Tangeni woke up with the sun directly overhead and his mouth so dry it felt like he'd been eating sand, and for a moment he didn't know where he was or why he was lying under a tree in the middle of nowhere with his bag clutched against his chest.
Then he remembered everything, the administrator's office and the transport and the decision to run, and he sat up too fast and had to wait for the dizziness to pass before he could look around and confirm that yes, he was still alone, and no, nobody had followed him from the academy.
He checked his bag to make sure everything was still there, which it was, and then he stood up on legs that felt like they were made of rubber and started walking again because staying in one place was dangerous when you didn't know who might be looking for you.
The road was empty this time of day, most people having the sense to stay inside during the hottest hours when the sun could cook you if you weren't careful, and Tangeni walked on the shoulder and tried to conserve his energy while covering as much distance as possible.
His water bottle was half empty already and he hadn't passed a town or a gas station or anything that might sell supplies, and he realized with growing unease that he hadn't really thought this through at all.
Seven hundred kilometers.
He'd walked maybe thirty so far, which meant he had six hundred and seventy to go, and at this pace with no food and barely any water he was going to die somewhere on this road long before he reached Windhoek.
A truck passed him going south and he stuck out his thumb because he'd seen people do that in movies, but the driver didn't even slow down, and he kept walking because what else could he do.
Another truck passed, and another, and none of them stopped, and Tangeni started to understand that the world outside the academy walls wasn't going to be any kinder to him than the world inside them had been.
By late afternoon he was stumbling more than walking, his vision going gray at the edges and his legs threatening to give out with every step, and he knew he needed to find water soon or he wasn't going to make it through the night.
There was a cluster of buildings up ahead, maybe a kilometer away, and he focused on them like they were the only thing in the world that mattered and forced his legs to keep moving one step at a time.
The buildings turned out to be a truck stop, a couple of fuel pumps and a small shop and a restaurant that looked like it hadn't been cleaned since the nineties, and Tangeni stumbled through the door and asked for water and the woman behind the counter looked at him like he was something that had crawled out of the desert to die on her floor.
"You got money?"
He dug in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled bill, and she took it and gave him a bottle of water and some change, and he drank the whole thing standing right there at the counter while she watched with an expression that was equal parts disgust and pity.
"Where you headed?" she asked when he finished, probably because she couldn't help being curious about this skinny teenager who'd walked in from nowhere looking half dead.
"Windhoek."
"That's a long way to walk." She looked him up and down, taking in the dusty school uniform and the cracked lips and the desperate eyes. "You running from something?"
Tangeni didn't answer, which was answer enough, and the woman sighed and reached under the counter and pulled out a sandwich wrapped in plastic.
"Take it," she said when he didn't move, "you look like you need it more than I need the money, and I've got a son about your age who I'd want someone to help if he was in your position."
He took the sandwich and thanked her and went outside to eat it on the curb, and the first bite was so good that he almost cried because he hadn't realized how hungry he was until that moment, hadn't realized how long it had been since someone had done something kind for him without wanting anything in return.
A mining truck pulled up to the fuel pumps while he was eating, a massive vehicle caked in red dust from the copper mines in the north, with a tired-looking driver who climbed down from the cab and stretched his back with a groan that suggested he'd been driving for a very long time.
The driver noticed Tangeni sitting there and nodded in that way strangers sometimes nod at each other when they're both tired and just trying to get through the day, and Tangeni nodded back and kept eating his sandwich and tried to figure out what he was going to do next.
"You need a ride somewhere?" the driver asked as he walked toward the shop, maybe because he could see that Tangeni was in trouble or maybe just because he was bored and looking for someone to talk to.
Tangeni's heart jumped so hard he could feel it in his throat. "You going south?"
"All the way to Windhoek." The driver looked at him with something that might have been sympathy or might have just been recognition, the look of someone who'd been young and desperate once and remembered how it felt. "I could use some company, helps keep me awake on the long stretches."
"Yes," Tangeni said, probably too quickly and too eagerly, "yes, please, thank you."
The driver laughed, not meanly but like he found something about the situation amusing in a sad sort of way, and told him to finish his food and meet him at the truck in ten minutes, and Tangeni ate the rest of his sandwich so fast he almost choked and then ran to the truck and climbed up into the passenger seat and buckled himself in like he was afraid the offer might be taken back.
The driver's name was Festus, and he was maybe forty years old with a face that looked like it had seen some things and hands that were rough from years of working with heavy equipment, and he drove a copper hauling route from the mines in the north down to processing plants in the south.
"So what's your story?" Festus asked once they were back on the road, the truck rumbling along at a steady pace that felt impossibly fast after walking for a day and a half.
"I don't have one."
"Everybody has a story." Festus glanced at him with eyes that were tired but kind. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I'm not trying to pry, just making conversation because the road gets long when you're not talking to anyone."
Tangeni was quiet for a while, watching the landscape slide past outside the window and feeling the cool air from the truck's air conditioning against his sun-burned skin, and then he said, "I was at the hunter academy in Omafo, and they were going to send me back to my parents, and I couldn't let that happen."
Festus didn't ask why, which Tangeni appreciated more than he could say, and they drove in silence for a while before Festus reached behind the seat and pulled out a bag of dried meat and offered it to him.
"Eat," he said, "you look like you haven't had a proper meal in days, and I've got plenty."