Before the Water Comes

They'd fallen from the same tin, landed side by side in the hollow of a chipped porcelain cup. One had a jagged edge where he'd broken off wrong. The other was nearly perfect, round as she'd ever be.

"You're going to fight it, aren't you," she said. Not a question.

"I don't know how to do anything else." He laughed, but it came out sharp. "I had plans. Stupid ones. I thought maybe I'd roll to the rim. See what's out there before..." He stopped.

Above them, the kettle trembled.

"I used to think I'd stay whole forever," she said. "When I was still packed in tight with the others, I believed we'd just... stay. All of us, pressed together in the dark, waiting for something that would never come."

"That sounds terrible."

"It was safe."

The first drop fell.

It struck the porcelain beside them, not quite close enough to touch, but the heat traveled through the cup like a warning. He pulled inward, clenching against what he knew was coming.

"I'm not ready," he said.

"Neither am I."

"Then why aren't you fighting?"

She didn't answer for a long moment. The steam rose around them, thick and patient.

"Because I don't want to be alone when it happens," she finally said. "And if I'm busy fighting, I won't feel you next to me."

The flood came.

He did fight. He couldn't help it. He loved his jagged edge, his particular way of catching the light, the specific angle at which he'd always rested. He loved being him, even though he'd only been him for the few seconds between the tin and the cup.

But she reached toward him. Not with hands (they didn't have those) but with something else. A pull. An invitation.

"We don't disappear," she said, as the water rose past them. "We just stop being separate."

And because being separate suddenly felt colder than anything the water could do, he let go.

They dissolved together. Not erased. Not forgotten. Just... changed. Slipping into something larger than either of them could hold alone.

Somewhere above, a hand lifted the cup. Someone took a sip and felt, just for a moment, a warmth they couldn't quite explain.

END.