Darkness swallowed them whole. The hospital, once a sanctuary, had become a tomb, its walls caving under the relentless force of the tsunami. Water surged in violent torrents through the collapsing ward, sweeping away the remnants of medicine, beds, and broken glass. The shells, their light extinguished, had disappeared beneath the flood, leaving only the erratic, flickering glow of lightning to cut through the abyss. And in that ruin, three souls clung to the fragile thread of life.

Onwuka's lungs burned with effort. He held the boy high with one arm, his fingers digging into the child's soaked clothes, while the other wrapped around Maria's trembling frame. Her breath came in sharp, pained gasps, her leg pinned beneath a fallen beam. The water, cold and merciless, pressed against their chins, rising, always rising. It carried whispers of the dead, the groans of a crumbling world.

The hospital's lower ward was unrecognizable, transformed into a chaotic pit of floating wreckage and despair. Salt, blood, and wet earth thickened the air, their scent clinging to every breath. Somewhere in the distance, the sea howled, its waves battering what remained of Paraty, as if determined to erase it entirely. The building groaned, a deep, ominous sound, the prelude to its final descent.

Onwuka tasted salt and copper on his tongue. His shoulders screamed from the effort of keeping the boy above the churning waters, but the child's heartbeat against his chest—quick as a frightened bird's—kept him anchored to purpose.

"We need to move," Onwuka rasped, his voice barely audible over the crashing water. He shifted Maria, ignoring the protest of his battered ribs. His feet sought purchase on the submerged floor, slipping against tiles now slick with algae and blood.

Maria's fingers clutched at his soaked shirt. "I— I can't—" Her voice cracked, face contorted with pain. "My leg, Wuka. It's crushed." Her eyes, wide pools of terror, sought his. "Leave me. Take the boy. Go."

"You speak nonsense." Onwuka's voice was firm, unyielding as iron. "I carry my people with me. Always. You are my people now."

"But—"

"No." The word echoed against the broken walls. "The ancestors did not bring us together to be separated by water." His gaze swept over the destruction, calculating. "I will free your leg."

"There's no time," she whispered, her lips blue with cold. "Listen." She gestured toward the creaking ceiling. "The building will collapse soon."

The boy whimpered against Onwuka's chest, a fragile thing in a monstrous storm. His tiny hands clung to Onwuka's neck, his breath warm against his skin. He said nothing, only released small, choked sobs that twisted something deep in Onwuka's chest. This child, so weightless in his arms, anchored him. Made him push forward even when his own body begged to succumb to the cold.

"What's your name, little one?" Onwuka asked, trying to soothe the child while his mind raced for a solution.

The boy hiccupped, "T-Tiago."

"Tiago," Onwuka repeated, as if tasting the name. "Strong name. Strong boy." He looked into the child's eyes, saw in them the same fear that had consumed his own village when the rivers rose and took everything. "I need you to be brave a little longer. Can you do that?"

Tiago nodded, his chin trembling.

"Good." Onwuka turned back to Maria. "I will not leave you to the water."

"My grandmother said the sea takes what it wants," Maria murmured, her eyes growing distant. "Maybe it wants me."

Onwuka's face hardened. "The sea is greedy, but I am stubborn." He shifted Tiago to his shoulder. "Hold tight, little warrior."

Water lapped at Maria's throat now. She tilted her head back, gasping. "I am not afraid to die, but I don't want to drown." Her voice was barely audible. "Not like this, in the dark, trapped."

"Then we will not drown." Onwuka's declaration seemed to push back the darkness itself. He took a deep breath and dove beneath the water, his free hand searching for the beam that pinned Maria's leg. His fingers found the rough wood, heavier than sin. He surfaced, breathing hard.

"I can move it," he said, though uncertainty threaded his words. "But it will hurt."

Maria's laugh was brittle. "Everything hurts already." She reached up, touched Tiago's small foot. "If you free me and I cannot walk, promise you will still go. Promise you will save this child."

"I will save you both," Onwuka insisted, the words like a vow.

Another thunderous crack split the air. A section of ceiling collapsed mere feet away, sending a wave that washed over them. Tiago screamed, his small body shaking violently.

"Shh, shh," Onwuka soothed, spitting out water. "We are still here. We are still breathing."

"The water is so angry," Tiago whispered.

"Yes," Onwuka agreed. "But we are angrier."

Maria's eyes found his in the dim light. Something passed between them—an understanding born of shared desperation, of coming face to face with oblivion and refusing its embrace.

"On three," Onwuka said, positioning himself. "One breath. One push. Then we move."

Maria nodded, steeling herself.

"One," he began, adjusting Tiago securely.

"Two," Maria whispered, her fingers digging into Onwuka's arm.

"Three!"

Onwuka dove, the world reducing to darkness and pressure and the singular task of freeing Maria from death's grip. His muscles screamed as he pushed against the beam. For a terrible moment, nothing happened—then the wood shifted, grating against concrete. Maria's muffled scream pierced the water.

He surfaced, gasping, and found Maria free but gray-faced with pain.

"Can you move?" he demanded.

She tried, whimpering. "Broken. Badly."

"Then I carry you both." He gathered her against him, her weight nearly dragging them under.

"You can't," she protested weakly.

"Watch me." His determination blazed like a beacon in the flood-darkened room. "The water rises, but so do we." He adjusted his hold on them both. "Which way to higher ground?"

Maria pointed with a trembling hand. "Service stairs. Behind the nurses' station."

Onwuka nodded, took a deep breath, and began to move—three souls bound together, pushing against the current, refusing to be carried away into oblivion. The hospital continued to crumble around them, but they moved forward, each step a defiance against the sea that sought to claim them.

"We live," Onwuka whispered, as much to himself as to his companions. "Today, we live."

Maria, gritting her teeth against the pain in her leg, pushed herself up against the beam that trapped her. Her hands, shaking, braced against it, adding what little force she could. The wound on her calf gaped open, a red mouth drowning in the rising water. Her fingers left smudges of blood on the concrete, like ancient markings on cave walls—stories of struggle, of survival against impossible odds.

"Wuka—" her voice wavered, thin as a whisper yet sharp as a blade in the chaos. "Take the boy. Get him out." Her eyes, wide pools of determination, searched his face. "You know it's the only way. I've already lived twenty-seven years. He's barely seen five."

The words cut through him like a machete—clean, painful, decisive.

"I'm not leaving you." Onwuka's accent thickened with emotion, each syllable heavy as stone. "There is a saying in my village: 'Those who abandon their companions to the flood will drown in their memories.'"

"You have to." Maria coughed, a violent shudder wracking her frame. Blood mixed with water, spiraling away in delicate ribbons, like red silk unraveling in a stream. "Please. He needs you." Her hand found Tiago's small foot, squeezing it gently. "My grandmother told me that sacrifice is the purest form of love. Let me give this to you both."

"This isn't the kind of love I wanted."

Maria looked into Onwuka's eyes, searching them for the deeper meaning behind his words.

Tiago whimpered, his small fingers digging into Onwuka's neck. "I want Maria to come," he said, his voice barely audible above the roar of destruction. "She showed me how to make paper boats."

Onwuka's jaw clenched so hard it hurt, the muscles in his neck standing out like cords. He looked at the boy, at the soft, fear-filled eyes staring up at him. He saw the innocence, the trust, the silent plea not to be left alone. Then he looked at Maria, at the fire in her gaze despite the agony twisting her features. She had already decided. She was ready to sacrifice herself.

But he was not ready to let her.

"All of us," he growled, pressing harder against the beam. "Or none." The water lapped at his chest, cold as death, insistent. "My mother once told me that we carry the weight of our choices forever. I will not carry the weight of leaving you behind."

Maria's laugh was bitter, broken. "And I will not carry the weight of being the reason you both drowned." Her body tensed with another wave of pain. "This is my choice, Wuka. Let me have the dignity of it."

"No." The word hung between them, solid as the beam that trapped her. "The dignity I offer you is life."

With a final, guttural cry, he heaved. His muscles bunched and bulged beneath his soaked shirt. His body screamed. His shoulder, already torn and bleeding, seared with agony, as if branded by hot iron. But the beam shifted. An inch. Another. The scrape of concrete against concrete echoed like thunder in the flooded chamber.

"Again," Maria urged, her voice finding new strength. She pushed with him, her face contorted, teeth bared in defiance of her pain. "Again, Wuka!"

Then it gave way, tumbling into the depths below with a splash that sent waves rippling across the submerged room.

Light. Faint, distant, filtering through a shattered window. A glimmer of salvation beyond the wreckage—the promise of open air, of sky, of life continuing beyond these drowning walls.

Maria gasped, her fingers slipping from where the beam had been. Onwuka caught her, his arm encircling her waist, dragging her through the opening. The boy, weightless in his arms, clung to his soaked clothes, whispering something—something too soft, too broken to understand.

"What do you say, Tiago?" Onwuka asked, desperate to keep the child focused, present.

"My mother," the boy murmured, his voice small and hollow. "She told me to be brave like my father. But I'm scared."

"Fear is not the absence of bravery," Onwuka said, the words coming from some deep, ancestral place within him. "Fear is the reason for it."

They crawled through the passage, debris scraping their skin, the walls closing in like the throat of some great beast swallowing them whole. Maria's breath came in ragged gasps, each movement sending spasms of pain through her damaged leg.

"I'm slowing you down," she hissed through clenched teeth.

"We move together or not at all," Onwuka replied, his voice brooking no argument. "Tiago, tell Maria about your paper boats. Keep talking."

The child, understanding his role in this desperate trinity, began to speak. "Maria taught me to fold the corners just right. My boat had a red stripe. It floated all the way across the puddle."

Behind them, the hospital roared, its walls giving way in violent protest. Beams snapped like brittle bones. Concrete crumbled, the sound like mountains collapsing. Water surged like a beast unchained, furious, determined to drag them back into its cold embrace.

"The stairwell," Maria gasped, pointing with a trembling hand. "There. Just ahead." Her eyes brightened with desperate hope. "We can make it. We can—"

Then the floor trembled beneath them, a living thing shivering in pain.

A sickening crack split the air, sharp as thunder, loud enough to swallow Tiago's frightened cry. The ceiling, weakened, broken, collapsed in a cascade of destruction—a waterfall of concrete and metal and years of accumulated hopes and fears and lives lived within these walls.

"Wuka!" Maria screamed, reaching for him.

"Hold on!" he shouted back, pulling her against him, creating a shield of his body around her and the boy. "Don't let go!"

The last thing Onwuka saw was Maria's wide, terrified eyes, like windows into another world—a world where perhaps they had met in different circumstances, under kinder skies. He saw the boy's small hand gripping his, fingers intertwined like roots seeking purchase in storm-loosened soil. Then the world drowned in darkness.

The water swallowed them whole, like a story without an ending, like a prayer without an answer, like three hearts beating against the tide of oblivion, refusing to be silenced.

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