A Pirate's Life for Mei

It's a Pirate's Life for Us

Putin

His lungs burned with the need for air as he sank beneath the waves. The last thing he saw was that woman's face before the darkness of the ocean at night swallowed him.

He tried to hold out for as long as he could as he descended into that watery tomb, but his chest grew tight and pained, and the need for air became desperate. Against his conscious will, his mouth opened, and he breathed. But instead of air, he inhaled saltwater, filling his lungs.

It was a surprisingly fearful and slow, and painful way to die.

The lights went out entirely, and there was nothingness.

He woke. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he had respawned on land and in prison.

He knelt on a damp stone floor, wrists and ankles bound in heavy manacles with thick chains. He was alive, obviously, and unharmed. Previous wounds were gone, and his body had been restored to complete health.

Looking up, he saw that he was in a cell with stone walls with rough iron bars in front. Beyond was another cell facing his own. Three prisoners rotted inside, their appearance gaunt, their striped uniforms stained and threadbare. They paid no attention to him, just sitting against the walls inside their confines, unshackled, staring at the floor in silence. They were men without hope, starved and beaten, doing nothing more than existing.

Putin, whose real name he'd long ago buried, felt his gorge rise at the pathetic sight. Losers. Weaklings. They deserved their fate.

He tested the strength of the manacles, chain clinking as he did so, and found no give. He did not expect any. That was fine. He was in no hurry. And he was a patient man. But he would find a way out. He would escape. No prison could hold him long, not even this one.

Then he would find her. A malicious grin curled his lips, and when one of the men across from him glanced up, they hurriedly looked away.

Yes, he'd find that woman. And he'd hurt her. Slowly.

If there was something he was good at besides killing, it was hurting people. And he really enjoyed it. You might even say he lived for it. It was all a kind of game to him.

One might think that Putin would be angry at having been taken out of the real world and sentenced to this digital one. He wasn't. In a world where the dead came back to life, again and again, he would never run out of victims, and he would be able to take his pleasure to new heights. They couldn't even rob him of his fun by killing him, only trap him in cells like this for a time until they found a way to break free and continue. And the authorities in this time period were a joke.

This world wasn't a prison; it was his own personal playground.

Laughter boomed from his chest and sent all the other dungeon residents scurrying in fear for darker corners.

⚓️

Mei

The small ship bobbed in the water. Barbados was still in sight several kilometres away, but that was fine. The navy there no longer had a ship with which to chase them. If they tried sailing out in their fishing boats, Mei and the others would simply use the swivel guns mounted port and starboard to fend them off. They'd discovered little bags of grapeshot that could be loaded into the miniature cannon that would completely shred any crew foolish enough to try to board them.

She took a moment to take in the ship for the first time now that they weren't being shot at or pursued.

The sloop was about fifteen meters long, with a single mast sporting a tall, triangular sail. There was no cabin or below decks. The main deck was open, and the hull curved up until the top was only about a meter above the water. A single, thin cannon pointed forwards in the bow, and a swivel gun was mounted on each side near the stern.