The darkness was not black; it had the consistency of lead.
In that empty space without walls, a young Cristian walked with uncertain steps. Between his fingers he tightly held a crumpled rag doll, worn out by years and tears. In front of him, isolated and illuminated by a cold, white light, stood a large dark wooden door. On its surface, engraved in clear, deep letters, stood a single word: SUCCESS.
The child took a step toward the handle. He wanted to touch it. He only wanted to open it.
But before his hand could reach out, a shadow stretched out behind him. A cold, merciless hand closed around his shoulder, stopping him in place with a grip that stole his breath.
The metallic ticking of a clock began to echo through the air. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. A continuous, suffocating countdown.
Without turning around, with the small, trembling voice of a child, Cristian whispered: "Why?"
From the shadow above him came a thick voice, soaked in an ancient and familiar hatred: "You're a useless child... Why can't you stop ruining my life? Why do you have to be such a piece of shit? Such a person?"
Cristian lowered his eyes. On the cold concrete floor there was a crayon drawing: three crooked figures holding hands. A blond child, a woman, and a man.
"Is this the family I want?" little Cristian said, his lips trembling.
Then he slowly raised his gaze. Above him there was not a person, but a disfigured icon, a twisted and monstrous silhouette of his mother staring at him with anger, spitting insults at him without stopping.
"Why are you doing this to me, Raissa?" Cristian asked, his eyes wide with terror.
Raissa's figure tilted her head to the side, with a deformed smile. "Cristian, you don't deserve dreams. You don't deserve this. Your time has already been marked."
At that moment, the child's voice changed. Inside the body of that young boy emerged an adult awareness, deep, wounded but invincible. Cristian straightened himself, looking directly into his mother's shadowy eyes.
"I believe I'm more than a football player," Cristian said, and his voice echoed loudly through the darkness. "I wanted to be a father and an older brother. But until now your hand has kept me here... where my talent cannot bear fruit."
With a decisive movement, Cristian tore himself free from his mother's icy grip, pushing her hand away.
"Do it," he hissed.
He turned and ran at full speed toward the door with the word SUCCESS written on it. He ran with every bit of breath he had in his lungs, but just one step away from the handle, his feet stumbled into the void. He fell forward and, as he plunged into the darkness, a clear, incredibly sweet and small voice echoed from the other side of the door.
Cristiano's voice.
"Don't open the door."
A white flash tore through his mind.
In a second, Cristian found himself standing in the darkness, with his adult body. In front of him stood little Cristiano, only five years old, looking at him with his usual blue eyes, pure and clear.
The child smiled softly at him and whispered: "Oh Cristian... close your eyes and you'll see that the best isn't there."
The roar of the motorcycle tore him out of the dream with the violence of a whip.
The asphalt rushed beneath the motorcycle's wheels. Cristian was riding through the night toward Maia's house, his blond hair blown wildly by the wind and his hand tightly gripping the handlebars. The orange lights of the streetlamps slid over him like patches of fire.
Suddenly, an atrocious, burning cramp pierced through his lungs.
His breath caught in his throat. Cristian began breathing with difficulty, gasping inside his helmet, while the air seemed to have turned into ground glass. His vision blurred for a second.
He pulled over abruptly onto the side of the road, making the tires screech against the wet asphalt. He turned off the engine, violently tore off his helmet and bent his torso to the side, collapsing onto one knee.
A violent, convulsive cough tore through his insides. He vomited onto the ground at the edge of the sidewalk, doubled over by the pain.
When he finished coughing, short of breath and with his chest rising and falling frantically, he raised his trembling hand beneath the light of a streetlamp.
His palm was stained with dark, thick blood, slowly sliding between the folds of his skin.
Cristian stared at that bright red on his fingers. An icy shiver ran down his spine. The memory of Raissa's voice, the memory of the clock's counting, all echoed inside his head in one single suffocating second.
"Why..." he murmured in a cracked whisper, looking at his dirty hand. "Why..."
He wiped his mouth with the back of the sleeve of his jacket, leaving a dark streak on the fabric. Then he closed his hand into a fist, hiding the blood inside his fingers.
He struggled back to his feet, gritting his teeth. He put his helmet back on, climbed onto the motorcycle and turned the key.
The engine roared again into the night, and Cristian accelerated toward Maia, swallowing the pain and speeding through the darkness of the city.