She Who Speaks with Beasts

Akiiki was a child when violence tore through her village in eastern Congo, burning away the world she knew and leaving her with memories too heavy to outrun. Forced across borders and eventually resettled in America, she grows up carrying both survival and guilt, haunted by the people and land she left behind. Safety gives her distance, but never peace.

Years later, unable to silence the pull of home, Akiiki returns to the Congo. What begins as a journey back to the site of loss becomes som...