The water always knew before she did.
It whispered through her faucet. It pulsed gently against her ankles at the shore. It trembled in her glass when her heart was unsettled.
Nyra had never told anyone that.
Because who would believe her?
Her house sat on the edge of a quiet coastal town in southern India. A place where old fishermen told stories that most children laughed at—stories of moon spirits and ocean gods. But Nyra didn't laugh.
She listened.
She always listened.
She stood at the shore now, the moon high and full above her, silver light cutting across the water like a blade of glass. The tide lapped against her feet in perfect rhythm. She closed her eyes.
In the stillness, she could feel it again—that strange, pulsing pull beneath the waves. Not dangerous. Not loud. Just... there. Like the sea was tethered to her somehow.
She took a step deeper into the water.
And the tide responded.
Not like a wave. Not like nature.
But like obedience.
She opened her eyes slowly.
A smooth arc of water had risen up around her ankles, circling them—held aloft, shimmering in moonlight, as if it waited for her command.
Nyra let out a shaky breath and stepped back.
The water dropped instantly, crashing like a normal wave again.
At school, she kept her head down.
Quiet. Smart. A little odd.
She wore silver rings and always carried a notebook filled with scribbles of moon phases and ocean currents. Teachers liked her. Classmates mostly ignored her.
Except one.
Aarav.
He was two grades above her. Barely noticed her. But she had noticed him. Ever since last year, when she caught him sketching constellations into his desk, she felt the same weird gravity from him that she felt from the sea.
She once caught his eye across the school courtyard.
He looked confused. Like he had felt it too.
She never talked to him.
Not then.
Tonight, she walked back home slowly, the moonlight bathing the road in silver hues. Her phone buzzed with messages from classmates she wouldn't answer.
Then, as she passed a broken fountain outside the old train station, she felt it again.
A tremor.
A whisper in her bloodstream.
Water.
She turned. The fountain was dry. Had been for months.
But she saw it—just a single drop. Floating midair. Hovering, as if pulled by her presence.
Nyra took a step toward it.
And suddenly the fountain roared to life. Not violently. Not even loudly. But purposefully—like it had been waiting.
Water cascaded from the dry stone mouth, spilling into the air, and for a moment she saw a ripple of moonlight inside the flow. As if the moon was watching her through the water.
Then it stopped.
Just like that.
Silence.
The drop fell.
Nyra stepped back, heart racing, breath caught in her throat.
Something was happening.
Something bigger than her. Bigger than the ocean.
She didn't know what she was.
But she could feel the pull of the moon growing stronger every night.
And somewhere, far away, the tide was rising.