🌹Emerald Rose🌹

Chapter One

__________________________________

 

Alfred could feel his skin searing with pain as he ran. His left hand, his sword arm, was blistering with an angry burn. The ship was on fire now. The odds were against him. He wasn't getting out of this.

 

Some of his crewmates were still putting up a fight. It was a lost cause, but the remaining men seemed set on going down fighting. Alfred couldn't think too much to want to keep fighting. He wanted to get out of this alive. He had made Matthew a promise.

He stopped at a railing and panted for breath. His left arm stung, and his whole body was sore. There was no way he could swing a sword with his left arm, and his right arm was very inexperienced. The General had always reminded them all to learn how to swing a sword with both hands, in case this happened. He was just too much of an idiot to have listened at the time.

It smelled like smoke and blood and he saw corpses everywhere. It was horrible. How could such a huge division of soldiers be overtaken by pirates? Alfred tasted bile in the back of his throat. He had never been in a battle with this many casualties before. He'd simply never thought he would go through something like this. Why would he?

 

Alfred heard a defeated groan, and he turned around. There was a soldier on the ground, fighting to breathe and grab his pistol at the same time. There was a man from the attacking ship, a pirate, looming over him, preparing to deliver the final blow.

Alfred couldn't watch him die. His hero complex was itching! It had been his childhood fantasy, and he never grew out of it. It was why he joined the navy, so he could fight for his country and someday be a hero of a sort. Maybe he'd rise and become a captain, being able to sail the world and possibly even meet the monarchy of England and its empire. That would be a dream come true.

 

He gritted his teeth, and then pushed himself off the railing. He may come to regret this moment, but he would regret it more if he simply ran and left his fellow soldier to die. He pushed his pain aside and passed his sword into his right hand. He hoped his luck would not skip out on vacation.

He took off after the burly pirate, his boots clacking against the wood. He swung his sword at the man's legs, causing the man to drop his sword and fall to the ground. Out of an instinct act of mercy, Alfred turned his sword around and hit the man with the back, rendering him unconscious.
He heard another noise and instinctively turned around to face another oppressor. What he saw made him stop.

His eyes met with the brightest pair of green eyes he had ever seen. It quite literally caught him off caught, and within seconds of his sword swinging, he could only stare. His oppressor stood out so much it made him faulter.

 

And then the guy hit his sword out of his hand and in an instant, he was on his knees and had a blade pointed at his throat. Whoops.

 

"What do we have here?" He said coolly. His voice was laced with a rich British accent, and it made some part of Alfred feel stirred.