Cyclone Diaries -Ziarul Islam

For fifteen-year-old Sabbir, the nightmare began when he saw the cracked wall of his school. “The cyclone’s gone, but it’s not over yet,” he whispered. His best friendsTuhin, Misha, and Asif met him near the broken jetty, their faces pale but determined. They had survived the storm, but the real challenge was just beginning.

“People are trapped in the old quarter,” said Misha, pointing to the submerged huts at the edge of the mangrove. “And the radio says wild animals escaped from the sanctuary.”

Asif frowned. “You mean crocodiles?”

Misha nodded grimly.

The four teens exchanged nervous glances. They were just school kids, but they knew their town better than anyone else. With boats destroyed and help still far away, they decided to do what grown-ups hadn’t yet done and rescue their stranded neighbors.

The streets had turned into rivers. Broken signboards floated past. Sabbir led the way on his bicycle — the tires half-submerged, the chain squeaking. Tuhin followed, dragging an old fishing net and a rope. They passed the collapsed market, where fish crates and plastic bottles bobbed together in muddy water.

“Careful!” shouted Asif. “That electric pole might still be live.”

They took a detour through the narrow alley behind the temple. The air smelled of wet earth and salt. In one corner, they heard a faint cry that was a little boy clinging to a banana tree trunk, shivering.

“Hold on!” Sabbir yelled, wading through waist-deep water. The current tried to pull him away, but Tuhin threw the rope just in time. Together they pulled the boy out and wrapped him in Misha’s shawl.

The boy sobbed, “My grandmother’s still inside the house.”

They followed him to a tiny bamboo hut half-collapsed, the door jammed. Misha climbed up the broken fence and peered through a hole. “She’s alive!” she gasped.

Asif, who was the tallest, used a bamboo pole to pry open the door. Inside, an old woman was trapped under a fallen beam. They lifted together, their arms trembling. Finally, with one last push, the beam rolled away. The woman was free and smiling through tears.

“You kids are angels,” she whispered.

But there was no time to celebrate. A loud splash echoed behind them. Something big moved in the water which is slow, dark, and scaly.

“Crocodile!” screamed Tuhin.

They froze. The reptile’s eyes glowed just above the surface. Sabbir grabbed a stick and shouted, “Get back!” Misha lit a torch from a dry matchbox she’d kept in a plastic wrap. The flame flickered weakly enough to scare the animal for a moment. It turned and disappeared into the floodwater.

They ran until their lungs burned. When they reached the high road near the mosque, they collapsed on the wet ground, panting.

By afternoon, the rain had stopped, but the river kept rising. The teens helped an elderly fisherman repair a small wooden boat. Using it, they ferried villagers to the higher school building, now a temporary shelter. Asif took charge of steering while Sabbir navigated using the old map nailed near the pier.

At one point, they found an overturned truck with a crate labeled “Wildlife Rescue – Turtle Hatchlings.” Inside, dozens of baby turtles were trapped in the sloshing water.

Misha’s eyes lit up. “We can’t leave them!”

With careful hands, they collected the hatchlings in a bucket and released them near the shallow beach where the water was calmer. The tiny creatures paddled away symbols of fragile hope in a broken world.

As the sun dipped below the drowned horizon, the four friends looked around. The once-bustling Kusumpur was now a water city eerily quiet, yet full of life. The villagers they’d rescued gathered around them, lighting small fires to dry clothes. The boy they’d saved earlier handed Sabbir a piece of coconut and whispered, “You’re my hero.”

Sabbir smiled, though his heart felt heavy. They had seen fear, loss, and courage all in one day.

That night, they sat on the roof of the school building, watching the sky finally clear. Stars blinked through the clouds for the first time in days.

“We should write this down,” said Misha softly. “So people remember what happened, not just the cyclone, but how we fought back.”

“Cyclone Diaries,” Asif said thoughtfully. “That’s what we’ll call it.”

Tuhin grinned. “And the first entry will be — Day One: We didn’t wait for heroes. We became them.”

They laughed, exhausted but proud. Somewhere in the dark distance, a rescue helicopter finally appeared and its searchlight cutting across the flooded town. But for the four teens, the real rescue had already begun, not just of people, but of courage, friendship, and faith in the power of doing something when the world seems broken.

By morning, the storm’s rage had turned into stories, that stories whispered across the shelters, of four friends who fought the flood and brought hope to Kusumpur.

And in a damp notebook, under the title Cyclone Diaries, Sabbir began to write:

“When the sea rose to swallow our town, we didn’t run.

We built a boat out of courage.”