The sun rose behind them, soft gold spilling over the sand. The desert stretched endlessly, yet something in the land had begun to shift. The dunes no longer rolled on forever, patches of cracked earth showed through, stubborn weeds twisting upward as though daring the sun to burn them away. Every step felt like the world was slowly changing, though none of them could say how.
The girl walked ahead with quiet certainty, her stride unbroken. She didn't look back to check if the boys followed; she simply knew they would. Kanan and Nilo trailed after her, their shadows thin against the pale sand, the weight of dried meat slung across their backs.
For a long while, silence carried them. Then Kanan spoke.
"Hey," he said, his voice cutting against the morning air. "Yesterday… you said something. About Oorja."
The girl's shoulders shifted, but she didn't turn.
"What do you know of it?" he pressed.
"Oorja," she murmured, tasting the word as though it belonged to a different age. "It's what keeps the world breathing. What we lost. What we forgot."
Nilo frowned, dragging his stick along the ground, carving shaky lines in the dirt. "Lost? Forgot? Is it like a city? Or a hidden land?"
She shook her head. Her hair caught the light as she walked. "It's not a place. It's power. The kind that flows through everything, soil, water, fire, even us. Once, people lived by it. But now…" Her voice trailed, soft as sand in the wind.
Kanan narrowed his eyes. "Why don't we know about it then?"
"Because those who fear it make sure you don't." She glanced at him at last, just a flicker of her gaze, and then looked forward again. "The ones who hoard food, who choke the rivers, who keep you fighting for scraps… they know Oorja. They just keep it for themselves."
The weight of her words settled between them. Nilo stumbled, gripping his stick tighter.
"So… Oorja is like… magic?" he asked, his voice half in awe, half in childish confusion.
"Not magic," the girl whispered. "Truth."
For a while, none of them spoke. The desert wind brushed past their ears, carrying with it a strange scent faint, almost impossible to catch, like wet earth after rain. All three stopped, breathing it in.
"Smell that?" Nilo asked, eyes wide.
The girl only smiled, the kind of smile that said she knew something they didn't.
Kanan tightened his grip on his own stick, heart restless. He didn't know what this "Oorja" truly meant, or what it had to do with them. But deep inside, he felt it, a pull, like a thread winding tighter with each step they took.
[To Be Continued...]