The room was quiet.
Only the rain tapping against the roof dared to interrupt.
Oz stood by the window, arms folded, back turned to his sons.
"I wasn't always like this," he said. "Calm. Controlled. I had to drown that part of me a long time ago."
Zaire sat on the floor, legs folded, eyes glued to his father.
Oziah leaned against the wall, arms crossed tightly, still shaken by Rahab's attack.
"You were... one of them?" Zaire asked.
Oz turned slowly, eyes heavy.
"I was five when I became an orphan. My parents… were lost in the war. I don't remember much—just blood in the river and silence after it. That's when the Flow Council found me. At the time, I didn't know they'd been searching for HydroFlow users. They said I was 'blessed.' But it was never about blessing. It was about control."
[Flashback – The Initiation]
The scene shifts to a younger Oz, around six or seven, standing in the rain, drenched and shivering. Around him, Council members stood in long cloaks. One held a rod of polished stone — the test of endurance.
"Feel it," the voice commanded. "Flow is not kindness. It is command."
The rod slammed into the puddle at Oz's feet, sending water slicing across his cheek. He didn't flinch.
They called it training.
But it was indoctrination.
Oz learned to shape water into blades before he learned to write his name.
He was ordered to trap deserters, silence unstable Flow users, erase threats.
They trained him not to ask why — only how.
By twelve, he was a Flow Hunter — youngest ever. The one they called The Torrent. He didn't speak much. Just obeyed. Just killed.
Until the mission that changed everything.
[Flashback – Mission Gone Wrong]
"I was sent to retrieve a girl," Oz said, his voice cracked and distant. "She wasn't dangerous. She was a healer. But her Flow didn't fall into any known category — not Hydro, Light, Necromancer, Echo, or even Agrokinesis. It didn't obey the usual laws."
He paused, voice darkening. "She could heal... but more than that. Her Flow awakened something in others — drew out the power already buried within them. A Flow user who could both restore and unleash was a rarity indeed. And the Council… they feared what they couldn't label or leash."
The flashback shows a brutal ambush. Oz is pierced through the side with a jagged stone. Blood and water swirl as he collapses, clutching his wound. His attackers leave him for dead.
Then — light.
A woman kneels beside him, hands glowing softly, whispering something that makes the water around them tremble. She's not afraid of him. She's trying to save him.
"Esther," Oz whispered in the present.
Zaire and Oziah both sat up.
"Wait... Mother?!" Oziah asked in disbelief.
Oz nodded slowly. "She found me, broken and bleeding. She didn't run. She healed. Her Flow… it didn't just stitch wounds. It calmed something inside the Flow itself. When her hands touched me, my Flow didn't obey—it reacted. It evolved."
His blood mixed with water and sky. His pain birthed lightning. Storm. Surge. Cyclone.
"When I woke up, I wasn't the same," he said to his sons. "My HydroFlow had... mutated."
Zaire's eyes widened. "Into... what we have?"
"Yes," Oz said. "Mutated HydroFlow. It's misunderstood. It doesn't follow the old laws."
Oziah looked down at his palm, then up at his father. "Is that why the Council fears us?"
"They don't just fear you," Oz said. "They want to control you. Like they tried to control me."
Zaire looked away, voice quiet. "I don't want to be like them. But… when I touched the river, my Flow—it felt different. Like it wasn't mine. Like it was… listening."
Oz studied him. "That's because it wasn't just your Flow responding. It was something older. Something the river remembers."
Oziah stepped forward. "But what even is TideBorn? You said it's just a stronger version of HydroFlow?"
"No," Oz said, walking closer. "TideBorn isn't just strength. It's communion. Your Flow doesn't just obey—it converses. It responds to emotion, to memory. You don't command it… you connect with it."
The rain outside grew louder, like it, too, was listening.
"And the Council...?" Zaire asked.
"They once tried to harness a TideBorn," Oz said. "But when they couldn't control them, they tried to erase their existence. All I know are whispers… passed between Flow Hunters behind closed doors. Rumors of Flow users who made rivers sing. Who healed cities. Who destroyed armies with grief alone—because the river felt what they felt."
Zaire hugged his knees, overwhelmed. "Then what am I?"
Ariyah stood at the threshold. "What made you leave?"
Oz turned to his daughter. Her voice was small but steady.
"I overheard them," he said. "After Esther healed me. The Council planned to experiment on her—on her Flow. They believed her ability might be the key to awakening or severing Flow connections. That it could unlock powers like the TideBorn. Or destroy them."
Esther appeared beside Ariyah, eyes narrowed with old pain.
"They wanted to break her open," Oz said. "Figure out how her healing worked. Inject it into soldiers. Twist it into something… unnatural."
Ariyah took a step closer. "So what did you do?"
Oz's jaw clenched.
[Flashback – The Breaking of the Vault]
Night.
A stone chamber beneath the Council stronghold. Esther was shackled in Flow-binding cuffs. One commander called her "the key." Oz stood nearby, silent. Still.
"Torrent," the captain said, "Step aside. You've done your duty."
He didn't move.
"You dare disobey?"
Oz lifted his head. Calm. Deadly.
"I'm done being your weapon."
Water pulled from the walls, coiling like snakes around his limbs. The air thickened. Crackled.
One Hunter gasped. "That's… storm energy—? But you—"
"I couldn't before," Oz said. "Until she touched my Flow."
Then everything broke.
Lightning exploded from his chest. A cyclone of vapor and pressure tore through the vault. Ancient relics were ripped from their pedestals. Guards flew like leaves in a flood.
"Torrent's turned!" someone screamed. "Fall back!"
Esther's eyes met his as he shattered her cuffs with a sharp arc of water.
"Can you walk?"
"I can run."
They escaped into the rain, chased by the chaos he'd unleashed.
He was no longer Torrent.
He was the storm.
Back in the present, Oz said, "I took Esther… and I never looked back."
Zaire, wide-eyed, whispered, "They trained you to be a blade… but you became the flood."
Oz didn't respond — but the silence said he'd never wanted to be either.
Esther stepped forward, resting her hand on Zaire's shoulder. "We've always known you were different, Zai. But different doesn't mean broken. It means called."
"Called to what?" he whispered.
"That," Oz said, walking to the door, "is what we have to find out."
Zaire stood. "So what happens now?"
"Now you train," Oz said. "You've seen what's coming. Rahab. The Council. Your Flow. And your fears. You're not boys anymore."
Ariyah raised her chin. "What about me? Do I have a mutated Flow too?"
Oz paused at the door. "We won't know until it awakens. But when it does... we'll be ready."
He opened the door, letting the wind in.
"Tomorrow, we go to the river."
And this time,
he let the rain speak.