"When I awoke the next morning..."
When I awoke the next morning, I was surrounded by chickens. My head was throbbing and for a moment, I couldn't remember how I had gotten outside, or why I was sleeping on the road.
It didn't take long for the memories to come back: memories of the pirates invading, of Elizabeth being taken. I'd been fighting them, and thought I had been winning, but one caught me from behind and everything had gone black. The next thing I knew, the sun was up and there were chickens everywhere. I'm still not sure where they came from.
I was frantic to find Elizabeth, scared to death that too much time had passed while I was unconscious, and that the pirates had taken her too far to follow. Or worse, that they had harmed her in some way. After all, everyone knows the terrible reputation pirates have when it comes to beautiful young women. If anything had happened to her, I would never have forgiven myself.
To this day, I can't go near a chicken coop without feeling a momentary flash of panic. I'm not actually afraid of the bloody birds, but the sound of them never fails to bring me back to that morning, when I thought I'd lost Elizabeth forever.
It didn't take long for the memories to come back: memories of the pirates invading, of Elizabeth being taken. I'd been fighting them, and thought I had been winning, but one caught me from behind and everything had gone black. The next thing I knew, the sun was up and there were chickens everywhere. I'm still not sure where they came from.
I was frantic to find Elizabeth, scared to death that too much time had passed while I was unconscious, and that the pirates had taken her too far to follow. Or worse, that they had harmed her in some way. After all, everyone knows the terrible reputation pirates have when it comes to beautiful young women. If anything had happened to her, I would never have forgiven myself.
To this day, I can't go near a chicken coop without feeling a momentary flash of panic. I'm not actually afraid of the bloody birds, but the sound of them never fails to bring me back to that morning, when I thought I'd lost Elizabeth forever.