The first half ended with Reis's team leading by a single goal.
Sweat streamed down his forehead, yet his eyes remained cold and steady.
Every time he chased the ball, he felt, if only for a moment, that something was pursuing him from behind.
Something without a form.
Samo stood beside him, panting, gesturing toward their third teammate.
"Reis, focus. Defender number four plays rough. Don't get into physical clashes with him."
Reis nodded, but his heart was elsewhere.
He was thinking about the past, about his mother.
Not the mother who carried him for nine months. That woman had left before he could even remember her face.
She had left him with a neighbor's aunt in a small coastal town when he was no more than four years old.
She left no letter. No will.
Only a yellowed piece of paper with his name written on it, and two words:
"Forgive me, Reis. I am dying".
Later, the aunt told him that his mother had died a month later in the hospital.
Reis grew up with that absence. He learned not to ask. He learned that sorrow does not make you cry.
Sorrow becomes a weight in the chest.
It turns into that gray haze that clouds his eyes whenever someone asks: "Where is your family?"
At school, the children laughed at his patched clothes.
At home, he slept on a worn-out mattress in the corner of his aunt's room.
Reis grew up. He tried working at a grocery store after school. Then at a car wash. Then at a fast food restaurant.
When he turned sixteen, he rented a tiny room barely big enough for him.
The first thing he ever owned in his life.
At night, he read novels on his old phone.
He read about other worlds. About heroes who died and came back to life.
Stories of all kinds, love and romance, fantasy and adventure.
Sometimes he felt those worlds were not merely imaginary. They felt more real than his cold room.
He felt his soul lived there, somewhere, in some time.
"Reis! Take it!"
Samo's shout snapped him out of his thoughts.
The ball was speeding toward him.
He controlled it with his chest, then surged toward the opponent's goal.
The field was dusty, surrounded by sagging barbed wire. Across from it stood crumbling apartment buildings.
The sky leaned toward a yellow hue, and the sunset felt cold.
He slipped the ball between the first defender's legs, then spun around him quickly.
He saw the goal ahead. He saw the goalkeeper stepping forward. He set his foot for a powerful shot.
Suddenly, a massive wall appeared in front of him.
Defender number four.
Over one hundred eighty centimeters tall, with a solid, powerful build. His eyes locked only on the ball.
Both of them leapt to contest the ball that had rebounded off the defender's foot and risen into the air.
Reis's body collided with the large man's.
For a moment, he felt like a small child crashing into a mountain. But he did not retreat. He thrust his head forward to reach the ball first.
In that instant, as the defender cleared the ball forcefully into the sky, he drove his elbow backward to gain a better angle.
He did not mean to hurt Reis.
But his heavy elbow struck Reis directly in the neck.
A searing pain. Unlike anything he had ever known.
Heat spread from the point of impact down his throat.
Reis felt his airway close suddenly, as if an invisible hand had seized it and crushed it.
He lost his balance in midair and fell hard to the ground. His back hit the dirt first, then his head snapped backward.
In that moment, he swallowed his tongue.
Not metaphorically.
His real tongue folded back and completely blocked his airway.
His body began to tremble. His right leg shook violently. His hands cramped.
His eyes widened, yet they saw nothing.
Only fog.
A gray fog consuming everything.
He tried to cough. He couldn't.
He tried to scream. No sound came out.
He tried to breathe. The air was gone.
He heard distant shouting. It was his voice. No, it was Samu's.
"Reis! Reis! Look at me!"
Samo was now kneeling beside him, his face pale.
His eyes were filled with a terror Reis had never seen before.
"Open your mouth, Reis! Open your mouth!"
But Reis could no longer hear clearly.
The sounds were muffled, as if he were underwater.
He felt Samo's fingers trying to pry his jaw open, but his muscles were locked, clenched with involuntary force.
The other players gathered around them.
One raised his phone to call an ambulance. another stood frozen, not knowing what to do.
The large defender stepped back, clutching his head with both hands, whispering: "I didn't mean to. I swear I didn't."
In those final moments, Reis saw everything.
He saw his cold room. He saw his mother whose face he could not remember. He saw the father he had never known.
He saw the years he had spent alone.
He saw the pain he had shared with no one.
But he also saw something else.
He saw that black sky. He saw the red rift within it.
He smiled. A faint smile no one could see.
"At last ... I will rest".
Then everything went black.