He didn't stop until a moment later when he pulled his mouth away from his hand and looked at the mark his teeth had left. The back of his hand now bore a red imprint of well-formed teeth; the depth of the indentations had even managed to tear some of the skin, but none of this mattered to the boy.
"I've forgotten something, haven't I," the boy muttered, a sudden clarity washing over his face. "I'm forgetting a lot of important things." He focused his gaze on the back of his hand, anchoring his memories to that wound as he repeated to himself that he needed to look for a necklace.
A moment later, and still with a clear mind, he stood up, surveyed the entire area, and quickly stepped inside the wooden fence of his hut. His eyes began to sweep the space, starting from the right.
Beside the hut, he noticed a handmade clay stove, and next to it, a pile of firewood.
Walking over to inspect the area, he noticed something peculiar. The boy's hands ran over the surface of the stove, which was nothing more than a clay dome with a hole on top for the pot and a hole on the side to feed the firewood.
After running his hand over the stove's surface, he pulled it back to examine his palm. "Clean." He pressed his tongue against his teeth and clenched his hand into a fist before looking at the firewood nearby. "This shouldn't be possible. No matter how much you clean, a wood stove will never be completely clean." The boy looked around, a slight headache setting in.
"But, why couldn't it be clean?" He snapped his fingers. "Yeah, what's the reason it can't be clean?" He frowned, genuinely questioning something obvious. "It's because..." He stopped, observing the sun in the distance, staring intently at that brilliant sphere.
"Because..." The boy stomped his foot hard. "Because the stove is used for cooking..." His eyes widened enormously, a soft murmur escaping his mouth as his mind quickly snapped to the meat and vegetable stew.
This time, however, he found himself calmer, thinking with an eerie clarity. "I haven't seen Mom cook lately." He looked from left to right, trying to come up with an explanation.
Then, he quickly spun around and ran inside the hut. His brisk entry kicked up some dust from the floor, and he locked his eyes on a covered clay bowl sitting on his side of the table.
There it was, an anomaly so obvious that his mind had simply ignored it. He focused his gaze on the bowl for a moment before looking around the entire interior of the hut. There was nothing strange at first glance, but Almeida's mind was telling him that the hut itself was an anomaly.
He walked over calmly, eyeing the bowl with a hint of anticipation. "My birthday present," he muttered before lifting the clay lid off the bowl. Inside, it revealed a meat and vegetable stew exactly like the one he had been eating recently.
The boy stood as still as a rock, staring at the steaming meat stew. His mind spent some time trying to find an explanation for all these anomalies—the meat stew, the sun, his mother—but no matter how hard he searched, he couldn't find a single plausible answer.
He looked at the stew before looking at the back of his hand. There was nothing unusual; it was just the hand he had always seen, with no visible wounds.
He blinked, suddenly feeling a ravenous hunger as his stomach growled. He ground his teeth for a moment before letting out a sigh. "What was I doing?" he asked himself.
"I was doing something important." He closed his eyes for a second before opening them and focusing his gaze on his hand holding the clay lid.
Then, he froze. He watched unblinking as hologram-like letters emerged from his hand, floating brightly before him.
The letters formed a single word: "Important." He stared at the word for a moment before remembering what he had been doing. He quickly covered the bowl with the same clay lid, still feeling the hunger, and scanned the room with restless eyes.
"Necklace..." he murmured. He gave himself a small slap before trying to walk briskly over to his bed to search for any trace of the necklace he'd lost. But his body moved unconsciously.
Trembling, he moved his legs. Against his will, he moved his arms. With a frantic mind, he sat down in his chair, and while desperately thinking about stopping, his hand began to move, grabbing the spoon, uncovering the bowl, and dipping the spoon into the stew, ready to eat breakfast.
But...
As Almeida's trembling hand moved on its own and his mouth opened, he focused his gaze on the back of his right hand. Once again, the same phenomenon with the letters began to occur.
"Important..." he murmured unconsciously, his body pausing for a split second.
What's happening? was the first thought that crossed his mind, feeling the urge to find an important necklace all over again.
The boy narrowed his eyes. With his hand frozen halfway to bringing the spoon to his mouth, he once again focused his sight on the back of his right hand.
"Ha-ha-ha, what is 'important' supposed to mean to me?" He paused in contemplation, looking at the floating letters. "This world is—" the boy stopped mid-sentence.
"Bbzzrrpp, looks like it's working. Number 1 is an idiot, obviously you don't have what it takes, so I've helped you out a bit. No need to thank me, just..." The shrill voice began to distort.
"Just get this over with once and for all. Oh, and if we ever meet someday, then, pray for me."
Almeida stood paralyzed. He processed those words in his mind before opening his mouth. "Weren't those voices part of my own thoughts?" he wondered, but then shook his head.
When the voice spoke, he felt an almost superhuman calm wash over his entire body like a drug, finally allowing him to think with an unusual clarity.
Number 1, the boy thought, feeling as though his body were emptying out just as the calm began to dissipate.
The boy inhaled the coldest air his body had felt in a long time. He looked around the inside of his hut, the door where some of the morning sun seeped through, and imagined beneath him, on the floor, an infinite void consuming him, dragging his soul away with it.
It wasn't sadness that accompanied that sensation, no, but rather a profound purposelessness, a lack of meaning. "In this world, the sun doesn't burn, the meat and vegetable stew is always here, Mom is alive, and it isn't cold..." He managed a faint smile.
Tears rolled steadily down his cheeks, falling drop by drop from his chin and vanishing the moment they touched his clothes.
He looked at the letters. "Important." He thought of the necklace he couldn't remember, of the urgency tormenting his soul, and finally let out a heavy sigh just as his stomach began to growl with hunger.
"But, I guess I'm an idiot," he said before focusing once more on the back of his hand.
"If this can make me wake up and remember something important, then..." He stared intently at the back of his hand, his mind focusing on only three things.
"Girl with the shrill voice."
"Meat and vegetable stew."
"Mom."
He thought of those three things with such intensity that his glare could have melted the skin off the back of his hand and scorched his bones.
Little by little, he started to open his mouth. His hand began to move, bringing the meat stew to his jaws to satisfy his hunger.
It's a world without pain, he thought as he moved his tongue, as his mouth closed to eat the stew from the spoon. But... he finally thought of his mother before tasting the meat and vegetable stew.
His mind went black once again.