(Mina's POV)
The rain had been falling for three days straight, a relentless, deafening drumming on the corrugated iron roof of their small apartment that had become the soundtrack to their lives. At first, Mina had found the sound almost comforting-a steady, natural lullaby as she rocked a fussy Trisha to sleep in the humid darkness. But by the second night, the telltale drip... drip... drip into strategically placed pots and bowls, and the rising, unmistakable smell of damp concrete and wet fabric, told a different, more ominous story.
By the third night, the sound was no longer a lullaby. It was a relentless, pounding warning.
She woke with a start, disoriented, to the shocking, cold press of water against her bare feet on the floor. For a blissful second, she thought it was a dream, a spill from one of the overfull pots. But when she fumbled for the kerosene lamp on the stool and lifted it, the dim, flickering glow revealed a nightmare-the floor of their little home was already a shallow, moving river, dark and silent, carrying along a child's slipper, a fallen feeding bottle, scraps of paper that swirled like tiny boats.
"Adams!" she gasped, her voice a sharp blade slicing through the oppressive noise of the storm.
Adam stirred from the thin mat on the floor where he still slept, his body not yet healed enough for their bed, his ribs still tightly bandaged. He sat up too quickly, a grunt of pain escaping him, then froze, his eyes widening in the lamplight as he saw the dark water creeping inexorably toward the legs of Trisha's crib.
"Ya Allah..." he whispered, the prayer a breath of pure terror. He lurched forward despite the searing pain in his side. "Mina, wake her-get her up now!"
Mina scrambled through the water, her heart hammering against her ribs, and scooped up a stirring, whimpering Trisha, who immediately buried her face against Mina's neck, her tiny fists curling into the fabric of her nightdress. The baby's warm, living weight steadied her racing heart for a single second, but a fresh wave of fear surged as she watched the water visibly climb higher, cold and relentless, swallowing the carved legs of their wooden chairs, lapping at the trunks storing their clothes.
"Get the documents!" Adam barked, his voice rough with a urgency that brooked no argument. He was already trying to stand, using the wall for support. "The marriage certificate, her birth certificate, our IDs-anything important! Quickly! In the waterproof bag!"
She darted to the small metal trunk where she kept their most precious, irreplaceable things, her fingers fumbling, shaking violently as she stuffed the precious papers into a bright blue nylon bag. The water was up to her calves now, shockingly icy and smelling faintly but unmistakably of sewage and wet earth, a scent of decay that made her stomach turn.
Then came the sound that truly broke her: a deep, groaning crack from the front of the house, as the poorly constructed wall shuddered under the immense pressure from the outside.
"Adams!" she screamed, stumbling back toward him through the rising water.
He was already trying to drag his body toward her, his injured leg refusing to bear weight, his face a mask of agony and determination. He glanced at her, then at Trisha clutched protectively in her arms, and something in his expression shifted-a cold, grim resolve that was more frightening than the panic.
"Go!" he shouted over the roar of the storm. "Take her and get out! Now!"
"I won't leave you! I can't!"
"Mina-please! For her! If that wall goes, you'll both be trapped in here! I can't-I can't get to you fast enough!"
Before he could finish his desperate plea, the front door, weakened by the water, gave way with a violent, splintering crash, and a wave of churning, muddy water surged inside, sweeping their few meager belongings away like toys. The thin mattress they shared floated past them, a useless, sodden raft. Mina clutched Trisha tighter, her breath coming in ragged, terrified sobs.
Adam grabbed her arm, his grip iron-strong despite his injuries, pulling her toward the small window at the back of the room. "Out there! You have to go through! It's our only chance!"
She hesitated only for a heartbeat, a silent apology in her eyes, before hoisting herself onto the sill, balancing a now-crying Trisha against her shoulder as she fought to force the rusted, stubborn window frame open. Cold rain poured in, stinging her face and blinding her for a moment. In the distance, she could hear the shouts of other families, their voices tiny and desperate against the immense roar of the storm.
She turned back, her hand outstretched. "Adam-come! Now!"
He tried. He really, truly did. But his broken body betrayed him. His injured ribs screamed in protest, his leg buckled under him, sending him stumbling into the filthy water. Still, he pushed himself up, dragging his body toward the window, every agonizing movement fueled by something far greater than pain-a love that refused to be drowned. By the time he finally half-fell, half-crawled out through the window into the muddy, flooded street, Mina was already there, crying and pulling at his arm with her free hand, their daughter held secure in the other.
Together, a triptych of misery and determination, they stumbled through the waist-deep, treacherous water, guided only by the flickering beams of neighbors' flashlights and the desperate shouts of other families fleeing their own ruined homes. Mina's soaked wrapper clung heavily to her legs, threatening to trip her with every step, but she never once let go of either of them-her child or her husband.
(Later – Adam's POV)
By the gray, sodden morning, the floodwaters had receded enough to reveal the full, heartbreaking extent of the ruins. Their home-the home they had built together with so much hope and struggle-was not just damaged. It was gone. The front wall had completely collapsed inward, their furniture was shattered and buried in mud, their clothes and books and small treasures were scattered through the compound like the debris of a shipwreck.
Adam stood barefoot in the thick, cold mud, his chest bandages stained and wet, the relentless drizzle still dripping from his hair into his eyes. Every breath was a sharp, painful reminder of his injuries, but the physical ache was nothing compared to the hollow, gnawing void opening up in his chest.
"This was all we had," Mina whispered beside him, her voice barely audible. Trisha was asleep against her chest, exhausted from the night's terror. Mina's eyes were red-raw from tears and lack of sleep, her whole body trembling from cold and shock. "Everything... everything we worked for... finished. Just... gone."
Adam swallowed hard against the lump of failure that felt lodged in his throat. He had promised her security. He had sworn to her, and to himself, after the accident, that he would never fail her again. That he would protect them. Yet here they stood, stripped bare of every single possession, every semblance of stability, by one merciless night of rain.
"Not everything," he said hoarsely, forcing himself to turn and look at her instead of the devastating ruins of their life. He made himself focus on her face, on the sleeping face of his daughter. "We still have each other. And we have her. We are alive." He reached out a muddy, trembling finger and brushed it gently across Trisha's cool, perfect cheek.
But even as he said the brave words, a heavier, colder truth pressed down on him, threatening to crush what little air he had left. Where would they go tonight? How would he possibly rebuild from less than zero, injured, unemployed, with a wife and a newborn child depending entirely on him for their survival?
The answer came to him not as a choice, but as a bitter, unavoidable sentence.
Home. His father's house. The Dared compound.
The very place he had sworn, with every fiber of his pride, never to crawl back to.
He turned to Mina, shame and humiliation burning like acid behind his eyes, making it difficult to meet her gaze. "We... we'll have to go to my family's house," he said, the words tasting like defeat. "Just for a while. Just until-" He broke off, unable to finish the sentence, because he had no idea what came after 'until'.
Her lips parted in shock. She knew better than anyone what that meant-the constant scrutiny, the veiled and open judgment, the icy, suffocating tension with his mother. But she also looked around at the mud and the ruins, and she knew, as he did, that they had no other choice. No friends or family could take in a whole family. They were utterly destitute.
Mina nodded slowly, a gesture of heartbreaking resignation, and tightened her protective grip on Trisha. "If that is what we must do to survive, then we will endure it. Together."
Adam closed his eyes against the sting of tears he refused to shed. Endure. The word tasted like ash and surrender.
That night, soaked, shivering, and carrying their world in a single muddy bag, they arrived at the imposing gates of the grand Dared family compound. The security lights glared down, illuminating manicured lawns and reflecting off spotless, polished marble floors visible through the windows-a universe away from the ruined, muddy apartment they had just fled. Silent, efficient servants rushed forward to take their wet, pathetic bags, their eyes carefully averted, but their whispers trailing behind them like ghosts.
And then she appeared.
Hajiya Zainab, regal and untouched in her elegant, flowing lace iro and buba, emerged from the main house like a queen surveying conquered territory. Her sharp, calculating gaze swept over Adam's bandaged, defeated body, over Mina's soaked, simple clothes clinging to her frame, and finally came to rest on the child clutched possessively in her arms.
Her perfectly painted lips curled into a cold, triumphant smile that never reached her eyes.
"So," she said, her voice dripping with a disdain that seemed to lower the temperature of the air around them. "The prodigal son returns. And he brings... guests."
Mina's stomach tightened into a knot of cold dread. She clutched a sleeping Trisha closer to her heart, instinctively turning her body slightly away from that piercing gaze, already bracing for the psychological storm she knew was about to break over them.