Chapter 20: The Apparition
As Jack stood there amidst his crew, his mouth partially open at the sight before him. His face was drained of all color as he looked upon a glowing apparition of a woman. She had long dark hair that waved in the air. Her eyes were sad. Jack couldn't seem to find his tongue, but it was Will that broke the silence.
"I told you Jack." Was all he could say as he too had his eyes fixated on the woman. All Jack could do was nod his head slowly.
Suddenly there was several distant and unearthly screams that seemed to come from all around them. The woman turned her head quickly almost in fright. The crew was definitely spooked as they looked about frantically. Jack, in all his journeys, had never dealt with anything quite like this, and was somewhat puzzled at the current situation. The woman looked at Jack dead in the eyes, and then lifted a pointed finger towards the middle of the forest and disappeared as quickly as she came.
Will looked at his captain. "Jack, I think she wants you to go there."
"It would appear so mate. Perhaps we should go."
"Jack, what about those screams we just heard? I'm not about to go gallivanting through some dark trees looking for God knows what just because some glowing dead woman tells us to!"
Jack turned his head to look at him. "Will, I myself have never been in such a situation, but I am not about to go running back to me ship with my tail between my legs. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy?" He cocked his eyebrow at Will as he said those words. "And besides, I still need to find that crown and after the hell we went through to even find this island, I'll be damned if we left empty handed."
Will sighed with a deep resignation. He had a bad feeling about this, but he wasn't about to argue with Jack in front of the crew. He turned towards the men and had four of them escort Angela back to the ship and watch over her and Romi. The rest would accompany him and Jack on this foolish errand.
After he kissed Angie goodbye, he unsheathed his sword as he walked up next to Jack who was idly staring at the direction in which the woman pointed at. His hand was stroking his beard as he was analyzing the situation. Finally noticing Will at his side he turned his head.
"Ah good, we should be off then. Ready yourselves gents, I have a feeling this will be quite a new adventure for us."
He readied himself with his own cutlass, and after taking a deep breath, began his journey into an unknown world. Thankfully the fog had thinned out with just enough around to intensify the strange look of the forest. The trail seemed to be almost outlined for them to follow, but the deeper they went, they darker it seemed to become. Jack's crew had brought three oil lamps with them and had enough oil in them to last about another hour. After that, they could only pray that the sun would begin to rise and give some illumination. The moon was full and gave some direction, but the trees were so thick that it was not enough to go by it alone. Every now and again, they would hear those screams that made their hairs stand on end, but they continued in utter silence. Jack would simply swallow hard every time he heard them, but pressed onward nonetheless.
After walking for what seemed like an eternity, they came across an opening within the trees that led to what seemed like the middle of the island. They were now in an open clearing of trees where they could see the full moon directly above them. The trees seemed to form a circle around them. One of the crew spoke up. "What now capt.'?"
Jack's eyes swayed from one end to the other. "I'm not sure. I don't see where the trail keeps….." Suddenly there was a horrendous scream and from out of nowhere in the very middle of those trees, there were several people all dressed in black cloaks. There was a shaved tree trunk stuck in the middle of the ground and a woman was tied to it. She looked very scared. As Jack looked on in horror, he took a good look at the woman tied to the tree and saw it was indeed the same floating apparition that had led him to where he now stood. He understood then that was he was looking at, was an even that happened in the past. The people that were hovering around her didn't seem to notice them being there. He couldn't see their faces and what was even more disturbing as it dawned on him, was that these people did not have legs. They seemed to be floating about this woman in some kind of ritual dance. Jack was horrified as he saw this scene unfold before his eyes. Will was in utter shock and the crew could do nothing more but just watch with jaws open. Jack ordered them to stay quiet and to be still. Something that was obviously not a problem. One of the black cloaked people stood directly in front of the woman and raised a strange almost jagged looking knife high in the air and as it came down upon her, she gave a curdling scream. The knife entered her with such a force that her blood splattered over everyone near her. Her head slowly bobbed down and her eyes were lifeless. The strange people looked upward and then vanished into thin air. It was dark again, and the moon was their only source of light now. The oil lamps were dimly lit and losing illumination fast.
Jack did not know what to make of what he had just witnessed. Will broke the silence being the first to speak. "What did we just see Jack?"
"I don't know mate. I don't know why we are here and why that woman wanted us to see that." As quickly as he ended his sentence the woman appeared again this time in her floating form directly above where she had been alive before. She suddenly began to disappear beneath the earth till she was gone again. Jack walked to where she had just been. After simply staring at the earth, he dropped to his knees and began to dig with his bare hands. Will came up next to him and started digging too. After a few feet of digging, they saw something sticking out of the dirt. Something shiny. Jack looked at Will before continuing to dig. After removing the dirt that was covering it, he looked upon what he had set out to this island to retrieve. The crown.
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