Stronger Than Glass

Sequel to Cold as Glass

End of the Glass Trilogy

A Captain's Adventure

Chapter 18

I couldn't dream to sleep. I didn't dare. I walked across the deck of the Pearl, trying to keep to myself and away from the others. I didn't want any of them to catch me as I thought about my deepest thoughts, which not a single soul, but mine, knew of.

My restlessness had awakened Sirius, who was now eating a late dinner and watching the sea with Gibbs, Marty, and several other men.

I walked up on railing of the ship, enjoying those familiar sounds of the Pearl creaking and the ocean splashing against the wooden frame work.

It soothed my nerves, letting me imagine my problems and possibly endings to each of my many problems.

I could live on with Sirius in my little seaside dream. Or I could rule the seas with Sirius. Or rule the seas alone. Or rule the seas with my father. Or I could leave Sirius to rule the seas, and leave me to work for my mother. Or die.

I pinched my eyes shut. Hating every outcome, because I was never completely satisfied.

I wrapped my arms around my body, wishing I could just vanish into the wind, along with all memory of me.

"Eerie!" I heard Pintel's voice loudly gasp, making me open my eyes. Both Pintel and Ragetti were perched upon the railing, looking down at the deep, dark, water.

Yet as I joined their side, I found what was so eerie. It looked to be bodies floating just under the surface of the water. And they glowed a heavenly white.

"That's downright macabre!" Pintel gasped again.

I could see women, men, young, old. It was…breath taking. Horrifying. The oddest sight I had ever seen.

"I wonder what would happen if you dropped a cannonball on one of them?"

A small voice in my head screamed in horror at Ragetti's thought, but their illuminating glow drew my eyes to them and I could not look away. I was…taken away.

Chuckling, they both crept away, most likely to find a cannonball to live out their perverse fantasy.

Yet as they crept away, I helplessly starred down at the floating figures. It was so…captivating and perverse all at once.

But when I heard two loud thuds, I had to turn back and look behind me. There was Ragetti and Pintel, who had both dropped cannon balls upon the deck and looked stunned.

That was when I spotted Tia Dalma standing next to me, looking over her shoulder too. She looked saddened and almost ghost like from the whole experience.

"Be disrespectful, it would," Pintel spoke, obviously trying to cover up their rude actions. Ragetti nodded over energetically, trying to act along.

Tia Dalma and I both sourly looked back down at the water, but I became more aware of her presence than I had before.

"They should be in the care of Davy Jones." She spoke in a saddened tone. "That was the duty him was charged with…by the goddess, Calypso. To ferry those who die at sea to the other side."

I matched her sad tone with a sad sigh, and leaned against the railing, looking back down at the floating "bodies".

But suddenly her voice lifted slightly, as if an old memory from childhood," And every ten years, him could come ashore, to be with she who love him…truly."

I contemplated such a fate, if I could handle such a love. Of only to see Sirius every ten years. That would be like death, in my opinion.

Then Tia Dalma's voice dropped to a fierce tone," But the man has become a monster!"

"So," Ragetti oddly spoke, walking up next to my side, with Pintel next to me," he wasn't always…" Ragetti held his fingers up to his face making the look off a moving beard," tentacley?"

I curiously twisted my head towards Tia Dalma, enjoying this story she knew so well.

"No." She simply kept her face away from ours, and seemed to be lost in her own world. "Him was a man…once." She lovingly reached up and touched the locket upon her chest, as if in memory of a lover she once had.

We all silently stood huddled together for several moment, before I caught a glimpse of light that was above the water and was not the moon.

It was boats, other small boats, which contained people, with lanterns to guide them in the darkness. And they floated above the masses of people that were already under the water.

I stood up straighter, and murmured, to Tia Dalma in an unsure tone," There's boats coming."

Yet as soon as I said that, I single thought flew off in my head. Those were the dead, as well. And the others did not know, and they could quiet possibly attack them.

I took off running, as fast I could to the others, but the others had already noticed.