Eternal

⭐Bandits⭐

Chapter 4

Bandits

'Catch her! Don't let her get away,' a beautiful voice sang. 

Okay, nobody sang. David commanded his people to catch me. I guess he can't resist me. I giggled at that thought weaving my way out of the swarm of people trying to get a hold of me. Unfortunately for them, I was armed with a chair striking like a four-pointed sword.

A smile covered my face at the sight of so many people. I haven't seen anyone other than Lance or my uncle. Too bad that I had to run away.

I barely managed to run into the woods surrounding their makeshift camp and got as far away as possible and ended up getting hopelessly lost. I had to get rid of the chair but I was too tired do anything right now. Instead, I placed it on the grassy ground and sat on it. 

I pondered on the incidents of last night and this morning. Somewhere in between swimming ashore and running with the chair, I dozed off.

*-*

The blindfold was taken from my eyes. I squinted at the bright daylight and looked up into a pair of auburn eyes similar to mine. The man holding my blindfold looked extremely familiar as if from a dream that was slipping from my mind.

He dragged me roughly to his cabin and hastily grabbed a jug of water and a plate of half-eaten turkey from his desk. He handed them over to me and silently watched me scourge the food quickly. 'Who are you?' I asked in my small childish voice.

'Captain Knightly Rackham. Ever come across my name before? You must have. You were a prisoner of the terrorists, weren't you?'

'Yeah, I have. You're the pirate lord,' Knightly's eyes shone and his lips curled when he heard that, 'But I feel like I've seen you before-'

'You know who I am and yet you don't seem terrified. In fact, you're acting quite the opposite of what I expected. People tremble at my name and yet you show deep courage and bravery. You feel like you know me from a lost, forgotten time. Do you want to know why?'

'Yeah,' I hummed in my small raw voice devoid of any emotion and lacking enthusiasm or curiosity unlike him. I lost it all when I lost Maurice.

Knightly opened his mouth to continue but at that moment someone opened the door and walked in. He had a tall and lanky figure and wore torn and shabby clothes. When he saw me a look of shock passed over his face and then it turned to amusement. 'Dyana Archer! Did I just hit the jackpot? I've been looking for you for a long time, darling,' he looked at Knightly with a victorious smile.

'How do you know my name?'

The lanky fellow looked at me with a bemused expression, 'Who doesn't? You're the future lord of this ship,' he replied matter-of-factly and placed a hand on his chest.

'Shut up Lance and get out of here right now,' Knightly roared and his face turned red in an instant. With one swift motion, he picked me up in his arms, opened a hatch beneath his desk and dropped me inside. I landed on the wooden floor with a loud thud. 

'Awe, such a caring family,' Lance cooed as he watched Knightly with amazement and satisfaction. That's when it hit me. That's when I realized why he looked so familiar. I climbed up the ladder before the Captain closed the hatch and held my hand to the door.

'Uncle?'

Knightly looked at me with sympathetic eyes and slammed the door on my face. I rolled down the ladder to the empty room and once again landed with a bang but this time I woke up before the pain set in.