A Good Choice

The man flew out of the way, allowing Pierre's sword to dig deep into the deck. As he struggled to remove it from the thick planks, he felt something brush the back of his head in a rather violent manner. He felt something warm and wet running down his neck. He fell down.

Through a mist of red prickly dots he could hear the cannibal priest shouting, "you idiots! The sacrifice has been spoiled!" A loud scream and a thump was heard. Pierre felt a dark, deafening silence wrap around his skull. He passed out.

Pierre opened his eys and looked into the angular face of Gerard, his dark-haired First Mate.

"Where are we?" Pierre asked, noticing that his voice sounded like a box of rusty nails. He cleared his throat with great difficulty. "Is everyone here?"

"See for yourself, Captain," Gerard said.

Pierre stood up, shaking off the feeling that someone had fired a cannon through his head. Surveying the dimly lit room, he saw many of his crewmen sitting on the floor, looking fairly broken. Some of them had ugly bruises on top of the old ones, and he noticed that several of the more burly sailors were missing from the group. The rest were slumped against walls made of thick logs. The roof was low and made of straw.

"We thought we'd lost you, sir!" Gerard said. "What happened to you?"

"I had a little run-in with their leader," Pierre answered. "But tell me now what happened to you lot. The whole ship changed, and I was suddenly all alone with those freaks..."

"You mean you didn't hear it? Skulls, they just appeared out of thin air! Not just around us, but amongst us! We didn't stand a chance. At least Jack Bone and Will Telling got their throats slit before those bastards could tie us up," he said with a mix of pride and sorrow.

"Bless their souls," Pierre said. "They died with honor. I fear that we will not experience the same."

"We're in some kind of village now," Gerard continued. "I reckon there's about 500 of those guys around here. They have a few rifles, but I don't think they're keen on wasting too many bullets." He paused for a second. When he spoke again, his voice had turned into a whisper. Pierre could feel his smelly breath stroking his face. Gerard's eyes were filled with sudden fear.

"They eat people, sir! I saw it myself through a crack in the wall. It was horrible, sir. They cut old Jack up like a chicken before they...

We've got to get out of here, sir."

Pierre realized they were in real trouble this time. But he still had his crew with him, and they had been in worse situations before...

1. Flashback!
2. Flashforward!
3. Pierre and his officers devise a cunning plan.

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