The rain had been falling for days.

The kind of rain that blurred the boundaries between earth and sky, that softened even the most rigid outlines of homes and hills and hearts. The kind of rain that seeped through cracks not just in walls, but in memories, in truths long buried.

Arya Varma stood ankle-deep in water, her boots squelching with each step as she helped a child onto a rescue truck. Her once-white coat was muddied, the sleeves soaked, the embroidered name tag barely legible: Dr. Arya Varma.

She had volunteered with FLED — the Flood and Landslide Emergency Division — only weeks earlier, determined to serve in the most remote corners of her country. Her assignment was this forgotten village in the hills, where access roads had been swallowed by earth and electricity was a fading memory. The landscape bore scars — not just from the flood, but from something older. The villagers talked of a landslide years ago that had taken lives, homes, and entire families.

She didn’t know why this particular mission made her chest ache. She had been to disaster sites before. She had seen wreckage, loss, and grief. But something about this place stirred a weight in her bones.

The villagers called her “Doctorari” with reverence. She smiled softly whenever they did. She set up triage at the panchayat hall — a half-flooded space with cots and emergency kits. Children with fevers, elderly with infections, mothers holding babies too tired to cry — she saw them all. Her exhaustion grew each day, but she pushed through. Always.

And then he arrived.

The military truck groaned to a halt one morning, just as the rains lightened to a mist. Out stepped a man in uniform, tall, purposeful, with a tablet in hand and a weary sharpness in his gaze. The villagers gathered. Arya looked up from dressing a wound.

He was introduced simply as Arnav Raj, part of the technical team deployed to assess landslide risk and coordinate with emergency shelters. He wore the seriousness of a soldier, but there was something else in his eyes — something distant, searching.

They worked side by side, barely speaking at first. She focused on the medical side, he on logistics and terrain assessments. But he always lingered a moment longer when she was around, as if trying to place her.

One evening, as the power flickered and the campfire crackled in the village square, a child tugged at Arya’s sleeve and asked her to tell a story. The villagers had gathered around, wrapped in blankets, their laughter cautious but alive. Arnav stood at the edge of the crowd, arms folded.

Arya smiled and began to tell a tale — one about a girl who once lost a necklace in a river, a necklace given by her best friend. A small, rusted trinket that meant the world to her. She didn’t know why she picked that story. It had surfaced in her mind uninvited.

Arnav's head tilted slightly. His eyes narrowed.

Later that night, as Arya lay awake beneath a leaking tin roof, she wondered what had stirred that old story from her chest. She hadn't thought of that necklace in years. Not since the landslide.

But before sleep could claim her, she heard footsteps crunching the wet earth. A knock. Arnav’s voice.

"Doctor Varma... there's something strange in the satellite maps. A collapsed road that wasn’t recorded... and an old shelter near it. I thought you might want to see it."

She rose, grabbed her coat, and followed.

Neither of them knew they were about to uncover more than just terrain.

They were about to find themselves.

The air outside had turned colder, sharp with the scent of wet soil and rust. Arya stepped into the night, pulling her thin coat tighter as her boots sank slightly into the slush. The power lines above crackled weakly—flickering like the thoughts racing through her mind.

Arnav stood by the edge of the porch, flashlight in hand, his other pointing toward the rugged path. His face was serious but hesitant, as if unsure whether he should've knocked at all.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.

“You didn’t.” Her voice was soft. “You said something about the maps?”

He handed her the tablet, the light from its screen casting a glow between them. "Earlier today, we got updated overlays. The disaster mapping unit missed something in the southern ridge—this portion here," he pointed to a hazy patch near the forested edge, "shows a collapsed road that isn’t marked in any relief records. There's an old government shelter somewhere near it. It... looks like the ground swallowed it.”

Arya stared at the blurred shape on the screen. A strange weight settled in her chest—familiar and cold. The same feeling she’d had in the dream.

“How far is it?”

“About 4 kilometers. We can take the jeep most of the way, then walk the rest.”

A faint drizzle began to fall again, like the sky whispering warnings. Arya glanced back at the tin-roofed shelter she had come to know as temporary home, then nodded. “Let’s go.”

The ride was silent except for the hum of the old jeep and the rain spattering against its windshield. Arnav drove carefully, avoiding craters and washed-out edges. His brows were furrowed in thought.

“I’ve checked three different mapping sources,” he said finally. “None of them show this shelter anymore. But it was there in 2005.”

Arya felt her pulse quicken. That year again.

As they stopped near the edge of the ridge, she stepped out into thick fog. The headlights cut a tunnel through the mist, but beyond that lay shadows and broken silence.

They walked for a while, following the GPS until Arnav raised his hand. “There.”

Half-sunken into the mud, an angular piece of rusted metal poked through the soil—possibly the edge of a door. The rest was buried beneath years of landslides and neglect. Arya crouched, touching it. The cold metal jolted something in her. A memory? A sense?

“I was here,” she murmured without realizing it.

Arnav turned to her. “What?”

“I think...” she paused, the words feeling too fragile. “Never mind. Let’s dig.”

They worked in rhythm, silent and focused, scraping and pulling. After an hour, they uncovered what remained of a heavy storm shelter—metal beams twisted, concrete cracked like bone. It was partially open, as if someone had once forced their way out.

Arya leaned in through the jagged opening. Dust and cold air curled around her like a ghost.

“Dr. Varma—wait,” Arnav said suddenly, picking something from the rubble.

It was a child’s charm bracelet, the kind sold in old train stations. Faded pink beads. A name etched on one silver plate.

Her hand trembled as she took it.

“Ishu.”

She gasped.

Arnav looked at her. “Do you know this name?”

Arya nodded slowly, her voice barely a whisper. “My best friend's... sister. We were separated in a landslide. She had one just like this.”

The silence that followed stretched between them like a thread waiting to snap.

“Where?” he asked.

“Somewhere near here. Years ago.” She looked up. “I never found her again.”

Arnav stared at the bracelet, his expression unreadable. Then he said, “I had a sister once. She died. Her name was.....”

The storm around them had paused, but inside Arya, one was just beginning to rise.

The storm had quieted outside, but inside Arya, winds still howled.

She stared at Arnav, breath held, heart caught on the hook of unfinished memories.

"Her name was…"

But he didn’t finish it.

The words hung there—suspended, aching—like a lantern in a windstorm, flickering, but never quite going out.

Before Arya could speak, a voice pierced the moment, cutting through the curtain of rain like a blade.

“Sir! The second team just checked in—there’s been a shift near the west slope!”

Arnav turned toward the voice. Duty yanked him away like a tide pulling back a fragile shell. Still, he glanced at Arya over his shoulder—his expression unreadable - but not unfeeling.

“We’ll talk later,” he said softly, voice frayed with hesitation. Then, stepping back, he added, “Come on, it’s getting late.”

Arya followed him in silence, their boots sinking into wet earth. The world around them was muffled—mist curling through tree trunks, the occasional drip of rainwater from high branches, a distant rumble of the mountain shifting in its sleep. The fog thickened behind them, swallowing the trail as if nature itself wanted to erase their presence, to press delete on this accidental reunion.

Back at the shelter, the familiar scent of wet boots, antiseptic, and damp tarps clung stubbornly to the air. The shelter buzzed quietly with soft murmurs, occasional coughs, and the rustle of pages and blankets. Outside, rain still tapped against the tin roof like fingers, trying to remember a forgotten tune.

Arya peeled off her soaked coat and let it slump into the corner. She collapsed into her cot, the thin mattress sighing beneath her. Her hands, almost instinctively, reached into her satchel and pulled out the cloth-wrapped bracelet—the one from earlier that day. It had the feel of something ancient and fragile, something sacred. She carefully tucked it beneath her pillow, cradled like a secret too precious to explain.

The torchlight flickered once and went out. Darkness returned, gentle and unsettling.

Sleep did not come easily. And when it finally did, it brought her to the fractured edges of memory—unhealed and unfinished.

She was small again. A child with scraped knees, a stubborn ponytail, and a will that refused to be softened by the rains outside the orphanage walls. She sat on the cold floor, crayons clutched tightly in one hand, a blank sheet of paper in front of her. The colors were broken, just like everything else in that room.

Beside her sat a boy. Slightly older. Hair wild and eyes softer than the world had ever deserved. Navu. That’s what they called him.

Arnav—before he had a last name. Before medals and missions. Before boundaries and silence.

He was her shadow and sunlight. Her partner in crime, her mirror. He laughed too easily and cried in secret. He once traded his only toy for a necklace made from tin and glass—a moon strung on a thread. He gave it to her the way only children can give: with full hearts and no explanations.

It was too big for her neck, so she tied it around her wrist.

It became the only thing that ever truly felt like hers.

Then, one day, the car came.

And everything changed.