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|| Jurassic World: Black Pulse ||
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PROLOGUE – FALL
Main Character: Leandro Silva
Location: En route from Portugal to Central Africa
Year: 2005
Leandro's Age: 14
POV: First Person
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The plane smelled like metal, sweat, and old blood,— not fresh, but the kind that clings to you even after you've scrubbed your hands raw.
We were only four,— the last men standing after what happened a few hours earlier.
João sat across from me with his ribs wrapped in bloody gauze, Miguel hadn't spoken since we took off, and the third man, César, kept shifting in his seat, glancing out the window like he expected the sky to split open again,— or to offer us some kind of salvation, something I don't think would be possible for us.
None of them could meet my eyes when my gaze found theirs, and yet I didn't blame them for it.
My parents were dead, so was my sister, my uncles, and every cousin and consigliere I had ever known. Gone in one night.
The family my father had tried to unify,— burned apart by those he trusted most.
And me? I wasn't crying.
I had already done that earlier, alone in the back of the armored van, somewhere between the gunfire and the fire-bombs.
Said tears had dried up, and what I felt now was something colder...
We were headed south, they told me there was an old contact of my father's running a facility in Gabon, Africa,— a place no one could touch us.
"Just until the dust settles." they said, but we all knew better than that. César suddenly stood up from his seat, and pulled a steel case from the wall.
I knew what was in it before he even opened it. Wrapped in deep navy cloth was a black-gold Desert Eagle,— my father's weapon.
The grip carved with Portuguese filigree, with diamond inlays like fading stars. I used to watch him clean it at his desk while he spoke of the world he was building sometimes, though I guess I won't get that chance anymore now.
"He was going to give this to you." César said, pulling me out of my mind, letting it rest in my hands. "When you earned your place."
I didn't answer, simply stared at it.
It felt somewhat wrong in my grip,— clearly too heavy for someone still in a school uniform.
João mumbled something then,— a prayer, maybe, while Miguel just kept staring into nothing, which ennerved me quite a bit, if I was to be honest.
The red light of the emergency signal above us blinked once, and then twice, confusing me.
Then everything happened at once.
A high-pitched screech tore through the plane, like something had struck us from above, or below...
Metal screamed loudly, and the cabin tilted hard left. Oxygen masks were dropped, and César was yelling something in my ears,— or maybe it was just me doing the screaming.
I clutched the pistol hard in my hands, as the case fell to the ground. In front of me, João slammed into the side of the fuselage quick and hard.
And then… flames everywhere...
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I woke up in mud, after what felt like hours,— though it could've been seconds.
There was smoke in the sky, and fire in the trees all around me.
My ears rang like someone had stuffed cotton in them and set it on fire, and the world tilted sideways. I tried to move, but my legs wouldn't move right.
My ribs burned like hell, and the air smelled like jet fuel and blood mixed together.
My father's pistol was still with me,— scorched, but whole. I looked up at a canopy of green leaves and smoke, and that's when I saw them.
Men in black boots, mud-caked fatigues, with combat rifles slung over one shoulder.
A man stepped out from the rest, like a ghost,— unbothered by the wreckage.
He crouched beside me and peeled the gun from my grip, whistling low. "Nice piece!" he muttered in my face, while the men around him snickered, their accent thick. Eastern, maybe South African. "So you're the cargo."
I didn't speak, or rather, I simply couldn't.
He looked me over again, then stood, throwing me over his shoulder like dead weight. "Don't worry," he said, starting back into the jungle, alongside the other armed men,— mercenaries perhaps. "You'll live."
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[ END SCENE ]
[ FILE TAG: SUBJECT ZERO – TRANSFERRED TO MERCENARY CONTACT - 2005.06.17 ]
[ LOCATION: REDACTED ]
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|| Jurassic World: Black Pulse ||
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