Black Rever

The river had no beginning, at least not one that anyone could find. It curved like a sleeping serpent through the forgotten town of Darnell Hollow—thick, black, and slow-moving, as if reluctant to let go of anything it touched.

They called it the Rever. Not river—Rever. Even the name felt strange on the tongue, like a warning too old to understand.

Most townspeople avoided it. Children were warned not to swim in it, not to go near it, not to listen to the sounds that came from it after dark. And most obeyed. But not Elias Ward.

He was sixteen when he first heard the voice.

It came at night, seeping through his open window with the breeze. A whisper that wasn’t wind. A song without words. It didn’t call him by name, but he felt it was meant for him.

His mother had warned him. “The Rever takes what it’s owed,” she once said, eyes clouded by memories she refused to share. “It don’t care how old you are, or what you’ve done. Just don’t look too long. Don’t listen too close.”

But Elias wasn’t afraid. He was curious. Too curious.

That’s what killed his father—or so the whispers went.

The next morning, Elias walked down the overgrown path behind the house, past the rusted gate that had once been chained shut. The woods were quiet, the air thick with the scent of wet moss and old water. He followed the trail until the trees opened like curtains and the river came into view.

The Rever was still.

Black as coal. No ripples. No sound.

It looked more like a scar than a river. A long, dark wound carved into the earth.

Elias knelt at the edge, dipping his fingers into the water. It was colder than it should’ve been. Sharply cold, like winter had never left it. He pulled back, shaking the chill from his skin.

Then he saw the reflection.

Not his own.

A woman stood behind him.

He spun around.

No one.

But when he turned back to the water—she was still there. Pale skin. Long dark hair floating as if underwater. Her eyes… he couldn’t look away from them. Not because they were beautiful, but because they were hollow.

She raised a hand.

Then she vanished.

He didn’t speak of it to anyone. Not even to his grandmother, who had once told him in secret that their family was “bound to the Rever.” Whatever that meant.

But he returned the next night. And the one after that.

Sometimes he saw her. Sometimes he only heard the voice again, humming softly from beneath the surface. It was always the same tune. Always the same chill.

And each time, he stayed a little longer.

One night, a dream came.

He stood in the middle of the Rever, but the water wasn’t black—it was red. Thick like blood. Around him floated candles and bones and old, broken dolls. Then the woman appeared again. But this time, she spoke.

“You’re not just watching. You’re remembering.”

Elias awoke gasping, drenched in sweat.

He didn’t understand.

That morning, he confronted his grandmother.

“Who was my father really? What happened to him?”

She looked at him for a long moment, her wrinkled hands trembling as she gripped her tea. “Your father was like you. Drawn to the dark. He thought he could understand it. Master it.”

“What did he find?”

Her eyes filled with something heavier than fear—regret.

“He found himself. And it broke him.”

The next night, Elias went to the Rever again—but not just to watch.

He brought a lantern. A notebook. And the old brass key he had found hidden in the floorboards beneath his father's closet.

As he stood at the riverbank, the air grew heavier.

“Tell me,” he said aloud, voice barely above a whisper. “Tell me what I’m supposed to remember.”

The water rippled. For the first time, it moved—against the current, toward him.

And then it opened.

Not like a whirlpool or a splash—but like a curtain, parting to reveal a path beneath. A trail of stone steps descended into the riverbed, untouched by water, leading into darkness.

The lantern flickered in his hand.

Still, he stepped forward.

The steps wound downward, spiraling beneath the surface. Walls of black stone pressed in around him. The air smelled of rot and rust and rain.

He didn’t know how long he walked. Minutes. Hours. Time lost meaning.

Then he saw it: a door of wood and bone. In its center, the same symbol carved on the brass key—an eye surrounded by waves.

Elias unlocked it.

Beyond the door lay a chamber. Carvings lined the walls, telling stories of people lost to the Rever—men, women, even children—faces twisted in terror and ecstasy. In the center stood a mirror.

And in that mirror—himself.

But not as he was.

Older. Eyes black like ink. A crown of roots tangled in his hair. A king of something ancient and broken.

The reflection smiled.

“You came back,” it said.

Elias stumbled backward. “What are you?”

“I am what you buried. I am the part of you that belongs to the river. I am memory. I am truth.”

“This is a dream,” Elias said.

“No,” the mirror said. “This is remembrance. The Rever does not drown memory—it stores it. And yours has waited too long.”

Images surged through Elias’ mind.

His father, kneeling at this very mirror.

His mother, crying in secret over a torn journal.

A baby—him—being held over the water, while voices chanted in a forgotten tongue.

A pact.

A price.

A promise.

“You were given to the river,” the voice said. “And now, it comes to collect.”

“No,” Elias growled. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t agree to any of it.”

“But your blood did. And blood remembers.”

The mirror pulsed. The chamber shook.

Elias dropped the lantern. Flames sputtered, then died.

Darkness.

When he awoke, he was lying at the riverbank, soaked and shivering. The notebook was gone. The key too.

But in his hand was a single black stone—smooth and warm to the touch.

He staggered home.

His grandmother was waiting.

“You went to it,” she said quietly.

He nodded.

“You saw.”

“I did.”

She looked away, tears gathering. “Then it’s started.”

“What is?”

“The Awakening.”

That night, the river didn’t whisper.

It roared.

The townspeople heard it and locked their doors.

The water overflowed its banks, flooding into the streets.

And Elias stood at his window, stone in hand, as the woman from the river appeared once more outside.

But this time, she smiled.

Because he remembered.

And now, he would return.

In Darnell Hollow, they say the Rever never forgets.

They say it waits. Watches. Whispers.

And sometimes, when the bloodline is right—it calls back what it once claimed.

Elias Ward answered the call.

And somewhere beneath the black water, he walks among the memories.

Still remembering.

Still watching.

Still waiting.