An indescribable immensity opens before my gaze. The wind blows softly disheveling my hair. The sky cuts the horizon. The trees look like a fence beyond, on the other side. I stand, with the compass in my hand, pointing north. There is an eternity between the sound of the water and the silence. I find myself in an inexact place of myself, but in the immensity. In front of me, the splendor of the White Nile, the purity of the water, the almost clean air… behind me, the noise of the engines, the smell of smoke, the cries of war… Sudanese soldiers protest against the government, as they have been doing so many years in this faraway place in the world that only a few crazy people remember who dare to cross borders without having anyone on the other side of the pond.

An abrupt sound tears me away from the clear image of the Nile before me. I turn to see over my shoulder plumes of black smoke rising into the sky. My eyes sting, my heart trembles with joy, but I am not afraid.

"Anona!" I hear Awel's rough voice say, half crouching, he beckons me with his hand to take the same stance

"What?" I ask in a whisper loud enough for him to hear me, because I don't understand what he wants to tell me, but I imitate his posture out of pure instinct.

“We have to follow the path. By nightfall the soldiers will camp near the river and this will be nothing but a hotbed of criminals."

He's right, but the captivating beauty of the Nile, which we arrived at not more than an hour ago, has captivated me. I look at the river with one thought in mind. While it's crazy, I think it would be the least dangerous.
I bend down to pick up my bundle from my shoulder, continuing on my way without taking my eyes off the other side. I keep my compass in the pocket of my sweatshirt.

“We should swim across the Nile to the other shore."

“That is sheer madness, Anu." Awel answers. But my gaze is still on that shore, the one on the other side. "The most prudent thing would be to get away from the criminals as much as possible." I turn my face to see him.

“We don't have basements to hide in here." I say even if it's obvious. But he doesn't say anything, he just keeps silent, letting me hear the sound of his footsteps, the shouts of the protesters in the distance and the murmur of the water.
Unexpectedly, Yiye hugs my legs, stopping my steps. It takes my breath away but not only because of his impetus and his joy at seeing me, but because of seeing his head against my body and his little arms around my legs. I touch his head as lovingly as I can.

“Hurry up, Yiye, we have to go." His big eyes look at me when I speak to him. I like to see him smile because the innocence of a child at war always brings peace to the world.

He run over to where Zahiya is collecting the supplies we've seized. Amani drinks some water. Irshad carries his AK-47 on his back and hands Awel his. I continue my way along the bank of the Nile, watching the current flow.
It's inevitable to think of Leiza, who guided me, and also of my mother, who pushed me to leave. But the one who always goes with us even if she is not, is Athieng.
We have carried more than 600 kilometers on our feet, we have hours of exhaustion under a hot sun and a dry place. We have done with what food we could to support at least four days on the way to Khartoum. Stealing has not been easy because, despite there being shops and houses, there is a lot of emptiness, too much abandonment, crime abounds in the streets and violent protests day and night.

"Why do you say that?" I hear Irshad ask very quietly. But Awel doesn't reply.

He must have told you that I have proposed to cross the Nile, but I continue on my way.
I scan the horizon. The sun hits my eyes and I try to do my best to keep them open, although I find myself forced to squint them as much as possible.
Without giving rise to more conversations and without even caring what they say, I speak:

"We must hurry or it will be dark before we know it."

I don't hear any response, but continue on my way. I get used to the idea that there is nothing between the wildest area of ​​Rabak and me.
My gaze returns to the Nile, where flashes of light shine crystallizing that cloudy water that reflects a pale sky. There you can't see the columns of smoke caused by the fires caused by the protesters. It's like I'm in the middle of two worlds and I don't know which one is right for me.

"Where do we go now?" Yiye's childish voice asks. I am not here to give hopeful answers to children. I can't even look at his face even though I feel like he's right next to me.

"Somewhere I hope is better than this." The little one doesn't seem to like what I say because he decides not to say anything. Or so I think until he comes at me again with questions I can't answer.

"Athieng will be there?"

I turn my eyes to the trees on the other side. Why does everything have to be so unfair and cruel? I look for the best answer among all the ones that are not.

"No, Yiye, Athieng will not be here."

"But I… I miss her…"

A child shouldn't know what it's like to miss when he doesn't even understand what it takes to love. I look at him, making an effort to maintain my composure. I feel the lump in my throat and the tension in my jaw, the bitter memory of the son I never had and the certainty that this son will never see his sister again.

"Me too…"

I can't answer anymore. What I tell them? What will we see on the other shore? What will await us in a new city? What will cross borders?
No... for a child like Yiye, stories are useless. We learn to lose before we learn to have. We learn what death is before we know what life is.

It looks like he's crying. It's small, but hard as a rock. There he is still standing, having lost his mother and knowing that his sister will not return. Because he knows, I have no doubt. But with all that strength, he is still a child… a helpless child who grabs my fingers with one of his dry, bony hands.
My fingers don't respond, but my heart does, with those out-of-place beats escaping from somewhere deep in my memory.
Amani walks hugging Zahiya. The men go behind, guarding the road. It's all I see when I turn to look back but I also realize one thing, so I can't help but stop in my tracks. I listen carefully, searching with my eyes for any sign, until Zahiya's voice interrupts me:

"Anu, what's wrong?"

I raise a hand, which I bring to my lips, asking for silence against this one because I need to listen. That's when I confirm that something is wrong and I hold Yiye's hand tightly, though my eyes meet those of a frightened Zahiya.

"Doesn't everything seem too… quiet?

Awel watches me, but sees everything and doesn't hesitate for a moment to load the rifle. That seems to me to be a sign that he also thinks something is about to happen, so I don't take more time trying to figure out what has changed, but I do take Yiye off the ground and carry him in my arms, running with him.

"Run!" I scream hoping that they will follow me, because we all know the path we follow but I have learned one thing throughout my flight: when it is necessary to survive, you can not worry about the survival of anyone else, you have to run without looking back, with the goal marked in front of you and, if necessary, deviate along the way to camouflage yourself.

Yiye clings to me, but he's not scared. I run with him in my arms, hearing the footsteps of the others behind me, the noise of their clothes, their breathing... but there is no longer any trace of the clamor of protest. No vehicle engines are heard, no screams, no suicidal phrases meeting their end against some fired bullet. That means that something has silenced all those voices, and it can only be one thing.

A devastating rumble triggers a succession of shots and screams. This is how all the voices that ask for their ideals are silenced. Regardless of the side they are, now I know that they are just dead bodies on the ground, on the other side of the thicket in which we walk hidden.
Behind me, Amani also screams and Yiye covers her ears in my arms. With him, I lie on the ground with my eyes closed, pressing him tight against me, making sure to cover his head with my arms and not mine. It is in moments like this, moments in which someone depends on you, when you forget that you only have to cover your back. Now yes, my survival is not mine, but Yiye's.
I protect the little one as if it were my own heart and I realize that I forget my survival for his. I open my eyes afraid to see what has happened to the others: Awel, covering Amani and Zahiya, crouched over them, on the ground. Irshad points his AK-47 into the bush in case someone runs off into the wild and appears here. That's just what we don't need.

Yiye's crying is heard, so I cover her mouth with my hand asking her to be quiet. If they discover us, we are lost...

What kills me is knowing that there are too many of us to survive. We lost Athieng along the way, but if he recovers, he may live even if we never know. However, a group of six people cannot stay together for long.
The shots stop being heard, although not the screams. But it's now or never: I jump to my feet carrying Yiye and run as fast as I can.
The child slips from my arms, my legs hurt from the force with which my feet hit the uneven ground, I don't have the strength to hold him better, but I'm not going to let him go. I'm not tired, but I do want to run away from there, get him to safety and save myself.
I don't look back but, at some unspecified moment in the time I spend running, I hear a noise behind me and that gives me peace of mind because they haven't stayed on the road and I'm not alone. At no time do I look back, not until the sunlight fades in the distance and only the dead glow of this new day hangs in the sky. Only then do I slow down, getting my legs to relax little by little, and I lower the boy from my arms, leaving him sitting on the ground, and I bend over to hurry to get the water canteen out of the bundle to bring it to his mouth. My hands shake as I pour the liquid onto Yiye's dry lips.

"Drink". He opens his mouth, eyes closed and tired.

"Yiye, Yiye!" I hear almost at the same time that Awel's big arms are thrown on the little one, who lifts the ground to hug him tightly giving me time to get up.

Turning around, the White Nile is still there…a river never moves though it always flows. This little beach can now be our salvation or our downfall. That's why I look at everything around us. We've run at least 2000 feet, but there's hardly any light left to this day and we've got no fire. Around me, there is still desert… between Sudan and Egypt, the river is desert. What I fear is that we will run out of provisions for the hard days ahead.

"Are you okay?" Zahiya asks, grabbing my arm, looking at me with concern when my eyes, instead of seeing the Nile, look at her.

"Yes. I was just enjoying the river…” I reply, seeing him smile sweetly until he looks away without letting go of my arm, which he can perfectly wrap his hand around even though it's not very big.

“You saved him…” Looking where she is looking, I see Awel, with his son. I can't smile, but my heart is at peace. "I didn't do anything… I just carried him." She lets go of me to take my hand, open, although I look at our hands: we barely have 35 years together and we've both already experienced too much misery.

“It's worth saying what you've accomplished in a place so full of nothing." Her voice snaps me out of my thoughts.

Looking back at that father and his son, I see happiness. Happiness in all this ruin. If a child can laugh in his father's arms, if a father can cry with emotion looking at his son, then yes, there's something good in everything bad.

“We'll get out of here…” Zahiya says as Awel gently gives me his smile from the floor where he's sitting with his son. I turn my gaze to the river, thinking about what she just told me.

"I, on the other hand, don't see the end of the damned Nile…" It's already losing its channel beyond the sky, the thicket and the dry desert that opens up before me. "We're going to dry in the sun. We will starve. Not even drinking all the water from the Nile will we have enough, Zahiya. We are too many."

Maybe I sound too harsh, because she can't tell me anything, but she squeezes my hand and seconds later I feel her take my face to turn it until my eyes meet hers.

"Where is the optimistic Anu I knew?" She asks, making me think of Leiza and my mother, my son, all the bastards who hurt me all my life, the poor Athieng.

"I think he died on the plane."

I make Zahiya laugh, and she lets go of my face to grab both of my hands, squeezing them tightly. She closes her eyes to rest her forehead against mine.
She doesn't have to strain to keep up with me because she'll be a few inches shorter than me, and I tilt my head until our foreheads meet in that kind of embrace that's as different as a kiss on the forehead. Keep affection, trust, fidelity, complicity. That's why I know that Zahiya wants to tell me that she will be by my side no matter what.
But not Athieng. Athieng is not on the shore of the White Nile and I cannot return her to her father or her brother.