The next morning, I woke up to find nothing but a blue cloudless sky overhead.

For a moment I wondered what was going on before memories of last came flooding back to me: The old man agreeing to help me get away and falling asleep on the boat.

I slowly lifted myself up, looking around at my surroundings: nothing but open water.

"Ah, I see you're up." The old man said from behind me, making me jump.

"Oh… yeah."

He looked at me for a moment, then handed me a piece of bread. "It was all I was able to find for breakfast." He said simply, turning so he wasn't facing me anymore.

I went quiet; I was guess he wasn't a very talkative person. I stood up and walked over to stand beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at me and for just a flicker of a second, I swear I saw a little bit a of happiness, but when I looked closer it was gone and replaced with blank emotionless.

I swallowed and bit my lip. "Thank you."

Three days later, we finally made port in Port Royal. He smiled when I took my first step off the boat and onto unfamiliar territory.

"Is this what you wanted? Being all alone with no one here to help you?"

It wasn't exactly what I had dreamed about; but it was much better than being at the orphanage.

"Yes."

He didn't speak for a moment, but looked me over. "You know, most kids don't have much confidence as you do."

I smiled. "All I know is; no matter how many things go wrong...everything will turn out fine in the end."

I then turned without another word and walked down the dock, not knowing where to go or what to do.

I never had really planed what I was going to do once I was free; since I had only made the decision to leave the orphanage days ago. So I stuck to the streets that were crowded with people pushing past one another to get from point A to point B.

Hardly paying attention to anything around me; I looked at the scenery. Palm trees, ocean, salty sea air, and-

"Ouch!"

I had run face first into someone's out stretched elbow and fell to the ground. The owner of the elbow, which looked to be a boy only a couple years older than me with dark brown eyes to match his dark brown hair, helped me to my feet.

"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention." I told him, holding my nose.

"It's quite, alright." He said, picking up the things I had knocked out of his arms.

I started to walk away when he put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me back. I looked at him curiously while he looked at me for a moment.

"What?" I asked.

"Your nose is bleeding."

I slowly lifted my hand up to feel my nose and sure enough, I left warm blood slowly oozing out of my nose.

"Crap."

Perfect. The first five minutes of truly being free and I was already injured. I suddenly had a flashback from when Carla called me a klutz.

"Here, let me help." The boy said, taking my other non-bloody hand and leading me through the crowd.

I felt nervous. A complete stranger had never shown me this much compassion before, and I didn't expect it.

He lead me to a small back alley that you would miss unless you were looking hard enough; we walked right to where there was a set of double doors with a sign above it signaling it was were the blacksmith was.

He opened them and lead me inside where there was many swords laying around the place, along with a mule connected to a contraption I had never seen before.

"Why did you-" I started to say but was cut off from a loud abrupt snore coming from our right. I whirled around to find a man laying in a chair, clearly drunk, and asleep with a bottle of rum in his hand.

The boy sighed. "Mr. Brown's out again for the day."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Again?"

"He's out every day." He explained, letting go of my hand and walking away.

I had the urge to follow, but stayed put; after a moment he stopped and looked back at me.

"Well, come on if you want something to clean your face off with."

I rushed toward him, hoping I didn't look like a moron while doing it. We walked toward the back where there was pile of cloth laying by the fire place; he picked one off and handed it to me. I gladly took the piece of cloth and started wiping the blood off my face.

"I haven't seen you around here before." He suddenly said, watching me.

"I just got here, no less than twenty minutes ago."

He nodded in understanding. "Where are your parents?"

"I...don't have any." I said slowly; I expected him to cringed and sympathize, not give me a small smile and sigh.

"You, too?"

"You're an orphan?" I asked surprised.

"Sort of, I wasn't never in an orphanage since I still had my mother looking after me."

"What happened?"

He sighed again and sat down in the chair nearest to him. "It's kind of a long story." He said, looking down at the floor.

I smiled. "I love stories, even long ones."

He looked up at me curiously. "What's your name?"

"Cassandra Livingston and you?"

He stuck out his hand. "Will Turner."

I took it. "Nice to meet you, Will."

That was how I met my best friend.