Moving his body with more fluidity than he moved his thoughts, Almeida took quick, concise steps, hopped over the wooden fence, and rapidly entered his hut.
With a face full of micro-expressions, a body overflowing with desire, and a burning fire in his eyes, he began to search.
He felt the fire in his throat with every breath, the heat in his lungs threatening to shatter into a thousand pieces. "Why?" he should have asked himself; however, his body moved with mastery.
He grabbed one of the multiple clay jars from a corner, took off its lid, and seeing nothing inside, tossed it aside. He took another jar, repeated the action, repeated it again; he saw a few things that didn't make any sense and threw them away just the same.
Even though his ears were bombarded by the sound of breaking jars and shards scattering across the dirt floor, he didn't stop until every jar on one side of the hut was smashed. He turned around and focused his sight on the table, on the clean and spotless dirt floor. He didn't process the image in his mind; he simply moved.
Under the table, in some strange boxes, he tore apart the straw mattress where he slept, the mattress where his mother slept. He checked every corner, every nook, every place that might hold a clue to whatever he was looking for.
And yet, despite all that, he never asked himself what exactly he was searching for. His mind woke up and began to forget those memories related to what he was supposed to do at the exact same speed his body was moving.
"The..." he stopped mid-sentence. He stood up, staring at a wall of his hut, turned around, and... "Nothing... there's nothing. Does it not exist?" he asked himself about the thing he was looking for.
He lowered his head slightly, hunched over, and rubbed his fingers together in erratic movements. "No... Does it... not exist?" His voice cracked, his cheeks growing damp as pale drops fell from his chin.
He observed the interior of his hut: the jars in perfect condition in the back, the clean table, the bowl covered with a clay lid, his bed perfectly made.
He breathed. The air entering his lungs felt like corrosive acid. He clutched his chest. "Tidy, it's tidy, Mom tidied it..." he muttered, closing his eyes. "I don't... understand... anything..." he told himself.
"On my 10th birthday, I wish for the world to be perfect," a voice echoed in his mind. It wasn't strange, nor guttural, nor high-pitched; it was his own voice. Almeida trembled. He bit his lip hard enough to tear it off, stomped the ground with enough force to cause an earthquake, and wished, from the very bottom of his heart, in that moment, to understand what was happening to him.
"After all, I hold the title of the strongest. I am the strongest." His own voice again. The pitch was high, but it was his voice. The sound was strange yet recognizable, and, despite his state, he could clearly tell that what it said was the truth.
"Are you the strongest?" He heard his own voice once more. He bit down—bit down so hard his teeth cracked. He sobbed loudly, fell to his knees, brought his hands to his hair, and pulled like never before. He pulled with a single idea in mind, a single hope: that the voice would shut up, that the strangeness would end, that everything would be perfect like before.
"The strongest, don't forget it. It's a promise I make to myself, on my 10th birthday: I, Almeida, am and will forever be... the strongest." And yet, despite his chaotic state, his legs forced him to stand, and they began to move step by step. His boots struck the ground, generating a sound that reverberated in his eardrums like war drums.
Thump. Thump. The sound of war. Almeida trembled; his footsteps, the sound they made, reminded him of a drum. The sound of a war drum.
The boy was barely breathing, barely maintaining his sanity, barely feeling his legs move. Even so, the desire was greater—the desire to find something he didn't know, something he had, at that moment, never even heard of.
"You and I, we are the strongest, Almeida..." Thump. Shock. Something struck his mind, dragging him back to reality. It purified all other feelings until only a trace of them remained, leaving solely one: desire.
He looked at his surroundings; he was outside his hut's fence, walking away. His moving feet were carrying him toward the abandoned church.
He didn't ask himself anything, he didn't question anything. He simply focused his gaze on the small, abandoned church in the distance, exhaling a breath of cold air before taking control of his body.
He tensed his leg muscles, his stomach, felt his nearly bare feet brush against the yellowish-green grass, and ran.
He slapped his chest hard with his left hand, did the same with his right, imitating a gorilla beating its chest, and ran. He ran without a single idea in mind, without understanding what he wanted, without comprehending the world—driven simply by the desire to find whatever it was that was driving him crazy.
The church in the distance gradually grew larger, closer. His eyes never lost focus on it. "Something is moving me, something that must be done, something that will be done, something that will happen," he muttered to himself.
"Almeida!!!" Alejandra's voice called out to him. However, this time, it had no effect on the boy; his movements didn't falter.
"Almeida!!!" it rang out again. The boy picked up his pace. A needle pierced his heart, his skin broke out in goosebumps, and there was only one word on his mind: "Danger!!!" "Almeida!!!" It was the third call. The boy pushed his body to its absolute limit to sprint. The church was highly visible to him now; he would arrive shortly. A smile appeared on his face, his fists clenching as he let out a slight chuckle.
However.
"Almeida..." It sounded close to him. It wasn't his mother's previous scream; this time was different. It was a murmur, like the whisper of someone teetering on the edge of life and death.
The shift in tone stopped the boy in his tracks. He quickly spun around, focusing on his clay hut that he had left behind.
"No!!!" He let out a scream that nearly tore his vocal cords. His clay hut was engulfed in an intense flame that was consuming it entirely. The yellowish grass was gone, replaced by black ashes on the ground, painting a scene of ruin and decay.
"Almeida..." Alejandra whispered once again. The boy's heart shattered, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets as he sprinted back to his hut.
"Mom!!!" he screamed, tearing his vocal cords.
His speed running back home was even greater than when he was heading toward the abandoned church. The desire to find that 'something' had vanished, replaced by terror in his heart.
"The house, my home..." he muttered. His cheeks were hot, his tears were burning, pouring from his eyes like small streams of water, and as he ran, he couldn't help but hear his mother's voice one last time.
"Almeida, thank you... for... being... my... son."