Cove of Shadows ━━ Will Turner

𝐗 ━━ Bill Bootstrap

WILL WALKED OVER AND HUGGED HIS FATHER, nearly breaking his ribs – accidentally. His father patted him on the shoulder, like a brother returning from battle. They smiled at each other and all the strewn doubts fell into the water. Everything came back to water.

But the joy was short-lived. Arriving with a bang, terrible footsteps were heardechoing against the hull of the ship. Boom. Boom. Boom. Three times sounded the fatal blows of the sea knell. We saw an unimaginable creature appear, worse than all those inhabiting the liner.

Great Leviathan, a man with the face of an octopus was glimpsed. He looked menacing and aggressive, stretching his hand skyward: the latter like the claws of a crab. Its other hand, more humanoid, was surrounded by a tentacle that encircled its victims until asphyxiation. Casting his ink towards the heavens; sucking the blood of what he loves and finding it delicious; that inhuman monster was him.

"What are you doing here, kid?" asked the sailor.

"Davy Jones... so it's you," Will concluded.

"I'm glad you know the name of the captain of the ship you just intercepted. I'm in a good mood so I'll repeat my question for you, will you? What are you doing here, kid?"

Will should be scared, he who was only a timid young man flanked in his cogs and his boiler rooms. But nothing was happening. Not a fear, not an anxiety. Nothing.

"Jack Sparrow sent me to settle his debt."

Jones sneered, running a tentacle over his eye to wipe away a tear of derision.

"Please? Jack now sends homing sparrows? I have never seen such stupidity."

Jones considered, and pulled out a pipe. He bribed a sailor for fire, and smoked his shout, stammering the exhalation out of his lungs.

"Well, Jack wants to settle his debt. But he owed me a century of servitude, not some weakling."

"He's my son," Bill snapped.

"Ah, that explains it all. Anyway, you seemed to be driven by something other than Jack's debt, kid. What a joy to have a family reunion," smiled Davy Jones. "Iron him."

"What?" Bill asked. But no matter what he said, he knew it would be in vain, nothing could change Davy Jones' mind. Apart from one thing...

Will was put in the dungeon, dripping and smelling of rotten fish. The smells he had got used to.

From afar, he saw a prisoner, destitute and completely miserable. He had no rags, only poor clothes hiding his skin. Glasses clung to his skin, so he must have been here for a while.

"Hey, seafarer!" Will waved. No one on the horizon was watching them – apart from their own loneliness facing the bars.

Will never thought he'd find himself in such a situation before. He, who had always been a just man, of Law, was now in its antonym, the worst purgatory for a just.

"Hi," replied the stranger in front of him. "They got you too, huh?"

The man had terrible blue eyes, like the ocean, and hair that looked like it hadn't been cut in a long time.

"You could say that. How did you get here?"

"Ah that my man, it is rather simple. Dismissed by the love of my life, I had to bring her back an adornment worthy of the name for our wedding. But, the merchant from whom I was supposed to buy the dress sold me, for some reason. I don't even know why they keep me here, locked up. Nothing can be taken advantage of me; I am only a biologist loving his future wife. Future, if she ever will be... Thirty weeks I've been waiting in this tub, and I'm devastated that Margot thinks I've abandoned her. I would give anything for her. Do you know that, friend?"