NAIADES

" The mind may forget, but a heart that truly loves never will" Prologue: The Legend When I was a kid, every time the power went out in Santa Cruz, Guiguinto, my cousins and I would sit on the bamboo floor in Lola Coring's house. One kerosene lamp in the middle of us. No TV, no cellphone with charge. All we had were stories. That was where I first heard her name. "The old folks say," Lola whispered, waving away the smoke from the mosquito coil, "there is someone living in the river at the foot of the forest. She is not Maria Makiling. She is not a nuno. She is Naiades. She is the guardian." We all went quiet. Outside, you could hear the river hitting the stones, even in the dry season. "They say she was beautiful once," Lola said. "Hair like branches full of leaves. Skin like tree bark, wet from the rain. Eyes the color of amber, like sap dried in the sun. Every morning, she would clean the river with her own hands. She would pull out the trash, the plastic, the sickness in the water. That is why the river was clear back then. You could drink straight from it. The children could swim." "So where is she now, Lola?" my cousin Junjun asked. Lola looked toward the window, where you could see the dark river. "She is still there. But she is tired." "Tired why?" "Because people throw their trash into her river. The factories in Meycauayan pour their chemicals in. The children who swim do not ask permission anymore. Every sickness the river takes, she takes into herself. That is why the leaves in her hair are falling. One by one. And every leaf that falls, a piece of her strength goes with it." We went quiet. All you could hear were the crickets. "What happens when all her leaves are gone?" I asked. I must have been seven years old then. Lola smiled, but it was sad. "When her leaves are gone, she will become just a tree. She will stand by the river, unable to move, unable to speak. She will still watch over the river, but she will not be able to clean it anymore. And when that happens, the river will die too." "Can she be saved?" Lola nodded. "The old folks say yes. All it takes is one person who truly loves her. Not because she is beautiful. Not because she is a diwata. But because she is Naiades. If someone loves her like that, her leaves will come back. One by one. Until everything is green again." Junjun laughed. "Then she should just find a boyfriend!" Lola flicked him lightly on the head. "It is not that simple. Because whoever loves her has to be ready to get hurt too. Because the pain of the river will become his pain as well." I did not understand that back then. I was just a kid. I thought it was just a bedtime story for brownouts. I grew up in Santa Cruz. Grade school passed, then high school. I became a delivery rider. I forgot about Naiades. She became just a legend people said when someone drowned, "Naiades took them. Payment." Until one night in June 2026. All of Bulacan flooded. My motorbike stalled out on the old bridge. The water was already climbing up my tires. And that was when I saw her, standing on the riverbank, soaked through, the branches in her hair shaking in the rain, her amber eyes exhausted. She was real. And I did not know it then, but that night was the start of everything. The start of the falling, and the growing back, and the forgetting, and the redemption. This is the story of how I fell in love with a river diwata. And how she taught me to love her back, even as I was slowly withering away with her. I am Elias. She is Naiades. This is our legend. ---