Facing Your Only Fear - The Story of Jonathan Turner Book One

Chapter I - Escaping

I was 17, practically a kid. Before the days of the infamous, but battle-smart Carlos Clemente, I was a Spanish privateer. We were looking for any French or British enemy we could see, but what we saw what much more hostile. A monster, -nay, a demon- of skeletal structure demolished our ship in only minimal cannonfire using his giant ship. Hell, this ship could easily out-size the largest British naval ship in their whole fleet, and sink it. This demon called himself Jolly Roger, and he stood at roughly 7 feet. Like Davy Jones, he was considered a myth for years, but he certainly showed his reality in my eyes.

In a flash, he killed my father before my own eyes, as well as the rest of the crew. I was on the ground wielding a sword that I inherited from my father recently. As Jolly Roger approached me, I began to frantically wave the sword towards him.

"A little fight in ye, boy." The creature remarked, "Welcome to the crew!" He held out his arm and strangled me. I began to lose feel of my body, but before he could "kill" me, I slashed his left wrist clean off with the blade and pulled out two pistols and opened fire at two of his skeleton crewmates who dropped dead (again). Once Jolly Roger got up, two of his crewmates were dead on the ground and I was 20 yards out of the water. While I was swimming quickly and frantically away, a lime green light shined on me. I rubbed my eyes, but once I opened them, all I saw was a glowing blue cannonshot heading straight for my head.

Chapter II - The Survivors

I was knocked out by the cannonfire just skimming off my head, and I woke after what felt like forever on the shore of a dark island.

"The boy is alive", said a short, bearded man with pale white skin, as he beckoned other pale-skinned people to come and see. The bearded man was named Edward Palmer, but his nickname was Foulbeard. He had a whole crew of what looked like vampires until I later found out I became one of those "vampires". "Welcome to the crew of the half-soullesses," he said, before he told me all about them. They're people who were captured by Jolly Roger, but managed to escape during the process of being cursed. They have pale skin and turn to ghosts when ever they're about to die, and the only one who can kill them is Jolly Roger, but the problem is, Jolly will always be hunting for them. "I saw ye fight Jolly, ye got a lot o' fight in ye," he remarked, "by the way, we be in search of a ship to defend ourselves from ol' Jolly Roger, and I heard yer a Spanish privateer. Their ships have a hell of a lot of power and speed."

"As a matter of fact, before my ship sinked, Garcia Avaricia had just finished building an extremely strong brig. It took him a year and a half to build the thing," I told him, "he told me if I could recruit more men, I could commodeer it myself," after a short while of more conversating, we picked up a few dingies, and sailed on Foulbeard's old, rusty ship to Avaricia's island. "Senior Avaricia, I have a long story to tell you, and there's no way to shorten it," I told Avaricia when I reached his island.

"Jonathan... what in the hell happened? You're as pale as snow!" He said, with a surprised look on his face.

"My father is dead, we ran into Jolly Roger, and I was cursed," I explained

"That... that thing is real!? Well, I'll be damned, I'm sorry you lost your father."

"It's alright, apparently I never cried, because the curse prevents me from feeling anything," After another conversation, I introduced him to Foulbeard and his crew, and he accepted to give me the ship he was building. Foulbeard, his crew, and I began our adventures of getting away from Jolly Roger and attempting his demise using the ship. We also served Spain and we were a deadly threat to every enemy in our path. That was all until everything changed...