A Pirate's Life for Me! A game only meant for the bravest to try it. Good luck to you sailor, for you may be a pirate!

Though, warned all pirates be. Until the curse is lifted. Until the blood runs free.

The gold was stolen, it must be returned. Travel to Isla de Mueta, where your fate is learned. Out wit the villains and beat the knaves. But be also warned, this game could mark your grave.

If this is keeping you from debating; if you lose, death is permanent, and the only way of escaping.

Once the curse is lifted, and blood has run free. Shoot the evil Captain and declare "a pirates life for me!"

Of Devils and Black Sheep
JonesyB

I stood awkwardly in the center of a frenzied crowd.

No, I suppose frenzied isn't quite the correct way to explain this particular crowd. I believe the words I'm looking for are blood thirsty, ravenous, war crazed, barbarians.

Even though I could elaborate upon the mass of dirty men who hollowed words I have not heard as they pushed by me at the center of a ship deck, I could do the same for my feelings.

The scene was real. There I was, your average teenage girl, being bombarded by men clad in Errol Flynn attire. I could smell the thick, salty, hot, sea air as it breezed by on the midsummer night. I could, of course, feel the men's sticky bodies pressing against me before they shoved me to the side with a crude "Move wench!"

I could do all but react to the scene that played out before my eyes, as if I were dropped in the center of climatic battle I had no part in.

Every way I turned, an irate face was there to meet my terrified one. I screamed girlishly as I turned to see a man pull out a long sword before me.

The brute stepped an inch away from my face and yelled so closely I could smell his fowl breathe, "Give over the gold, lass!"

I starred at him, lost for words, knowing if I decided to speak it would be in inaudible gibberish. I had no clue what he was speaking of. I had no gold. I wasn't even apart of this fight, or whatever it was these animals called it.

Just as the man was raising the sword against me, another taller man stepped in, he roughly grabbed the man's arm that held the weapon.

The taller man sneered a quick, jabbing sentence that I figured meant for the man to leave, since he quickly backed away.

This man, my savior I presume, looked to me. He was steady and strong willed appearing. He was wearing a large be-plumed hat and a scraggly beard sprung from his chin. I had to do a double take to the creature that resided obediently on his shoulder; a small attentive monkey. Another notable, if not frightening, feature about the man was a long scare that spread from his eye to his cheek. His eyes looked almost inhuman, as they were dull like fogged glass.

"The gold calls to us," he said over the echo of canons firing in the distance. His gravely voice sent a chill through me as I stood uneasily before him. "Warned, all pirates be," he continued, "Until the cures is lifted. Until the blood runs free."

I stepped back just missing his hand grabbed hastily for my neck.

"I- I don't have any gold!" I cried.

He smirked before beginning a slow chuckle that sounded through the dark and gained the attention of every man on the ship. I searched around me as the crew's concentration shot to where I stood. My heart began to beat out of my chest as they slowly surrounded me like the walking dead in a zombie novella.

These men weren't men.

I noticed then the crew was skeletal as suddenly as the turning of the tide. They seemed to all be in the stage of death where the flesh began to sloth off their lithe frames.

Having no choice, I turned back to the man that had just moments ago saved my life.

I screamed once again as I saw he was now transformed as well, still laughing to himself as his pet monkey screeched.

"Your blood will run free Miss Neve Porter."

Before he could bark this cold threat, I had shut my eyes as tight as I could.

"It will run across the blade of me knife!" echoed his voice as I opened my eyes and sat straight up in my bed.

I looked around my dark, motionless room.

I swear that gruff voice was there beside me just then. I could still hear the echo of a yell.

I was starring mindlessly at three empty cans of diet coke and a living room in shambles. A deck of playing cards was scattered across the coffee table, a stack of dirty plates at one end, a herd of used napkins and red plastic cups at the other. And all the while, whatever Lifetime movie that happened to be playing was blaring from the television set.

"Murder! Lust! Desire!" cried the sultry voice over, "Does it tempt you?"

Oh yes.

It was the last week of summer vacation.

Now, it's not that I dislike vacation, especially summer vacation. Living in rural New England, I was the type who begged for spring to come. I was the person who opened every single window at the first sign of winter thawing weather. Capturing that first warm afternoon and letting its sweet, natural smelling breathe waft through the house was what I practically lived for. But then again, I couldn't help but yearn for winter's snow once the dog days of August hit…

Never the matter, it was the end of summer vacation. My last summer vacation. This is so because in a few short days, I would leave home and be whisked away to a place I have only heard of in long winded guidance councilor meetings and whimsical such tales. It was college, and I was scared. Of course that wasn't what I told them. I said I would love to live a full state away from home, that I would go to the tutors in the library every other night, that I wouldn't miss them.

Yeah, I'm a lying chicken.

Well, for the most part anyway. I always did for some reason want to live at college. People would ask me when I was younger (when my only worry was if I would miss Lizzie McGuire) if I wanted to live at a college light-years away from this cow town. I would always answer, in my small, meek voice; yes. Like I knew that I was meant to leave this place. Like I knew I was meant to be somewhere else.

Which ever way you put it, my roommate was assigned, my diploma was received, and I was all but packed. And now the living room was a wreck, and even though it wasn't all my fault, I knew I was about to get blamed for the whole mess.

Just as I was beginning to make a mental list of the fifty or so things I needed to accomplish in the next half hour, the stack of soda cans blew to the floor as the wind burst into the room.

This was no gentle summer breeze. The great gust almost blew the curtains strait off the wall, and was causing the small herd of plastic cups to being a wobbly dance.

I heaved myself from the couch, thus disproving my theory that it was possible for a seventeen year old to not move for a complete twenty-four hours. I collected the cans tossing them to the garbage before dashing to the windows. The wind was so strong it took an effort to close them, not that the glass panels ever actually slid down with no effort. The house my mother had described so many times as 'falling in love at first sight with' was Edwardian and there for very old.

Looking out the closed windows I noticed how the wind tugged at the large oak tree's limbs that lined the road. How it whistled its way through the leaves and violently rang the wind chimes outside my door. I wondered for a moment if I heard the weather report that morning, and if they had mentioned warnings for thunderstorms.

I backed away from the window and the wind calmed, almost as suddenly as it had began to blow.

"Welcome to New England," I said to myself as I often did when I was puzzled by the bipolar weather.

I glanced back to the mess that seemed to have grown an extra ten dismantled board games behind my back. If I was going to have to drag out the vacuum cleaning, I wasn't putting myself through the torture alone.

With that thought I made my way upstairs around the spiral staircase that lead to the narrow hallway containing three bedrooms. Just when I was about to head to the only room that held a computer, I stopped and stared to my doorway.

"Anna, what are you doing?"

My younger sister looked to me as she seemed to be starring into my room, her thin frame leaning against the door's.

She shrugged, "I heard something."

"Like what?" I asked as I stepped by her. For more than the second time, I was taken back by the sight of my bare room.

My once eccentric bedroom had been stripped of every poster and picture I had taped to the wall since I was ten. The bed was almost all that was left. The rest of the furniture had been removed so the rug could be ripped from the floor. After sixteen years of collecting stains of nail polish, self tanner, and every Gatorade flavor in stock, it was time for it to be laid to rest.

"Like a yell," she said still sounding confused about the matter.

Her words made me freeze.

"What sort of yell?" I questioned.

She frowned, "Relax, I just thought your TV was on or something."

We both glanced to the miniature set, it's black surface only showed our own reflection back to us.

She looked to me, "Well obviously I was wrong."

"This isn't like when you swore you heard the Chupacabra is it? Because if you seriously heard something coming from this room, I wanna know," my stern voice made her narrow her eyebrow.

"Neve, I'm hungry," was all she said.

I could have ripped my hair out in frustration, "We just ate! I made those pizza things."

"That was hours ago," she continued to whine, the sixteen year-old's specialty.

"I don't care, okay?" I cried, "I'll make you whatever you want if you tell me what you heard."

She starred at me and I starred back to her. It was constantly a challenge of wits between the two of us. Always enticing one another with shallow promises we had no intention of keeping.

"It was a yell," she finally said.

"I know that! What did it say?"

"I don't know," she thought for a second, "It was a deep man's voice, could have been Charlie," she said of our next door neighbor.

I shook my head, "He's at work, everyone's at work. There's no way you could have heard him from across our yard anyway."

"Why do you care so much about what I heard anyway?"

I glared to Anna, "Because I think-"

"You heard it too?" she asked stepping closer to me.

"No, I mean, not a moment ago anyway."

She gazed to me with her mouth gaping open before breaking into a large smiling "Well that's perfect then, our house is haunted!"

"The house is not haunted, it was the wind you heard."

"What about when you heard it?" she asked suddenly forgetting about her hunger pains.

"A nightmare," I answered pointedly sitting on my bed, "I had a dream about… well about a lot of random stuff. At least I thought I was dreaming when I head that voice."

Anna's mouth couldn't open any larger. For her, this must all be a dream come true. She was obsessed with the occult. Up until now she was content with her King novels and ScFi Channel marathons of various ghost hunting escapades. Now, I was afraid she'd be driven to setting up a night vision camera and powdering my bedroom floor for footprints that ghosts apparently had the feet to make.

Even though Anna and I were sisters, we were very much different, only our looks truly matching. We were about the same height and weight. She had thick auburn hair that fell just past her shoulders, mine was a couple of shades darker and nearly two feet longer. As she was always the more athletic one, her hair was always shorter, always hidden under a Yankees cap, always up as she ran across our yard to catch the football.

I guess I would be the more introverted one, even though I would never actually describe myself that way. I would just rather be in a quiet place reading, or painting.

"Well, what did the voice say?" she asked. Her question brought me back to the current dilemma and reminded me of what happened the previous night.

I could still smell the smoke and feel the sweat of the other men.

"It said, 'Warned, all pirates be. Until the curse is lifted. Until…"

Anna searched my eyes, "Until what?"

"Until the blood runs free."

The room was silent up until my mother slammed the door shut and informed us she was home. The sudden noise nearly caused the both of us to jump out of our skin.

Anna's large brown eyes looked to me then, "How did you remember exactly what that voice said in your dream, Neve? Don't you think that's… really weird?"

I shook my head, "It just came to me. I mean, it's probably not what I head. It's just a nightmare anyway!"

It was a bland excuse, but it was all I could say. I had scared my sister and was well on my way to frightening myself. If she hadn't said something about a yell, I doubt I would have remembered my dream. It all happened so quickly.

Anna left the room and I soon wondered why I hadn't done the same.

"Who made this mess?" I heard my mother's voice inquire as I descended the staircase.

A/N: Yes! It is the creation of a person (with far too much time on her hands) who had recently watched Jumanji and has a need to throw a Pirate of the Caribbean theme into literally everything. Yeah, that would be me. Please tell me what you think c: