Annabelle waited in the dock. The ship had a big belly. She could hear the voices of the Mamlish, they sounded strange, like those of a foreign land.

"That attack was intense" she heard the one say. "But now they have just let us into their dock, like we didn't notice their bullets."

"This place is savage," came the reply of another Mamlish. "This place is so savage that they murdered their first humble servant with a shard of glass and then tied up their second up with nets."

"I heard that it is just one chick, the rest of the island is meek" the first said.

"The rest of the island busted her out. The humble servant had signed her death warrant and she was weak and imprisoned. Then some of the shepherdless broke into the compound and set her free. They are not so meek after all."

"Where is everyone?" the first asked.

Annabelle jumped out and kicked the men in the heads. "Thanks for the guns" she said. "Where is your leader."

The men looked confused and pointed in opposite directions, she heard the sound of boots coming towards her. She jumped out of the way, over the men's bodies and then ran up to the cabin. She entered the control room.

A man was sitting in a rotating chair, staring at six different screens.

"Ah Annabelle" he said "At least according to my notes. We've been expecting you."

"Why did you come back" she wanted answers and was therefore not ready to kill him just yet.

"Zilby has some valuable markets" he said slowly. "We wouldn't want to lose that. We've also put a sizable investment into the orange industry. We don't want to have winter shortages on the mainland. Now do we?"

"We don't want to be your market," said Annabelle. "We don't want your stuff"

"Then why on screen three, can I see four men breaking into our hull and attempting to steal our canned peaches?"

"We don't want to be forced to buy your stuff." answered Annabelle.

"Yes, I can see that – stealing is more your style," the man commented. "But we can't .... NO NOT THE BULLETS"

But the men on the screen were nowhere near the bullets at least as far as Annabelle could see.

"I thought that the Mamlish prided themselves on being polite," said Annabelle.

"Touché'" replied the man. "Now why haven't you tried to kill me yet?"

"Where is your real leader?" asked Annabelle.

"Am I not convincing?" asked the man. "My overlord is still in Delta. Bless his heart, quite mad, I guess that is why he sent me over to this crazy land"

"I mean – who is charge of the Mamlish that have been sent to Zilby" asked Annabelle with some frustration.

"We are all servants" said the man and bowed his head.

"But you also believe in hierarchy" answered Annabelle.

"There is a complicated system based on merit, prestige and connections. I wouldn't worry your head about it though – you are not in the running."

Annabelle lifted up her hand and shot him in the face. She was getting nowhere with him.

James felt oddly nervous, but he did it anyway.

"Hello, James" came Alicia's cheerful voice.

"Hey Alicia. How's life going?"

"Great, I've been so busy. I had to organise this work function, but half the people don't drink and the other half of the people refuse to come unless they can get raving drunk. So politics, politics politics. Anycase the theme was blue, which everybody complained was a bit vague, but nobody wanted to go with mermaids, because we're so far away from the sea."

"The show got cancelled" James had to interrupted her.

"What show" asked Alicia confused for a second. "You don't mean Zilby!"

"You're kidding! Why!" continued Alicia. "I know I haven't been watching, but Melinda says that Paul van Staden is looking mighty fine"

"Executives says it because viewership is low, and the marketers don't know what segment to pitch to"

"Oh, that's easy, young trendy and cool." Said Alicia "It's not even a question in my mind."

"You weren't there to tell me that, so I went with grumpy old men and their disgruntled daughters. They told me that those were segments that weren't known to have much purchasing power."

"You didn't!" said Alicia.

"Okay, I didn't, but it might have been a better answer than the one that I went with, which was 'eh" replied James.

Alicia started giggling that turned into a full out belly laugh.

"Alicia?" said James.

"What?" came the answer.

"Can I come over and visit you this weekend. See how you are settling in?"

"Of course, you don't need to ask" said Alicia quickly.

"Just a formality in case you aren't there. How would I look if I stood in your corridor with my bags and nobody answered the door?"

Annabelle ran down to the belly of the ship. She screamed as she ran, "Everybody who wants to live get off the ship – Everybody from Zilby get off"

Her hair streamed backwards, because even though she was in a fighting mood, she did not tie her up. The scene was photogenic, some said that Vanessa had never looked more beautiful. There was a smudge of coal on Annabelle's face.

She entered the ship, there were many people waiting for her there. "Get out, get out, you can live here, if you renounce dedication to the Mamlish, you give up caring about the economy. If you don't understand the concept of debt, Zilby welcomes you. But if you don't live by our way of life, you can't live here.

Some of the people could be seen trying to get out of the boat, but Annabelle kept on going deeper in. She went passed the place marked food, she went passed the sleeping quarters, she went passed the laundry.

Deeper and deeper, she went, some of the burly guards tried to keep up with her, but nobody could run as fast as she was running. Annabelle knew what she was doing.

The screen changed scene, Ferne' could be seen giving the fighters a speech. Most of the fighters were men in their twenties, that had extremely dirty faces. One man was shown wiping a tear from his face. Emotions were running high, the scene was extremely dark, was it daytime and overcast? Was it twilight? This information was not immediately apparent to viewers.

Annabelle kicked down the door to the ship's armoury, the place was stocked with more weapons that anybody had ever seen in their entire lives. There were vats of nitro-glycerine in special vessels that had been designed to ensure that the nitro-glycerine did not receive even the smallest of shock waves during the journey to the island, even if the boat had been attacked by a volley of gunshot attacks.

Annabelle could hear that Ferne' and the adult volunteers had managed to get hold of the guns and were shooting at the ship again. She could hear the screams from the deck were the Mamlish were thrown into chaos and they attempted to organise themselves.

Annabelle didn't know what nitro-glycerine was, but she knew that it must be important if the Mamlish took so much care to protect it. She took the nitro-glycerine and shook it. Immediately it denotated and a shock wave formed. The camera zoomed out. The boat exploded, everything near the boat lost its form or caught fire. Every window plane in the entire village shattered. Not a single tree in 500m of the boat remained in the roots.

What happened to Annabelle - nobody knows. Some say that her body lies in the bottom of the dock, some say it flung into outer space. What is known is that the Mamlish never sent another boat of re-enforcements. Not a single Mamlish fighter listened to Annabelle as she ran through the corridor, there were no Mamlish survivor.

Well except for one. Madame Green continued to live the rest of her life on the Island. She even officiated the wedding of Veronique and Ferne'. For you see, Veronique and Ferne' were brought together as they mourned the death of Annabelle. They shared love of her turned into a love of each other. At least that's what James wrote.

He showed a scene in the epilogue with Veronique in a flowing dress, with flowers in her hair. They even showed a small girl playing in the garden and hinted that this girls name was Annabelle. It was clear that Veronique and Ferne would live the rest of their life in bliss and happiness and this all flowed from the sacrifice that Annabelle made.

As an old man, Ferne' would unveil a statue of Annabelle in the rebuilt town square. In those days, the island of Zilby had started trading with the Mamlish again, because as the man in the control said, Zilby was very small, one can't live on oranges and mussels alone.

Many years later, James was walking through the streets when he heard two young people talking

"I used to watch TV a lot when I was a child" the one said "My parents would watch the news and then I would watch Zilby"

"I loved that show" said the other "It was so experimental, and it felt like you had constant whiplash from what was going 'What's going to happen next, what's going to happen next"

"We all watch it and we all loved it, my mother, my father and even my brother who was a sulky little squirm as a child"

"Wasn't it a bit violent for him" said the other

"I guess, but isn't that what good family values are centred on, a dash of fully clothed violence"

James sighed, the days were long and now firmly separated he was able to see it for what it was. It wasn't all bad after all.