The creaking sound of the wooden ship rang in his ears as he slept face down with his stomach pressing on the hard mattress of the bonk bed within the rookie quarters.
Heavy footsteps on the wooden floors drew nearer to the room and bam the door swung open slamming the bed.
Springing up in shock was a dark-skinned boy, who looked to have just passed his coming of age, with his wooly black hair in a complete mess.
"Oi, Rookie, get the fuck up." Said the man who had swung the door open.
"Yes Sir." He replied in confusion as he jumped down from the bed, dressed in a white raggedy shirt and black shorts.
"Get your lazy ass out of here and go help them on deck, take the box of cannon balls down in the storage with you."
"Aye, Sir." He replied as he rushed out of the rookie quarter.
With the man holding him back with his large left arm on his shoulder. He turned around and looked at him.
In a scared voice he asks, "Sir, can I help you?"
With a face covered in scars, and an eye patch over his left eye. Donning a purple frock coat and sky-blue poet shirt, with a large belt that had twin golden mermaids as the buckle, having two guns lashed onto it. He smiled, showing off his golden right canines.
"Don't die out there boy."
"Aye. Captain." He replied as he ran off down the lobby and went down into the storage room below the mate's quarter.
On entering the large storage, he stopped for a quick second. Looking all confused and anxious.
"Where am I?" He asked himself as he looked around the storage room of the ship, walking through the isles of wooden shelves. "Who is that man? What was that metal around his waist? Why did I call him captain and why do I sound so weird?"
Questions flooded his mind, as he walked in this completely unfamiliar environment, which somehow still felt familiar to his body.
He could hear the smashing of the waves on the body of the ship. And the sound of heavy footsteps coming from above him, as if men were running from something dangerous.
"Bang."
The sound of a cannon fired, resounded in the storage which laid directly below the deck.
"Ahh." He shrieked in shock as he fell.
"What is going on?"
He noticed the box of cannons the captain had told him to carry next to where he had fallen. And immediately picked it up.
Gaining his confidence or more so the courage to move due to the fear of getting hit by whatever had exploded earlier.
Dying in a place far from home was not something he had imagined when he went to bed the day before.
On reaching the deck with the box, what he saw as he opened the door, was a sight he had never seen in his life before, but once again it somehow felt familiar, as if he had once lived as one of those men right in front of him.
Dark clouds covered the sky as lightning gave light to the night at different intervals. Flames covered parts of the deck as men bigger than him ran around with guns and swords from one end of the extremely large ship to the other.
He could hear the voices of different men shouting at each other. Some say to send the injured to the infirmary while others requested for more cannon balls and bullets.
"Oi rookie, bring those over here." Yelled a slender looking man with blond hair and two missing teeth in his lower mouth.
Snapping back to reality he rushed towards the man with the box.
"Boom."
The ship shook heavily as a cannon ball hit, tripping him before he got there, releasing the box from his hands as the cannon balls rolled out.
As he quickly stood up, he heard another man shouting. "The Kitchen's been hit, Cap. The kitchen's been hit"
People ran with buckets of water from the other end of the ship, close to the forecast, to the doorway that led into the kitchen. Trying their best to control the flames.
Picking up the cannon balls as fast as he could, as the slender man was now looking furious, he raises his head towards the right side of the ship where one of the balls had rolled to, in a fear he staggered backwards at the sight of the big black ship next to theirs, filled with men all wearing red masks with black skull paintings on them.
Men from both ships began swinging from one ship to the other to engage in close quarter battles with their swords, while others got shot down into the sea before they could make a landing.
The captain of the Jolly Mermaids pulled out his guns and fired it into the sky above him.
"Doom."
At his feet fell one of the masked pirates.
"Doz! Show yaself. How dare you try to steal from me and my boiz in this storm." He shouted as he looked straight at the window of the navigator's room in the black ship.
"Your silence tells me you have chosen these tempestuous seas as ya resting place. Fire the twin mermaids at the Black Dozer." He says pointing at the golden and black cannons, with a double barrel and an opening big enough to fit a whole human body.
A big man walked up to the cannon holding two large red cannon balls, which he proceeded to load into the barrels.
"Return to..."
"POFFFFFF."
A red SOS beam shone above the ship.
The flare had been fired from the crow's nest.
"Captain Parch... It's the Kraken!" Yelled the scout who was positioned there as the ship's snipper in case Doz had shown himself and rejected the captain's offer to withdraw.
"POFFFFFF."
A green SOS beam followed, but from the Black Dozer. With Captain Doz now standing on the stern castle deck.
"Return to the ship boiz. Parch, your luck today was brought to you by the seas. So also, was your demise. We shall pick up yar bones and gold from the bottom of the seas. Farewell old friend." He said as he walked back into the navigator's room.
Following him was a thick black smoke, like the ink of an octopus, clouding the Black Dozer. As the ship disappeared from sight.
"Shit!" Parch exclaimed angrily as he shot the floor on which he stood. "Hurry up boiz we need to get out of here before the Kraken..." He stopped speaking as he noticed the great silence that had fallen on his men.
Slowly turning his head, he came face to face with the eye of the Kraken. An eye so big it covered the whole back of the seven-story high Jolly Mermaids.
The crew all knew the slightest noise or movement meant sudden death for them all. The whole crew but the one rookie who screamed in fear.
"Shit." Said Captain Parch as he pulled out his silver sword, which turned red hot and engulfed in flame. Trying his best to distract the Kraken.
But unfortunately for him, even the Kraken's one weakness and fear, fire did not distract it nor trouble it as it lost parts of its tentacles to his slashes.
Its mind was fully made to pick up the rookie and the rookie it did pick up and lifted out of the ship.
At the same instant Parch jumped down to the main deck and lit up the twin mermaids, firing the red cannon balls at the kraken.
The blast was so strong it tore through its largest tentacle which held the rookie. As he jumped to catch the falling rookie, down came another tentacle swinging in fast and heavy at him.
Luckily, he was fast enough to block it but got flung into the large mast of the ship and slammed him into the twin mermaids.
Before he came to, the rookie had fallen into the ocean and the Kraken was gone.
Down in the sea, now drowning was a boy looking less young than the rookie from early, gasping for air and trying his best to not drown.
As he struggled to hold himself up, below him were the large eyes of the monster who had chosen him for its first meal before it returned to the Jolly Mermaids for its main course. And above him through the water he saw the shadow of an extremely large bird, soaring so high within the dark clouds.
Again, the feeling of familiarity returned to him in this unknown place, as he watched himself slowly drift into the mouth of the Kraken, he springs up from his bed.
Sweating profusely, in his night garment, his bed completely soaked, was a dark-skinned boy, with a terrified look on his face.
"I'm alive?" He says as he touched his head and rubbed his hand on his chest, looking all over his body. "What was that, where was that?" He adds as he looks around his room. The one he remembered going to bed in.
And to his left was the face of an old lady.
"Argh!" He screamed as he shifted backwards.
"Shhhhh." She placed her right index on his lips. "Calm down Ore, it's granny." She adds as she slides her index up his face to his forehead, which has now reached temperatures high enough to fry an egg.
'Seems like he just experienced his first dream. Can't let him go out like this.' she thought to herself, with her eyes closed as she drew a circle on his forehead using her fingernail, slowly calming him down and making him feel safe again.
"Well, you just had an interesting experience but for now, you won't need to remember this." She said with a smile
"Huh? What do you mean Nana?" He replied as he slumped back into his bed, after she tapped the center of the circle she had drawn.
"Wakey, wakey, today you become a Hunter." She says smiling, with the curtains now open and the sun's light hitting his face.
"Nana. Minror." He greeted her as he stood up with a broad smile on his face. "Today I'll become a Hunter. Dad's going to be so proud of me."
'Yes indeed. A Hunter.' She says with a slightly sad look on her face as she watched him run out of the room, high in spirit to go cleanup for the day. 'An impossibility for someone who dreams my dear boy.'