Emerald Seas II

Chapter 6

Jack inside the Locker

White, whiteness was all he beheld waking up from what must have been the most bizarre dream he's ever experienced. Covering his face with his hands to block the bright light. Was this death? Was this heaven?

Jack lifted his body, aching from something that felt like he fell from the sky above and landed on the hard ground beneath him. Raising his chest from the ground he felt his bones cracking and a moan escaped his lips. His dry lips, as it felt like he had drunk an ocean, the sea salt taste on his tongue was making the hairs on his back stand up. Now trying to get up and see if there was any water around Jack lifted his full body from what seemed to be a hard surface, but it was sand that covered both his black boots when he had fully risen. His brown, almost black eyes were used to the bright light by now, and he could see clearly where he was. A desert?

It was hot, with not a single touch of wind. No soft breeze that could ease his burning dry eyes. But there was no sun, just blinding white light, a silence was covering the white desert, it was so quiet Jack could almost hear his blood run through his veins.

It was almost like he was hit on the head and had been unconscious for days, as if every memory of the last minutes before everything went black, was lost from his mind. He tried to recall, time and time again what made him end up here. It was when he noticed a large shadow covering the sand a few steps away, Jack looked up. It was the Black Pearl, his beloved ship. They both ended up in this strange and haunting place and moving up the ladder of the Pearl Jack tried to recall how he got here, again and again.

It was moments later after experiencing quite a few hallucinations Jack tried to empty his lungs. The Pearl was stuck, stuck inside the sand and after every desperate attempt to get his ship to move it seemed impossible, there was no wind, no water. Jack was laying down inside the sand, face up in front of the Pearl where he earlier had pulled and pulled on the robe to move his ship into the direction of what he hoped was an ocean if there was any around. Jack had given up.

It was only when he had found a rock and had thrown it away, just as this strange place couldn't get any weirder, Jack beheld the stone turning into a crab, a tiny crab that soon started to raise a whole army of crabs, carrying the Black Pearl along the empty desert into one single direction. Just standing there, not believing what he saw, just before setting in a pursuit of following his ship, Jack suddenly heard something. Something, or.. someone, was calling for him?

It was another one of these hallucinations, wasn't it? A woman's voice calling for him, probably luring him away from his beloved Pearl. But Jack couldn't ignore the gut feeling that tried to pull him back. This voice.. it sounded so familiar. He had searched, his eyes moving around the empty landscape of endless sand, there had been no one, no one that he'd be leaving behind once he'd turn and run for his ship before it was too late. So he run, without looking back..

Minutes earlier, Kate inside the Locker

It was like most moments, when it was light Kate felt the need to explore, for what must have been the hundredth time, the endless madness of the white deserts. Her bare feet carried her into a direction she felt like she hadn't gone to before, guiding herself to another unknown location. It wasn't like she was carrying a compass around so she could check whether she'd been in this direction before, so she just had to deal with the fact it was always a wild guess.

A compass.. Kate did not know why but she was quite alright with the fact she did not have one. She could not recall why, but something about this object gave her spine a cold shiver.

It had been quite some time since something had happened. It took her a lot of days and nights before she was brave enough to leave the lighthouse again, after her strange and terrifying encounter with the dead singing people. But there was a curiosity dwelling within that made her to get exploring the outside again. Still this voice, inside her head, that was telling her this wasn't her end, there was more, and she needed to find out why.