Double Drabble: 'Lockers'
Two hundred words of Jackishness and (eeep!) unbetaed, but hopefully OK, written for the current drabble challenge at Black Pearl Sails.
~ Lockers ~
Jack woke from one nightmare (shackles, Kraken, teeth, excruciating pain) into another (white heat, the Pearl stilled in an endless, airless waterless, timeless waste).
The Locker.
Not good.
He ran.
Heart thudding, straight for his cabin, boots pounding the black deck, fingers clawing at the door, tearing it open with startling ease, slamming it shut behind him, and in that split second remembering the destruction wrought by the Dutchman's bow cannon.
Except it hadn't, apparently.
It was as though time had stopped the morning before they'd reached Isla Cruces. Map stretched upon the table, straightedge atop it, ink and quill beside it. Blankets rumpled. Stern intact, gallery windows admitting the hellish glare. And there was the bottle of rum he'd been nursing - the same one with which he'd tempted... Elizabeth.
He sank against the door, something shifting inside, tilting disastrously.
"Clean your cabin, sir?"
His gaze slid left. Jack. The cabin boy.
A horridly similar voice on his right soothed, "Just go with it, mate. Spot o' rum'll set you up."
Rum.
Gathering himself, and the one bottle, he nodded to Jack. And Jack. "Carry on."
Who knew what other areas of the ship might yet be intact?
~.~
~ Lockers ~
Jack woke from one nightmare (shackles, Kraken, teeth, excruciating pain) into another (white heat, the Pearl stilled in an endless, airless waterless, timeless waste).
The Locker.
Not good.
He ran.
Heart thudding, straight for his cabin, boots pounding the black deck, fingers clawing at the door, tearing it open with startling ease, slamming it shut behind him, and in that split second remembering the destruction wrought by the Dutchman's bow cannon.
Except it hadn't, apparently.
It was as though time had stopped the morning before they'd reached Isla Cruces. Map stretched upon the table, straightedge atop it, ink and quill beside it. Blankets rumpled. Stern intact, gallery windows admitting the hellish glare. And there was the bottle of rum he'd been nursing - the same one with which he'd tempted... Elizabeth.
He sank against the door, something shifting inside, tilting disastrously.
"Clean your cabin, sir?"
His gaze slid left. Jack. The cabin boy.
A horridly similar voice on his right soothed, "Just go with it, mate. Spot o' rum'll set you up."
Rum.
Gathering himself, and the one bottle, he nodded to Jack. And Jack. "Carry on."
Who knew what other areas of the ship might yet be intact?
~.~