Nothing to get excited about – just reposting this chapter due to a typo DCoD brought to my attention; I always misspell that word. That and I misspell 'of' with 'off' constantly.
Also, I'll put this up on the next post too, but there seems to be some slight confusion with this chapter. Cassie - for those who have forgotten - was one of Jack's bonny-lasses he took with him possibly his first pirate ship/ voyage once. During the course of the voyage, the ship was taken by pirates unknown, and Jack and the surviving crew were marooned (where Gibbs later found him) – see chapter 23 and 24 for the details… Jack still mourns her death and blames himself for putting Cassie in danger and his inability to save her. Subsequently he has nightmares that involve Cassie, where she's being killed in a similar incident to the original and he's powerless to save her.
Anyway, in this chapter Jack's asleep and dreaming. Because he's just found out about the Black Friday, he dreams about it, and Cassie's there, and like the first time, he fails to save her. Guilt and remorse are powerful enemies…
The ship burns like a distant beacon on the black seas; a hazy red bloodstain on an otherwise satin-smooth dark ocean. The canvas's hang stiffly on the dark wood spurs, barely moving in the slight breeze. Closer inspection would reveal the canvas is twice as thick as normal sails, and its colour a jigsaw of tans, blacks, browns and whites, all sown sloppily together with snarled red catgut threads. Even closer inspection would reveal the sails are not made of canvas, but flayed human skin, stretched taunt and sewed together in a macabre patchwork.
Dying or dead human figures are imprisoned - bound around the masts - all the way up from the base to the top of the crows-nest. They're covered in scalding black tar, matting their hair and coating their clothes to their skin, and in turn their skin to the wood of the masts. Only the whites of their wide, horror-filled eyes stare out of the dark, sticky tar; their form-fitting burial shroud. Some groan in agony and choke as the tar seeps down into their lungs, others are ominously silent. Cold tears trickle over the heated tar, steam rising from the path the salty tear traced down their blackened cheeks.
Tonight the main mast is aflame, the tar covering the prisoners has just been set alight. It is a quiet night, and the captain is bored. Flames engulf the black figures, who scream and groan more loudly, barely heard over the roaring and popping of the blaze. The smell of singed hair and burning flesh fills the air and perpetually surrounds the ship. The glowing blood-red flames lick around the mast, damaging nothing else but the bodies roped to it, transforming the mast into a fiery pillar of blackened tar-coated skeletons. Once the screams fade, so too does the blaze. Cheated of all its gruesome fun it withers and dies, leaving no trace of its presence, save for the scorched, and still hissing and smoking skeletons that remain bound around the mast. The next set of prisoners will be tied up next to and on top of the now-charred skeletons, left to gaze in horror at their skeletal companions with their slackened jaws left wide in macabre welcoming grin…
Jack stands on the mahogany-red deck of the hell-ship, watching in horror as the flames engulf the main mast, swirling and licking around the wood as one giant spiral-red tongue. He hears the screams of the dying, the hiss of the consuming fire, the smell of the dead. There's someone here he's looking for, but he can't remember who. Or what they look like. He scans the black faces, eyes and mouths gaping wide in pain and horror, hair plastered to their ghoulish faces. Even the skeleton's mouths are agape as if they too, feel the burn of the fire. Flames lick out of the skeleton's eye-sockets and mouths like charmed snakes weave out of wicker baskets. Jack tries to get closer, but the fire erupts upward, sending out a heatwave so strong it knocks Jack onto his back and sears his exposed skin.
It's then that he hears her… sees her. Cassie. Tied up in the crows-nest, flames dancing at its base; climbing up, crawling up to reach her; ensnare her, burn her. Kill her. "Cassie!" Jack bellows. The flames intensify in reply, its dull roar challenging. He scrambles to his feet, and grabs the tar-coated rigging. The molten tar sucks at his palms, burning his skin like melted wax, but Jack ignores the pain. He clamours up the burning mast, climbing over the bound and roped bodies, into the fire. Tar-covered hands, burning fingers, skeletal arms latch onto him as he struggles upward to save Cassie, pulling him back. The dying cling to him like spiders-webs, coating him with burning tar like a second skin. It feels like it liquefies his skin, gluing him to the mast; the corpses, the skeletons. Flames dance up and down his coat, and smoke swirls around his head. His eyes smart as tar is wiped over his face, blinding him. He feels as if he's drowning and burning at the same time. All the while, he hears Cassie's scream become louder. Full of fear. And then full of pain.
"Jack! Jack! JACK! JACK!"
And all the while he struggles, against the tar and the bodies, bound as surely and securely as a fly in a web. Helpless. Able to do nothing, save for listen to the dying screams of his beloved. He couldn't save her. Again. Before the burning tar pours into his ears, and gurgles down his tender throat, pooling into his lungs, Jack hears a chuckle.
"Welcome to Hell, Captain Jack Sparrow."
For anyone interested, the title is called so because Jack Tar was a common name for a sailor; slang for an ordinary seaman. Just a bit of a word-play for anyone who likes those kinds of things…alright, might just be me then…
Apple-365 – Thank-you. I try to keep the ends of my chapters interesting; cliff-hangers usually encourage people to review (hehehe; evil laugh) treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen. Only, I'm not that mean of a person…usually…
DCoD – Just thought I'd share a recent discovery of mine; you always write really long reviews. It's great! And if you think your drunken ramblings are bad when you fall asleep mid-sentence; I don't even have to be drunk or hung-over. I can just stop talking mid-sentence, anywhere, anytime and not realise. I'll just be sitting there, in deep whimsical contemplation and everyone's like, "Well…what? What happened?" Not a good look when I'm trying to make a good impression, I tell you.
Yeah, Jack's going after Alex, seeing as the Code states, 'any man that falls behind gets left behind' and Alex is neither a man, nor fell behind. Jack sort of was responsible for Alex 'falling behind,' so he's got to square with that… And seeing as his soul's up for grabs in a couple of days, he'd better start being nice and moral and stuff…
Lonaargh – You write really long reviews too (I'm in one of those state-the-obvious moods) Generally, I'm all for girl-power and not waiting around to be rescued – that's why Alex is the independent and fiery character that she is. But even she's going to have a bit of trouble getting out of this mess; Captain Peril is nasty. He makes Barbossa look like a sickly-sweet pink candy-floss. Besides, Alex had help from a certain Jack Sparrow to get into the mess she's in now, so it's only fair Jack helps her get back out again. Mind you, Jack has other worries on his plate at the moment, like escaping from the Devil, so perhaps Alex is going to have to stage her own rescue party…
Crzywildchick804 – Yep' I'm just plain evil. It's more fun being evil.