Friendly Fire | Teen Ink

Friendly Fire

March 2, 2023
By kylertackett, Springfield, Ohio
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kylertackett, Springfield, Ohio
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Author's note:

I like pirates. 


Ever since they were kids they have dreamed of how they would set sail and explore  the seven seas. They used to imagine all the fun they were going to have and how rich they would become. Their parents would always try to warn them and would soon  realize that no matter what they could say, their children were still  going to set sail and explore the seas. Now, in their current predicament, they would  realize how foolish they were, and that being pirates is not anywhere close to how fun they thought it would be. 


Calico, Blackbeard and Johnny LaFitte  are now preparing for their adventure. They all gather their personal belongings and say goodbye to their mothers. They load up the ship with a month's worth of food for their first adventure. Then they proceed to set sail, raising the anchor, orientating the sails. As they ponder what awaits them a flock of seagulls flys by, splashing sparkling water upon the side of the boat. They fly above the boat with pellets of water shining, creating a beautiful rainbow along the edges of the boat. As they grow farther and farther away from the island the waves begin to thrust harder against the sides, throwing them around. Soon it all stops and they gather around the bow of the ship, small waves bounce throughout the sea, the waters gleaming as if a little girl had poured her glitter tub all over the sea. Dolphins jump around leaving small rainbows for a few seconds, even though they just witnessed one of nature's most beautiful sightings, they still wished they could have seen the sun set behind it. A few hours pass and they are starting to plan on how they will survive and how they will get from island to island. Luckily Calico brought his map that he was given on his 10th birthday. It displays a big area around their home but the rest is blank and is up to them to fill out. They also need to discuss what roles they will be for their pirate adventure. After about 30 minutes they decided their starting roles will be Calico being the Captain, Blackbeard being the navigator and also the cartographer, and then Johnny LaFitte is the chef of the boat. 


Johnny Lafiite just finished cooking lunch for the crew. Just outside the kitchen the crew sat in the galley chatting away. Johnny LaFitte comes out professionally like any butler would. He brings out the entree which is some exquisite crab cakes. Then he sets the silver platter in front of the crew, and as he opens it hot scalding steam starts gushing out and heating the room. As the steam dissipates it slowly reveals the main course, which is Ahi Poke Tuna Pizza. The dessert is a vanilla fish shaped cake named Taiyaki. They all devour their meal and start talking about their goals on this adventure. Johnny LaFitte starts them off on how he wants to just help the world and make it a better place. He goes on how before he met the two of them that his life was horrible. His family was poor, he had no friends, and most nights he didn't eat. But once the three of them met up, his life started to turn for the better. He had people to hang out with and his mom and him would sometimes come over to eat. Then his dad came home and overall his life beca—. BOOM!


A loud explosion echoed throughout the sky. They all scurry along and check all of their surroundings to find this enormous mobilized Moby Dick. Gunpowder starts spreading throughout the sky as more and more cannons are fired their way. Calico takes the initiative and orders the three of them to start firing shots towards the monstrosity that is trying to take them down. Blackbeard heads below deck to start patching up any damage that might take place. The area is filled with booming explosions and only ever silenced when they take a break to reload. Calico heads to the helm and starts taking them in the opposite direction of the boat. But no matter what they did the Moby Dick pirates just wouldn't fall behind. Johnny LaFitte quickly grabbed some ink and a quill and started writing. In seconds he placed his note down and ran for the mast. Johnny holsters his flintlock and grabs his cutlass. He starts climbing the mast and grabs hold of a rope and starts swinging. He lets go at the end of the swing and jumps over the bottomless sea. He sticks the landing and starts taking on a few of the pirates. He runs through the bodies and finds the helm. He turns it to the opposite direction of their boat. He sticks his sword in the helm making it stuck in that direction. Then he goes to the stern. He sits there and stares at his beloved crew. Thinking about what they would have done together. Calico and Blackbeard are already on course to get out of there and turn around and head to the stern crying for Johnny to come back. Johnny hears loud thuds start making their way to him. Quickly Johnny screams out “Thank you for everything, I'm so glad I got to meet the two of you. Please survive and live out my dream. I'll mis-”. His voice was silenced by a loud crackling sound. Smoke starts rising and they start to lose sight of Johnny as the smoke consumes his surroundings. 


Hours passed since the incident. Calico and Blackbeard layed there, staring into the starry sky. Wondering what they could've done to prevent this. The eerie silence was swiftly interrupted by the sound of seagulls scurrying. Blackbeard slowly got up and searched the surroundings. He noticed the island that they were heading straight for. Blackbeard, without saying anything to the questioning Calico, went to the anchor and dropped it. Calico starts getting up now and they stop to stare at this island. The island is massive, trees are towering over each other, the forest is filled with a dark abyss with only few rays of light shining through the treetops. 

They decide they could try to get some more food for their journey. They prepared and then set off for a quick mini adventure to hopefully brighten their moods. They walk off the ship onto this humid island. Blackbeard ignites his lantern and they start edging towards the very scary forest. 

 Ominous stomps echo throughout the forest. As Calico leads the way his body starts trembling as the impending chaos that comes with those steps heads toward them. THUD BOOM POW THUD! In front of them a small little bush rustles and a small creature called psittacosaurus. It sees the two of them and scurries back into the bush. Calico grabs some berries from the nearest tree and offers it to the cutie. “MRAH MRAH”. “I think a splendid name for this creature shall be named Rango ” said Blackbeard. They continued down their path and picked some fruits along the way. Then Calico started getting this stalked feeling. Sweat starts flowing down his neck, the sun beams through the tree blinding him, seconds pass and he is just rubbing his eyes trying to get to see again. All of a sudden he feels this heavy breathing run down his spine. His sight slowly starts to fade back. He looks at Blackbeard and notices that he is just standing there, not moving, not speaking, just shivering and staring. Calico starts the movement and Blackbeard starts shaking his head no towards him. A gust of “wind” passes by and blows away some brush next to Calico. All of the sudden Calico has this 6th sense feeling that whatever is behind him is going in for the kill. He dashes for the dense part of the forest and as he does he hears this loud snap behind him. He sprints past the trees hoping that whatever tried to eat him will get stopped by them. After running for a couple of minutes he came to a stop and rested on a tree. Feeling sorry for leaving Blackbeard behind he quickly reminds himself that there was nothing he could have done. He was the one being chased so there is no way that Blackbeard died. Mid thought he hears some very loud sounds. They don’t sound like footsteps so he is not as worried. But as the sounds get louder and louder he starts thinking of what could possibly be the cause of the deafening sounds. He starts thinking about how far it could be and he comes to a conclusion of about 200 feet. Seconds pass and it's just step after step. Then an earth shaking scream echoes throughout the forest. Suddenly it stops and there is a loud thud. Calico, who is very curious, sneaks out of his hiding spot and heads in the direction of the sounds. He sees this massive T-Rex tied down with massive cut wounds down his neck. 


Calico sees 5 people around the dead T-Rex. Calico, still wary of who they are confronts them. After a bit of awkward time looking at each other, they introduce each other, Smokey, Dokey, Chokey, Pokey, and Todd. All of a sudden a man with a cloak comes out from behind the end of the T-Rex. Suspecting him to be the group leader, Calico starts to feel anxious. But at the same time he gets this reassuring feeling as if this mysterious man is someone he has met before. All of the side discussion suddenly stops, the whistling of the wind fades away, he reaches for the hood of his dark green robe. He gets ahold of his hood and starts pulling it down, the wind whistles briefly then quickly stops as if it knows the suspense, he looks up to see his friend Calico. Calico screams oh my god Johnny its you! Calico trips over the tail of their prey but quickly stands up and hugs Johnny. Calico’s tears start flooding down his cheek, Johnny just stands there and just holds him back. Small rustles come from behind the 2 of them. The 5 pirates grab their cutlasses ready to attack. Blackbeard bolts to the 2 of them not caring about the other 5 guys. He starts rumbling on about how much he missed Johnny and why he would want to sacrifice himself. Johnny slowly opens his mouth just to quickly shut it back up. He turns away from them and orders his guys to cut up the T-Rex and bring it back to the ship. The 2 of them are chatting to each other wondering why Johnny is acting so strange. He was never the type to stay quiet even if the predicament was serious.

 

They start their way back to the ships, still wondering why Johnny is acting this way. Calico starts thinking it might be because we did nothing to try and stop him but Blackbeard quickly interrupts him to say that Johnny did it all by himself and there was absolutely nothing they could have done. They arrived rather quickly even though they were on the other side of the island. Conveniently they were docked right next to their boat. The two of them thought this was rather strange but thought nothing of it and it must have been a coincidence.


The starry night sky covers over the party on the 2 boats. Calabashes in hand they all drink their rum and devour some T-Rex kebabs. Hours later the party is still thriving, everyone being extremely drunk, except for Calico and Johnny. Calico confronts Johnny asking why he is not joining in on the drinking. It makes sense for Calico to not get drunk because he is the Captain and needs to be ready for anything. Johnny having his first words since the terrible incident that got them separated. Johnny goes on to say that he can not afford to be drunk when his plan is already in motion. Calico, who was already confused because Johnny has been acting strangely ever since they saw each other again, just keeps thinking about what he said. Johnny gets up and heads over to the center of the party with the rest of the pirates. Blackbeard sees him and asks him about what happened after the great Moby Dick incident. Johnny sits there thinking. It becomes quiet, a minute or two pass and Johnny starts talking. “After I went on the boat I started running and shooting just trying to get to the stern. Once I arrive there I turn the wheel into the sun away from the 2 of you. I stab my sword into the ground stopping it from being able to be moved. I became fulfilled with what I have done, I went to the bow of the ship to look for you guys. Then soon after I hear loud footsteps coming in my direction. Once he was there and took his shot my instincts kicked and I dodged out of the way and jumped into the sea. They must have assumed there was no way I was going to live in the middle of the ocean, nothing but a gun which became useless because of wet gunpowder. I start searching, praying that there is something that I can find that could help me survive. Then I notice this small ship in the distance. I started swimming their way and some miracle happened and these fine gentlemen with us today saw me splashing away in the water and came to my rescue. Then I asked their Captain Todd if we could go in the direction of you guys to see if we could ever see each other again and here we are now. Blackbeard adds that Johnny always had a bit more luck than the average person. The party thrived on for about another hour, then around 1 a.m. everyone headed to bed. Calico and Blackbeard invited Johnny over to their ship for old times sake. Johnny gladly accepted and they all went over to their ship.


Blackbeard and Johnny both headed straight to their quarters while Calico sat at the row of the boat thinking about all of these events. Calico is so glad for Johnny to be back but he just can't stop thinking about what he said. Calico, coming to a blank on what they should do decides to head down and get some rest. He starts to get up and walk down the stairs when all of the sudden there was a loud crack that filled the empty night. It sounded like it came from our ship so Calico runs down to check on Blackbeard and Johnny. He opens Blackbeard's door to find Johnny standing over his bed. He looks over at Calico and backs up and says nothing. Calico  rushes over to the bed and sees a hole going straight through Blackbeard's head. Blood oozed all over his bed. It was like a river, it was just nonstop. Calico quickly grabs his sword and charges Johnny. Johnny reacts and clashes with Calico. After their first clash, Calico was quickly overpowered by Johnny so in their 2nd clash Johnny won and stabbed Calico in the arm. All of a sudden loud bangs kept exploding and seconds after the noise their ship rattled and started to fill up with water. Calico starts yelling at Johnny asking why he would do this and if they even had a bond between the three of them. Johnny responds that they used to have a small bond, but the 2 of you always were just better than me. You always acted like I was worse than you because I came from a poor family. Calico quickly remarks that that is not true, we always wanted the best for you, it hurt us to ever see you suffering. Johnny ignoring Calico’s possible lie goes on to talk about how they also did not try a single thing to save him from those pirates. Calico said they really wanted to but if they did something it would have most definitely ended up in our doom and your sacrifice would have been in vain. Calico realizes that Johnny’s guard is down. He starts preparing for a chance to attack him. Johnny keeps going back and forth about what they could have done but instead did nothing. Finally Calico sees the perfect opening and strikes, he jabs his cutlass through Johnny’s stomach, Johnny with good reflexes was able to dodge an instant death to the heart. Calico again asks why Johnny would ever do this to his friends. Not wanting to hear another word from Johnny he quickly stabs him again, near the area of his lungs. Calico runs up to the main deck and starts repairing what he could. He hears from the door of his room some small scratching noises. He remembered that Rango was on our ship and we were a couple miles away from land. Calico slowly realizes that it is too late for the boat. He walks into his room and cuddles with Rango. Trying to reassure the dinosaur before their inevitable doom takes place. Calico picks him up and heads up to the main deck. He finds this decent sized bucket and places Rango in it. He places a bowl full of water and a lot of food into his bucket. Grabs a feather and paper and starts writing. “If you find this please help me, my name is Rango and I love fruits”. He puts all of the things into the bucket and lowers him into the sea in hope that Rango gets saved and finds a good home. 


Calico heads back down into Blackbeard’s room to just think. He walks in blood flowing out of the room, he steps in splashing and painting the walls red. He sits on the end of Blackbeard’s bed. He tries to avert his eyes from the bloodshed that has taken place in this room. The boat starts skating more and more indicating that he is running out of time. He lets a single tear fall down his eye, trying to think about all of the good times they had together. He lets out a chuckle then submerges into the sea, never to be seen again.



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