HoloPirates: A Tale of Adventure

The Pirates Life Ain't for Me

I slowly woke up to the darkness of the cargo hold, the sound of the sputtering and chugging steam engine filling my ears, as well as the creaking of the ship, the sloshing of the waves, and the distant sound of thunder from the approaching squall line. As I laid in the hammock, rocking from side to side, I had a rather unpleasant feeling plaguing my stomach, having been there since the time I went to sleep. As I toiled with the feeling of the unpleasant stomach, I looked over at the Storyteller, and I noticed that he was wide awake, just staring at the ceiling.
"Hey man, why are you up?"
"Can't sleep. I haven't slept in eons."
"Dude, what the hell, you need sleep."
"I cannot. I've been so worried about the stories. I have been wondering if Lightning is doing a good job or not."
"Thats the guy you put in charge while you're gone, right?"
"Right." He said. "He's my right hand, and I trust him with my soul."
There was a pause between us, and I decided to try and bridge the gap.
"So.....how exactly did you become the Storyteller?"
"Well, I don't exactly remember. I will have to think more on the subject, and perhaps the answer will come to me later. But for now, just know that I just am the Storyteller, a God, if you will."
"So wait. If you are a God, whatever you say happens right?"
"Well, its more writing based, but sure."
"So can you write that some hot girl will fall for me?"
"It doesn't work like that. It takes time. A good story takes twists, turns, drama, and true love comes at great costs sometimes."
"But can't you just write something in?" I said. "Like this. Just write that, I don't know, an apple, will appear in my hand in the next second?"
"An apple?"
"No, an orange. Yes, an apple dude."
He gave me a weird look.
"Fine, simple things such as that, yes, I can simply 'write' into existence."
He pulled out a pad of sticky notes from his back pocket, then spoke something, speaking in a language that sounded older than time itself, and a pen appeared out of thin air, dropping into his hand. He wrote onto the pad of notes, then said something under his breath. Suddenly, and out of plain, thin air, a bright red apple was formed, literally dropping out of time and space, right into my hand. I turned it over and over in my hand, examining it in detail. It was real.
"Thats incredible." I said.
I looked at him, and he gave me a shrug before he yawned while putting up the paper and pen.
"I'm going to sleep. Gonna try to at least."
"Okay. Night dude. I'm going for a walk."
"Very well. Goodnight."
I climbed out of my hammock as the ship rocked back and forth in the water, and I walked through the mass of sleeping bodies in hammocks, going past all of them to reach the stairs to the gunnery deck. I climbed up the stairs, then through the gun deck, careful not to trip over any loose ropes or cannonballs, and thankfully, I made it across the deck without tripping and busting my shit open on anything. The deck elevated as the ship rocked over another wave, and I felt my stomach grumble. For a while now, as I was on the ship, I had felt rather seasick, a byproduct of never having been on a sailing ship before, or any other kind of ship for that matter. I wobbled my way over to one of the cannons, then sat down straight on the meal surface of the barrel, just trying to steady myself as the sick feelings coursed all over me.
"Ohhh what the hell." I said, leaning back against the support structure above me. "I hate being seasick."
I sat back forward, attempting to steady myself yet again, but as the ship rocked over another wave, my stomach growled louder, and I felt the sick feeling rising higher and higher. Immediately, I popped up off of the cannon, ran my way to the stairs, thundered up and over them, then got to the railing of the deck just in time.
"BLEEEUAAHHH!!!" I gargled, retching my stomach's contents down into the sea below.
I leaned back when the initial sick feeling had passed, and I sat down on top of one of the barrels, pulling my pirate's clothes closer to my body as a chilling, twilight breeze blew over the deck.
"Ughhhh." I groaned, wiping my mouth. "What the hell did you get yourself into, Micheal?"
I put my face in my hands, just trying to recover from the seasickness as I questioned my decision to help out this guy. As I sat there, just relishing in the twilight breeze, I heard footsteps coming closer and closer. I looked to my left, readying myself for a fight, and I saw that it was just Jansen, standing there with a lantern in his hands.
"Can't sleep?" He inquired.
"Y-yeah." I said, my jumpy nerves starting to calm down a bit. "I just couldn't sleep, so I figured that I would come up here for a little bit."
"And then you got sick?"
"Yeah."
He gave me a nod as he set the lantern down on the ground, being extra carful to not set the flame next to the gunpowder charges, and he ran his hands through his jacket.
"So you need someone dead, huh?" He said, just trying to get a little bit of conversation going.
"I mean, not really me. Its more of the other dude that wants someone dead."
"Ohhhh, so they've got beef and you're helping him?"
"I guess, kinda." I said, trying not to give too much information away to this guy that I barely knew.
"Ahhh. I don't mean to probe, it's just I want to know a bit more about the job, you know?"
"Yeah, I get that." I said. "Its really no problem man."
He sat down on the cannon that was adjacent to me, and he looked out over the sea.
"Soooo, where are you from?" He asked. "Seraphime, Wake, Bay of Silence?"
"Uhhhh, I'm not from around here."
"Oh, so is this your first time aboard a vessel then?"
"Yeah, kinda why I got seasick."
He gave me a nod, and I suppressed the urge to sigh with relief as he thankfully changed the subject before he caught me in a lie that I didn't want to tell.
"So Marine told me that you guys got mutinied, what the hell was all that about?"
"Well, Micheal, its the reason we don't have a second mate. Most ships of this size have a first and second mate that assist the captain, and even larger ships have third mates, but we have none, because Marine doesn't want to trust them. But, on the subject of the mutiny, the whole thing was orchestrated by a man named Rodrick Ackner. Has she mentioned that name to you before?"
"Yeah, she told us just a little bit about him and the mutiny, but she didn't really go into detail about it."
"Aye, I thought she wouldn't. Its not something that either of us are really proud of. Crew surrounded us, Ackner beat us up, then tied up the both of us to a rowboat and kicked us off of our own ship towards a deserted island. And the crew, I think they were on the ropes about the whole thing, because they exactly didn't help him, but hey, they didn't stop him either."
"Must've sucked." I said, folding my arm to keep myself from freezing. "I really hate backstabbers and two faces."
"Aye that!" He said. "Us pirates be a treacherous lot, but the best of us all follow a code. These new pirates like Mr Ackner, they don't follow codes. Its just a free for all for them."
I nodded, and truthfully, it did kind of remind me of back home. I never was one of those thug types, but I wouldn't say that I was a good kid either. And honestly, even though I wasn't a good kid, there still were morals that my friends and I followed, but, outside of my friend group, there were other kids at my school and on the street that didn't follow any sort of rules. And boy, did that land me in a lot of fights with kids, both inside and outside of school.
"Alright, I'm off to bed for the night." He said. "You really should get some sleep, because there isn't a lot of time for it during the day."
"Alright man, I'll get back down there. Thanks for checking up on me."
"Not a problem. Catch ya later."
And, with that, he turned around, and he started to march back to his cabin, leaving me alone on my barrel.