Terra Firma- The Land of Discovery

A Land Before Man

      The ocean sun beat down on the inhabitants of the latest in a long line of super-cruise ships, The Genesis. Ever since 2045, oceanic exploration has been the 'it' thing to do over the summer. For 19 year-old Jack Ruse, this spring vacation was a dream come true. His family had to save up for months in order to pay for the luxurious voyage through the Bermuda Triangle. The Genesis would be the first cruise ship to ever make it through the Bermuda Triangle unscathed. Numerous reports showed that shipwrecks in the Triangle were due to loss of fuel, which was impossible for the super-cruiser. Scientists had recently perfected the translocation of quantum energy --  wireless charging, which meant that the ship's motors could be remotely powered by facilities anywhere in the world. Huge Tesla coils reached skyward from the aft deck, shimmering with pale blue electricity.

===

    The Captain of The Genesis raked a rough hand through his short grey hair. All data reports and hypotheses showed that the ship would make it through the Bermuda Triangle just fine, but he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that this voyage would go horribly wrong.

    "Captain Burke, you need to stop worrying so much," a young woman said to him, smiling a bit as she handed him a cup of coffee, "The Genesis is a luxury cruise yacht. We were built for the sole purpose of delivering our passengers through the Bermuda Triangle in comfort. Nothing could possibly go wrong."

She couldn't have been more wrong.

    Captain Burke turned back to the horizon and narrowed his eyes, as if squinting would reveal more of the sea's secrets. The Bermuda Triangle was supposedly only a few hours out, and nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary, but he couldn't get rid of that nagging sensation of dread.

===

    Sandy blonde hair waving in the wind, Jack Ruse ran onto the diving board and leaped off into the crystal blue water of the pool. Other teens splashed and played in the water, and Jack slowly surfaced into the warm sunlight. He looked out to the horizon, thankful that his family could finally go on the vacation they'd been looking forward to for months. His dad walked out when he was just four years old, so his mom had to work extra hard to keep them happy. As he watched the sea, the air darkened and seemed to solidify, his stomach lurching with a sense of dread. Storm clouds gathered overhead, as if out of nowhere. Lightning flashed inside the dark clouds, and the Tessa coils seared the air, stretching towards the storm.
    People screamed and ran for their cabins. Jack grabbed his towel and bag, sprinting towards the deck to the interior. Sparks flew overhead, and the sky seemed to shimmer and distort. There was a loud SNAP! and people ducked for cover. The sky returned to normal, but something seemed off. Jack had a feeling there was something very, very wrong with this.

===
    Captain Burke was a seafaring man at heart. As soon as he'd turned 18, he enlisted in the navy. During his servitude, he learned to trust his gut and read the signs of the sea. Because of that, he was extremely wary of the suddenly calm sea. Everything he'd ever seen said that this was incredibly unnatural. Storms that size generally move very quickly, but they don't just dissipate after a few lightning strikes. He went to check the radar and weather reports, but, to his surprise, the console was dead. He tapped it a few times, but the screen remained black. He was about to confront his secretary, but a young deckhand burst through the doors.
    "Sir! The Tesla coils... They're dead," He panted, hands on his knees.
    "What do you mean... "dead?" Burke queried, a hand reaching up to his beard.
    "They haven't stopped flashing with electricity since we started on our voyage. But... they're dead now. Nothing's happening. Could be decoration for all they're doing, sir," the deckhand responded. Burke swore. Out of confidence in the corporation that built the super-cruise ship, The Genesis had no gas-powered motors on board. They were stranded in the Bermuda Triangle, with no fuel.
===
    Jack Ruse leaned against the door to his cabin, willing his family to come back to him. He paced inside of the room, running his hand through his hair and muttering under his breath. After five minutes, he was ready to tear apart the ship searching, but his sister walked in, panting.
    "Melanie, where were you?!" Jack asked, practically shouting.
    "When the storm came, there was a mad rush for the interior decks, and we were on the lower decks, and mom was swimming, so it took me awhile to get up here," she answered, moving to sit down on a bed. While Jack processed her answer, a creeping sense of dread overtook him.
    "Melanie," he asked, fear settling into the pit of his stomach,"Where's Mom?"
    At this, Melanie broke into tears, "I don't know, Jack. She was only a few feet away from the boat in the water, but we got separated when she was swimming towards the ladder. I'm really worried about her." Melanie sobbed, clutching Jack's chest as though she thought if she squeezed hard enough, their mom would come back. Determination and fear forced Jack into action. He pushed Melanie off of him, and stood.
    "We can't just sit back in the room, waiting. We have to go up and look for her," He said, looking down at his sister. Melanie nodded, and rose with him. Together, they exited the room and climbed the stairs to the upper decks. From there, the view would allow them a greater range of vision. The walked out onto the aft deck, and Melanie paused.
    Jack turned to face her, "Melanie... what's wrong?"
    She pointed to the huge Tesla coils that adorned the ship, "Look. The coils... they're not doing anything."
    This, more than anything else, made Jack shudder. Something was definitely wrong. They walked to the edge of the deck and searched the surrounding area for any sign of their mom. Melanie frowned down at the water, and Jack sighed.
    "What's wrong now, Melanie?"
    "Well, when I left, there were still a lot of toys and pool floaties left in the water. And now, there's no sign that any of those people had even entered the water," she claimed, still frowning down. "And the water is definitely a lot clearer now than it was earlier."
    Jack scowled. "I don't like this one bit, let's go ask the captain or administration or someone to make an announcement looking for our mom."
    Together, they walked onto the uppermost deck only to find a large crowd of people waiting before the administrative cabin. Jack approached one of the angry passengers.
    "Hey, what's going on here? We're trying to find our mom and wanted to make an announcement," Jack asked.
    "Well get in line, practically everyone here is missing someone from before the storm. Was your mom in the water when the storm cleared?" The man replied, leveling a skeptical look at Melanie.
    "I'm not exactly sure, but she wasn't quite to the ladder when I left, and the storm ended shortly after we were separated. I'm guessing she was," Melanie said carefully, growing more worried by the second.
    "Yeah, I figured. Everyone here had family members or friends that disappeared in the water," The man said sympathetically, abandoning the harsh demeanor he had assumed earlier. As they talked, someone screamed.
    "Someone help!!! There's some kind of shark in the water!!"
    The crowd of angry passengers ran to the edge of the boat, and more people screamed as they saw the hideous beast. Something huge and reptilian lurked beneath the surface of the crystal clear water. The sea-beast had a long tail, and an arrow-shaped head. On the other side of the boat, people had began to climb back into the water. At the sound of screams, some of them had decided to get out again. The beast circled beneath the surface, turning to head towards the swimmers. More people screamed warnings, but the beast disappeared deep beneath the water. Some of the screams died down, and people started to settle.
    "Do you-- Do you think it's gone?" Someone asked. A few people started to nod, but there was a huge splash of water, and the beast erupted out of the sea, snapping huge jaws around a dozen swimmers at once. Everyone screamed, and blood fell into the water as the beast collapsed back beneath the surface. The thing had to be huge-- at least two hundred feet long. Not nearly as long as the boat, but monstrous all the same. People ran back to the administrative cabin, banging on the doors and screaming.
    Shots rang out, and two security officers lowered their smoking guns from the sky. Captain Burke walked out onto the roof of the cabin.
    "Ladies, Gentlemen," He began, a troubled look resting on his face.
    "I regret to inform you, we are stranded at sea. We have no power, and so will need volunteers to work the pedal stations in order to generate electricity. I understand that many of you have suffered losses, and I am truly sorry for that. At the moment, I do not know what to make of our situation. What I do know, however, is that there is a very large land mass not too far away, and that there is a very large carnivore circling our ship. We have limited firepower, certainly not enough to stop it, but enough to hold it off," Burke stated calmly, looking at the crowd to gauge their reaction. For a moment there was silence. Suddenly a man shouted out.
"Well... Where the hell are we?!"
Burke addressed the man's question, "Due to the power outage, we can only get an approximate position in the daytime. We believe we are somewhere off the coast of Africa. Although... The positions of the stars are a bit off. They seem to have reversed the direction they'd been moving for the past hundred years. In fact, they are in about the same position as they would have been 45 million years ago. We don't have much to base our hypothesis on, but the most ludicrous explanation for our sudden shift in space and surroundings... is a shift in time itself."
At this, pandemonium broke out. People laughed, cried, pulled their own hair, all different kinds of coping mechanisms. After the initial panic, everyone settled down to listen for Burke's instructions. Jack's own mind was racing with disbelief and a denial known only to those who have experienced extreme loss.
Burke continued, "As I said before, volunteers will be needed to man the cycling stations for power. We appreciate all efforts, but you should know that food will be rationed out, priority to those that assist in getting power and to the young. It will be dangerous in this new time, or rather... old time, and so we must be prepared for the first evidence of dinosaurs on the supercontinent that existed around this time... Pangaea. In the very near future, you will face trials the likes of which you have never known. Survival is the goal, and valor is the means to the end."
    Whatever Jack thought before, this blew it right out the water. Humanity, or at least the group Jack was in, would have to fight for their survival. Were they even ready for the extreme dangers that would come with the supercontinent, Pangaea?