The Silent Guardian
The ancient city of Veridia, nestled in a valley and cradled by a mighty river, was drowning. For three days, torrential rains had lashed against the mountains, and now the river, usually a life-giver, had transformed into a monstrous, brown deluge. The main dam upstream was straining, and emergency sirens wailed a desperate, mournful song, ordering a full evacuation. Panic choked the streets as people scrambled for higher ground.
Amid the chaos, Elara, a seasoned hydraulic engineer in her late forties, stared at her rain-streaked window not with fear, but with fierce concentration. The official reports were grim: the dam’s primary spillway was compromised. A catastrophic breach was imminent, which would unleash a wall of water capable of wiping Veridia off the map. B
