A sickening lurch threw Pryna against the doorframe. The floorboards beneath her feet creaked and bowed under the pressure. Then, a sharp, tearing crack reverberated through the cabin, followed by the shriek of nails being wrenched from timber. The cabin shuddered, tipping violently to one side. Bookshelves crashed, ceramic bowls shattered, and the half-built raft slammed into the wall, its tarpaulins ripping. “The foundation!” Irsa screamed, her voice a raw, desperate sound swallowed by the roar of the flood. “It’s tearing away!” Pryna clutched Luka, holding him tight against her chest. Gavril, without a word, was already moving, his eyes narrowed, muscles coiling. He grabbed the heavy, wooden support beam that ran through the center of their small home, mortised straight into the rafters. He braced himself, a low growl rumbling in his throat, and shoved. Wood splintered. The framing shrieked again as the river hammered against the exterior siding. “We need the roof!” Pryna shouted, the words tearing from her throat, a stark contrast to her usual languid drawl. Her eyes were wide, scanning the buckling walls, calculating. “It’s the only way it’s buoyant enough!” Gavril understood. He released the support beam, then scaled the collapsing wall with impossible speed, finding purchase on the exposed studs. He drove his shoulder, then his heavy back, against the ceiling boards, straining with effort. The pine popped and gave way under his assault, bowing outward. Rain poured through newly formed gaps, mingling with the mud and debris swirling around their feet. Another brutal impact struck the perimeter sill. With a final, splintering snap, the cabin broke loose from its stone pilings. The ruined room drifted out into the thick channel, spinning like loose bark. Water surged in through the now-gaping hole where the door had been, instantly soaking everything. The temperature plummeted, and a chill that went beyond mere cold seized Pryna, a primal dread. Gavril heaved upward with a sharp shout, and the pine joists sheared apart. A massive section of the tar-papered roof, roughly ten feet by fifteen, ripped free from the disintegrating walls, dropping inward. He landed heavily on it, barely regaining his footing as the cabin itself began to break apart around them, planks tumbling into the frothing brown surge. “Everyone! On the roof!” Irsa yelled, already dragging Luka onto the cedar platform. The boy choked on muddy spray, coughing hard. Pryna scrambled after him, pushing him further into the center. The splintered edges of the roof-raft bit into her hands. The icy water, now up to her waist, snatched at her legs, dragging at her boots with relentless suction. Just as Luka clambered onto the relative safety of the roof-raft, a rogue wave slammed into it. The boy, small and light, lost his grip. He tumbled over the edge, disappearing into the muddy, white-flecked wash. His small shriek was instantly lost to the roar of the flood. “Luka!” Pryna’s own scream was guttural, raw. Every trace of her carefully constructed laziness, her detached pessimism, vanished. The single person she refused to lose was slipping away. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t think. She launched herself into the frigid, turbulent water, lunging headfirst off the cedar planks. The cold was a physical blow, stealing her breath, but she ignored it, thrashing, diving, her eyes wide, searching through the silt-laden brown. She saw him, a fleeting glimpse of red fabric, bobbing just beneath the surface. He was barely a foot away, but the current was like a monstrous, invisible hand, yanking his shirt, dragging him downward. Pryna kicked, using every ounce of strength, every forgotten skill from her youth. Her fingers brushed his arm, slick with mud. She seized him, hauling him up, his small body heavy and limp with shock. He gasped, sputtering water, his wild gaze locking onto her collar. “Hold on!” she choked, her own lungs burning, the cold knotting her calf muscles. She fought the current, pushing Luka’s head above water, struggling to get back to the makeshift raft. The roof-raft, too, was being tossed violently, and for a horrible second, she thought she’d miss it, that the river would simply sweep them both away. Then, a strong hand clamped around her arm. Irsa, her face pale with effort, was leaning precariously over the edge, straining. “Grab his other arm!” she yelled, her voice hoarse. Pryna instinctively complied. Together, with a surge of combined, frantic effort, they hoisted Luka onto the raft. He lay there, shivering uncontrollably, coughing up water, but safe. Pryna dropped beside him, spitting grit, her teeth rattling from the mountain water. “We’re drifting fast,” Gavril said, his voice surprisingly steady, though his face was grim as he stared into the swirling water. He extended a hand to Pryna, hauling her upright. “We need to stay toward the center.” Suddenly, a choked gurgle reached them over the roar of the water. A figure bobbed into view, clinging to a twisted piece of timber. It was Yefim, his face a ghastly shade of grey, his eyes wide with panic, sputtering, barely keeping his head above the waves. He reached out a trembling hand towards their raft, reaching toward them. “Help me! Please, I’ll… I’ll do anything!” he spluttered, gasping for breath. “You’ll be rewarded! The state…” Pryna stared at him, her lips thinned. The image of the red-inked mandate, the blueprints for their doom, flashed in her mind. Her parents’ faces, etched with the same misplaced hope, haunted her. She reached into her sodden pocket, her hand closing around the single, crinkled bond that had somehow survived. With a harsh, mirthless laugh, she pulled it out, a worthless scrap of paper against the raging torrent. She flicked it into the water with a sharp snap of her wrist. “Here’s your reward, Yefim,” she spat, her voice laced with chilling contempt. “The state’s finest currency.” The bond, a symbol of so much broken hope, swirled briefly in the brown water before being swallowed whole. Yefim’s face contorted in a silent scream of betrayal and despair. He began to sink again. Gavril, however, watched the administrator flounder. Then, with a grunt, he leaned over the edge, grabbing Yefim’s collar with one massive hand. He hauled the flailing leader onto the raft with brutal force, dumping him unceremoniously amongst them, sputtering and choking. “He knows the basin gates,” Gavril explained simply, his gaze locked downstream. “The dam. It will be near.” The roof platform spun helpless in the main sluice. It spun, it pitched, it slammed against unseen debris. The trees on the banks, once distant, blurred past them in a dizzying rush. Pryna clung to Luka, her body tense, tracking the grim speed of their descent. The roar of the water grew louder, a monstrous, hungry sound that seemed to vibrate in her very bones. Through the driving rain, a colossal, concrete structure loomed ahead – the Grand Vesnian Dam, its massive spillway a sheer drop, where the river dropped hundreds of feet into the gorge.

The Rising Tide