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Terra Nullis

 It was funny at first, but now, not so much. Jenna and her friends have let it slide for awhile, even got up close and took pictures with the rest, laughing, poking and prodding at the surprising amount of detail. 


Jenna glances around the murmuring party too, sees the glances blending nervousness, frustrating, and maybe even a little of morbid curiosity. Someone (Rick?), is getting up close again, shouting, jabbing a finger with a mean looking smile appearing between his drunken words. Something in her tightens, just a bit. The Director, wherever he is, must be fucking fuming; that’s what Jenna says to herself anyway— but nobody comes storming down the beach to ward off the guy, no producers come by to sho them away.


Twenty yards or so from Jensons Blackbeach Bar, there are men on the beach. 


Men, and a ship. 


A galleon hangs behind them extensive and huge and well crafted, because it’s obviously a prop. The intimidating gilded prow juts out menacingly, because these guys are obviously the villains. All in black steel and huge, red sails. 


There are twenty men there, all kneeling between the two half-ashore boats they had arrived in some twenty minutes earlier. They look the part to Jenna, that’s for damn sure, thin and airy and cloaked in heavy looking metal plates with long, crimson capes thrown over their broad shoulders. The faces she can see, occasionally poking up from the huddle— are mean, narrow. Jenna has been to enough drunk parties to recognize that kind of— what? Fear? Confusion? Jenna idly wonders what exactly the scene is that’s being shot, when something loud shatters her thoughts with a concussive roar.


Somebody screams bloody murder and Jenna whirls in turn to knows why. Rick is dead, on the beach. A ragged, bloody hole in half his face. The men are all standing now, swords readied, and the largest of them all stands at the forefront over the corpse with a fucking hand cannon in his arm. Even from the distance, Jenna can see his wild animal hatred. The crowd is stumbling back now, torn between those unaware and confused, and those afraid, trying to flee. Another detonation screams across the night, a section of bar erupting into splinters and glassy shards. 


The galleon has opened fire.

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