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No one was prepared for the flood.
It had started out as a normal day: wake up to the bright and early sunrise in his eyes, slip into a nearby garden for whatever berries were ripe and within reach, avoid getting scraped up by chicken wire on the way out, and make his way to the stream at the edge of the village for a drink of water and a scrub down. As long as he got to the stream early enough, he wouldn't have to compete with anyone else or worry about his clothes getting stolen or torn apart (again).
The first sign of something amiss appeared when Morro arrived at the stream. Instead of the usual crystal clarity that the villagers took pride in, the water swirled with silt and debris to the point where he could barely see the bottom. Not wanting to waste his opening, he went ahead and stepped into the chilly flow, making sure to clean up as quickly as possible. As he finished and redressed himself, he noticed that the bright blue sky was quickly turning gray with storm clouds and he groaned. All the covered shelters would be taken by now and he'd have to spend the day in the rain, all because he was too focused on having the water to himself. The wind began to blow against him, tossing around his soaking wet hair and pushing him toward the village.
'Danger,' it whispered.
That got Morro's attention. It had been a long time since the wind had spoken so clearly to him. Its usual playful cadence was gone, replaced with a sense of intense urgency, and he hurried to follow its direction. "What's wrong? Is something gonna happen?"
There was no answer like that again, simply a desperate urging for him to run onward. His legs burned at the speed, but he felt the silent order of 'faster, faster' as the wind helped carry his feet forward without tripping. A rumbling sound had started building in volume behind him and his heart felt like it was going to jump out of his chest.
Something big was coming, and it was coming fast.
Turning a corner, Morro saw a house with a balcony ahead of him right as the wind began shifting its voice upward. He had trusted it to get him through several dangerous situations before, but to ask him to jump a whole story high? He hoped it knew what it was doing. Without slowing down, he waited for the wind's signal, and when it gave a swirl around his feet, he jumped as high as he could.
With a strong gust at his back, he miraculously managed to grab onto the guard rail right as a deluge slammed into the base of the structure below him. Splinters dug into his fingers as he struggled to hang on, but slowly he managed to swing a leg up onto the ledge and started to breathe a sigh of relief.
Until he heard the sound of cracking wood.
He panicked as the beams of the railing started coming loose and made the mistake of looking down at the quickly rising water.
The railing separated from the balcony and fell, taking Morro with it. The water was freezing cold when the two splashed into it, but the boy had no time to register anything else as he was immediately carried away by the strong current. He tried to keep his head above water and yell for help, but a combination of not knowing how to swim and several crashes into the sides of buildings or stray pieces of debris left him dazed and unable to hold himself up.
Everything became a blur after that. He lost all sense of direction, subject to the whims of the flood. At one point he remembered holding on to a gutter drainage pipe which drew the attention of some voices on the rooftop, but he was washed away again before a rescue could happen.
Morro's final destination was a tree whose branches snagged onto his clothes, keeping him stationary, but by this point he was too out of it to celebrate. He had swallowed so much water just trying to breathe, and even now the current was forcing more into his mouth and nose. Only one thought cycled through his tired mind.
He was going to die here.
As the branches held him under and his vision clouded with black, he became vaguely aware of a strong set of hands lifting him out of the flow. A white figure filled what remained of his sight and he opened his mouth to ask a question, but the only thing that came out was water.
"You are safe now, young one." The voice was old and gentle, and before he knew it he was doubled over on the edge of a roof as his stomach expelled as much as it could. His lungs burned as heaves turned into wet coughs, but a soothing coolness rubbed circles into his back and soon the water in his lungs felt like it was being drawn out. A breeze licked at his face, carrying messages of worry and gratitude, and he tiredly closed his eyes as his body succumbed to exhaustion.
"Let's go home, my child."