Amani felt as if he were leaning against the rough-hewn wall of the small shack not just for physical support, but to prevent his very soul from fragmenting. The tears he had always managed to suppress in his previous brutal life, tears of frustration, of rage, of a despair so profound it had become a part of his DNA.
Now flowed freely, a torrent of unspeakable joy and unbearable sorrow. He was thirteen again. His mother was alive, her voice a vibrant melody just beyond the thin partition. His grandmother, whose quiet strength had been a bedrock of his early years, was likely nearby, her presence a comforting certainty.
He realized, with a clarity that was both exhilarating and terrifying, how much he had lost through the relentless, unforgiving march of time. So many precious, unrecoverable moments with the woman who had given him life, who had shielded him, however imperfectly, from the cruelties of a world that seemed determined to break him.
He wept for all the missed opportunities, for the words of love and gratitude left unsaid, for the hugs and kisses he could never give her in that other, squandered existence. He wept for the bright future she had envisioned for him, a future he had systematically dismantled with his own hands.
Yet, intertwined with the crushing sadness was an almost unbearable sense of gratitude, a fragile, burgeoning hope that felt alien and overwhelmingly precious. He was grateful, with an intensity that bordered on pain, to hear her voice again, to know that, in this timeline, she was still there, vibrant and whole.
He felt a desperate, surging hope that he could somehow make amends, not just for the bad choices of his past life, but for the ones he was yet to make in this one, the ones that had led him down that dark, ruinous path. He yearned for a forgiveness he knew he didn't deserve, forgiveness for not protecting her, for not being there for her when she had needed him the most, for becoming a source of her deepest sorrow.
The tears were a release, a violent purging of emotions that had been bottled up, festering within him for what felt like an eternity. And as he finally, shakily, wiped them away with the back of his small, unfamiliar hand, he knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his bones, that he had to be strong.
He had to face whatever lay ahead - the joys, the sorrows, the inevitable challenges of this second chance - with a courage and determination he had long since abandoned.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, the air in the small room thick with the scent of woodsmoke and damp earth - the scent of his childhood. Looking out the small, grimy window, Amani saw a landscape that was both intimately familiar and startlingly new.
Green fields, impossibly vibrant, stretched out as far as the eye could see, shimmering under the nascent Kenyan sun. He saw the gentle undulation of hills in the distance, hazy and blue, and the silver ribbon of a river snaking its way through the valley below.
The air, when he tentatively cracked open the window, was crisp and fresh, carrying the sweet perfume of unseen wildflowers and the rich, loamy scent of dew-kissed grass. He felt a sense of peace, a profound tranquility he hadn't experienced since… well, since he was last truly thirteen. This was his ancestral home, a place he had carried in his heart, a tarnished idyll, through all the bleak years.
With the hesitant creak of an old, ill-fitting wooden door, he stepped out of the shack and into the embrace of the morning. Despite being only thirteen, his frame, lean and wiry from a childhood of constant motion, caught the early sunlight.
His melanin-rich skin, yet untouched by the harshness of street life or the sallow pallor of addiction, glowed with a warm, golden hue. Birds, a riot of color and sound, chirped cheerfully from the acacia trees, and in the distance, the moowing of cows provided a rustic counterpoint, orchestrating a symphony of nature that filled him with an unexpected, almost painful joy.
At that moment, as he stood blinking in the brightness, he felt the gentle caress of the wind on his skin - a sensation that stirred long-forgotten memories of freedom, of innocence, of a time before the world had sunk its teeth into him. Ah, fresh air! It was nothing like the polluted, acrid air he had become accustomed to in the suffocating slums of Kibera, Nairobi, in that other life.
He saw her then. His mother, her back to him, tending their small shamba, her movements economical and practiced as she coaxed life from the rich, dark earth. Nearby, his grandmother, her figure stooped but her hands still deft, was sorting through a pile of freshly harvested maize.
His eyes, already raw, filled with fresh tears. An irresistible force pulled him forward. He ran, his bare feet surprisingly sure on the uneven ground, a sob tearing from his throat. He fell to his knees before his mother, his arms wrapping around her waist in a desperate, clinging embrace. The feel of her arms around him, strong and comforting, was like a lifeline, grounding him in the bewildering reality of this impossible moment.
He could feel the warmth of her body, the familiar, comforting scent of woodsmoke and Sunlight soap that clung to her clothes, the steady, rhythmic beat of her heart against his ear as she held him close. It was as if all the intervening years of separation, of pain, of his own self-inflicted degradation, simply dissolved in that one moment of pure, unconditional love.
Tears streamed down his face as he held her, unable, unwilling, to contain the flood of emotions that threatened to drown him. He could feel the crushing weight of his regret, the searing pain of his loss, but in this moment, held safely in her embrace, he also felt a burgeoning sense of hope, a fragile belief in second chances. Thank You, GOD! The prayer was a silent scream in his heart.
"Nakupenda, Mama," he choked out, his voice thick with emotion, as he finally pulled back enough to look at her face. He drank in the details, memorizing them, searing them into his soul. A few fine wrinkles were beginning to form around her kind eyes, crow's feet etched by worry and hard work.
He saw a single, errant strand of silver in her beautiful, thick black hair. But her smile, when it finally broke through her initial surprise and concern, was the same radiant, loving smile he remembered from his earliest childhood memories.
"I love you too, Amani, my son," she said, her voice laced with a gentle concern as she smoothed his unruly hair back from his forehead. "But why are you crying so? Are you afraid you failed the National examination? Is that what troubles you, my child?"
He shook his head vehemently, burying his face in her shoulder again for a moment. "No, Mom, that's not it. I… I just had a bad dream. A very bad dream. And besides," he added, a flicker of his old confidence, or perhaps the bravado of his future self, surfacing, "the K.C.P.E., I know I passed it. I know I did well."
He did remember, with a startling clarity that was a hallmark of this strange regression, that he had indeed scored 372 out of a possible 500 marks. A solid B grade. It would have been enough to secure him a place in a good county school, a stepping stone to a brighter future, if it weren't for the insidious machinations of his greedy, ruthless uncle.
He had had a life, a future, stretching out before him after primary school. He had been, in the small, hopeful world of his village, the future, until it had all come crashing down around him, burying him in the rubble of broken dreams and betrayed trust.
He sighed inwardly; a small mercy, at least, that he hadn't reincarnated before or during the examination. His adult mind, cluttered with trauma and cynicism, would have surely botched it badly.
"If you say so, my son," his mother said, her smile returning, though a shadow of worry still lingered in her eyes. "Remember, Mama is always by your side. I am your biggest supporter, always and forever." He then turned and embraced his grandmother, a fierce, tight hug that conveyed all the love and regret he couldn't put into words.
He realized then, with a profound and humbling certainty, that he had been given a second chance. A chance to make things right. A chance to cherish, and this time, to truly protect the people he loved.
As he stood up, his gaze swept over the familiar landscape of his village, the scattered homesteads, the plumes of smoke rising from cooking fires, the vibrant greenery that surrounded it all. The world felt different now, imbued with a new significance, as if it were a blank canvas, pristine and waiting, ready to be painted with the colors of his new, reclaimed life.
He took a deep breath, the air clean and sweet, and felt a surge of determination, a resolve to embrace whatever the future held for him, knowing that he would face it with the strength and love he had rediscovered in this precious, impossible moment.
Goals? Dreams? For as long as he could remember, even in the haze of his adult despair, Amani's lifeblood had been football.
From the dusty, makeshift pitches of his childhood, playing with a ball made of rags and string, to the countless hours spent devouring grainy footage of international matches, to the solitary nights invested in the intricate world of Football Manager, his passion for the beautiful game had been an unwavering constant.
He didn't just enjoy playing; he lived for the strategy, the tactics, the intricate dance of attack and defense, the genius of the world's best coaches. But more than anything, more than the intellectual appreciation, he loved the visceral thrill of playing, the feeling of the ball at his feet, the roar of the crowd, the camaraderie of the team.
Amani turned back and headed into their small, two-roomed shack. He needed a few minutes alone, away from the overwhelming emotions of his reunion with his mother and grandmother, a moment to clear his head, to try and make sense of the impossible. But as he took a step, a sharp, familiar pain shot through his left ankle, a mind-numbing throb that radiated up his leg, making him wince and falter.
And then he remembered. The other scar. The first one.
He'd been involved in a bicycle accident around this time, when he was thirteen, during his previous life. It hadn't been a dramatic, life-threatening crash, just a clumsy fall on a gravel road. But the landing had been awkward, twisting his left foot at an unnatural angle.
It hadn't seemed so bad at first, a sprain, his mother had said, something that would heal with time and rest. But it hadn't. The injury, improperly treated due to their lack of access to proper medical care - a doctor's visit was a luxury they couldn't afford - had never fully healed.
Instead, it had left him with a nagging, persistent pain, a dull ache that sometimes flared into sharp agony, a constant, unwelcome companion that haunted his every step, his every attempt to run or kick a ball with any real power.
That moment, that seemingly innocuous fall, had marked the true beginning of the end of his once-promising soccer career, long before the more dramatic ACL tear that would come later.
A growing, insidious anger, a bitter, corrosive sense of injustice, had begun to slowly smother the bright spark of passion that had once ignited his performances on the field. As he entered high school, that festering anger had curdled into open rebellion.
He became known for his volatile outbursts, his quick temper, his frequent, often brutal, brawls. He transformed into an unruly hooligan, his destructive actions speaking far louder than the whispered dreams he still occasionally nurtured in the dead of night.
It was amidst this turmoil, this descent into self-sabotage, that his uncle had seen his opportunity. But that was a later pain, a different betrayal. This pain, the one throbbing in his ankle now, was the original sin, the first crack in the foundation of his dreams.
'Why?' he thought, a fresh wave of distress washing over him. 'Why would I return to a point when I was already injured? When the seeds of my failure were already sown?' He felt his fragile mood sink, the elation of his second chance momentarily eclipsed by this bitter realization.
He limped back towards his small sleeping space in the corner of the room, his intention to examine his left ankle, to assess the damage that had once defined so much of his suffering.
At that precise moment, just as despair threatened to engulf him once more, a sound, sharp and clear, resonated in front of his eyes.
"DING"
"SYSTEM INITIALIZING..."
"WELCOME TO THE LEGENDARY SYSTEM..."
A blue screen, translucent and shimmering, formed in the air directly in front of his astonished eyes.