Never-ending beginning

Schools of fish sped around the ship, ignoring its presence. It’s been there for decades, if not centuries already anyways. Not to mention they were fish.

It was an old boat, clearly repaired and remodelled multiple times, the various types of wood and planks making it look like a homeless person’s coat. The foremast hung broken over to the side of the ship. Nothing moved.

A surprising thing, given that the ship was situated at the bottom of an ocean ravine, life teeming all around it. All kinds of algae moved in the water and fish and crabs and other sea creatures roamed the vessel’s vicinity. None of them came close to it, though.

Then something approached the ship from above. A small piece of flesh, slowly drifting to finally touch the ship’s deck. It appeared the sharks above have caught themselves a meal.

The doors of the captain’s cabin suddenly flew open to reveal a dark silhouette. The silhouette stepped onto the little balcony attached to the stern, overlooking the rest of the ship.

It would click its tongue, but there wasn’t one in its mouth. Light reflected off the bare white bones. This was no human. This… this was an undead skeleton, the only piece of clothing some short pants. The bones wiggled as the creature observed the ship with its empty eye sockets.

“How long have I slept this time?” it spoke. Evidently, the lack of flesh didn’t take away its ability to speak.

“To the locker with all of them. Am I supposed to do it all myself?” it spoke again, anger clear in its voice. Who were they? It scratched its ulna bone. “Bloody sailors, you can never depend on them.” Ah, it was cursing his crew. It's old, now dead, crew, at least.

The skeleton stepped forward towards the mast. If it wanted to sail, it would need its sails of course!

Although the ship was underwater, all the ropes were still there. To be fair, the only damage the ship apparently had was the broken mast. Which the skeleton promptly ignored. The main and mizzenmasts were fine after all!

Grabbing a rope swaying from above, it climbed up to the mainmast, as quickly as a squirrel would climb a tree. The lack of muscles was no obstacle. At the top, it stopped and observed the surroundings of the ship. The whole ravine was enveloped in darkness, with not much to see. Then it turned its skull upwards, to where the sunlight was breaking at the very top.

Its ribcage expanded and shrunk. Was that a sigh? What was this skeleton, its actions reminding of a human so much? Perhaps… was it once human itself?

The bizarre creature then took to untying the sails and letting them fall. Slowly, but surely, it uncurled the cloth, showing that it was similarly patched as the ship itself, numerous colours stitched together. Then the skeleton climbed down and rushed up the mizzenmast. Curious, how it could move very fast, but uncurled the sails so slowly. Almost with passion. But it couldn’t be that… could it?

After some time, the sails were finally floating in the sea currents. Yet the ship didn’t move.

Tilting its skull, the skeleton looked over the ship's edge. Ah, a rock was lodged into the hull, of course, it couldn’t move. It was stuck.

“Damn them. I hope they suffer for eternity,” the bony creature cursed again. It might appear pitiful, was it not for the fact it was a strange construction of bones, which shouldn’t be able to move. Let alone speak and act as a human being!

The skeleton jumped off the ship’s bow to land beside the rock impaling its ship. It was almost like it didn’t matter that it was under thousands of tons of water. It inspected the spike in quiet.

It was quite an ugly piece of stone, sticking out of the ground. It seemed the ship had fallen right onto it, the rock deeply embedded into the wood.

“Poor Mistress. Why was this necessary?” the skeleton then said. It was surprisingly talkative for something deep beneath the sea’s surface on an abandoned ship. It seemed it liked its voice.

Rotating its arms at the elbows, the skeleton put its left hand flat on the rock, bringing the other one back in a fist. Then it punched.

With a muffled explosion, the rock crumbled. Dust and algae formed a cloud that spread slowly through the water.

Then, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, the skeletal being jumped back onto the ship. It walked back on the stern, to where the captain would usually stand. It held onto the boat’s wheel. The ship still didn’t move.

The skeleton slapped its skull. The anchor! How could the ship set sail if the anchor was still lowered!?

Immediately, the creature went to the anchor and pulled it back on the ship. It was a heavy iron hook, no wonder the ship would move. Then the skeleton ran back to the boat’s wheel.

Now, as its bony fingers touched the woods, the ship moved. It jumped off the sea floor and slowly started rising. Evidently, the broken mast and a massive hole in the hull didn’t present any problems.

The skeleton kept its gaze… or something, on the approaching surface. It might be smiling, but then again, all skulls smiled, knowing the answer to the final question.

A flicker of light caught the captain's attention as the ship ascended above the sea ravine. A sea horse was observing him from nearby.

“Ha! I’ve gone mad! A seahorse? Observing me? Ha!” it laughed. Then it looked back to the surface.

Very soon, the vessel surfaced, pushing away the waves of the open sea and welcoming the shining sun. Water rushed off the ship, returning to the ocean.

The skeleton laughed loudly. “I’ve returned! I’m back! Beware, sailors of the world, for Davy Jones has reawakened!”

Then the sunlight hit Jones’ bones and they burst aflame. Davy Jones, the Dread of the Sea, burnt into ash moments after seeing the sun. Except for the waves hitting the ship, silence descended on the sea. The boat swayed in peace.

Until the last of the ash flakes was carried away by the wind. The ocean rushed back into the hole in the hull, filling it with water. The vessel sunk once again, falling back into the same spot from where it rose.

Schools of fish sped around the ship, ignoring its presence. It’s been there for decades, if not centuries already anyways. Not to mention they were fish.

It was an old boat, clearly repaired and remodelled multiple times, the various types of wood and planks making it look like a homeless person’s coat. The foremast hung broken over to the side of the ship. Nothing moved.

The seahorse that had taken the skeleton’s attention swam to the ravine and looked at it from above.

Another fail. Good. We don’t want you going around the seas again. Stay in your locker Davy, your age has passed.