Emily Kirui

Beyond Viral: Emily Kirui

For Emily, I didn’t expect the hardest character to write would be the one who is already dead. But the moment I gave her voice, she stopped behaving like a device in front of me.

She became someone.

Emily’s sections were supposed to be brief. Controlled. Almost distant. A way of anchoring Angie’s revenge without slowing the narrative down. But something changed when I started writing from inside her head. There’s a strange thing that happens when you write a character who is already gone in the story. You don’t write them forward — you write them backward. Every sentence becomes an echo. Every thought is aware of its own ending. Even when she’s speaking about hope, you can feel the shape of loss underneath it.

Beyond Viral arrives in paperback soon on Amazon, with the official launch taking place in Nairobi on 25 June 2026.

The film is currently in development, as the original draft was written as a screenplay.
The novel became the foundation.
The screenplay became the blueprint.

Chuksjonia

Film Tableau: Angie going for vengeance

Film Tableau: Emily flying back through Frackfurt

From the book, Emily's last Poem "Be there" before she died is as below:

If I am not with you, because they caught up with me,
then every day, I will miss you.

I stood on my two legs when I fought for better leadership.
I raised my head above the grass, and we fought.
You were there.

We sharpened stones and sticks to fight them even when they came with guns.
We stood, beasts and beauties.
You were there.

We fight through tunnels and gallows.
You were always there.

I fell, but the fight continues.
Promise me, you will always be there.

For a day we will rise and harvest.
You will be there.

To forget that I am gone.
My pain, my grief, it happened to me.
You were with me.

But it’s not all that I am.
I’m a girl who loved my country.
And lost my life for that love.
The thing that everyone fears most in their life,
and it’s happened to me, so, yes, there is pain.
You will have pain for my loss.
You were with me.

But there is no fear of loss,
because, I already lost.
So, I can have nothing to fear.
There is only one me, my past will never die.
And isn’t that so wonderful?
Be there.

You will be there.