Going on again…

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I stopped dead in my tracks at the horrendous sight before me…my jaw moving up and down, but no sound came out.

The pirates on deck were performing their mandatory jobs, like coiling lines and swabbing the deck…but where the moonlight shone upon their bodies…they were naught but decaying skeletal figures.

I turned from the terrifying sight, closing my eyes as, from the doorway; Barbossa grabbed me and whirled me around, commanding me to open my eyes.

"Look!" he shook me "Look! The moonlight shows us for what we truly are…we are not among the living and so we cannot die…" he spun me back to face him, and he leaned into the moonlight, turning his head into a skull.

"But neither are we dead. We have all the desires of the living but cannot satisfy them…for ten years I have been parched of thirst and unable to quench it! For ten years I have been starving to death and haven't died! And I have not felt anything for ten long years…not the spray of the sea nor the wind on my face…" he reached a hand to me, making his arm turn skeletal. "…nor the warmth of a woman's flesh…"

I flinched away from the hand as it brushed against my cheek.

The hand dropped and instead reached for the casket of wine next to the doorway. He seized a bottle and uncorked it, pausing before he took a swig.

"You'd best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner…you're in one."

He tilted the bottle to his mouth, and the red liquid poured into his mouth, flowed to his rib cage and stained his clothes red.

I stared open mouthed in terror at him for a moment, and then darted around him into the cabin again, flinging the doors shut behind me.

I leaned heavily against the door, squeezing my eyes shut as I heard the sound of glass breaking against it.

Oh God above…I was loosing my mind…

I knew who I really was and where I was from (Katey Anne Douglas from Arlington, Texas) but… I couldn't think of what was going to happen next! The feeling of déjà vu hung over me everywhere I went, and yet I couldn't think of what was going to happen next! I was positive I had been in a situation or knew of something that happened like this…like I had when I was in Paris…but for some reason I just couldn't figure it out!

I slid to a sitting position on the floor and buried my face in my knees, wrapping my arms around myself in a sort of fetal position.

All of this had happened because I let my stupid teenage hormones get the better of me…I wouldn't listen to reason and instead screwed everything up!

It wasn't the first time that I had led myself to a horrible circumstance, like François and Don Juan and the whole graveyard bit and the Masquerade…

Hang on.

I sat up straight remembering something Erik had said…something like "you should be more careful with whom you chose to dance with."

He meant François…he knew about François…why didn't I think of that before? I should have demanded what he meant by that and should have heeded his warning!

I thumped a clenched fist against my forehead. How many more warnings had I ignored in my headstrong fury?

Like Clair's claimed innocence…I had been wrong in judgment before…why should now be any different?

But the problem was that I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to have to face anything that made me uncomfortable…anything that made me feel sad or upset.

If I was going to be a responsible adult I was going to have to learn to deal with things that made me upset.

And seeing as I have time, it's time to face my fears.

I stood up and walked to the corner of the cabin, curling into an uncomfortable ball, and closing my eyes, trying to send myself back to consciousness in the hospital.

For some time I sat there, eyes closed, waiting for something to happen. But after what felt like hours and no nothing, I opened my eyes and felt like either yelling and surprise or yelling in frustration.

Turns out somehow I made it back to the hospital after all.

I looked around me, expecting to see my friends and/ or family, but the room was dark and empty.

"Dang it…" I muttered, frowning.

"Glad to see you awake, dearie."

I tensed and froze, petrified in terror. Not empty?

"Surprised to see me, love? Yeah, so am I." he said, stepping out of the shadows and standing above my bed, his face cloaked by darkness, but I already knew who he was.

"What the hell are you doing here…you're supposed to be dead." I whispered, surprised my voice could be coaxed out of my throat.

"Well, turns out that I'm not human enough to die; seeing as I've lived in several different times. Sort of like Voldemort with all his horcruxes." He said, and I could tell he was grinning.

"You mean…you mean…" I stuttered, wishing that I was anywhere besides here…

"Yes, I'm alive and well, thanks for asking." He said, sitting down in the chair that had previously held Clair.

"But…but…"

"Yes, it's true that you really did kill me, which, might I add, was rather painful…"

"No more than you deserve, you bastard!" I said fiercely.

"Whatever." He said dismissively, waving a hand "I went back to Paris to recuperate...which is the reason that you went to the Caribbean instead."

"How did you know?" I asked in a sort of awe.

"Your mind isn't that hard to read, love. I knew that I couldn't very well have you come back to Paris while I was there, otherwise you'd probably try and saw my head off again." He joked, but I didn't laugh.

"Anyway, now that I've told you how I've come back from the dead…I think I should probably get down to business."

I said nothing, afraid of what this business may be.

"You, my dear, have something that I so desperately want…do you have any possible idea what it may be?" he asked, and I thought for a moment, coming up with nothing.

"No…" I said slowly, and he laughed.

"No idea at all?" he asked again, and I shook my head painfully. Stupid good for nothing pain killers…

"Your only link to celibacy…your virginity."

If it were at all possible to scream, I would have…louder than was acceptable in a place where people were dying and being cured for sickness that needed peace and quiet, but my voice just wouldn't work.

My jaw opened and closed wordlessly, and he took that as the idea to kiss me.

He leaned over the bed and put his lips to mine harshly, crawling over the weird guard rails that kept you from falling off the bed, getting on top of me, kissing me with such a passion that it was as if it were one of those scenes in a movie.

All at once, in the heat of his kiss, my mind seemed to just slump over. Was this all that life was? Going from bad to worse all the time? Having to deal with situations that seemed to only hurt me more?

I gave in at that very moment. Who cares what my fate was? By the way that my life was going I'd be dead soon anyhow, so why bother fighting back? He was bigger and stronger than I was, so even if I tried to make a run for it he'd have me down in two seconds flat.

His hands worked under the blanket, finding their way inside the hospital gown, untying it.

I did nothing but lay there like a limp rag doll as he exposed my chest to his eyes, and only turned my head when he started kissing down from my neck to my chest…and then down to my naval…which would lead to…

I wanted to cry. The last time this had happened it was in public where Ethan could have saved me…but now it was past midnight in a hospital where no one could save me…my fate was left to a clinically proven psychopath.

And then, as he kissed just below my naval, my old self burst back to life, sending a shock through me.

"Get off me!" I cried, pushing him off of me.

"Like it rough, eh?" he asked, leaning over me, pinning me to the bed with his hands on either side of my shoulders.

I forced him off, sending him crashing into a chair.

"You bitch!" he growled, picking me up off the bed, tearing the IV's out of my arms, making me gasp in pain.

"I'll show you pain!" he said, ripping the rest of my gown off, exposing me entirely to him.

With one hand he held me against him, and with the other undoing his slacks.

I reached up and grabbed his neck, squeezing as tight as I could, trying to strangle him.

He slapped my hand away, and threw me down on the ground, making pain ricochet through me.

He dropped his pants and reached down to grab me again, but I was ready for him.

In the moment that he looked away from me, I grabbed the cart that held my IV bag, and tried swinging it at him. He stopped it with one hand, and wrenched it away from me effortlessly.

Now he was angry and armed with a giant metal pole, while I was in pain and defenseless.

I lunged for the table that held flowers and grabbed a vase, chucking it at him.

He dodged it, and it shattered noisily against the wall. I seized two more and threw them, one hitting him dead on in the face.

He crumpled in a heap on the ground. I sneered at him in satisfaction before I heard footsteps in the hall.

Remembering my nakedness I seized the blanket off the bed just as two nurses banged the door to my room open, turning the light on, blinding me for a moment.

They wordlessly took in the room, from the shattered glass and flowers everywhere…to the pants-less François to me, clothed only in a blanket.

"Oh my God…" said one of them.

I only swayed drunkenly, and then fell to the floor on top of François, once again unconscious.

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Thank Gosh…no more Pirates of the Caribbean that I have to write about.

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