It was just another night — the sky painted in soft gold as Gabriel returned from the fields, his hoe on his shoulder. Dark clouds were piling up far over the hills, but he paid it no mind. Rain in the season was to be expected, and Naomi had dinner waiting for him with warm porridge and their baby boy’s guffaws.
Halfway to home, he paused to catch his breath alongside the stream, where rippling water repeated the hues of the dying sky. And then he heard it — a boom in the distance. He had thought at first it might be thunder. But as ground beneath his feet began to tremble, he glanced up in terror.
A mountain of boulders and earth was beginning to break loose from the hillside above — booming, unstoppable, devouring everything in its path.
“Naomi!” His shout was raw across the wind.
He whirled to run, but too late. The hillside gave way beneath him, and the world was anarchy — a demented whirl of mud, water, and wreckage swept everything before it.
Down below, Naomi heard the sound and ran from the hut, clinging to Leon. Her heart bounded as she saw the brown torrent boiling down the mountain.
“Gabriel!” she yelled into the tempest.
Her call was lost to the rumble of rain and earth. Heaven wept as the flood tore through their plants and trees, casting ruin and stillness.
After the tempest had passed, the only thing remaining was mud — and a lone shoe half-buried beside the hill’s foot.
Naomi fell to the ground, Leon crying in her arms, her words breaking into a whisper that night’s wind carried away.
“Please… not him.”
The tempest raged on deep into the night, and in the end,...