These are the confessions of a known pirate, intended for Commodore Smith’s eyes and none other. I only hope that my words shall reach you and that you will be merciful upon my family after my admission of guilt, for a guilty admission this most certainly is, one of truest and most dreadful cancertainty and remorsefulness. Upon the abandonment of my naval duties and my joining thereafter of the pirate outfit under the rebel captain known as ‘Blackhand Morgan’, I have witnessed a great many insults dealt unto God and all that is good and pure in this world. Crimes of which a scoundrel most foul would sneer at and perhaps even the devil himself would condemn. Men, women, the infirm. Babies. I have first-hand witnessed ‘Morgan’ cast dozens at a time into the sea from our ship as they cowered on the deck. They all begged for mercy, but of that mercy they were cruelly denied.

Even among the waves, they huddled. Just as they did both while aboard our own vessel and as we first descended on theirs like Hell incarnate. We set upon the last one, a merchant ship, the way children of the devil would. With great fury and unrelenting barbarity. But alas, I cannot even attest to the singular nature of my sickening atrocities. I was compelled. I was ushered to, by mystical providence. I do not not lie, and I do not blaspheme, for I have been led among my heathen brethren to an island of supernatural terror.

I ask, with all my heart, that I be forgiven in the eyes of Christ. I beg for my children, whome still live without me on the New England shore, that they may lead good lives and that they know that I am sorry. So very sorry.

Soon, my soul shall be forever tarnished. I am to partake in a ritual of some sort, truly diabolical in nature. There is a cave on this island, where we house our captives. The last we have taken before we become something else. Something unholy. This is my fate. I have made my bed with evil men and to that I must resign myself, but not before I set free one innocent so that they may tell this story. So that they may deliver this parchment upon which I now write.

I can hear them, screaming so loudly, even from my hidden spot near the cave’s mouth. The horrendous echo chills me to the point of inability to continue, but I know that I must. I pray that you may be able to locate this accursed island before it is too late. You must burn it. All of it, from the beach inwards. Do not venture inside the caves.