Howdy all. Sorry for the delay, but life got in the way.

Anyway, just a couple notes about this chapter. First I'll mention I changed one thing, for now at least, if you're movie savvy, you'll be able to pick it out. I changed it, cause it adds a bit of irony to the story line.I want to thank you all for your comments, too! They sparked a couple of knew ideas, and also allowed me to notice and fix a spelling error. My lap top does odd things with spell check.

Thanks, all and keep the comments coming!

0 0 0

"Come with Us." The words echoed through my half waking thoughts, "James, come with me.",

"Come with me." Oh, how I'd wanted so much to go with her. My heart gave a small throb at this thought and I tried to force it away. To drift back into slumber and dreams, but it would not allow itself to be forced away. It lingered there and each beat of my heart stung me like a thousand stings of the lash.

But this heart sting was too real, too physical to be the result of a broken heart. It had to be something more. It gained in its intensity with each beat of my heart until I could stand it no longer.

I suppressed a yell. I suppressed every urge to cry out in pain. Every fiber of my being longed for release, but it continued to grow more painful by the second until it was more than pain. It was shear agony, torture even. My heart was throbbing in my eardrums. All I could hear was the sound of my heart, drowning out all else in the world, until there was nothing.

All at once I felt nothing. No pain, no heartache, nothing but a numbness that tingled its way into my bones and demanded my full attention. Something else, though, had my attention. The sound of my heart beating had stopped. Was it possible?

I pressed a hand to the side of my neck in a panic and found nothing. I nearly fainted at the thought. My heart, a thing I had grown to loathe for its cruelty and indecisive desires. The thing that ached for the things I could never have. Was gone, or at least, inaccessible.

'Good riddance!' I thought. Though deep inside my soul, I knew I still loved my heart.

The longer I thought about it, the more sense it made to me. No spell, or curse, or voodoo magic could possibly keep a man alive for 100 years, or at least, keep a heart beating. In order to live and serve for 100 years under Davy Jones one would have to be dead. It was logical, given what I knew of him. Not to mention the fact that we could all supposedly breath underwater.

So this was the price to pay. To avoid death for the fear of it, but to meet it anyway before you could complete a single day of life.

I noticed two barnacles had attached themselves to my left hand. I moved to pull them off, but thought better of it. Perhaps I'd fit in better with a couple of random sea creatures attached to my flesh.

Just then they called the crew to rise. I shifted my way out of my hammock, careful not to strike anything with the rusty, broken cutlass that stuck out a foot or two from my chest. I already loathed it, it already got in my way.

I noticed, upon close inspection. That the skin around the cutlass, though tender and red, was not at all raw or fresh. It had healed overnight. A gift, perhaps if you'd been shot of stabbed or some similar wound where nothing was imbedded in you. For me, and a few others I'd noticed, it was a curse.