The World is Quiet Here

Chapter One: An Unexpected Union

Klaus, Sunny, Violet, and Beatrice were sailing across the vast, a word which here means of great area or extent, blue sea. 

It was another normal morning, with the now three-year-old Sunny waking up first to prepare a breakfast of apple and salmon sandwich crackers and coconut milk. 

Sunny had improved on her vocal skills within the past week on the ocean, able to speak in mostly intelligible sentences. 

As Sunny shook the rest of her siblings, and her step-sister, awake, she checked the water filtration system that Violet had invented about six days earlier. 

Of sixteen years, Violet woke up groggily, having gone to sleep late the last night due to a malfunction with the water filtration system after a shark bit part of the filter off. 

Klaus, at the age of fifteen, woke up with the same feeling, having spent the entire night studying currents and maps. He just didn't understand maps as well as a good book, or a verse of poetry. 

Noticing Klaus' frustration, Violet thought to herself, I wish Quigley were here. He's a cartologist; he would understand this much better than any of us. 

Interrupting Violet's thoughts, Beatrice woke up wailing. 

"Huwwy up, brefest's wedi!" Sunny shouted to her siblings. 

Violet poured the coconut milk in a smaller cup for Beatrice to sip, then poured out the water from the water filtration system. 

Suddenly, Klaus noticed a strange black mound floating in the water. 

"Violet!" he yelled, grabbing his sister's arm. Violet turned, staring in shock at the black mound. 

"Is.. is that a person?" she said, setting down Beatrice. Sunny, grabbing a paddle for Klaus and one for herself, started rowing as fast as she could to the strange dark shape in the sea. 

As she rowed, Sunny pondered who the person was. Was it a member of Count Olaf's troupe? Was it Ernest Denouement? Was it Frank?

To be honest, the last person she was expecting was a total stranger, a little older than Klaus, sprawled across the boat. 

The person's, the girl's, hair was dark and silky, following down to past her elbows. Her skin was a sand-toned and soft. On her hip was a worn brown messenger bag. 

Suddenly, she coughed, spitting water in the air. The Baudelaires leapt back while she sat up, coughing again. She turned around, her black clothes wet and dripping. 

"Who are you?" She said suspiciously, eyes narrowed, hands held up in fists. 

"We're not going to hurt you," Violet said, putting up her hands, almost in surrender. "We just found you floating in the sea..."

The girl lowered her fists warily, sighing. 

"I'm Violet Baudelaire, and these are my siblings, Klaus, Sunny, and Beatrice," Violet stated, gesturing to them. 

The girl nodded. "Michelle. Michelle Xia. Why are you all out in the middle of the sea?" 

Klaus tilted his head skeptically. "Why were you floating in the middle of the sea?"

The girl smirked. "That's fair. It's a long story."