With honourable intentions, let's flirt with ghosts (POTC)

Awakening

Darkness greets (Y/n).

Suffocating.

A scream sticks in her throat. Her limbs turn to stone.

Not again.

Something holds her. Binding her limbs to her sides. The surface below her gives slightly, like the ground after a light rain. But it is not cold, it's warm and soft.

Hands roam her body. Caressing her skin with the gentleness of a lover.

Please, not again!

There's pain. A voice murmuring thanks over and over.

For a moment, (Y/n) experiences the feeling of falling. The rush of blood in her ears. The beating of her heart echoing in her skull. The loss of control as her voice bubbles in her throat but never makes it past her mouth.

She wants to fight, to run, but she can't move.

Get off me, please.

The litany of "thank you's" continue as the pain builds within her skull.

A small speck of light blooms in the darkness, slowly getting brighter.

In the light, the hands are given form, dark and twisted shadows clawing at her.

The brightest spark suddenly explodes and washes over her.

The wandering hands are dragged away into the distance, screaming, before being silenced by a green flash.

The light remains. Slowly revolving around (Y/n).

The weight lifts and (Y/n)'s arms are free.

She floats in the light.

The sound of waves crashing on a distant shore echo around her.

"Shh. You're safe, child. Am here wit'you." A soothing voice emits from the light, dripping like honey over her senses, warm and loving. "They're gone. They can'urt you now."

(Y/n)'s eyes fly open. A gasp escaping her lips.

Wait...I'm not...

Light seeps in from somewhere above her. As her eyes adjust the darkness slowly breaks; it becomes speckled like the surface of the eggs she used to palm off old Josephine's cart in Tortuga. With a turn of her head, a beam of light in the corner of her vision is revealed to be the gap in the sheets she's wrapped in.

After a moment of silent wriggling, she surmises that the sheet is tucked in underneath her, but her hands and feet are unbound.

There are no shackles around her limbs. No body pressing her own.

She shakes off the fading images from her dream. I thought I'd moved past that already.

She scrabbles to untuck the sheets and sit up.

With a quick scan, (Y/n) notes that she is still in the same room as before. The curtain bisecting the room is pulled out, hiding the painting and bathtub from view, but the shadow of the tub on the curtain shows it hasn't been removed from the room.

A small thrum of surprise does run through her at the sight of an unexpected sentry: Santos is sitting in a chair beside the bunk.

It looks like one of the chairs from the captain's cabin. He's leaning back and to the side, head resting on his hand by the elbow propped up on the armrest. The slow rise and fall of his chest and light snores indicate he's asleep.