Island Cove

My name is Shelly Mcoy,

I am the captain of Sandy; Yes the greatest ship in the world!

I am from Atlantica the land of sailing

Today my sailors and I are going to the never explored, mighty shored

'Island Cove!'

I have always dreamed of going there and finding the buried treasure that was said to be there. I have always carried Joan Cove's Journal. She has always been my idol. She was the one who found Island Cove but died mysteriously never to be found ever again...My grandfather had given me Cove's journal to read and understand her amazing ways of sailing how she made sure all her sailors were safe but alas, her sailors betrayed her and left her at the death creek while they sailed home. Only 1500 miles to go till success.

A storm hits Sandy. The thunder roared, the lightning struck, breaking the sail, people screamed, people died. But somehow Shelly survived the next day at an unexpected place!

Yesterday's storm had hit us hard. But we survived, at least some of us. I lost half of my sailors and my chief commander. It was a horrific experience for all. But right now, I have no idea where we are but we are on an island with tall coconut trees, green oceans, a volcano that looks quite dormant and no civilization anywhere. While my sailors were waking up from that horrible nightmare of a day I went off to explore. Very luckily, Cove's journal stayed dry and didn't get lost!

While exploring I noticed many other ships that had crashed on the same island, found many skeletons and some dead people with the skin still attached to their bones. It looked like a lot of people wanted to go in this direction...but wait!! Island Cove is the only island in the north for the next 2000 miles!

I quickly opened Cove's journal and noticed her description of shipwreck island was exactly the same! She too had seen the skeletons, the palm trees, the green ocean and the shipwreck boats. I couldn't believe I was on shipwreck island !!

I had found Island cove! And so did these other sailors, er..well almost. Now to find the Treasure. According to my map, we need to get to the actual island, go around the hangman's tree and straight into the forest. But how to cross the water? Our ship has crashed, we can't swim so far and we don't know what kind of dangerous animals swim there. I have an idea, I can use the wood from these other broken ships to make a sturdy raft!

Shelly and the remaining of his sailors built a sturdy raft. They safely reached the island and headed towards the hangman's tree

We reached the hangman's tree and now we are one step closer to the treasure. Oh, look! There is the ever famous hanging man. He was called Sir Chekov. He was the original founder of Island Cove but he hung on the tree before he could tell the world. People say that he and his commander in chief fell into war because the commander in chief wanted all the gold for himself but Chekov didn't let him. In the end, Chekov hid the treasure and refused to tell where he hid it so the commander in chief hung him from this tree to scare the rest of the sailors. On the search for the treasure he died. Nobody had found the treasure except for Cove but she left the treasure as is and ripped out some of the pages from her journal but left the map to find the treasure. I still to this day wonder why she didn't take the treasure.

Suddenly Shelly and her crew noticed something move in the tree.

Run!!!!! The skeleton has come to life after 600 years! It is screaming some words in Hawaiian

''E haʻalele i kēia wahi a i ʻole e pepehi ʻo ia iā ʻoe!'' Luckily, I knew Hawaiian but he was saying something weird. He said that we needed to leave this place or he would kill us. Who was 'he' and why would he kill us. The skeleton followed us for a long time but one of its bones flew into his nose so he stopped chasing us. We were all relieved but now we didn't know where we were! I checked Joan's map to find any landmarks and I saw something similar to the cutlass beach. We saw axes and swords. By looking at the weapons we believed the story was true! There was a brutal battle here. We need to move to the smugglers' cove into the pirate's retreat and down to the blue lake then into the forest.

After hours of walking, Shelly and her crew reached the smuggler's cove but they were very tired, parched and hungry.

The day is almost coming to an end and it is getting dark. We are very thirsty and we are starving. I think we should take a rest in the cove, maybe get some water and food from the trees and the stream nearby. I sent 2-4 people to get water, 5-6 people to get food and I went checking for animals we could hunt and cook. I grabbed some swords from the cutlass beach for hunting and to scare away animals. We will continue our search tomorrow.

The next day, Shelly and her crew set out for a pirate retreat; they had no idea what was waiting for them there…

We have reached Pirates retreat. Everyone is refreshed and full of energy. We were robbed of our fish last night by an animal, so we couldn't have anything for breakfast but we carried some coconuts with us for hydration.

We are walking into the pirate's retreat surrounded by grey mysterious skies, clouds that looked like they were about to brew a storm, lightning so powerful it could kill you just by the sight of it, palm trees with coconuts hanging by a single thread of coir, the coconuts had drawings of angry men on them, the bark of the trees had engravings of tally numbers on them. Cheap jewellery with broken pearl necklaces and bloody swords laid on the floor. Bottles of alcohol and dentures made of gold were kept in a pile of rocks. Seven men hung from a tree by their legs because the rest of them had already decayed. Skeletons laid everywhere you turned, Spiders, Skulls and thorns were everywhere. And finally, in a hut made of leaves, 13 pirates sat dealing cards.

They heard us walk in and stumbled while they dropped their fake copper glasses. They said "Who's there?! Whoever you are, leave now before you end up like the others!" I asked boldly that we just needed to cross their retreat and that we don't mean to disturb them. They came out of their hut and asked "First tell us who y-" then they stumbled back gathering their swords and raising them towards me. They screamed "The holder of Joan must be fought like war, to lift the curse and send us ashore" I didn't understand what he said at first but when I saw one of them pointing at Joan's Journal I knew what was going on. I knew they were challenging me to a duel but I didn't know why!

I politely asked them what I had done and why they were challenging me to a duel. They explained

"How can you hold Joan's book without knowing about the curse?" I didn't know what curse he was talking about and I had read all of Joan's journal and it said nothing about the curse. One of the pirates helplessly exclaimed "Joan's commander took all our gold and put us in a barrier curse which we haven't been able to leave for the past 100 years. We tried and tried but it was like a wall it wouldn't budge. So now the person who has Joan's book has the reversal spell and we need to duel you if we want to be set free."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing! I was holding the power of letting these people free! Without hesitation, the pirates started attacking me and my sailors we fought with all our might. The sound of the swords clashing was like thunder. It was 18 against 13 so we had an advantage but the pirates shredded some of my sailors and I was left in shock to see I had lost 14 of my sailors. 2 were brutally injured but luckily, we were able to escape.

Shelly and the four other sailors walked down to the blue lake, luckily it was just a mile down. They had food, water, washed off the blood of their bodies and resharpened their swords. Then Shelly notices something sparkle in the water…

Look! There is something shining in the water! It looks like the golden sun disintegrated into a million flecks! Let me dive in and see what it is...

Gold! Real pure gold... This must be where Sir Chekov and his commander dug up the gold and treasure. The rainwater must have created the lake. They must have started fighting over who kept the gold before they finished digging and when the commander came back to collect the rest of the gold it was already filled with water. Me and my new commander in chief, Xander dived into the water and collected as much gold as we could. Happy with the amount of gold we had collected we moved on. We are close to the forest. I can see the trees from here; grey skies, lush green leaves, trees were almost sixteen feet high. It was getting quite dark so we decided to set up a fire and stay the night there. We had to sleep empty stomachs as there were no streams for fish or water. But we did find coconuts, for hydration.

The next day, Shelly and her four remaining sailors walked all the way to the forest. They were searching for the treasure when...

Look there is a door on the groundnut it's locked! I check the journal and she says that she left hints around the four trees that surrounded her.

They searched and searched but found a bunch of riddles on the tree barks. The riddles were

'The day Checkov came alive'

'The pirates retreat'

'The distance between Atlantica and the island'

'The year I reached the island'

And then it struck me! The day Chekov came alive was 9th April 1856 So one of the numbers is 9.

The pirate retreat had 13 pirates! But wait we can't use a 2 digit number...What if I add the two then I get 4! So one of the numbers is 4.

The distance between Atlantica and island cove is 1500 miles! Add the digits and we get 6. The next number is 6!

The year Joan reached island cove was the year 1845. Add up the numbers and get 18. Further adding it we get 9. The code is 9469!

I quickly jump to the door swiftly entering the code. It opened! There was a huge treasure chest laying on the ground. I was ecstatic!

Happy with what they had received, Shelly and her crew happily carried the gold all the way from the forest towards the death creak. They figured that they could make a ship from the coast. While moving towards death creek, the unthinkable happens! Shelly's commander in chief turns on Shelly and starts fighting against her, completely forgetting the love she had given Xander! Turns out this was his plan all along! The storm hadn't killed the commander, Xander had killed him. Xander was steering the ship and had steered into the storm on purpose trying to kill the commander but when it didn't Xander himself killed the commander himself blaming it on the storm. He was the grandson of Joan's commander and knew everything about the curse on the pirates but never mentioned it to Shelly or she wouldn't trust him. Now, he had gotten Joan's treasure by using Shelly and now that he didn't need her anymore, he wanted to get rid of her once and for all. So he fought her brutally and pushed her over the edge. She tripped and fell off the cliff and fell to her death. At least that's what Xander thought...

I can't believe the person I trusted with all my heart turned out to be such a jerk! Luckily, Xander thinks I fell to my death but I was able to hang on a rock on the cliff. My hands are slipping every second. I don't think I will be able to hold on longer. I feel weak, I feel like every second that passes will be the end of me...I must hold on, can't let go! Aaaaaaah! I can't hold on longer! I had to let go! I guess everyone has their time to leave. I guess mine has arrived. Wait! Something has grabbed onto my leg and it's pulling me closer to the surface! Is it an animal? Perhaps, a bear?! No, no, no I don't want to be eaten to my death! Why god why? Just let me die in peace! "Can you just shut up! Or we'll leave you to actually fall to your death! We are not bears! We are here to help you!" I couldn't believe my eyes! Once they pulled me up I was so thankful to the PIRATES!!! The pirates had pulled me up and saved me! But I had so many questions. How did they escape the cursed barrier? How did they know I was here? Why did they help me?! Little did I know..they knew everything that had happened...

After helping Shelly out; Shelly asks the pirates questions she had.

The Pirates explained "After we fought the dual, one of our pirates accidentally tore a piece of paper from the book. We read what it said and because we were the 6th generation of pirates the curse had become weak and only needed the reversal spell to be read. We all read the reversal spell and we were free!

Then we wanted to bring down some medicine and food to you and your crew because we felt bad for fighting you for no reason at all, but we overheard Xander talking to your crew about killing you at The Death Creek after finding the treasure. We had made a plan to kill Xander before he could do you harm but he spotted us and killed our eldest pirate. We suffered a great loss and were thrown off track. We knew you would be at the death creek but we were uncertain if we would be too late… When we came to The Death Creek when we saw Xander push you off the cliff. We hid behind a bush so he wouldn't see us and hurt us again and then came to rescue you."

I couldn't believe what I had heard… The pirates were quite smart for not being educated properly their whole life. I felt really bad that they had to go through all this trouble and lose one of their members so I promised them some gold from the treasure.

I had a new crew now. A crew I could depend on. A crew I could trust.

We were moving towards the end of the island; packing swords, smoke bombs, etc.

We planned and planned on how to defeat Xander and finally came up with a foolproof plan.

Finally, we saw Xander; Two other crewmates of mine and I dressed up as Xander's crewmates (my old crewmates) and slowly kidnapped each of his crewmates. Any crewmate who made noise or tried to warn Xander was sliced in half. After we had kidnapped all of Xander's crew we finally decided to face Xander.

The war was brutal… The swords clashed, the blood splashed, people screamed, but my mistakes were redeemed. Before I knew it, everyone was dead except Xander and me. We stared into each other's eyes and saw the hate for each other burn into flames. I was shocked to see him drop his sword and bend down on his bloody knees. He said " I'm extremely sorry…. I cannot believe I did it…. You see, I am the grandson of Joan's commander-in-chief; Marlon and it was an order from my father to find the gold and bring it back to the family. I tried everything to resist falling in love with you but I couldn't help myself". This didn't make sense to me, how could he love me if he had pushed me to my death! He said that he was being monitored and had to send a pigeon every day about what was happening to his family and yesterday he had gotten a message saying his grandfather (Joan's commander-in-chief) had died and the family had no longer cared if he had redeemed the treasure or not. He was devastated but not because his grandfather had died but because he had thought I was now dead. He knew he could never forgive himself and so cut off the leg he had pushed me with. I felt sorry for the guy and decided to give him a second chance. Before I could say another word, Xander pulled me towards him, his lips pressing against mine, he help my waist and clenched my arms. Should I trust him? Was he really a good person? Was he really forced to kill me? Couldn't he have lied and told he was going to kill me instead of actually killing me? The the unthinkable happened; Xander turned to the side I was standing and a man from my old crew (wearing a mask) stuck a dagger through his back.

He looked at me in pain and whispered softly before falling to the ground "I'm sorry, goodbye" I looked at him in pure agony and was crushed inside to have found out that he had sacrificed himself to protect my life! I quickly removed the dagger from Xander's back and shoved it into the crewmate's chest. Then I removed his mask and I couldn't believe who it was! It was Marlon Ray!! It was Joan's commander in chief!!!! I was extremely confused and wondered if Xander had lied to me again! But then I saw a book similar to Joan's in the hand of Marlon and as he fell to the ground I snatched his book and cried on Xander's body. WIshing I had known that Marlon had been with us this whole time.. I now knew I couldn't get back what I had lost but I tried my very best to keep Xander's memory alive. I had never fallen in love with Xander while he was alive but now that he was dead I couldn't help but think he was the only man I loved. I gently kissed his cheek, wiped of the teardrop from his face and hugged his body which was now covered in blood. I needed to stay strong for my crew but I couldn't help feeling helpless and weak. But I was their leader, so I put on a strong impression and asked my crew to bury Xander in the ground. I couldn't do it myself, I didn't have it in me. Till the crew was burying him I opened Marlon's Journal and found out what had been going on.

But that my friends is a story for next time...