A/N: Getting a bit frnatic now! Hopefully there's not too much I've missed in terms of editing! :)
INT. SHACK OF ANTINA'S MOTHER—DARK
The shack has no source of light but aome dusty windows. The remains of a struggle are visible, but it does not look recent.
Antina, Jack, Barbossa, Zelda, Kit, Bill, Will, and Toussaint enter, leaving the rest behind.
ANTINA
Ma…
She begins to look frantically, pawing through her mother's things.
She catches sight of an armchair turned away from her. She races to it and pulls it to face her.
In it sits a WOMAN so unbelievably old she's nearly skeletal. Her breaths rattle and her eyes are filmy with cateracts.
At the sight of her, Antina doesn't even cry, she just stares.
ANTINA'S MOTHER
(slow)
Antin…?
Antina nods and moves to the woman, holding her hands in her own.
ANTINA'S MOTHER
Agua…Water…
JACK
There ain't any.
Antina looks at him—he was trying to steal form her mother? —but he just avoids her gaze.
ANTINA'S MOTHER
Antina. Influenza—
(she coughs)
--burned a spot in the soul.
ANTINA
Leon. Leon burned a hole in the soul, Madre.
ANTINA'S MOTHER
No. Fue tu…you did.
She closes her eyes and pulls her hands to herself. She speaks as if in a dream, now.
ANTINA'S MOTHER
Get him out.
She goes still, not dead but near it.
Antina stands and pauses, not sure what to do.
Zelda carries Kit outside, shielding his eyes from the sight.
BARBOSSA
Looks like we run or we fight.
TEACH
You know for what side the king demands.
JACK
Or we think like pirates.
WILL
What would that be?
JACK
We work together…
BARBOSSA
…till we get what we want.
ANTINA
But we can't get it less we do what we have to.
WILL
Which is?
ANTINA
(ignoring him)
Especially for you, Turner. Takes a lot to mend a broken heart.
EXT. CLEARING—FOG
The other pirates examine their surroundings, swords out again.
Pintel and Ragettis get dangerously close to a vine harboring poisonous looking purple flowers with what looks like mouths.
Pintel motions to Ragetti, who pokes it with his blade.
The vine visibly recoils, snaking into the tree of Antina's mother's house.
PITNEL
Tentacles!
RAGETTI
Davy Jones plant!
Antina and the rest reemerge into the clearing.
ANTINA
We have to go to the center of the island.
JACK
Why, exactly? I'd like to say at the peripherals, actually.
Be closer to the comparatively friendly sea.
TEACH
(guffawing)
The sea hates you, Jack!
JACK
(a bit hurt)
We get along just fine, her and me.
BARBOSSA
Just cause you've bedded the sea don't mean she wanted you to sail her waters.
ANTINA
No one puts a mystical source of life at the edge of her vision.
Blackbeard and he collapse into laughter, as Antina goes over to Kit and picks him up.
A breeze begins to blow, soft but definitely there.
WILL
Our ships!
ANTINA
That's no wind from the sea.
She turns to them and motions for them to re-enter the foliage.
ANTINA
The trees don't like visitors.
EXT. LARGE VIEW OF THE ISLAND—FOG
The fog churns and is whipped by the trees, moving by their own accord, SNAPPING their branches loudly and RUSTLING leaves.
EXT. JUNGLE—FOG
The pirates fight their way through the dense undergrowth.
TEACH
Aw, blast it.
He draws his sword and cuts though a vine that's wrapped itself around his leg.
The vine separates for a moment—then SNAPS back into one, TIGHTENING itself around his leg.
ANTINA
Eddie!
She, Barbossa, and Carver work him free.
ANTINA
No goddamn earth.
EXT. BROAD VEIW OF THE ISLE—FOG
Towards the center of the isle it begins to sink in on itself, as though there were a hole in the center.
EXT. JUNGLE PATH—FOG
The pirates come to this sink in the center, which is actually BURNED, soggy vegetation, still charred black yet squishing under their feet.
PINTEL
You'd think they'd have water here.
RAGETTI
Looks to be the remains of an attempt to clear the land.
The same strategy was used in southern Mexico.
Among the charred plants are pieces of cloth, suggesting people burned as well.
Kit wanders up to a SKELETON, still reaching outwards as though calling for help. His eyes winde a little but he doesn't shout.
Antina takes his hand and leads closer to the center of the destruction.
Barbossa looks to their feet.
BARBOSSA
(simply)
We're sinking.
Indeed they are, though not to the point where they cannot pull their boots from the muck.
The pirates try to climb trees, free themselves, springing into action.
Carver, clambering like the rest, spies a plain wooden cup in the middle of the burned clearing.
He struggles up to it and picks it up. About half of it is filled with liquid.
He takes a sip, pausing to taste it, and then a SHUDDER runs through his body, rendering him rigid.
He drops the cup, which, almost magnetically, reattaches itself to the exact same place it was.
His innards GURGLING, he twitches and falls to the ground, a RED RASH spreading across his face.
Blackbeard gets there first, but the rest crowd around him.
GIBBS
Looks like he's got Spanish fever.
ANTINA
Aye.
Influenza.
They brought it. Even burning couldn't get rid of it all.
TEACH
So the water is being used to contain it.
Carver begins to shake violently with cold chills, the rash even more pronounced.
ANTINA
Aye.
She rolls up a sleeve and shows them her own rash.
ANTINA
Thought I were doing a favor, but I just left a hole.
She approaches the cup, Kit trailing after her.
Her fingers close around it and she tries to pull, but it sticks.
Niether her fingers nor the cup will move.
She tugs, yanks, pulls, HARD, and the cup gives slightly, pulling with it a mess of vines—green ones, blooming ones, like roots.
Her hand is conversely withering, aging, approaching that of her mother.
ANTINA
Burn…
Teach pulls matches from his coat, the same he uses to light his beard, and strikes one.
The false wind picks up, his boots sticking more in the burned mess.
Bill and Barbossa grab his arms, propel him towards Antina—
--HE HOLDS THE MATCH TO THE CUP
EXT. LARGER VIEW OF THE CLEARING—FOG
The natives emerge from the trees, making a circle of sorts around the intruders, some high in branches, others down on the ground. None step a foot into the burned area.
NATIVE MAN
(low)
Traitor.
WOMAN
(a little louder)
Pirate.
They begin to shout to Antina, who is still pulling with her one hand at the plain wooden cup.
WOMAN
(amongst the shouting)
Witch.
EXT. CLEARING—ANTINA
Sweat pours down her face, which is pale and wan and not at all healed. The rash of influenza is now scattered across her face.
Kit comes up to her and grabs her, hiding half his face in her skirts.
She puts her other arm around him.
The cup is now burning, blackening, but the vines still protrude. Antina's hand is now burning and aging, nearly skeletal now.
The fire crackles and pops. Antina presses Kit's face into her dress, not wanting him to see.
KIT
Pull, Mama.
She does, gritting her teeth and shouting, but the vines are stronger and she loses some ground.
Jack fights with himself, unable to choose, but when she slips a bit more, he leaps into action.
He fights his way to Antina and puts his hand over her wrist, helping her pull.
It's not enough, and she still cannot pull the cup, still aflame.
Jack puts his hand over hers and grabs her waist, giving it all his strength.
His hand begins to burn with hers, Kit still clutching her skirt, eyes squeezed shut.
All at once, with a shock of as close to sun as will get, they snap the cup out of the ground, the fire going out and the cup now burnt to an unrecognizable level.
The vines, the green ones, snake out from the ground, cover the burned land, burrowing and plunging into it.
The pirates are freed to walk on top of them, flowers and sprouts popping up in front of their very faces.
Jack and Antina lift the cup, tip it so that the contents splatter over them.
It is now water clear and crystal, and the cup disintegrates along with it and pours over them like sand.