Chapter 1 Before the forgetting, the world remembered rain

It wasn't just water-it was memory. And when it fell, it whispered secrets to the roots and the rooftops. Every droplet held echoes of laughter and loss, of stories long buried in the soil. People once danced in the streets when the first storms came after summer, lifting their faces to the sky like sunflowers in reverse. Children splashed through puddles as if leaping into liquid wonder. Artists painted storms with pigments borrowed from thunderheads.

But then came the Silence. No one remembered how or why. The sky stopped crying. The rivers stiffened into lifeless ribbons of stone. And people-well, people forgot they were ever wet. Forgotten were the words for "monsoon," "drizzle," "torrent." Forgotten was the sigh of saturated earth and the hush that comes before lightning.

In the city of Virelia, the air had grown stale. Buildings stretched like dry bones toward a lifeless sky. Concrete jungles had never known the scent of moss or the shimmer of dew. The government, known only as The Bureau, outlawed any mention of rain. They called it sedition. Madness. They said remembering the rain was the first step toward drowning in delusion.

Yet one boy remembered.

His name was Elian.

He wasn't sure why he remembered or if his memories were real. But in a world starved of rain, even a drop of wonder could cause a flood.

And so, the flood began with him.