Chapter 27: The End.
I sheathed my glinting sword which now sat around my waist, securely tucked up and ready for battle. What would happen behind those doors in that castle lay still a mystery but there was only one way that either Jack or I would find out. And that was to go in and face the thing that not only children but men and women feared more than anything else in the world.
The crew behind us stood like statues, grounded by fear and nightmares come true as they watched Jack and I climb into the rowboat. Slowly we were lowered into the black waters surrounding us and as I gazed up into the eyes of the crew, for what could be the last time, I gave a weak smile to see that they were all saluting us like some English Navy ship.
The gentle splash of the boat hitting the water distracted my attention and I waved goodbye to the crew like some child before turning to gaze into Jack's face.
"Scared?" he asked.
"Me? Course not," I joked. He smiled. "Absolutely petrified," I added with a grin.
Had I have been with anyone else on this mission the atmosphere would have been completely different but with Jack there was something about him which filled me with a warmth and allowed me to smile, even if I was staring death in the face.
As we rowed closer to the island the dark castle loomed into vision and I felt a terrible urge to look away from it, but then there was something else. Interest. An interest which seeped into my veins and pumped around my body like adrenaline. We were finally going to see it, the Evil. What men feared and ran from we were running to.
The boat came to a shuddering halt as it hit the rock which would have been a beach if it had not been that the whole island seemed dead. There were no plants, nothing growing from the ground, no birds or creatures just death. The land seemed scorched, blackened like charcoal, and the sky seemed burnt. There was no sun, no moon, no stars or clouds just blackness even though it was supposedly the day.
"This place gives me the chills," I whispered to Jack as he approached my side.
"Me too," he replied before turning to me and grasping my arms, "look, luv, if you don't want to do this then I can do it by myself."
I frowned and smiled at the same time, "and let you get all the credit? Never."
He grinned, "Let's get this over with then."
There was no path so we just made our way up through the dead undergrowth which was non-existent towards the gothic castle before us. I was half surprised that we had not yet been attacked. Surely if this thing was so great then it would have a hundred soldiers surrounding it, but there was nothing.
As we neared the black walls of the building I felt a chill drill itself through my spine. The air around us was cold but there was no wind or breeze, it was as though that had died too. Jack turned to me and gave me one of his grins.
"This must be a grand place to live in luv, especially if you like the colour black," and he winked cheekily which caused me to give a short giggle.
"Where's the door then?" I mused looking up at the wall. There were no windows, no openings and no sign of a door anywhere which made it hard to think of a way in.
"Must be round the other side?" Jack questioned while running a hand over the butt of his sword to check he hadn't lost it on the way.
We made our way around the outside of the massive castle picking our way through the rocks and stones which stood in our way. Finally our eyes were drawn to a great doors which stood proudly in their place. A huge gate made from black steel blocked the way and a drawbridge lay before it like a great tongue sticking out from the mouth of the castle.
"There's your door luv," came Jack's voice in a sharp whisper.
And then it hit me, the sudden silence of the island. Before, when we had been walking around the outside of the wall, we could hear the sound of the sea beating itself against the rocks below us but now even the sound of the sea had vanished even though it still lay around us as far as the eye could see. There was nothing to be heard which made it feel like someone had clogged up my ears, the silence pressing themselves upon them.
My worried face turned to meet Jack's panicked eyes and for the first time since landing on the island we shared a moment's fear.
My eyes flickered to the door and back to Jack and slowly he nodded to me. Pulling out our swords we quietly made our way towards the drawbridge.
The wood seemed rotten, as though it had been lying under water for years and a rank smell hit our noses like rotting flesh. Standing on the edge of the drawbridge I felt my body quiver as I slowly looked down to what it was covering and the sight which hit my eyes made me retch in the back of my throat and my stomach feel a sudden sickness.
There, below the bridge we were stood on, lay a thousand dead bodies. Every one of them rotting where they lay, their faces fixated in eternal fear. Men, women, mothers, fathers and worse…children. The bodies of toddlers and babies who were never given a chance in life but who had their lives cruelly snatched away from them in a merciless act of hatred.
I could feel the tears biting at the back of my eyes and silently spilling over onto my cheeks, but something else grew within me…anger. From the pit of my stomach it grew and raged like a beast. I could feel it fighting to get out, to kill the thing that had so cruelly snatched the lives of those people.
Jack's hand appeared on my shoulder and he pulled my eyes from the sight. He, too, had that same look of hatred in his eyes and his hand gripped tighter around his sword as he pulled me towards the door.
Together we walked closer and closer until we reached the gate which towered above us. Reaching forwards Jack lay a hand upon the cold steel only to pull it back in disgust. Turning his hand over he gazed at the red blood which covered the gate. The beast's within us howled again and lifting his sword high into the air Jack let it come smashing down upon the metal to create a deafening shatter which rang through the air finally giving some sound to the area around us.
Suddenly a splintering pain wrapped itself around my wrist and caused me to let out a gasp which struck Jack's attention. Grasping it I felt my face wince with the pain as my hand began to tremble. Lifting my sleeve Jack's face turned to shock as his eyes fell upon my tattoo which was now burning a fiery blue.
And then I felt my body move, not by command of myself but by something else, as though it was on automatic. My hand outstretched, fingers extended, I felt my feet move towards the gate and there my hands wrapped itself around the metal before me.
Another shot of pain joined the first like something gripping at my wrist and I felt it shift slightly down through the end of my hand. As the pain made it's way through each of the fingers grasping the cold metal I felt the relief throb to my wrist and finally to my hand once it had passed into the gate I was clutching.
And then the strangest thing happened. The gate lit up in a brilliant blue, only for a moment, before vanishing from sight leaving the entrance to the castle a gaping hole.
The silence hit us again save from the gasps for air which escaped my mouth.
"How did you do that?" asked Jack eventually in the dead of a whisper.
I turned to face him and gazed at the stunned and almost frightened look upon his face. Slowly I shook my head, unable to speak from the shock of what just happened.
For a moment longer we stood in shock before another waft of that putrid smell hit our noses and the reminder of those rotting bodies re-awakened the silenced beasts within us. Forgetting the gate for now my hand gripped tighter on the butt of my sword and the anger returned to my face.
"This ends today," I said loudly, not even caring that the sound of my voice bounced back and forth on the deserted terrain around us.
Moving first I walked, almost unafraid, into the castle with my sword outstretched before me. I was desperate to find it, desperate to feel my blade run through it's skin and hear the ripping of muscle and tissue as it took it's last breath in the world it did not belong in.
Jack's footprints gave a demanding echo as he appeared by my side and suddenly we both seemed to know where we were going. Forwards, left, right. Our feet just took us the way through the spindling corridors and grand rooms as though pushed by some imaginary force. Right, Right, forwards. And all the while there was no sign of life anywhere, no guards, no soldiers just rooms filled with black.
Had I been interested in the rooms we were entering, the corridors we were pacing, I would have noticed the surprisingly clean and tidy attire of the place. No slime dripped down the walls, no nasty smells hit our noses. But the beast within me was growling and there was nothing I could think about save the thing I was here to kill.
Finally our feet came to a halt before the largest doors we had come across yet. Studded with what looked like shiny metal bolts in the shape of bones it loomed over us like a motion of death.
We were there. And inside the room it lurked, waiting for us to enter. My face hardened, the grip on my sword growing tighter by the minute until my knuckles were as white as a ghost. The intake of breath through clenched teeth rattled by my side and nodding to Jack we lay our hands upon the door before us.
Confusion flicked briefly across my face as I felt a slight warmth sweep across my hand as it touched the door but as I swept a glance at Jack he seemed to have not noticed it.
He nodded again and together we pushed both our body weight against the door and felt it creak open.
The room before us was enormous, black and gothic in every way.
At the end of the hall stood a massive set of windows.
And before the windows stood a figure with it's back turned towards us.
Within my chest the beast angered with a fury I had never felt before and leaping out into my skin it consumed me. The rage screamed in my ears and leaving Jack behind I ran with the hatred of the world on my back towards the thing which had caused so much grief.
My footsteps rang out like a thousand bells across the floor and echoed upon the walls around me which caused the figure at the window to stir.
"You found me at last," came a hoarse voice from the window which caused me to stop dead in my tracks now only a few feet away from it.
The anger shook within me as the sleek body slowly turned. The face I had never seen but had grown to hate in the past few months finally filled my vision.
That's when I stopped. For the first time since I woke in Jack's ship with no memory of who or where I was, since I learnt of the Evil and what it did, since I was driven by the hatred for it. I stopped.
My face sunk into a confusion and disbelief as my eyes searched that face wildly for an answer to why.
And then it happened. Just standing there, it happened. A million memories which had been locked away from me returned like the doors of a flood gate opening. Washing it's way through my body I was forced to remember the life I had before Jack. A life with cars, schools and teachers….a life where my mother was taken from me. And that memory of falling through her grave to awaken on the ship where I stayed and forgot it all.
I remembered everything.
The clatter of metal hitting the floor sounded somewhere and it didn't occur to me that it was my sword which I had dropped.
Instead I felt tears of hope and confusion running down my face, dripping from my chin and landing on the floor.
"Mum?" I whispered to the figure before me. The figure which had killed so many.
Silence rang out again and there was no sound of Jack behind me, but I cared for nothing anymore. My whole life had been ripped from me as the purpose I was put here for hit me with it's sheer force.
The figure slowly took the final steps towards me and I gazed up into the eyes of my mother. Not dead like she was in my world, but alive.
"Annie…" her whisper sounded into the silence.
But there was something blocking the mother within her. She had been touched with evil and her body was now riddled with it, a hatred that had been pumped inside her by something else.
She was no longer the mother I knew, but a killer. A murderer.
But I couldn't do it. I couldn't stand there and watch her die again.
"Annie!" Jack shouted from behind me urgently.
But it was too late, I could see it coming but I felt no need to dodge.
Lifting her sword into the air my mother let it come crashing down, bursting through my stomach and threatening to snatch the life from me. But I no longer cared.
The pain struck me only after I heard the sound of the tendons and muscle inside me rip apart and I felt myself sink to the floor.
Somewhere around me Jack ran forwards towards her, his sword outstretched in a battle between them.
My blurred vision dropped to my chest where the sword still stuck out of me. The blood was seeping from it like a small fountain as I felt my body droop with weakness.
She wasn't my mother, not anymore. She had been taken over by evil so far that she had just sentenced her own daughter to death.
Jack's gasp hit my ears and with the strength I had left I snapped my eyes onto the two. She had him pinned to the ground with one foot, her sword lifted into the air ready to deal the last blow to the man I had grown to love.
The beast within me stirred one last time and with my final energy I forced myself onto my feet, my face set once again with hatred.
I no longer had a sword, she had taken it when she left her own in my chest. So summoning up the courage my hand gripped the handle of the cold sword which lay in my chest and gasped in pain as I pulled it free.
Her sword was already coming down towards Jack but to me everything seemed in slow motion. Rushing forwards I felt the beast roar as I plunged the sword into her chest and pushed her back onto the floor where she fell with a deafening crash.
Lifting the sword again and again I slashed at her with a fury and rage which came from nowhere. Again and again until I felt the weakness return to my bones and the tears to my face.
I stumbled backwards to be caught by a pair of hands which gently lowered me to the floor. A blurred face of Captain Jack Sparrow filled my vision.
"She's gone, Annie. You did it," he whispered to me as he clutched my body in his arms.
I felt a sob escape my mouth as I realised what I had done. In ridding the world of their doom I had killed my only mother.
Pain burnt it's way through my body as Jack cradled my head in his arms. I heard him sniff and through my shaky vision saw a tear escape his eye as he gazed down into my pale face.
"Annie…." He whispered.
"…I'm sorry Jack," I managed to say.
My vision started to darken and the room around me seemed to swallow itself until all I could see were the eyes of the man I loved.
"I love you."
And with those last words still dwindling in the darkness I shut my eyes for the last time and felt my body sink into nothingness.
The voices of quiet whispers filled my ears and a brilliant white light lit up before my closed eyes. A man wearing a mask filled my vision accompanied by that of a hospital room.
"Wake up Annie."
END