I was 27 when life blew the final whistle on my dreams.
Born in the Philippines, a country where basketball reigned supreme and football was a foreign whisper in a noisy gym, I dared to dream the impossible. From the first moment my foot touched a ball, I knew. The rhythm, the touch, the elegance of it all—football wasn't a sport to me. It was the language my soul spoke.
Every scraped knee, every sunburned afternoon chasing a half-flat ball down muddy fields, it all felt worth it. I was good. Good enough to stand out in a desert where soccer barely bloomed. Scouts took notice. There was talk of training abroad. A scholarship. Maybe even a contract. I was a few inches away from breaking through the glass ceiling the country had sealed above the sport.
Then came the pop.
ACL. MCL. Same leg. One awkward pivot. One devastating instant. The pain was sharp, but the silence that followed was worse. I knew. The kind of injury you don't walk back from. Not really. Not at my level. Not in a country where second chances in football were rare, and rehab centers weren't built for athletes like me.
I was 27, washed up without ever making it to shore.
But if I'm being honest, that wasn't the first time life cut me deep.
When I was 18, wide-eyed and stupid in love, I met her. My first girlfriend. She had a laugh like windchimes and eyes that made you believe in things. She told me I was special. She told me she loved me. She told another guy the same thing—while she was still with me.
That betrayal hit deeper than any tackle ever could.
I poured myself into the game after that. It was all I had. And when the game finally left me, I was empty.
That night, alone in my apartment with ice on my knee and a lifetime of dreams floating away, I whispered into the void, "I wish I could start over. From the beginning. Just one more chance."
Then the screen lit up.
Not the TV. Not my phone. The air. Reality itself seemed to glitch.
"You have been selected for Reincarnation Protocol: SYSTEM REBOOT."
"Restart Point: 4th Grade."
"Location: Philippines (Soccer Desert Mode: HARDCORE)."
"Do you accept this second chance?"
My heart thudded. My first instinct was to laugh. The second was to cry.
Then I said it. "Yes."