The clinic was quiet—too quiet. White walls. Soft lighting. A faint smell of antiseptic clung to the air like a warning. Mahmoud sat on the edge of the exam table, staring at the poster across from him. It showed a human skeleton mid-sprint, joints highlighted in red and blue. He didn't need to read the labels. He already knew where the problem was.
His left ankle throbbed steadily, wrapped in a tight bandage. The swelling had gone down slightly overnight, but not enough. Each step still made his teeth grit.
The door opened. A short, wiry man in a lab coat stepped in, flipping through a folder.
"You're the academy kid, right?" the doctor asked without looking up.
Mahmoud nodded.
"Let's take a look."
The examination was silent, clinical. Fingers pressed into the skin. Ankle rotated. Flexed. Pain flared and subsided in pulses.
The doctor finally stepped back and exhaled through his nose. "Grade one sprain. Could've been worse. Could've been much worse. You're lucky."
Mahmoud said nothing.
"You need to rest it. No full-pressure training for at least two weeks."
A pause.
Mahmoud stared at the floor.
"That includes scrimmages. Running. Anything that strains the joint. Otherwise, we're talking ligament damage. You hear me?"
Mahmoud met his eyes. "What if I just work upper body? No movement drills. No field time."
The doctor sighed. "Look, kid. I know what this means to you. But if you push through it, you'll lose everything."
Mahmoud clenched his jaw.
"You've come far," the doctor added more gently. "Don't throw it away trying to prove you don't break."
He handed him a prescription and left.
Mahmoud sat there alone, surrounded by silence thicker than before. He stared at the floor, replaying the last match in his mind. The pass. The pain. The risk. And now—this.
Rest.
Forced stillness.
For someone who had fought his way forward with every inch of movement, it felt like punishment.
He folded the paper in half and tucked it into his jacket.
Outside, the world was still moving.
But for now, he wasn't.
The next morning, Mahmoud didn't go to the academy. He stayed home, lying on the couch with his leg elevated on a folded blanket, ice wrapped tightly around his ankle. The television flickered with morning news, but he wasn't listening. His mind wandered, restless. His body might have been still, but his thoughts weren't.
In his room, his boots sat by the door, untouched. Just the sight of them sparked a tension in his chest. Every part of him screamed to move, to stretch, to train. But he didn't.
VALYS had been quiet most of the morning.
Finally, it spoke.
"You have not logged any physical activity for fourteen hours. Would you like to review mental simulations?"
Mahmoud hesitated. "Show me yesterday's match."
A projection appeared on his phone screen, built from memory and field sensors. The scrimmage played out again in front of him, this time from above—like watching his own story from the clouds.
He watched every step he took. Every mistake. Every pass.
"You moved well," VALYS said. "But I calculated four moments of biomechanical compensation in your left leg. Each time, strain increased."
"I made the final pass," Mahmoud replied.
"Yes," VALYS agreed. "But you must ask yourself: was it worth the price?"
Mahmoud didn't answer. He zoomed in on the frame just before the goal. He saw himself, mid-turn, planting his left foot, lifting his head. That was the moment it tore. The cause and the cost. All in one second.
He rewound it three times.
Then shut the screen.
A message buzzed on his phone. From Kareem.
"Coach asked where you were. I said injury. He nodded. Didn't seem surprised."
Then another.
"Yasser said if you're not training, you should be studying plays. He left you a notebook."
Mahmoud stared at the messages.
Even now, they were thinking about the game. About the grind. No one was slowing down for him.
He looked down at his ankle. The swelling was still there, but it had shrunk. Barely.
"I don't want to fall behind," Mahmoud said.
"You won't," VALYS replied. "If you're smart."
Mahmoud leaned back, closing his eyes.
He had won his spot with movement.
Now he had to protect it with stillness.
That afternoon, the notebook arrived. Yasser had left it at the security desk downstairs with nothing but Mahmoud's name written across the cover in messy black pen. Inside were diagrams, formations, personal notes from practice—arrows, symbols, small scribbled thoughts about positioning and player tendencies.
Mahmoud sat at his desk, flipping through the pages slowly. It wasn't perfect. Some of the notes were incomplete, half-thoughts left hanging. But it was something real. A gesture. An offering. A way to stay in the loop even while off the field.
He turned to a page marked by a folded corner. At the top, in Yasser's handwriting: "MIDLINE COLLAPSE. #6 must anchor fast."
Below it, a hand-drawn diagram of the field, with the #6 position boxed in. Mahmoud stared at the page, imagining himself there. Holding ground. Directing traffic. The game wasn't just legs and lungs. It was vision.
He pulled out his own notebook and began adding to it. Lines. Shapes. Questions. What would I do if the winger cuts inside? Who covers if Kareem steps forward? Could I shift earlier to create the second angle?
"Visualization training engaged," VALYS said without prompting. "Would you like to simulate midline collapse in five speed settings?"
Mahmoud nodded.
The simulation began.
His screen transformed into a digital pitch. Dots representing players moved around like a choreographed dance. Mahmoud paused, rewound, replayed. He tapped to shift players, experimenting with new shapes, new counters. It wasn't running. It wasn't kicking. But it was training.
Two hours passed without him noticing.
His body might have been resting, but his mind was sprinting.
Later, he took a break and stepped onto the balcony. The evening breeze touched his skin. In the distance, a ball bounced against a wall. Kids yelling. Laughter rising. That sound that once felt like freedom, now felt like a promise.
He limped back inside, slower than usual, but not broken.
The injury was real. The pain was real.
But so was his will.
He picked up the pen again.
Tomorrow, he'd know more.
And knowing was its own kind of strength.
That night, Mahmoud's room was dark except for the soft blue light of his screen. The digital simulation replayed again and again, but now he wasn't just watching—he was commanding. Each time he noticed something new: the angle of a teammate's approach, the gap left behind a defender, the precise second where a line could be broken with a simple sideways pass.
He paused the playback and stared at the image—one moment frozen in time. The midfield compressed, defenders shifting left, space opening near the top of the box. A window, barely a second wide.
He marked it.
"Your anticipation is improving," VALYS noted. "At this rate, you will return to the field with sharper decision-making than before."
Mahmoud leaned back, closing his eyes briefly. "Then I'm not wasting time?"
"No," VALYS replied. "You are preparing."
A small smile touched Mahmoud's face. He hadn't felt that in days. Not since the injury. Not since the silence started to creep in again. But now, even in stillness, there was motion. Not in his legs—but in his mind.
He turned off the simulation and stood carefully, favoring his right leg. He moved to the mirror and stared at himself. Pale under the soft light. Eyes tired. But not lost.
He unwrapped the bandage and looked at the bruising, the slight discoloration where his ankle had taken the most damage. He traced it with his fingers, not in pain—but in recognition. This was the cost. A reminder of the edge he had danced on.
He pulled the bandage back, wrapped it tighter, and whispered to himself, "You're not done."
In the silence that followed, Mahmoud sat back on the bed and opened Yasser's notebook again. A blank page near the back stared up at him.
He wrote across it in block letters: "THINK FASTER THAN YOU RUN."
Then, underneath it, smaller: "Every day, even when you can't move."
He closed the book gently.
Outside, the night deepened.
And inside, Mahmoud's resolve sharpened like a blade quietly waiting for the next battle.
End of Chapter 12.