'A pirate's life for ye!' I read aloud, staring at the note I found stuck to my forehead upon waking. What the hell does that mean?! I wondered, scanning my surroundings for any clue to explain the bizarre message.

'Well, this is definitely different...' I mused, taking in the unfamiliar scenery. White sandy beaches, crystal clear waters and tall palm trees came together to shape a small island I could walk across in minutes. It was an isolated paradise, with nothing but the endless expanse of sea surrounding me.

This sure isn't the Scottish highlands I had lived my entire life in! How the hell did I end up here? Hell, where even was here?!

'Hello?!' I called out, even though it was obvious I was alone on the tiny island. 'Is anyone there?!'

Unsurprisingly, no one answered.

'Fuck!' I swore, looking back at the note I held clasped in my hand. Staring at the note as if it owed me lunch money revealed nothing else written on it as I twisted it back and forth. But then, in my search for answers, I noticed something unsettling.

'What the fuck?!' I breathed, letting the note flutter away on the wind as I looked down at unfamiliar hands. 'What. The. FUCK?!'

Now that I'd noticed it, it was impossible not to spot the differences between my new hands and my old ones. Breathe! I told myself as soon as that thought entered my head. You still have your old hands! This is just a dream. Just a crazy dream!

Where my old hands were of average size, if rather pale, these new ones were both large and tanned, with thick, powerful fingers and wrists.

My arms, too, were different: muscular, bronzed forearms where my slender, pale ones should have been.

Writers who don't leave the house and don't exercise shouldn't have hands and arms that could wrestle lions! I giggled deliriously, feeling my vision darken at the edges.

As much as I'd like to be able to say that the next few seconds weren't spent with me lying on my back in the wet sand, the sea lapping against me after my legs gave out after I fainted, I'd be lying if I said otherwise.

'What the hell is happening?' I asked the sky, feeling a small sense of calm wash over me as I listened to the steady sounds of the sea and watched the clouds drift through the clear sky overhead.

'Alright,' I murmured, stumbling to my feet after who knows how long, feeling strangely comforted by my new voice, even if, like my hands, it was unfamiliar to me with its strange deepness and dulcet tones. 'First things first — let's assess the damage. How much of me has changed?'

Despite the fear such a thought invoked, I forced myself to bear through it as looked down to examine the rest of my body.

Whoo, boy! How did I not realise I've been naked this entire time?

Moving past the disturbing thought of whoever crafted this new body I found myself in being intimately familiar with every inch of it, I felt the cloying fear that had been leaving me lightheaded rapidly retreat as it was replaced with surprised delight at finding a powerful physique that would have made Greek Gods envious.

Now, no doubt some of you are thinking that I seemed rather quick to move past the fact that I had awakened in a strange place in a stranger's body, yes? Well, I challenge any of you to mourn a life of loneliness and lethargy when you've seemingly been upgraded to Captain America standards of physicality.

'Wow!' I whispered, staring with fascination as I made my newly discovered pecs flex and my drool-worthy abs tense. I look like a fucking superhero!

And the family jewels have definitely received an upgrade too! I crowed, glancing down to see something far larger than what it had replaced. Fuck me, they haven't half! That's got to be at least twice the size of the old Mr. Mini Me!

'Yeah!' I shouted, my exhilaration at being so ridiculously ripped and well-endowed getting the better of me. 'I'm a motherfucking beast!'

Breathing heavily, it was a belated realisation that my face had no doubt received a similar makeover as the rest of my body that had me quickly marching towards the sea and wading into the water until it was a little above my knees.

'The ladies are going to love me...!' I grinned, seeing the rough outline of my new face smile back at me, my handsomeness so potent I almost became Narcissus 2.0 and lost myself in my own reflection. In fact, I was so, so, so incredibly good-looking it was actually bordering on unnatural as my face was so perfect it looked like it strayed the edge of being uncanny; my new appearance was so exquisitely handsome I could've held my own next to supernatural beauties like the highest of Tolkien's elves or Rowling's veela or Butcher's White Court Vampires.

With considerable effort, I managed to stop fucking around and poking my face like it was made of play dough and return to the beach.

Dropping down to sit on the soft sand, I tried my best to find some measure of calm, which, thankfully, was achieved much quicker and easier than I had expected it to.

'Whoa...!' I whispered, giggling madly as I found my mind had undergone a similar upgrade to my body. No longer was it like my old laptop: slow, prone to forgetting things and taking an age to work through anything complex. No, now my mind was like a supercomputer: sleek, powerful and in total control. My old, sluggish brain that used to trip over social situations and overthink everything had been replaced by something more... efficient. 'This is so fucking cool!'

With the slightest flex of my new mind, the lingering existential terror prowling at the edges of my thoughts was obliterated, leaving only a sense of cool, calm collectedness.

However, as awesome as it felt to experience such clear-headedness, said clarity made it obvious that whoever had transformed and transported me here hadn't taken into account that I needed to drink and eat.

There's nothing here! I frowned, looking around at the sand and more sand with only a few lonely palm trees to provide some meagre shade.

A quick search of the island confirmed it—there were no hidden resources, no helpful supplies tucked away like in some swashbuckling adventure. It was just me, stranded.

Absent answers, food, water and any means to acquire them, I slumped onto the ground at the base of the largest palm tree on the island and leaned back against it as I stared at the horizon.

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What to do? What to do? Looking down at my new hands again, this time absent a mind-rending terror of disassociation, I realised it was unlikely that whoever put me here had done so only to watch me die from dehydration or starvation.

'I could sleep...?' I pondered, thinking to pass the time between now and whatever my benefactor had planned for me to use such an impressive body. And it is my benefactor, I decided, having resolved to look at this as an opportunity rather than a hardship. After all, to describe whatever entity was kind enough to remove me from my boring life and gift me with such potent physical enhancement as anything less would be doing them a disservice.

'Wait! What the hell am I doing?!' I face-palmed, realising I had fallen prey to the same mentality so many owners of beautiful cars did; my powerful body wasn't just something to look at and admire as much fun as that might be, but something to be used!

Throwing myself into the basic bread-and-butter exercises I had struggled with in my old body, I blew through them now, experiencing not even the slightest struggle as I managed more than I could have ever thought myself capable of before. Gone was the struggle to do a few basic pushups as I repped out a few dozen easily with strict form, not feeling the slightest hint of fatigue even as I started to get carried away and perform movements I had only ever seen on the internet. Grinning, I soared through clapping pushups, one-arm pushups, and Superman pushups.

'Fuck, yeah!' I whooped, hopping to my feet and sending sand flying everywhere. 'Saitama eat my heart out!'

Not content, I changed exercises, shifting to squats only to find they were just as easy as the pushups, even as I sprung along the beach doing them on one leg as if I was moving on the moon, my muscles so powerful they seemed to treat gravity as if it was merely a suggestion.

Breathing heavily more out of reflex than any need, I stood with my hands on my hips and surveyed the mess I had made of the formerly picture-perfect beach.

'God, I really am just like a superhero!' I realised, said epiphany resulting in one last test of my physical fitness springing to mind. With nary an effort, I jumped into the air, twisting so that when I landed I struck that iconic superhero pose: with one hand and one knee touching the ground, I had never felt so cool!

Wading out into the pleasantly warm waters, I revelled in my newfound physical prowess. In fact, so absorbed was I in picturing all the ass I was going to kick and pick up (not in that order obviously, after all, my momma didn't raise no woman beater), it took me far longer than it should've to realise that the pleasant soundtrack of the wind and sea had been interrupted by distant shouts.

I really need to learn to pull my head out of my ass! I kicked myself, cutting through the water like a scythe through wheat, my body instinctually adopting a technique that would have made sharks jealous of my speed.

Rounding the small island, I bobbed in place as I watched a large ship a few hundred meters out slowly approach as it cut through the waters in my direction, the small figures of its crew dotting its elaborate rigging, wrestling with the ship's many sails.

Rather embarrassingly, it took me a disturbingly long moment to realise what was wrong with the pretty picture, the lack of any modern technology not immediately occurring to me.

'That's a frigate!' I stared dumbly, watching as a sight I had only ever seen in films and TV shows came alive before my very eyes. 'That's a real fucking frigate! What the hell is it doing here?! Jesus, have things got so bad the Coast Guard are using antiques to rescue people now?! Wait...!'

It was only then, as my improved eyes picked out how the ship was manned by those wearing a motley assortment of garments, each armed with archaic flintlock pistols and swords, that a possibility, something I thought only the purview of wish-fulfilled fanfiction, occurred to me.

'Time travel!' I breathed, the mere words creating a wave of excitement that rushed through me, leaving a warm, tingling feeling behind as a world of endless opportunities sprawled out in my mind's eye. 'I'm a time traveller!'

Alas, if those last words were more of a girlish squeal of joy than a manly rumble... well, you'll have to forgive me for being more excited than a coked-up husband with a hall pass who'd swallowed half a bottle of Viagra before kicking in the door to a Vegas whorehouse.

Ignoring the impossibility of such a possibility as I lumped it under one of the many great powers my beneficent benefactor must possess, I could only stare at the approaching ship with increasing awe as more details were revealed; with as close at it was now, I could see its many cannon dotting its decks and hear the sounds of its officers haranguing the crew to keep at their jobs lest they suffer their captain's displeasure.

Surprisingly, despite the busyness of the crew, it wasn't long before I was spotted, an arm belonging to a bearded face pointing down at me from over the railings.

'Cap'n!' The man's harsh yell reached me as it carried over the waters. 'There's a man down there!'

Having decided I had been transported through time, the only thing left to do now was figure out where and when I was. The first, at least, was obvious: I was somewhere in the Caribbean. How did I know? Well, everything I had seen so far, as little as that was, was synonymous with the said place the world over; sandy white beaches, palm trees, and sparkling blue waters.

Also, it didn't hurt my assumption that the aesthetic of my tiny island prison was one seemingly pulled right from one of the greatest trilogies ever made featuring a certain wobbly-legged pirate.

When I was... well, that was a slightly more difficult nut to crack. However, taking into account the type of ship that now was but a few dozen meters away from me, the arms of its crew, and the puzzling note left behind by my benefactor, I'd say a safe assumption would be sometime during the Golden Age of piracy.

However, before I could ponder the particulars about my strange but exhilarating situation any further, the ship adjusted its course so that it was no longer heading near enough straight for me and my island, but instead aiming for someplace off to my side, leaving the length of the ship's broadside to come into view.

'Ah! I understand!' I grinned, feeling only anticipation as a change in direction of the large ship revealed that it was flying the infamous Jolly Roger from its rear. 'A pirate's life for me!'