When I woke up for the first time, it was just a drop of water without memory.

The river spit me on a lotus leaf. The sunlight dyed me light gold through the film-like leaves. I tried to roll — the body naturally lengthened and contracted, sliding along the ravine of the leaf vein to the edge. The process of falling is very slow, so slow that I can clearly see the gradually enlarged reflection of myself on the water below. Then I melted into it and became a link in countless ripples.

This is more than just a stream. This is a maze composed of choices.

The first fork occurred between three rocks. The water on the left is turbulent, hitting the blue-black stone surface and breaking into white foam; the middle is gentle, but with rotten leaves floating; the right is the narrowest, almost covered by reeds. I hesitated — a drop of water should not have hesitated — and then chose the right side. The roots of the reed gently combed my body and took away some mud and sand. When I drilled out from the other side, I felt lighter and clearer.

Life along the way reads me in its own way. A water slid on my surface, leaving six fleeting footprints. It said, “Excuse me.” I held it up and watched it dance on the clouds in the reflection. A little further away, the dragonfly larvae ambushed among the aquatic plants, waiting with folded chins. I deliberately bypassed the shadow and rolled up a grain of sand to stir up the water pattern. The larvae retracted to the nest alertly — this was the first word I learned: “warning”.

There is no light in the deepest paragraph. I was carried into the cave under the sinking wood by the undercurrent, where time seemed to be sticky. The smell of humus seeped into every water molecule, and I began to recall the form of my previous life — maybe it was rain, maybe it was snow, or maybe it had slipped from the lips of a deer drinking water. In the absolute darkness, the sound of water was amplified: the silver tremor of the fish above the head, the sucking sound of the roots deep in the soil, and my own slight sigh when I converge with other streams. It turns out that loneliness and connection are different amplitudes of the same frequency.

When I see the light of day again, I am no longer the original drop. I carried the green of the reeds, the footprints of the water, and the bass of the undercurrent taught me. When the waterfall threw us all into the air, I saw the whole view of the stream for the first time — it was not a line at all, but a net-like vein woven by countless drops of water, and each branch shone with a unique light in the sun.

The moment I fell into the deep pool downstream, I recognized myself. Not as an individual, but as a part of the cycle. The water reflects the sky, and the sky is brewing new rain. My journey is over, but my form will rise again.

After turning off the game, I poured a glass of water. The condensed drops of water on the wall of the glass are slowly sliding down. I looked at it for a long time and remembered the choice through the reeds and the collective memory in the dark cave. _Naiad_ didn’t tell a story. It made water a verb, and every flow became the narrative itself.

And my fingertips were hanging on the mouth of the cup — three millimeters from the water, hovering a choice that had not yet fallen.