One moment the sea lay flat as glass, reflecting the bruised purple of dusk. The next, the horizon split open like a cracked mirror, and the first thunderclap rolled across the water with the sound of a mountain collapsing. On the deck of the trawler Sagarika, Captain Arman felt the shift before anyone else did. The wind changed its breath. The gulls vanished. Even the engine's hum seemed to tremble.
"Storm," he said quietly.
Rafi, the youngest deckhand, laughed. "Sky's clear, Captain."
Arman didn't answer. He had spent thirty years reading the moods of the sea, and right now it was whispering something dangerous. He looked out again. The dark line at the edge of the world was rising.
"Pull the nets," he ordered.
The crew exchanged glances. They had barely begun their night catch. Fish meant money. Money meant food for their families. But they obeyed. On the ocean, a captain's instincts were law.
They were halfway through hauling when the wind struck.
Not a breeze. Not a gust. A fist.
It slammed into the boat broadside, snapping the ropes taut and jerking Rafi off his feet. The deck tilted violently. A wall of water rose beside them, higher than the mast, its crest glowing ghostly white in the lightning's sudden flash.
"Cut it loose!" Arman shouted.
"But the nets—"
"CUT IT!"
Rafi scrambled, knife shaking in his hand, and sliced the rope. The nets vanished into the black water just as the wave crashed over them.
The world became sound and salt and chaos.
Water hammered the deck, stole the air from their lungs, and hurled crates like toys. The mast groaned. Somewhere metal screamed. Arman clung to the wheel as the trawler pitched downward, plunging into a trough so deep the horizon disappeared.
Another flash of lightning tore the sky open.
For an instant, Arman saw the storm's face: towering clouds spiraling like a monstrous whirlpool in the heavens, rain slashing sideways, the sea boiling as if something enormous writhed beneath it.
Then darkness swallowed everything again.
"Engine!" he yelled.
"I'm trying!" shouted Dev, the mechanic, wrestling the controls below. The engine sputtered like a choking animal. Saltwater sprayed through the vents. If it died, they would drift helplessly, a cork in a hurricane.
The wind howled louder, a voice rising to a scream.
Rafi crawled across the deck toward the railing. "Captain!" he cried. "Look!"
Arman turned.
Out there, between the black mountains of water, a light flickered.
Not lightning. Not a star. A steady glow, low on the horizon, bobbing wildly.
"A boat?" Dev shouted from below.
Arman narrowed his eyes. Another lightning flash illuminated it: a tiny wooden dinghy, half-swamped, spinning like a leaf. And in it—someone was standing, waving frantically.
A lone figure.
For a heartbeat Arman hesitated. Every instinct screamed to turn away, to fight for his own crew's survival. The storm was worsening. One wrong move and they would all die.
Then the figure vanished behind a wave.
Rafi grabbed his arm. "We can't help them, Captain! We'll sink!"
Arman thought of the years he had spent on these waters. The men he had lost. The night his own brother's boat had gone down while other ships sailed safely past, each captain telling himself the same lie: If I stop, my crew dies too.
He looked at the raging sea. Then at his men.
"If we leave them," he said hoarsely, "we're already drowned."
He spun the wheel. "Turn her!"
The trawler groaned in protest as he forced it across the waves. Water smashed over the bow. The deck tilted so steeply Rafi slid, slamming into a crate. Dev staggered up from below, eyes wide.
"You're mad!"
"Maybe," Arman said. "Get the rope!"
Another wave struck. The mast cracked like a gunshot. Splinters flew. The light of the little boat vanished again, then reappeared—closer now, tossed like driftwood.
"There!" Rafi shouted.
They threw the rope. It whipped uselessly through the wind.
"Again!"
Second throw. Missed.
The dinghy slammed against a swell, nearly capsizing. The figure inside clung to the side.
Arman grabbed the rope himself. He waited—one breath, two—feeling the rhythm of the storm. Then he hurled it with all his strength.
The line arced through the rain.
For a terrible second it seemed it would fall short.
A hand shot up from the darkness and caught it.
"Pull!" Arman roared.
They hauled together, muscles screaming. The rope went taut, slicing through the water. The dinghy slammed against the trawler's side with a bone-jarring crack. Rafi leaned over, seized the stranger's collar, and dragged them aboard.
They collapsed onto the deck in a heap.
Another lightning flash revealed the rescued figure—a young woman, drenched, lips blue, eyes wide with shock. She coughed seawater and clutched the planks as if they were the earth itself.
For a moment no one spoke.
Then the engine roared back to life below.
Dev whooped. "She's running!"
Arman sagged against the wheel, relief flooding him so suddenly his knees trembled. The storm still raged. The sea still tried to tear them apart. But the boat was moving—cutting through the waves, climbing, surviving.
He looked down at the woman. She met his gaze, tears mixing with rain.
"Why?" she whispered.
Arman glanced out at the black horizon, where thunder still marched like distant drums.
"Because," he said softly, "the sea takes enough from us already."
Behind him, the storm began—very slowly—to loosen its grip.