With each thrust of my arm, each swing of my sword, the blood spills over my father’s ship. Why would such a young inexperienced pirate try to attack my father and his crew? Does he not know of his reputation, the great Captain Morgan? My seventeen years of life have prepared me for this. After all, I was born with a sword in hand, I was born to kill. I started young too; I killed my mother coming out of her. A man comes running toward me, but before his metal can touch the tint of my skin, my blade travels up from his waist to his neck. I’ve gutted him. If there’s anything I’ve learned from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it’s how to properly kill someone. I can’t even tell if the cannons exploding are bursting through our ships walls, or the other. I look back at my father as I slice the throat of an overweight man. He screams over to me, to the others. We have to push them back, back onto their own ship. But why is this happening? My father has never looked at me with such a burn in his eyes, is this what terror looks like? The thought alone angers me. I scream in frustration as I grab a pistol from the dead body of a crew member and climb the rope, searching for their Captain. I spot him for a moment, but when my finger presses down on the trigger, a man grabs at my leg and takes me down to the deck. The fire of the gun goes off, but hits no one. The man hustles for his sword on the ground as I draw my own. He pins me to the post his sword to the flesh of my neck. “Far too pretty to be a pirate.” He says his breath hot and grotesque. I kick him off and throw him to the floor. I know what he was thinking, what was bouncing around that nasty mind of his. I could kill him, but what satisfaction would that bring me? Before I turn around, I stab both of man’s eyes out. How pretty am I now? I still don’t see my father. I scan the ship and the crew attacking us seems to be retreating. The cannons burst under me, towards the cowards as they retreat. The deck trembles with each blow. I see a crowd of our crew members gathering near the steer. What could it be? My heart flutters when I realize, and as if my legs understand my heart, I begin to run immediately. “Father!” I scream at the sight of him on the wood planks, his chest gushing blood, his life pouring out of him. I place my hand on the wound. It’s warm, welcoming even. I look at my hands, stained with my father’s life as he begins to pull at my long braid of hair. No, this cannot happen. My father is much too strong of a man, much too sly and notorious. He cannot die. I can tell he is trying to say something, and so I bring my ear to his lips. And with his last words, my father names me Captain of his ship. I kiss his lifeless forehead and close his eyelids, before taking the jewel incrusted sword from his hands. I hoist myself to the ledge of the ship with it still in hand. I am Captain now. I now have a ship, a crew and a title. I am now Captain Charlotte Morgan and I vow to be the richest, merciless and most powerful pirate known to the seas. As I scream over to my crew and promise to kill the pirate who murdered my father, they kneel to me. I may not know who exactly plunged the sword into my father’s chest, but I plan to kill each and every crew member of that ship. I will find them.