(Rose)
The beach of complex and coloured sand unfolds at our feet.
Bleue grabs a handful of it to inspect its fragments just as I did, over a year ago already.
It's been more than a year already...
Even Grape stopped laughing for a moment, as the dead city appeared in front of us. There's something in the air around this land that makes her unusually focused and serious. She's thinking about something she's keeping to herself.
Once upon a time, a megalopolis of cities along the delta. Now, ghosts barely rising their skeletal shapes above the sand and rocks levels.
Buildings, constructions, vehicles. All has been disfigured and discoloured, eroded by time, feeding that yellowish and grey sea of sand.
The individual colour of each grain and fragment is vivid and different. Their mixture gives a pale grey colour.
Even great ships bigger than the Titanic and Olympic are washed ashore here, disfigured by this pale wilderness.
This white and yellow rust eats everything, leaving only shadows to show that these shapes were once great monsters.
Some cities returned to the forests as time unfolded. This one was won over by the desert of complex sand from the northern Maghreb.
I explain to Bleue that we will not be able to shortcut the desert as I did before. We're not equipped for that. We wouldn't survive.
Our only way to Gizah is to keep following the shore on boat, until we find the mouth of the delta. Then to travel against the flow of the Nilus, up to the Cairo caldera.
I don't think we could miss it. And I don't think there's any other way to reach this place for us.
We would do our best finding supplies along this longer but safer journey.
While we discuss this, Grape is looking around silently.
Grape keeps observing her surrounding in disbelief, as she discovers a land where nothing grows anymore.
She seems unusually puzzled.
R - What is it Grape?
G - I feel like I've been here before. It's very odd.
R - Maybe it's from one of my memories?
G - Hm, perhaps... This sand, I wonder why nothing is growing on it.
B - There isn't much water around here. Not enough for most life forms.
G - There's the ocean though. Something could thrive.
B - Salt water kills most land plants.
G - But not sea flora...
R - You... You're having an idea.
I look into her eyes and see the signs of an intense reflection around them.
She just changed. She found a purpose.
G - I need some time to think about it.
We don't recognise our friend anymore.
They grow up so fast.
~
Over the following days, we sailed slowly along the uneven coastline, heading east. Fishing and investigating random buildings along this megalopolis.
We found a few goods in some basements, but not much. Sunglasses at least.
We noticed pipes larger than we are tall diving into the sea and heading inland to a factory in the distance. That got us curious. We anchored there and walked to investigate.
Just these few hours of walk under direct sunlight were a torture. Why is it so more painful under this latitude?
For Grape especially, as she quickly grew a painful whistling breath, and sweated so much that droplets of it kept falling from her as she walked.
She drank about three litres over these few kilometres. She's not meant to live this way.
We reached the factory and hid in its shade.
This factory wasn't too damaged by time and sand, but it wasn't a fishery as we had guessed.
We ended up understanding after a few hours of wonders in these ruins, that it was a facility turning sea water into clear water for the population. A little bit of salt was taken aside, but most of it was pumped back into the sea it seems.
The process involved to remove the salt of the water without boiling it was beyond my comprehension. All I understood is that it required lots of electricity and some kind of white translucent, milky looking plastic boards. These panels of plastics were used a lot into this.
Grape kept a piece of one in hand, playing with it with curiosity between her fingers. She's learning something.
Her idea taking shape is fairly obvious now. I wonder why she suddenly became so passionate about it.
We don't find anything else useful in this water factory. However we delay our way back to the ship to the evening. That way it will be less painful for everyone, and especially our friend Grape.
We reach the boat at night, and go to sleep after a good night drink.
~
We sail further, to another port complex. All ships have sunk either in the sea or in the complex sand. Wrecks of trucks and trains as well, along barely distinguishable rails and collapsed warehouses.
Most containers are already open and dried to the air, empty or filled with more sand now.
We find some weapons and ammunitions. But we still have a hunting rifle and my swords.
Bleue keeps a revolver for her. Grape, as expected, isn't interested and doesn't care;
She's back to her merry self by the way.
We find rolls of cloth. We take some. We'll be able to make ourselves some good desert clothing with that.
We pass by streets and boulevards of dust, surrounded and eroded with hollow buildings, endlessly.
There's little wind. There's no noise but the sea in the distance. No one but us on this part of the land.
The nearest mouth of the delta isn't far away.
A few more days maybe. Merry days.
Our stock of juices that keeps our friend alive is already running thin as we begin sailing inside the continent, against the flow of the river. But Grape still smiles with so much happiness that we are forced to follow.
We see crocodiles along the ruined banks of the Nilus. Many of them actually, including some gigantic ones, maybe up to twenty metres long and a few tons of hardened scales that look like rocks. Real dinosaurs.
Hopefully they don't think that our ship is a yummy looking fish.
Despite looking the only mammals they could ever eat in this land, they don't seem to care much about us.
Grape is teasing the curious one swimming behind us.
The crocodile spits at her with enough strength to have her fall on her bottom on the boat, and then leaves us, annoyed. Grape still laughs it off.
In the distance, we begin to see the thin clouds that used to longer over the volcano. The mountain itself is harder to see. We're almost there.
The view gets blocked however. A weird dam blocks the flow of water there. We're forced to anchor the boat there.
We equip ourselves with the clothes we made during our days of slow travel, sheltering us a little from the sun.
Then we enter the dam, that is still functioning.
~