Dreamed You, Found You

Ch31: Sample

The county town was two hours away by bus.

Sari woke before dawn, dressed in her plainest clothes, and packed the water bottle in her bag. She left a note for Nenek—*Gone to town. Back this afternoon.*—and walked to the main road before the sun cleared the trees.

The bus was crowded. Farmers with baskets of vegetables, women with cloth bundles, children in school uniforms. She found a seat by the window and pressed her forehead against the glass as the village shrank behind her.

The bottle was heavy in her bag.

She had wrapped it in plastic, then in cloth, then in another layer of plastic. The black water didn't leak, but she could feel it there, pressing against her hip with every bump in the road.

*What if the lab won't test it?*

She had thought about that. The government lab in the county town did water testing—she had seen the sign on the door years ago. But they mostly tested for bacteria, for basic contaminants.

This was different.

The water in the bottle was black.

She watched the rice paddies give way to small towns, then to larger towns, then to the outskirts of the county town. The buildings grew taller. The roads grew wider. The bus stopped at the terminal, and she stepped out into the noise and heat.

The lab was a low concrete building on a side street, its paint peeling, its windows covered with metal grilles. She pushed open the door and walked into a small reception area.

A woman sat behind a desk, filing her nails.

“Yes?”

“I need a water test.”

The woman looked up, her eyes scanning Sari's face, her clothes, the bag on her shoulder. “From where?”

“A spring. Near my village.”

“Private well?”

“Communal. The whole village uses it.”

The woman set down her nail file and pulled a form from a drawer. “Fill this out. Name, location, date. Results in three to five days.”

Sari took the form and a pen. Her hand was steady as she wrote—her name, the village name, today's date. She hesitated at the section marked *Suspected Contaminants*.

“I don't know what's in it,” she said. “That's why I'm here.”

The woman shrugged. “We'll run the standard panel. Heavy metals, bacteria, organic compounds. If something unusual shows up, we'll flag it.”

Sari nodded. She pulled the bottle from her bag—still wrapped in plastic, still wrapped in cloth—and set it on the counter.

The woman unwrapped it carefully. When she saw the black water, her expression changed.

“What is this?”

“Water. From the spring.”

“It's black.”

“I know.”

The woman picked up the bottle and held it to the light. The liquid was dark, almost opaque. She sniffed the cap and recoiled.

“Chemicals,” she said. “Strong.”

“That's what I smelled.”

The woman set the bottle down and wrote something on the form. “We'll need to run extra tests. Might take longer than five days.”

“I'll wait.”

“You'll wait for the results? Here?” The woman looked at her like she was crazy.

“No. I'll come back. Just call me when they're ready.”

She left her phone number and the school's address, paid the fee, and walked out.

The sun was high now, the heat brutal. She bought a bottle of clean water from a street vendor and drank it standing on the sidewalk.

*Three to five days.*

She would wait.

And while she waited, she would watch the smoke rise from Mbah Ratu's fires and dream of the grey city.

---

The bus ride back was longer. Or maybe it only felt longer. The bottle was gone—she had left it at the lab—but its weight still pressed against her hip, phantom and persistent.

She stared out the window at the rice paddies, the palm trees, the blue mountains.

*What have you started?*

She didn't know.

But she knew she couldn't stop now.

---

That night, the grey city was thick with fog.

It clung to the buildings, wrapped around the streetlights, filled the air with a heaviness that made it hard to breathe. She could barely see five meters in front of her.

He was there. A shape in the mist, dark and still.

“The fog is worse,” she said.

“I know.”

“The lab has the water. They're testing it. Three to five days.”

He nodded. “I'll start looking into the symbol.”

“The snake?”

“Yes. I've seen it before. I just need to remember where.”

The fog shifted around them.

“Be careful,” he said.

“You too.”

The dream held, thin and fragile, wrapped in mist.

They stood together in the grey, waiting.