“Damn it’s cold.” A frail sounding voice exclaimed, a voice most would ignore it being late may and all. “What’s happening? Why can’t I remember anything?” The voice questioned although this time no sound was actually heard.

“Here, here all gather around for the execution of William Kid guilty of treason against the crown, his exact charges are those of piracy, having robbed british merchants outside the costs of India. He has been tried, found guilty and ordered executed by hanging.

“Ha! Pirate stupid bastard for getting caught. Serves the pirate scum right.” The voice exclaimed, or perhaps a better choice of words would be thought. As the words left the beings very much figurative mouth he felt greatly conflicted, it felt somehow wrong. He tried the words out once more “Pirate scum, stupid bastard.” They seemed like a logical enough choice of words, but they still did not sit right with him, as the being contemplated this mystery so called man of the hour spoke up.

“Last words you say? I have nothing to say except that I have been sworn against by preju-” The man started then paused before continuing with. “You know what, it does not matter, I will only say this, ahem, fuck! You! All! Especially you God. See you in hell bastards!“ After he’d spoken to the crowd and everyone present was stunned for a moment, the man in charge however soon recovered and gave the signal, and thus Kidd was hanged. Though it did not quite end there as the moment the trap door under the man’s feet opened up, as if inviting him to hell, the rope snapped and the man named Kidd failed to die.

“Well this is surprising and quite ironic.” The man carrying out the execution. “Normally a failed execution is interpreted as the will of God desiring us to spare the criminal, but as your last words included cursing the almighty I’m afraid I will have to ask the priest for further instructions before I can let you free. The man said sounding genuinely sorry over having to delay, whether it was the execution or the release he was sorry about was not clear.

Upon finishing speaking the hangman turned towards the south were a group of men dressed in white tunics where huddled together discussing something with great gusto. After a good few minutes the discussion seemed to become less fierce and eventually they sent forward a representative to the hangman who in certain words spoke.

“We of the brotherhood have concluded that, due to there being confusion in regards to the matter of the convicted’s supposed innocence he shall be hanged once more and if the almighty would speak again he shall go free.” Upon hearing this the man in question looked like someone who wouldn’t even be that upset being hanged in the first place, simply crushed. He wailed out. “Every goddamn time!” further sounds of exclamation erupted from the audience. Then the trap door opened and he was hanged one more and this time God remained silent.

Suddenly there was a vortex of colors. Everything was shaking as if the world itself had suddenly decided to try LCD, then the world slowly sobered up and the scene changed. The being found itself on a ship of sorts, at least it looked that way they seemed to be in that really fancy room reserved for the captain, that most vessels seemed to have. The walls were lined with bookshelves filled with some books, though it was mostly miscellaneous knicknacks, interesting objects that did not fill much purpose but were too valuable to simply throw away. In the hut two men were bent over a table with a map on it, talking.

“We have to go after them, we would be fools not to!” One of the men said he had short brown combed hair and spoke with a gruff voice. "Look, we can cut them off here, in the Bay of Exidus and they won't be able to escape.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“True, we could do that. But in my years as a captain I have found that cornered prey is often not the kind easiest to hunt, and why risk attacking a large vessel when there is still plenty of loot to go around from last time.” The other man responded in a much more nonchalant manner that screamed, I know more than you so shut up and let me deal with it, in a fairly condescending manner. Something that was highlighted further by him slowly sipping at a glass of red wine.

“I know that you don’t care, you never do, why would you? You already have it all: big ship, large crew, riches of all kinds, but that is far from true for the rest of us. There are many here among us who want to make a name for themself, think of all the poor bastards in your crew that spend all day scrubbing the deck dreaming of something more!” The man pleaded.

“I am sorry Ronnie but I am not interested at this time, and neither should you be and whilst I know that you can’t see that now someday you will realize that this was for the best and thank me for it.” The red haired man said, turning to look out of the window looking quite cool whilst doing soo.

“Well in that case you might not deserve the role of captain.” Suddenly a knife was thrust at the man's back and just as it was about to connect with his kidney the dagger was instead acquainted with the lower metal grip of a saber.

“You court death I see.” he said and then in one swift motion turned and decapitated the other man and as his head rolled the man proclaimed “God dammit! I knew I should have gone with the red carpet.” The man then sheathed his saber and walked outside and what he was met with turned out to be quite a surprise. Around the door a crowd of people were gathered looking expectantly towards the door. An extreme sense of excitement on their faces, the expression soon however shifted to surprise when the captain walked out of the room alone. Some of the members craned their neck in order to see inside the room and judging from their expressions they were neither expecting nor liking what they saw inside.

“I am going to need some volunteers for body clearing duty.” The captain said. No one responded. “Well I know it’s not a pleasant job especially since it is one of your comrades which needs disposing of, but someone has to do it.” The silence persisted. “Tell you what whoever does it gets second pick next time we find loot.” The silence continued yet again for a while then one large fellow spoke up.

“We don’t take orders from you any more, we all spoke about it and we said that Ronnie would be the new captain if you didn’t agree to attack the Santa Bella.” His voice was laced with nervousness, especially when the captain turned to look at him, but in the end he stood strong and when he turned around his friends stood by him. Then as one they marched onwards it was quite heroic and inspiring really. What followed was a bloodbath and left standing, well sitting, at the end was the captain although survival prospects did not look too good for him either.

“I fucking hate dying.”

“Well who doesn't.” The ethereal being said, and whilst he meant it to sound ironic it came out sounding very compassionate. Then the world blurred once more…

Having spent quite a bit of time, well existing the ethereal being was beginning to see a pattern questioning things like “Why am I seeing the same mans dying moments over and over again? And why does he dye so many times anyway? I thought you only got one go at that whole thing!? And how come all of these deaths are so exciting and weird shouldn't he die from old age or cancer at least once? I mean look what's happening now The Captain, as I’ve come to call him, is fighting a sword battle with a woman whilst traveling at immense speeds on some weird metal object and whilst I am not sure exactly how, it will undoubtedly lead to his demise. It’s so frustrating he shouldn't even be dying so much; he is clearly incredibly skilled.” And just like the universe demanded he was impaled the next moment after the strange contraption came to a sudden stop. As the ethereal being was taking a closer look at the monstrosity that killed The Captain this time he happened to have a look at a piece of mirror at the side that cars usually have, and thus for the first time he saw his reflection and whilst being a momentary shock it soon made sense.

“Fuc–” Kidd woke up.