The silence came first.
After days of endless rain and roaring waves, the sudden quiet felt almost unreal, like waking from a dream that refused to fade. The wind eased, and the clouds thinned into long gray veils drifting across a pale sky.
Ganesh stood at the edge of the mountain peak, eyes fixed on the endless water below.
He felt it.
The pulse beneath the world had changed.
"It's turning," he said softly. "The waters are letting go."
Aneet joined him, scanning the horizon.
"They're not falling yet," she said. "But they've stopped rising."
Keral planted his feet near them, arms crossed.
"That's enough," he said. "Enough to hope."
As the light of dawn grew stronger, they saw it.
Far below, dark shapes began to break the surface — the tops of hills, the bones of trees, the shattered roofs of forgotten homes. The flood was retreating, slowly, reluctantly, as if the world itself were exhaling after holding its breath too long.
Among the survivors gathered on the peak, whispers spread.
"It's going down…"
"The water is leaving…"
Hope stirred like a fragile flame.
Aneet turned to the people.
"Do not rush," she said firmly. "The ground will be weak. Wait until it can carry you."
They listened.
They had learned to.
Ganesh felt a strange weight lift from his chest.
Not joy.
Release.
The fire within him, which had burned so tightly restrained through the flood, eased into a steady glow.
By midday, narrow strips of land had emerged around the mountain, dark and slick with mud. Broken trees lay scattered like fallen giants. The air carried the sharp scent of wet earth and decay.
Ganesh tested the ground first, stepping carefully down from the rock onto the newly revealed slope. It held — barely.
He turned back.
"We can begin," he said.
Aneet organized the descent at once:
The injured first, supported by the strong.
Children tied to adults.
No one alone.
Keral took the lead, driving a staff into the mud with each step to test the path.
Slowly, carefully, they made their way down.
Every footstep felt like stepping onto a world still learning how to exist again.
At the base of the peak, what had once been a valley lay transformed into a vast field of sludge and debris. Pieces of homes, boats, and trees lay tangled together in quiet ruin.
A woman dropped to her knees, scooping wet soil into her hands.
"The land…" she whispered. "It's still here."
Ganesh knelt beside her.
"Yes," he said. "And so are you."
She looked up at him, tears streaking her face, and nodded.
They spent the rest of the day searching.
For survivors.
For signs of life.
For anything that could be saved.
They found a small group clinging to the branches of a half-submerged tree. Keral waded through waist-deep water to reach them, lifting each person onto his shoulders and carrying them back.
They found a wounded deer trapped beneath fallen wood. Aneet freed it and whispered until it calmed, then watched as it limped away into the thinning mist.
They found bodies too.
Ganesh stood in silence each time, closing their eyes, murmuring a quiet prayer that carried no name of any god — only respect.
"This is the cost," he said to Aneet once. "Even when preservation succeeds."
She nodded.
"Yes," she replied. "And it is why it must never be celebrated lightly."
By evening, the waters had retreated far enough that patches of higher ground connected into rough paths. The survivors began to build small shelters from what they could gather.
Fires were lit again, their smoke rising straight into the calm air.
For the first time since the flood began, people spoke of tomorrow.
Ganesh sat on a broken stone, staring out across the wet, broken land.
Keral approached him.
"You look like someone who just lost a war," he said.
Ganesh smiled faintly.
"Maybe I did," he replied. "Against myself."
Keral studied him.
"And did you win?"
Ganesh considered.
"I didn't lose," he said. "That may be enough."
Keral let out a quiet laugh.
"In my world, that would be called wisdom," he said.
As night fell, a faint golden glow appeared on the far horizon.
Aneet noticed it first.
"There," she said softly.
Ganesh followed her gaze.
He felt it instantly.
"Matsya," he said. "He's leaving this plane."
They climbed a small rise together and watched as the glow moved slowly across the distant waters, then sank beneath the horizon, fading like the last light of a setting sun.
No thunder.
No spectacle.
Just quiet departure.
Aneet bowed her head slightly.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Ganesh placed a hand over his heart.
"For carrying what we could not," he said.
When the light was gone, the world felt suddenly… empty.
But also free.
Later that night, as survivors slept in their fragile shelters, Ganesh and Aneet sat together beside a small fire.
The flames crackled softly, reflected in their eyes.
"It's over," Aneet said.
Ganesh nodded.
"For now."
She looked at him.
"You held back," she said. "Even when every part of you wanted to act."
He exhaled.
"I didn't know if I could," he admitted. "You were the one who kept me steady."
Aneet smiled faintly.
"Then we carried it together."
They sat in silence for a while.
Then Aneet spoke again.
"When this world grows again," she said, "they won't remember the flood. Or us."
Ganesh looked into the fire.
"No," he said. "But we will."
She nodded.
"And that is why we walk."
Ganesh reached out, letting the warmth of the fire brush his palm.
"Yes," he said. "So the world can forget… and still move forward."
Above them, the sky finally cleared, revealing stars that seemed brighter for having been hidden so long.
A new world lay beneath them.
Broken.
But breathing.
And they would walk it.