From Up the Midnight River

Episode 1 - The Dark Orchard

Elaine woke up in a wooden box.

She groaned as she wiped the sleep out of her eyes. When she opened them, bright chocolate brown, she saw that her arms and hands were covered in black scorch marks. She rubbed them off and, without thinking, slipped one hand out the box, dipped into the cold water and washed the marks away.

"Where am I?" Elaine asked herself. The seventeen year old then looked around her and saw her box floating in a cold, glowing river inside a dark and dank cave. To her right were two other wooden boxes, one occupied by a boy a few years younger than her and a girl much younger. She recognized their dark hair and brown eyes. They were her younger siblings.

Gavin, in the middle box, had his nose on his book as usual. He sported an emo look with the hair, the dark clothes and his earphones blaring loud punk rock music. Nicole, in the far right, looked like a K-Pop star hopeful. Even the earphones blared songs of one of her favorite K-Pop groups. What the siblings had in common, aside from their hair and eye colors, was that their clothes were stained in black marks. They smelled like burnt toast laced with kerosene.

"Hey Gavin! Nicole!" Elaine cried out to her young siblings.

Even through their earphones, they heard their older sis's call. Gavin gave her a halfhearted wave before returning to his book while Nicole waved with great enthusiasm.

"Hey sis!" Nicole shouted. "Where are we? How'd we get here?"

"No idea." Elaine answered, unsure about how they got here. "Hey Gav, you know?"

Gavin just shrugged. Elaine looked miffed.

"Helpful." she muttered. Elaine leaned over the edge of her box a bit and stared at the glowing water. She dipped her hand in it and the ripples shimmered. She smirked and slapped the water into Gavin's direction.

Finally, Gavin looked up from his book, miffed and wet. "Thank you for giving me a shower sis." He said sarcastically. "Really appreciated it."

"You almost never look up from your book." Elaine pointed out. "You only look up when something interesting happens."

"True. True." said Gavin, still reading.

"Then what's all this." Elaine spread her arms wide, gesturing at the cave and glowing blue river.

"Seen it." said Gavin meekly. "Formed a picture in my head." He tapped his forehead twice with two fingers. "Magical glowing river in a mysterious cave. Nothing unusual."

"Nothing unusual?" Nicole shouted. "Everything here's unusual."

"Hey!" said a new voice. "Would you three stop all that racket?"

"Who?" Elaine looked at her siblings, confused.

Gavin and Nicole pointed forward and Elaine followed. Their boats were connected to a long black boat, a gondola, at the front. On the gondola occupied a tall and thin hooded cloaked in shadow. Though the siblings only his back, white light like headlights shined from where his eyes are. A long thin oar held in both pale, bony hands, rowing.

Elaine looked at the boatman, then to her siblings with eyes of disbelief, and then back to the boatman. "Uh, excuse me."

"And so the few seconds of sweet silence has ended once more." said the boatman dramatically.

"Who are you?" Elaine asked.

"Oh, I have many names." said the boatman. "Depends on which story you heard. You can call me Boatman."

"And why are we here?" Elaine asked again. "How did we get here?"

"Oh, who knows? It's not my business." answered the boatman. He sounded bored. "I'm just doing my job. Apparently I'm not being paid enough to people less..."