Location: Nazca Desert, slopes near the Nazca Lines
Time: 01.01.17 – 05:47:00 UTC–4
Setting: Niajin set out into the Nazca desert.
Thus Niajin stepped out. Light as air — as though she were gliding, or dancing, rather than walking.
Her mother, meanwhile, wept in the shade of the small courtyard of their house, where a pitaya — the dragon fruit — grew red and round like an egg, surrounded by large white blossoms with countless petals. The golden stamens formed a crown around the long pistil, whose stigma opened like a star.
The ripe red fruits were ready to be picked — an invitation to stay, or perhaps to fetch water to prepare a sweet juice.
For a while she hesitated. Obeying her mother would have been wise. Yet inevitably, she found herself beyond the edge of the village. From there, it was easy to follow the path leading toward the desert mountains.
Here and there grew Tillandsia landbeckii, a plant of the Bromeliaceae family, normally epiphytic but here adapted to live without any support. It absorbed water from the garúa, the oceanic fog, and could survive for years without rain thanks to the trichomes that trapped moisture on its scaly leaves, forming carpets over sandy ground and sparse colonies on rocky soil.
At times, like markers along the road, columnar cacti of the species Neoraimondia arequipensis, their age indeterminate, rose up, clinging to rocky slopes and stony ground.
Beyond them stretched only sand and rock as far as the eye could see. She realized she could be seen from afar. Tall and striking as she was, she seemed to hover in the air — a feminine apparition, a mirage swaying its hips along a dusty road.
Then she said to herself, “Let’s go. What am I afraid of? There’s no one in the desert. Now there’s only me. There’s never anyone here.”
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She crossed the boundary of the village — one step, then another, then another — and soon she was alone, in the middle of the desert.
At one point she saw the sign: NO TRESPASSING.
No other warning, no barbed wire, no guards in sight — only that prohibition, like an empty threat without substance. She stepped beyond it.
She did not know it, but the alarm connected directly to the military base had just been triggered. Although unaware that she had already been detected, she suddenly felt more vulnerable.
She stopped, uncertain. The sunlight now laid her bare. Fear crept in.
“I’m crazy,” she thought. “They’ll kill me for sure.”
The air was suddenly pierced by the roar of a distant puma.
“Nayra,” she thought — Nayra, the puma’s cub she had nursed and saved from certain death.
“Nayra… where are you now?” They had looked at each other one last evening, a few years before. Both knew they were made for freedom, and that the time had come for Nayra to return to the mountains.
“Maybe it’s her.”
The feather among her dark hair shimmered. Another roar echoed in the distance.
“I want to be free too, Nayra. I want to be like you.”
And so she began to walk again. Now she knew she would never turn back — not without water.
At some point she thought she heard the distant sound of engines. She had already been intercepted. The helmets’ visors not only located her, but magnified her image and traced the quickest path for the soldiers to reach her.
The mountains rose near the horizon, beneath a clear sky and a sun that had already become merciless. Soon the dirt road she knew so well turned into a steep path, allowing her to hide among the rocks and the first ridges of the slopes she meant to climb. She entered a narrow ravine carved into the rock.
She had a plan: there was no water for miles, except in the one place only she knew. She carried a five-liter amphora, perfectly balanced on her head, without the need to use her hands.
Her walk, even along that difficult path, remained perfectly balanced; her body in motion conveyed a sense of grace and nobility despite the humble clothes she wore. The sunlight lit her hair, and a web of pale veins stood out at her temples, like those of a leaf. She felt lighter, as if her weight had suddenly diminished — new strength was flowing through her veins.
The World Order forces were already on her trail.