For a number of days, Enkerai ambled on, looking for some sign of life. He found nothing but looted merchant carriages on the roads, and pungent rotten corpses of those who had resisted the bandit’s greed on their way to Manyatta. He scavenged some almost depleted water bottles and food packages from the wreckages, but for the most part, he went hungry and saw no one.

The images of death on the roads began to scare Enkerai and he chose to go off road into the forest, using the mountains in the distance as a guide to take him East. The problem he now faced was that he had never had much reason to come to this region; his family’s trips and holidays had always taken them west to the seaside towns. But now that he was heading east, and further inland, he had no clue where he was going and unfortunately, the only thing that Enkerai new was definitely east was the capital city, Takat. For a few more days Enkerai ambled on, and the plains began giving way to farms, and it was here that Enkerai’s strength gave out.

Enkerai stumbled forward and collapsed in a heap into a bale of hay. It felt like a surprisingly good place to lie down and quietly die of dehydration. He thought of his family as his vision began to blur. Would his mother, father and Kekere be alright? Was his brother able to get back to the village? What would they do with them if the village was taken? Would they put them to forced labour? What if he had stayed?

Enkerai was weighed down by guilt and feelings of inadequacy, almost as much as by the exhaustion. It was with these thoughts plaguing his slowly failing body that he let the tears roll down his face as his vision faded to black.