📝This novel is being corrected. Sorry for the misspellings

Surviving is a primary instinct. Animals survive on their own without anyone teaching them how.

Occasionally, humans become animals. There is no difference between the leopard that watches me in the distance and I: It is a wild animal, camouflaged, hidden, still, thirsty, hungry. He doesn't dare approach me and neither do I. Neither of them screams. But I want to run away.

I have been three suns and two moons hanging around this forest. The rainwater came almost to my knees. Floods formed in the furrows of the roads, the wounds were cleaned, the mud dirtied me... And I kept walking under trees and deserted areas. The sounds of the forest spoke to me while I hummed that African song that my mother taught me.

I came to a larger place, with less trees and humidity. I looked for a branch of some tree that could help me to open the earth. But, since the destruction of man has not touched this place, there were no branches on the ground. So I climbed an old log with thick wet, cracked bark. I ripped my hands, my clothes, and left my throat when, as I slipped in my attempt to reach the lowest branch, I held so tight that the splintered wood stuck in the center of my palm. But I held on with all my strength, letting myself be overcome by exhaustion when I rested my face on the trunk looking for oxygen between my tears. And I did not give in.

Not until I reached that branch and, when I was up high, I snapped one of its finest branches, giving a wild howl.

I plunged the stick into the ground, hammering hard at the tip, striking as if it were the only way to vent all hatred, unload my desire for freedom. I had to remove the lace from one of my broken sneakers, to tie it to my wrist and cut the bleeding. I covered the wound with the threadbare T-shirt I was wearing under my sweatshirt and made sure I was pressing hard enough.

So I went on with my homework, digging a hole in the wet soil of this forest where the rain had favored its softening. I don't know how long I was like this. I only know that I dug with my hands until it were filled with water and I felt that I had reached glory.

There is no difference between animals and people. I drank as they do, with the tongue, on the floor, savoring the substances so natural and pure that this delicacy of gods that was now healing gave me. Pure, clean and crystalline water, in a hole full of mud, leaves and grass remains. I could see some sparkles on the ground, which stayed on my hands as if it were makeup.

I picked up my hair with my injured hand and drank, like animal, until I was satisfied. It was then that I continued on my way, checking on my compass that I follow the road north, as Leiza indicated me. But I do not know what will become of Leiza and I am still looking for the north with the feeling that that compass is more lost than I am.

However, I found a place to rest... And now a leopard wants to make me his dinner.

If I run, he will see me more like his prey. If I stay still, I risk it coming after me the same way.

Between a starving leopard and a starving woman, who can win? The leopard. Yes, but the river is filled with small streams.

So, I decide to take a step back. I notice the feline, which keeps its guard. So, I take another step back. And another one, slowly, with hardly moving. But I see the beautiful beast's shoulders rise and fall on his back, as the head bows and the slanted eyes narrow. That only tells me something: run.

And I have no other way out. Running for so long has taught me never to stop.

I have regained enough strength to escape today. And I've been running away from everything for a long time. My heart skips a beat when I run, turning on myself and surrounding the tree next to me, on the right. I don't even want to look back, but I keep my ears open, just like my eyes.

Before me, a space opens up without many trees but with vegetation, although the environment has been starting to become drier for hours. I run at full speed, listening to the fast paws of that cat behind me. I play with the advantage of the distance that separated us, and my head, in which I trust that it thinks more than his. But I am a piece of meat and, he, a starving animal.

Gradually, the landscape changes. And I change with him, but I don't stop running. High scattered palm trees, grass that seems to have been stripped in the sun, open land, endless sky... And I do not stop running although I set my goal on a nearby palm tree.

I can be fatigued, I can be curious to know if, throughout my career, I have lost sight of the leopard. But I don't look back. However, I hear other footsteps, another, noise, I feel another shadow that is not mine and, seconds later, I find an African, dressed in strange clothes and a spear in his hand.

I can't help but scream and, seeing that he will launch that spear no matter how much get in his way, I cover my arms, hiding my head while I bend down until I am kneeling and cowering on the ground, with my eyes tightly closed. But I listen to the silence and it does not last more than a few seconds because the noise of the earth being stepped it by feet, leads me to look up. I see that man running, but looking back I don't see a leopard. And I wonder... is the leopard wilder or is he?

I recognize him... He is a Kachipo. They sale leopard skins... I curse the fate of that animal, because I have gotten rid of its jaws, but I don't know if he will get rid of that Kachipo's spear.

I walk on my back, advancing, with my eyes fixed on that place where I have seen the member of that tribe disappear. But I know one thing... I am in Boma and if there is a Kachipo around here, hopefully I will find a village.

I look around and then I do smile for my fortune... All those palms have nuts... Exquisite fruits with a flavor of ginger. So, I will be able to survive, because I no longer have bread. What I don't know is if it will be better to find a Kachipo village, or to pass by. But I'm hurt, tired, and I don't know how many animals I could carry after me. It is then when I hear noise again and, when I turn around, I see that man again, next to one of the palm trees, with his spear and his animal gaze, but without a trace of the leopard, whom I thank for not seeing him dead because I know that he has escaped alive and will be able to find food, like me. Or maybe he finds it before the tribe lets me eat.

A Kachipo is not always a good ally. But I'm hungry, scared, and I'm too lonely.