The Cascading Waterfall – The Silent Promise

 

This is the third in a series of stories reflecting on memory, resilience, and connection.

The first piece was a personal recollection — a daughter remembering her childhood and the quiet strength of her father. It explored how love can be solid, enduring, and profoundly human in the smallest gestures.

The second story stepped into imagined ground, but its roots held firm in emotional truth — grief. It asked what we carry after loss, and how stories help us hold on to what matters.

This third story returns to the forest — to memory softened by time, and love that lingers beyond logic — a quiet journey of returning, and beginning again.

The Cascading Waterfall – The Silent Promise

Some leave behind sorrow.
Others, longing.
And some —
return to remember who they were before the world made them forget.

They say the cascading waterfall of Ulu Licin keeps the secret of every soul that visits it.

Sofia’s boots sank into the soft, damp soil. The earth was still warm from the morning sun, though the forest air clung cool and wet around her. The jungle breathed in slow rhythm — leaves rustling, cicadas humming, and the distant roar of falling water calling her back like an unfinished sentence.

She hadn’t been back to Beruas in fourteen years.
Not since Rafiq disappeared.
Not since her life split into before and after.

The trail had narrowed, nearly swallowed by the jungle. Vines brushed her shoulders, dripping with dew. The scent of damp bark, wild ginger, and something faintly sweet — like overripe fruit — filled her lungs.

She steadied herself on a moss-covered trunk, the bark rough beneath her palm, pulsing faintly with the life beneath it. With every step, the forest seemed to shift — not hostile, but watchful.

Then, through the last curtain of ferns, she saw it.
The waterfall.
Majestic. Ancient. Alive.

A towering sheet of silver thundered down black stone, smashing into a crystal pool. Mist rose in clouds, curling through trees and clinging to her skin like cool silk. The roar was deafening — yet comforting, like a voice humming just beneath hearing.

She stepped closer, letting the spray kiss her face. The air tasted of river rock and memory. Goosebumps rippled along her arms.
She closed her eyes.
And felt him.

When she opened them — he was there.
Rafiq.
Beyond the falls, half-shrouded in mist.

The spray softened his figure, but she saw his eyes — dark, familiar, full of that quiet kind of love. His clothes were damp, his hair slicked back and glinting in the light.

“Rafiq…” she whispered. The name barely left her lips.

No reply.
Only that aching smile.

The mist shifted. The space between them narrowed.
She stepped forward — through disbelief, through water — and reached out. So did he.

For one suspended second, their fingertips met.
His skin was cool and firm, like stone pulled from a stream.
Real. There. Breathing.

Her chest swelled with something between joy and pain — the feeling of something returned that should have been impossible.

Then he dissolved.
 

Not like a man turning away — but like mist taken by the wind.

Her hand grasped only air.
 

But the touch lingered, electric and empty.

The mist thickened. River and moss filled her lungs. On her tongue — a sharp, metallic taste, like rain before a storm.
He was gone.

But something inside her stirred.

She sat at the water’s edge, her heartbeat slowing to match the rhythm of the falls. For the first time in years, she let herself feel it all.
The grief.
The memories.
The dreams they once dreamed — beneath stars, beside waterfalls.

And as the water roared behind her, she understood —
He hadn’t called her back to find him.
He’d called her back to find herself.

The sun shifted above the canopy, casting golden light through the trees. It warmed her skin. The mist felt lighter. The air — sweeter.
She smiled. A small one.
But real.

Sofia remembered who she used to be.
A girl who believed in wonder.
In stories.
In love.
In beginning again.
And she would.

Sofia sat peacefully beside the water, barefoot, sketching a new beginning in the dirt with her fingers.
She noticed four words etched into the nearby stone:

We kept our promise.

A parakeet chirped as though asking if she needed help. She only shook her head, eyes soft and distant.

The wind picked up, rustling the leaves, sending a swirl of mist dancing through the clearing.
And if you listened carefully — just for a breath —
You might hear laughter.
Light. Familiar.
Like a dream you almost remember.

They say the cascading waterfall of Ulu Licin keeps the secret of every soul that visits it.
But sometimes —
If you’re quiet, and open —
It gives something back.