Scenario: I’m a pirate.
Create my version of this story
The Caribbean, 1720
I’m a pirate.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that before.
It’s not something I like to brag about, but it’s true.
I’m a pirate, and I’m proud of it.
I have a ship and a crew and a black flag with a skull and crossbones on it.
We sail the high seas in search of treasure, adventure, and rum.
We fight other pirates, the British navy, and giant sea monsters.
We have sword fights and cannon battles and daring rescues.
We live by our wits and our swords and our code of honor.
We are pirates, and we are free.
And we are having the time of our lives.
Right now we’re in the middle of the Caribbean, somewhere between Jamaica and Cuba.
The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the water is warm, and the rum is cold.
I am Captain Jack Sparrow.
I’m the greatest pirate in the world.
And I’m about to get even greater.
The way it starts is, we steal an amulet.
Not just any amulet, mind you.
A jeweled amulet, made of gold and silver and ruby and emerald and sapphire.
“Worth a king’s ransom” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
So, naturally, we steal it.
We have a map, you see.
A treasure map that leads to a hoard of gold and jewels beyond imagining.
And the first clue on the map is the amulet.
We snatch it right out of the greedy little hands of a rival pirate captain, a real scurvy dog by the name of Barbossa.
He tries to take it back, but we fight him off and make our escape.
An hour later, when we think we’re in the clear, Barbossa’s ship comes alongside us, and a boarding party swarms over our deck and grabs the amulet.
We fight them off, but they get away with the prize.
The leader of the boarding party is Barbossa himself.
He’s a mean-looking bastard with a snarly beard and a scraggly ponytail and a shiny earring and two swords at his belt.
He’s also a slippery fellow, because he wriggles out of my grasp and vanishes into the hold with his men, taking the amulet with him.
But he leaves something behind.
A crumpled piece of parchment, about three feet square.
I snatch it up and unroll it and take a look at it.
It’s a map.
Our map—the one that leads to the treasure.
This is our lucky day!
Except for the part where we got robbed by Barbossa’s crew.
That wasn’t so lucky.
But getting the map back is pretty lucky!
I’m standing there studying the map when I hear a commotion behind me.
I turn around and see that Barbossa’s crew has cut our anchor chain and hoisted our anchor up onto their ship.
I take another look at the map, memorizing its details.
I fold it up and tuck it into my coat.
Then I run across the deck, shouting orders.
“Man the guns!”
“Raise the sails!”
“Away anchor!”
We’re going after that bastard Barbossa!
But first we have to deal with the British navy, which has just arrived on the scene in full force.
The Royal Sovereign is the nearest ship, a massive three-decker with fifty guns.
They’ve got their sails furled and their oars out, and they’re rowing toward us with their cannons roaring.
We have no hope of defeating them in battle.
So we don’t try.
We open our gun ports, fire every cannon we have, then turn hard to starboard and flee for our lives.
I take the wheel myself, steering us through the treacherous shoals off Port Royal.
The navy is right behind us, but they can’t catch us.
My ship is faster than theirs, and I’m the best helmsman in the Caribbean.
Meanwhile, my mind is racing.
El Dorado, the fabled city of gold.
That’s where our map is supposed to lead.
We’ve been hunting this treasure for weeks, ever since we stole the map from a Spanish merchant ship.
The map is a highly sought-after prize, coveted by every pirate on the high seas.
It’s also the most useless map I’ve ever seen.
Just a bunch of cryptic instructions and vague landmarks scrawled on a tattered piece of parchment.
Supposedly it leads to the greatest hoard of gold and jewels ever assembled, but you’d never know it from looking at it.
Not that that matters to me.
I don’t care what the map looks like, as long as it gets me to the treasure.
But the other pirates can’t see past the shabby exterior of the map, so they let me keep it.
And now I’m determined to prove them wrong—to show them that this map really does lead to El Dorado.
I steer the ship out of the harbor, past the watchful gaze of Fort Charles, and into the open sea.
The navy is still after us, but they can’t catch us.
I smile to myself, the grin of a man who knows that he holds all the cards.
The navy may be faster, but I know these waters better than anyone.
And I’m not about to let them take my prize away from me now.
I glance back at the map in my coat pocket and press on toward the setting sun, chasing after a dream of untold riches and glory.
The map leads us south, into uncharted waters that no self-respecting pirate would ever dare to enter—if he knew what was good for him.
But I’m not like other pirates.
I’m Captain Jack Sparrow, and I don’t know the meaning of the word “danger.”
At least, not when there’s treasure at stake.
So we sail on, following the cryptic instructions on the map as best we can.
The landmarks are few and far between, and they’re not always easy to identify.
But we do our best, and we trust that the map will lead us true.
Meanwhile, the navy is still on our tail, with more ships joining the pursuit every day.
We’ve evaded them so far, but I know that our luck won’t hold out forever.
They’re too fast, too numerous, too well equipped.
Sooner or later, they’ll catch up to us, and when they do, we’ll have no choice but to surrender—or die trying.
But not today.
Today, we steer a course for the setting sun, sailing ever southward in search of El Dorado.
My crew knows that we’re close now, and their spirits are high.
We may be outnumbered and outgunned, but we’ve come too far to turn back now.
And we’ll be damned if we let a bunch of stuffy British sailors stand in the way of our dreams.
As we sail into the unknown, I find myself thinking about the woman who sits beside me on the deck, her eyes scanning the horizon with an unblinking intensity that never fails to amaze me.
Her name is Elizabeth Swann, and she’s the most brilliant navigator I’ve ever met—man or woman.
I never imagined, either, that she would one day become my ally—and perhaps something more.
I first met Elizabeth a few weeks after I acquired the map.
I had just returned to my ship after a night of drinking with some old friends, and I found her crouching in the shadows, examining the map with an expression of fierce determination on her lovely face.
At first, I thought she was a thief, and I was about to skewer her on my cutlass and toss her overboard.
But then she looked up at me, and her eyes met mine, and I saw the fire in them—the same fire that burns in my soul.
She told me that she was the daughter of Governor Swann, and that she had come to stop me from finding the treasure.
I laughed, of course, and asked her how she planned to do that.
She said that she would find it first, and then she would destroy it so that no one could ever claim it.
Her plan was so audacious, so crazy, that I couldn’t help but admire her for it.
And so, after a long night of drinking and arguing, we struck a bargain.
I agreed to let her join my crew as our navigator.
In exchange, she promised not to betray us to the navy—or to Barbossa, whose ship we had just stolen—until we had found the treasure.
She kept her word, and so did I.
As we sailed southward in search of El Dorado, we grew closer than I ever would have thought possible.
At first, she kept to herself, as befits a lady of her station.
But as we spent more time together, she opened up to me.
We talked about our hopes and dreams, our fears and regrets, our loves and losses—and everything in between.
In time, I came to see her as more than just an ally or a friend.
I started to think of her as a kindred spirit, a soulmate—someone who completes me in ways that I never knew I needed.
I know what you’re thinking: Jack Sparrow, in love?
It seems impossible, and yet it’s true.
I’ve always been a pirate at heart, with a heart as black as the darkest of nights.
But there’s more to me than that, as Elizabeth has helped me see.
I’ve always been a man of many contradictions.
And just as I can be daring and devious, charming and cruel, brilliant and bumbling, so too can I be heartless—or full of heart.
With Elizabeth by my side, I feel more alive than I ever have before.
She brings out the best in me, while at the same time making me want to be better than I am.
Together, we make a formidable team.
We’ve faced many challenges together, including the navy ships that are still pursuing us—and the ghostly galleon that has taken up their trail.
It’s called the Silent Mary, and it’s commanded by one of the most fearsome pirates who ever sailed the Seven Seas: Captain Salazar.
He wants the map just as badly as we do, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it.