, the men quickly disembarking once the vessel was anchored down and settled, leaving a few men behind to guard the ship from any pirates who were a little too smart and bold for their own good.
While he was a man of the sea, like any good sailor, Barbossa did enjoy the rigidness of dry land. Two weeks ago one hundred and two men embarked on a journey in search of the legendary Isla de Muerta, to find the supposed cursed treasure of Hernan Cortez, Now, one hundred and one men returned back, with a new Captain at the helm and a hundreds of Aztec gold coins under their name. Riches that the most powerful Spaniards desired where now under the fingertips of a bunch of swashbuckling pirates. T
The half Irish man looked down at the water on a nearby fountain, clear enough to see his own reflection on it. Once he was an honest sailor trying to make due through the 'good' way. No, this was the good way, the way the brought more treasure than any common man could think of. History would remember his name, Captain Hector Barbossa wouldn't be a name history would forget.