People say nothing is more heartbreaking than a mother burying her young. What about children who survived alone?

The signs were there from the beginning. The banks of rivers suffered encroachment. Builders pushed the shores of the sea to build more houses.The rain came late that year. We should have known torrents would ensue. 

The warning of a possible flood came mid June. By then, nature had  tolerated enough trespasses. It rained. The currents overflowed. Then the flood came.

It was bedtime. By the time we felt the waters surge, my home was filled to my father's waist.

The gurgling sound became louder when the door was opened. The shouts of families in the neighbourhood filtered into my ears. Thunder rumbled. Lightening bolt rippled across the face of heaven. I have heard father say there would be consequences for the construction activities at the shores. I didn't think he meant a judgement from heaven.

All my little mind could imagine for safety was Noah's Ark. My family of four would be saved. That was a fantasy that buried the cold shivers.

" Stay here." Father ordered as he dropped Sochi and I, with our little backpacks, on a hill. 

" Mama?" I asked, and tugged his wet shirt.

He told us to wait and went back to help our mother. In the dark, all I could make from his figure as he pushed forward was a dimming light.

We waited. I prayed. We hoped.

Some parents who had made it to the hill embraced their young ones. In a flock of sheep and warmth of love, my little brother and I, were alone. Separate, like the black ones.

My prayers intensified. Our hope reignited, but the wait didn't end.

Night passed and morning came. Boats covered the face of the water. I longed to see them. Like  those days they returned from work together and mother would giggle at every joke father said. 

Looking intently at the direction of our home, I didn't notice that the families we met on the hill were gone.

A man walked up to us, and without so much as a " hello", he attempted to carry us.

" We can not go. Father said we should wait." I told him.

" Let's take shelter while we wait for him." He pressed, with pale hands and a flicker of sadness in his amber eyes.

I glanced at the face of the water again. The last place I had seen him. 

" I can not go." I insisted. He reached out to Sochi, but he snuggled deeper at my side.

That was a 'no' from us. A silent protest at the judgement that left us orphaned at early childhood. It wasn't just us. We met many children like us. Children who paid for a crime that was never ours. Doomed  to take shallow breath in alien homes, deprived of the sincerity of our parent's care. One man's ambition had broken the eternal barrier. Nature responded fiercely. At the end, homes and loved ones were lost. One finger had rubbed oil all over the other nine.