I failed the promotion again.
I uttered the words in a faint voice, then stared at the screen, which displayed yet another piece of evidence of my failure.
A small icon appeared in the corner of the game, informing me that the attempt had ended before reaching the goal, and that hours of effort had been wasted to no avail.
My name is Reis. I chose this name for myself in a moment when I wanted to possess something no one could take from me.
I don't remember when I made the decision, but I wanted a name that belonged to no one.
I am twelve years old, living with my father in a house that feels too cramped for two people.
The house is cold even on warm days, and silent even when there's enough noise to disturb the neighbors.
I spend my time reading novels and playing expansive world games.
I love places I can enter without questions, and paths where no one stops me to ask about my choices.
My room is narrow, its dark walls absorbing light no matter how wide the window is.
The air is heavy, the floor cold beneath my body.
I was sitting on the floor, my back against the wall, feeling its roughness through a thin shirt.
Around me were many scattered books, some open to pages where I had paused, others closed, waiting their turn.
In front of me was an old television connected to a gaming console, with stacked discs beside it from years of use.
I placed the headset over my head, isolating myself from every sound outside this world.
The sound flowing through the headset was the only thing that felt like it belonged to me in that moment.
I had loved novels for a long time, but one novel settled deep within me and never left.
It's called The Song of Falling. It's not just a novel; it's a world where characters move, collapse, and return without explanation.
The game I'm playing is tied to this novel; one cannot be understood without the other.
I was trying to clear a stage known for its difficulty, unforgiving of mistakes no matter how small.
The world is open across five continents, and five keys must be collected without dying during the attempt.
There's a fixed time limit, and any mistake means restarting from the beginning.
The reward was a new continent and a message to my inbox containing five hundred chapters of the novel.
This interconnection is the reason for its widespread popularity among players and readers alike.
Whoever succeeds in completing the game earns the story, and whoever delves into the story understands the game's secrets.
But I failed again, gaining nothing but the exhaustion accumulating in my body.
I felt a heaviness in my head, and the dark circles under my eyes refused to fade.
My body is weak, and I know that well.
I heard my stomach growl, so I lifted my head toward the closed door of my room.
I stared at it for a long while, then decided to stay where I was.
I smiled faintly and restarted the game, ignoring the hunger.
Time passed without me noticing, and I raised the headset volume until everything around me disappeared.
I was completely immersed; there were no continents, no keys, no time.
I didn't hear the knock on the door, nor did any sound reach me to alert me of someone outside.
Suddenly, I felt a rough hand grab the collar of my shirt and lift me off the floor.
The headset fell and hit the ground. When I lifted my eyes, fear took hold of me as I realized it was my father.
He was grabbing me savagely, shaking me violently, then hurled me toward the wall.
He shouted in my face, demanding I open the door whenever he called me.
My father is tall and broad-shouldered, and he carries a scent that has become so familiar I associate it with harm.
His eyes were bloodshot, his face harsh, devoid of any human expression.
I didn't hear him knock on the door, nor did I realize he had come back early.
Fear paralyzed my tongue; I could neither respond nor defend myself.
He hit me and threw me onto the bed, then unbuckled his belt.
He began lashing my back with the belt repeatedly, and neither my pleas nor my screams stopped him.
I placed my hands over my ears because I could no longer bear the sound of his voice.
Pain spread through my body, and tears streamed from my eyes.
I kept repeating to myself that the pain would stop, but those words lost their meaning as the beating continued.
He kept hitting and shouting, accusing me of laziness, then mentioned my mother, and my chest tightened even more.
I didn't speak, because I had nothing left to say.
I was a happy child in the past, I am sure of that, even though those days seem so distant.
Ever since my father lost his job, everything in our lives changed.
He started spending money on gambling, then his losses and his anger increased.
My mother tried to stop him more than once, then she left the house and never returned.
I was five, so I grew up without retaining a clear memory of her face.
My father got rid of everything that belonged to her, then turned into an alcoholic who vented his anger on me alone.
There were many days when I found nothing to eat, and he would return without bringing me anything.
I studied for five years in elementary school, then stopped.
I became a prisoner in my room, moving between novels and games in front of my small screen.
After a long time, the beating suddenly stopped. He spat on me contemptuously and left.
From that moment, I no longer saw him as my father, but as a stranger sharing the house.
I fell from the edge of the bed and trembled by the window.
Sunset had arrived, and stars began to appear among the tree leaves.
A warm fluid trickled from my nose. I looked at my hand and saw it stained with blood.
My body trembled violently, and my chest tightened so much I thought the air would never reach me again.
The pain was so intense that after the relentless beating, I could no longer distinguish its source.
My heart stopped for a moment, but I didn't realize it, because consciousness had begun to leave me.
I lay stretched out on the floor, trembling, my eyes open, staring at nothing.
The stars were still appearing in the sky, but my vision began to blur.
I slowly closed my eyelids, as if my body had finally given me permission to rest.
In that moment, I no longer felt the cold, nor the pain, nor the fear.