Chapter 1: The Rain That Never Stopped

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.

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