Chasing Monsoon Clouds

The sky didn’t warn. It just broke.

One moment, Eddy was sketching storm clouds in his weather journal—cumulonimbus, flat-bottomed and mean, drifting east at 15 km/h—and the next, the world turned to water. Rain fell like fists, drumming on zinc roofs, roaring down gutters, swallowing the streets in seconds.

Eddy pressed his palm to the window. The glass trembled. The air smelled of wet earth, fried pisang goreng, and something deeper—something old, like moss on stone.

Then he saw it.

At the end of the alley, where the storm drain gurgled like a sick throat, a small gray shape darted through the flood.

A kucing—sleek, smoke-colored, one ear torn like a page folded at the corner. It didn’t run from the rain. It ran into it.

And then it stopped. Turned. Looked straight at Eddy.

Its mouth opened. No sound came out. But Eddy heard it anyway.

Come.

He didn’t think. He grabbed his raincoat, shoved his feet into rubber boots, and ran.

The water reached his ankles by the time he reached the drain. The kucing stared into the dark mouth of the tunnel, where floodwater churned and spat. Then it yowled—a sound so sharp it cut through the storm.

And beneath it: meow… meow…

Kittens. Trapped.

Eddy’s breath caught. He needed help.

He needed Bell.

And Lily.

Bell answered her door in a trash-bag cape and science fair goggles. “You’re drenched!”

“There’s a cat,” Eddy gasped. “And kittens. In the drain. They’re trapped.”

Bell didn’t blink. She grabbed her backpack—Rescue Supplies: Vol. 3—and slammed the door behind her. “The spy cat? Perfect. It’s recruiting us.”

They found Lily at her family’s kedai runcit, stacking cans as water seeped under the door.

“We need you,” Eddy said. “There are kittens in the old drain. We have to get them out.”

Lily studied his face. Then she nodded. “Give me two minutes.”

She returned with a flashlight, rope, first-aid kit, and a small glass bottle with a curl of pandan leaf and a blue bead. “For protection,” she said. “My atuk said old places remember things.”

Bell clapped her hands. “Team River Rescue—activate!”

They ran back into the storm.

The kucing was still there.

It blinked once. Then vanished into the dark.

Eddy followed.

The tunnel swallowed them whole.

At first, it was just water and shadows. The beam of Lily’s flashlight danced over cracked concrete, tangled roots, and floating debris. The air grew colder, heavier, as if the storm above had never reached this deep.

Then Bell pointed.

“Look.”

On the wall, half-hidden under grime, were carvings—fish, waves, a woman with long hair flowing like water.

Lily traced them with her fingers. “These aren’t modern. My atuk told stories about the river before it was buried. They said it had a spirit. A semangat sungai.”

Eddy shivered. “Do you think…?”

A whisper curled through the drip-drip-drip of water.

Not in words. Not in sound.

But in feeling.

Like a sigh in the current. Like a memory rising.

Lost… forgotten…

Bell gripped Eddy’s arm. “Did you hear that?”

Lily’s voice was small. “I felt it.”

The kucing reappeared ahead, tail flicking. It led them deeper, through a narrow passage where the ceiling dripped blue-green moss that glowed faintly in the dark.

Then—a whimper.

A tiny, wet mewl.

They found the kittens huddled on a ledge, shivering, their fur matted, eyes wide with fear. Five of them, no bigger than mangoes.

“We can’t carry them all,” Lily said.

“We don’t have to,” Bell said, pulling out her backpack. She laid out her rain poncho, gently scooped the kittens onto it, and tied the corners into a sling. “Portable cat cradle. Patent pending.”

Eddy reached for the kucing. “You led us here. You knew.”

The cat let him touch it—just once—before slipping back into the shadows.

They turned to leave.

But the water was rising.

The tunnel behind them was flooding fast.

“The exit’s blocked,” Lily said, shining her light. “We have to go through.”

So they did.

Through winding passages, past more carvings, deeper than any of them had ever been. The whispers grew stronger.

Remember… remember…

Eddy began to dream while awake.

He saw the river as it once was—wide, singing, lined with banyan trees and children laughing. Women washed clothes on flat stones. Fish darted like silver needles. And in the current, a woman made of rain, her hair swirling like mist, her voice the sound of water over stone.

Then—concrete. Pipes. The river buried, silenced.

They forgot, the spirit whispered. But I waited.

When they finally emerged—soaked, shivering, but whole—the storm had passed.

Dawn painted the sky in soft gold and lavender.

Neighbors were already outside, mopping floors, salvaging furniture.

“Where’ve you been?” Auntie Lim called. “We thought you were lost!”

Bell held up the poncho. “Rescue mission. Success.”

Gasps. Laughter. Someone brought towels. The kittens were wrapped, fed, and passed around like tiny, purring miracles.

But Eddy wasn’t smiling.

He turned back to the drain.

The kucing stood there, watching.

Then it stepped forward—once—and looked at him with eyes that held centuries.

And Eddy knew.

It wasn’t just a cat.

It was a guardian. A memory. A promise.

That night, he dreamed of the river spirit again.

Thank you, she said. You remembered.

But the drains are still here, Eddy replied. The river’s still trapped.

You will speak for me, she said. Others will listen.

When he woke, he opened his weather journal.

Not to sketch clouds.

To write.

With Bell’s bold ideas, Lily’s maps, and photos of the carvings, they made a presentation. They called it: The River That Never Left.

They showed it to their teacher. To the community board. To the local paper.

And slowly, the city listened.

Two months later, construction crews broke ground—not to seal the drains, but to restore them. A section of the Klang River would be uncovered, turned into a green corridor with walking paths, native plants, and a small memorial: a stone carving of a woman with flowing hair, and five kittens curled at her feet.

The kucing was never seen again.

But sometimes, after rain, Lily would find paw prints on her windowsill.

Bell left a bowl of milk outside her door every Thursday.

And Eddy?

He still kept his weather journal.

But now, on the last page, he wrote something new:

Some rains don’t fall—they return.
And some rivers don’t disappear—they wait.
All they need is someone to listen.

And every monsoon season, when the clouds gathered and the first drops fell, Eddy would go to the edge of the restored riverbank, fold a small paper boat from a page of his old notes, and set it gently on the water.

Just in case.

Just in case the river remembered the way home.

And just in case—somewhere beneath the city, in the dark and the damp and the quiet—something ancient stirred, and whispered back:

I do.

The End.