Wanted

A girl smiles.

Silver grasses are dancing around her. She’s running around swinging her blond hair in all directions in the field of silver. She smiles at me.

Her parents are watching her and they also smile. A soft breeze pats her cheek and flaps her white dress.

Her parents soon darkened and gradually disappear. However she still smiles.

She is frolic in the field. The sky is now getting redder and redder. The sunset dipping below the horizon creates a distinct shade of endless colors. She turns her face towards me but the light behind hinders her face. I can hear something. What is she saying? What did she say? I cannot hear it!

Suddenly, black hands darken my view.

"A......ah......"

A boy is awakened by a nightmare in a room of the pirate ship.

The small gloomy room has one round window that allows the moon’s light to shine through. His sheets are soaked in sweat. The reoccurring nightmare made it impossible for him to find rest, so he gazes at the full moon with vacant thoughts. A few minutes later, his mind is fully awake.

He knows the girl in the nightmare. Her name is Aimee Barrett and she was his old playmate and partner in crime in the old town of Calmport where he lived until his father was killed.

"Damn it!” he muttered.

He thought to himself and wondered out loud. Why did he dream about her? She was in the past…..his past. He knew the answer. It was because he thought about her and her family before he got into his bed.

He touches neck. He normally touches his blue spot in his neck to calm himself down.

Today, before sunrise, these pirates, including the boy, are going to attack his hometown. Yes, that was the plan. His plan actually and it was ingenious. Sure, he felt some sense of guilt about it, but he brushed it aside. He suggested it to his boss because after all he had an aim to achieve. It was to kill a man. The man, who killed his father and sold him to a slave market, had to die. Had it not been for some miraculous intervention he would have been a dead man and wouldn’t have been a pirate.

Just thinking about it got him all worked up. His head was brewing with thoughts of vengeance.

Signs of pirate activity outside of his room increased his excitement. He took a scarf which hang on the wall and tied it on his neck to hide his mark. He was ready. After all as the saying goes revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice.

It was a normal day. Just a peaceful day as usual. The men were at pubs swearing with a drunken accent, and flirting with young girls. One lay on the floor in a drunken stupor. Typical! Chickens running here and there. Dogs and cats everywhere. The same old boring things again ….and again…. and again. I swear at times this town deserves to be erased from the face of this planet. As I made my way down the market path, a loud shrill resounded through my ears and throughout the town, and the one word which seeped through my mouth was PIRATES!

Everyone was running with no idea whatsoever about where they were going. All that they knew was to run and hide. The town was in chaos and it was a mess. People were jumping, climbing, and crawling over each other. To fall would mean your death, no doubt about that. Why were the pirates here!? The sun was rising. By this time most parts of the town was already occupied by them. The nearest town was a million miles away! There was no way help could come in time. We will all be soaked in blood bath before they get here. I raced towards home. I was worried about my dad since he was old and weak. The pirates had weapons and weren’t afraid to us them. No one wanted to resist them, and risked getting killed. Already a soul has been lost. He tried to protect his family by trying to stab one of the pirates with a kitchen knife. What of his family? Worst case scenario 1: decapitated heads hanging outside as a warning. Worst case scenario 2: “….....” Honestly, I would rather not think about it.

Fortunately, I was able to make it past a few roads before the pirates saw me.

I continued running as fast as I could with the wind hitting against my face. It ruffled my brown hair and shamelessly twirled my blue dress, occasionally lifting it up. I saw the port at a glance while she is running towards my house on a small hill. I was about to call out to my dad when I heard a voice cry out.

"P- Please! Put your pistol down!” the voice said. I recognized it as my father’s.

"No, and you’ll shut up old man if you know what’s good for you". It was the voice of a young man. I peeked through the cracks of the door and saw the young man holding a pistol to my father’s head. He was caught!

I went to my father’s room and grabbed a pistol that he kept in his drawer. I didn’t know how to use it, but I would try. I also grabbed a knife.

His laugh was bitter and hollow.

“You don't remember my face do you?! Of course you don't, it’s been centuries since that incident”.

I ran across the yard and snuck behind the cracked doors again.

“I don’t know what you are talking about! Please just take whatever you want and leave”.

I could just see a rear view of the pirate with a scarf. Father was trembling and holding up his hands.

The pirate undid the knot of his scarf and showed something to him, but i couldn't see it.

"You, you are-!"

The pirate cocked the gun, and pulled the trigger.

"Ugh!!"

Father collapsed. His body twitched twice, and then stopped. He lay lifelessly in a pool of crimson.

I covered my mouth with my hands, to keep myself from crying out. I couldn’t move. I felt like I was in a tiny room of my mind with almost no space for me to breathe. The grief washed over me one wave at a time. Why did he come here? Why did he just kill my father? Why? Why! My dad was the kindest person ever! How can somebody hate him!? There had to be some sort of reason for him to kill my dad judging from their earlier conversation. Wait, he showed something to dad that made him realize who he was. What are there under the scarf? Something was on the neck? I feel like I should… remember something but......I can't.

She wanted to kill him. Her love for her dad was so deep. While grieving she also contemplated on how to enact her revenge. She turned over her dress and hid the pistol and the knife and took off.

"Hold it!"

I stopped. The voice coming from her back was from the pirate! The one who killed her father! He had found her! She turned her back slowly.

Staring her in the face was a muzzle.

"You saw it right? You saw what happened”.

I nodded to afraid to speak. Was she afraid of death? Yes, she could not lie. There was no point in lying.

"Are you the only daughter of that man?" oh God it wasn’t supposed to end like this!

He knows my father and my family and I need to know how.

“Hey lady, answer the question!” He killed my father on purpose, so will I be killed too?!

"No, no! I'm not! A- Aimee died two years ago!"

She hoped he did not see through her lie.

"What……. Okay."

She won. He believed it.

"Walk to the port".

He pointed to the port with his chin.

She obeyed. He walked after her.

People from her hometown, handcuffed with ropes sat quietly on the deck.

A man just sat there. A young woman was crying in a corner to herself. An old man was praying for God. A child confused about his situation, just stayed near his mother.

They will be sold in to a slave market. That's how they also made money.

The boy saw the girl who he caught at the Barretts house. She was talking with a middle-aged woman quietly.

That was not his old playmate. Aimee had blonde hair.

She died two years ago, as the girl said.

If she had been alive, he would not have sold her to a slave market. He spoke about what he planned to do with his captain. The captain told him to do whatever he wanted.

He would ask her to live with him as a pirate. However, it was all impossible now. She was not alive anymore.

The night brought with it a bitter cold making the deck an unwanted place to be. The pirates were still watching people. When someone asked for blanket, they got yelled at.

The girl saw her chance. She realized that the on-duty guards were less by the day. And they hardly had their pistols with them. Probably didn’t think anyone was stupid enough to try something.

She asked Aunt Sophie to help her. In the dark night, she took the knife from her under clothes. Her aunt wondered what she was doing and gave her a shocked look.

"Aunt Sophie, this is our chance. We should wait for the perfect moment to strike and then take them hostage”.

Aunt Sophie knew what to do. She hid the girl while she cut the rope and told the others to be quiet, and not to do anything yet.

Cutting the ropes wasn’t hard but it took time. Finally after cutting and cutting everyone’s ropes were loose.

The pirates looked sleepy and tired.

"Go! Catch them!"

Aunt Sophie shouted.

The Pirates were taken by surprise and didn’t have time to register what was going on. They were certain that the ropes were impossible to remove, so how come they were free?

“Get up! Get up!”

The boy was awakened by someone.

“Tony, Howard, Josh, Michael, and Leo have been taken as hostages by the people!

The People, have seized the ship and have bound a few pirates.

The boy readies his pistol along with the other pirates. They, however, cannot shoot.

If they shoot the rebels, they might injure them or risk them being dropped in the sea. “We just have one request! We want to go back our port!”

A man said loudly.

“If you release our friends first, we will make that happen!”

The captain shouted. He turned around.

“Prepare the boats for them.”

Everything seemed to be going smoothly, when it happened.

The Pirates shot them. The girl could not understand why. No way! They held the lives of their mates in their hands. Sounds of splashes could be heard. She raced toward the shooting pirates with her pistol. She just wanted to kill the boy.

The boy realizing that the girl was running in his direction, almost pulled the trigger.

“Aimee! Watch out!”

The Aunt Sophie shouted.

The boy stopped his action. The girl pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit his neck and he collapsed. His scarf was undone, showing the blue spot. She could not move. Someone shot her in the belly and leg, and she also fell.

The boy was like a fish out of water, opening and closing his mouth.

“…. Caesar?”

She now realized who he was. It was Caesar Dickinson, her old playmate who has blue spot on his neck.

I still remember the day he disappeared. I cried and cried, and my mother, who was alive at that time, tried to calm me down.

After my father came back from his work, he told me that something unfortunate had happened to Caesar's father. Caesar was taken to his aunt house. I never got to say goodbye and never saw him again.

The boy smiled and closed eyes slowly.

She couldn’t understand it. She couldn’t understand anything. Why did he kill her father? Why did he become a member of the pirates?

Her field of view was getting blurry and dark. She watched the remaining scenes of life including those days with the boy.