"Wake up, little boy."
The voice cut through darkness like steel through silk. Deep, accented, impossible.
Javier's eyes snapped open to fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Not twisted metal and flames. Not burning BMW or police sirens or blood taste mixing with gasoline fumes.
Marcus Garvey Group Home dormitory ceiling. Water-stained tiles he'd memorized during countless sleepless nights. Industrial disinfectant smell and teenage desperation.
But that was impossible.
Green text materialized in empty air beside his narrow bed:
[WISH DETECTED... ANALYZING REQUEST... CRITERIA MET... LOADING TEMPORAL RESTORATION PROTOCOL]
Numbers flashed: 3... 2... 1...
The explosion should have killed him. White light consuming everything. Instead he'd fallen through infinite brightness that tasted like static electricity and forgotten dreams.
Now he was here. Seventeen again, surrounded by sleeping boys who didn't know they were looking at a dead man.
Javier examined his hands in dim light filtering through barred windows. Smooth palms, no calluses from years of criminal work. No scars from street fights or knife wounds from deals gone wrong. Soft teenager skin that had never picked locks or hotwired stolen cars.
His memories remained intact. Every heist, every score, every moment leading to Marcus shooting Blackwood in cold blood. Rico's death, Marcus screaming, flames racing toward gasoline-soaked wreckage.
All crystal clear while his body reset to innocence.
Wall calendar showed October 15th. Five years before the Blackwood job. Five years before meeting Marcus Reed in that Village alley. Five years before choosing crime over everything else.
"This isn't real," Javier whispered, standing on unsteady legs. "Hallucinating. Dying. Brain playing tricks while burning alive."
Green window flickered with new text:
[TEMPORAL REGRESSION COMPLETE - WELCOME TO SECOND CHANCE PROTOCOL]
[HOST: JAVIER RESTREPO - AGE: 17 - STATUS: TEMPORAL REFUGEE]
"You can see the interface."
Javier spun toward the voice, heart hammering against ribs that felt too narrow, too young. A figure stood beside the window, translucent like morning mist, gradually becoming solid.
Vicente "El Martillo" Morales.
Exactly as he appeared in championship photographs from Blackwood's collection. Powerful shoulders, intelligent eyes, and calm confidence separate real fighters from pretenders. But ghostly, like looking through water.
"WHAT THE HELL!" Vicente screamed, his ghostly form flickering like a broken television. "You can see me! How can you see me?!" His voice cracked with terror and disbelief. "Nobody's been able to see me for... for..."
"Wait, what?" Javier scrambled backward, nearly falling off his narrow bed. "You're... you're actually here? How are you here?"
"You can really see me," Vicente whispered, his ghostly form trembling. "After all these years..."
Javier's hand shot out instinctively, trying to touch the figure. His fingers passed through Vicente's shoulder like it was made of smoke.
"What the hell!" Javier jerked his hand back. "You look like... you look exactly like Vicente Morales. The heavyweight champion."
"Well, yes," Vicente said, his voice gaining strength. "I am Vicente Morales."
"No way." Javier's eyes went wide. "THE Vicente Morales? El Martillo? I've seen all your fights, man. Every single one. I'm your biggest fan!"
"Javier, who are you talking to?" Tommy Vega mumbled from three beds down, lifting his head groggily. "Are you having nightmares again?"
"Keep it down over there," Carlos Ruiz grumbled. "Some of us trying to sleep."
But Javier didn't even hear them, completely focused on the ghostly champion in front of him.
"Thank you," Vicente said, a genuine smile crossing his translucent features. "It's been so long since anyone... since anyone could see me, let alone recognize me."
"But wait," Javier's excitement turned to confusion. "Why are you here? Aren't you supposed to be in the afterlife or something? You died like thirty years ago."
Vicente's expression darkened. "All I can remember is fighting some people. Not in the ring—real fighting, in an alley. Then getting stabbed. Then... darkness. Waking up like this, trapped between worlds."
The system window pulsed with new information:
[SUPERNATURAL ENTITY DETECTED—ESTABLISHING MENTORSHIP BOND]
[ENTITY: VICENTE MORALES - STATUS: RESTLESS SPIRIT - SPECIALTY: BOXING MASTERY]
Javier's eyes darted to the glowing green window still floating in the air. "What is this screen all about?" He pointed at the system interface. "This green thing with all the text?"
"Screen? Oh yeah..." Vicente's expression shifted as if remembering something. "Did you make any wish and have any regret?"
"Yeah," Javier nodded, the words tumbling out like water through a broken dam. "I came from the future. Lived twenty-two years already. Became a thief, a criminal. Friends died because we robbed the wrong man, and everything went to hell, and I wished for another chance."
Vicente stared for long seconds. Then understanding crossed his ghostly features.
"Time displacement," he said quietly. "I've heard whispers of such things in this place between life and death. Cosmic mechanisms that respond to genuine regret."
"The system?"
"Something beyond my understanding. It's been dormant since I arrived here. You must have triggered it."
Emotion hit Javier like a freight train. Grief for Rico and Marcus, even though they lived somewhere in this timeline. Guilt over every crime committed, every victim hurt for money. Crushing weight of wasted potential and abandoned dreams.
"I destroyed everything," Javier whispered, tears burning his eyes. "I had a chance to learn boxing when I was thirteen. This trainer, Miguel Santos, really tried to teach me. But I quit after two weeks because the discipline was too hard."
"You tried boxing?" Vicente's eyes lit up with interest. "Tell me about it."
"Miguel ran this program at the recreation center. Taught fundamentals to group home kids. He saw something in me and said I had fast hands." Javier's voice cracked. "But I was angry all the time. Thought the training was boring, the rules were stupid. I wanted instant results, not months of footwork drills."
"Boxing isn't about instant results," Vicente said softly. "It's about building yourself piece by piece. What made you quit?"
"Miguel made me do the same combination a hundred times in one session. Jab, cross, hook. Over and over. My arms were burning, and I was frustrated." Javier wiped his eyes. "I told him it was pointless, that real fights don't work like training. He said that's exactly why I needed to train more."
"Smart man," Vicente nodded. "What happened then?"
"I walked out. Never came back. Chose stealing because it was easier than learning discipline." Years of suppressed regret poured out. "Could have been something legitimate. Could have learned boxing, made something of myself. Instead I chose crime and got my best friends killed for money we never even got to spend."
Vicente listened without judgment, his ghostly presence somehow comforting in the darkness. When Javier finished, silence stretched between them.
"Second chances aren't about erasing the past," Vicente finally said. "They're about choosing different futures. You want redemption? I want... something. Purpose. Reason for being trapped here."
The system window expanded, displaying new options:
[MENTORSHIP CONTRACT AVAILABLE]
[TERMS: HOST AGREES TO BOXING TRAINING UNDER SPIRIT GUIDANCE]
[BENEFITS: ENHANCED PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT, TACTICAL ANALYSIS, COMBAT EXPERTISE]
[REQUIREMENTS: COMPLETE DEDICATION TO SPORT, ABANDONMENT OF CRIMINAL PURSUITS]
[ACCEPT? YES/NO]
Two glowing buttons hovered between them. Simple choices determining everything about his second life.
"You want to help me understand why I'm here?" Vicente asked. "Want to build something worthy with your second chance?"
Javier stared at the options, hand trembling as he reached toward them. Accepting meant abandoning everything learned on the streets. Every survival skill, every criminal contact, every shortcut to easy money.
But it also meant honoring Miguel Santos' attempted guidance. Becoming the fighter he could have been before pride and anger poisoned his choices.
The dormitory around them held seventeen other boys. Kids aging out of the system with nowhere to go. Some would find legitimate paths. Others would follow Javier's original route into crime.
Tommy Vega slept three beds down. In five years, he'd be running drugs for Dominican crews in Washington Heights. Dead from overdose by twenty-five.
Kevin Martinez tossed restlessly near the window. Future armed robber killed in shootout with police outside Queens bodega.
Carlos Ruiz snored softly by the bathroom. Car thief, prison, hepatitis, death at thirty-two.
Javier knew their futures because he'd lived in that world. Seen where street life led for boys with no other options.
"What if I fail again?" Javier asked. "What if I'm not strong enough for discipline?"
"Then you fail as a boxer instead of a thief," Vicente replied. "Failure attempting greatness beats success at destroying yourself."
The ghost moved closer, his presence more solid now. "I can teach you things no living trainer understands," Vicente replied. "Not lost techniques—the fundamentals that most gyms ignore. The mental game that separates champions from contenders. Ring psychology that turns weaknesses into weapons."
A green light from the system window painted everything ethereal. Other boys stirred in beds, beginning another day in institutional care that would shape futures based on choices not yet made.
Outside, Brooklyn was waking up. Cars starting, people heading to jobs, life continuing its relentless forward motion. In a few hours, the breakfast bell would ring. Then school, then afternoon programming, then dinner, then lights out.
Same routine he'd lived at seventeen. The same choices approaching that had led him down a criminal path.
But now he had knowledge. Experience. Understanding of where wrong turns led.
And a dead heavyweight champion offering guidance no one else could provide.
"Miguel Santos is still at the recreation center," Javier said, more to himself than to Vicente. "Every Tuesday and Thursday. I could go back. Actually listen this time instead of being an ungrateful kid who quits after two weeks."
Sunrise painted barred windows gold. Other boys are beginning to wake. Soon he'd have to navigate conversations, explanations, and the careful dance of pretending to be a normal seventeen-year-old instead of a temporal refugee carrying twenty-two years of memories.
"Time to choose," Vicente said softly. "Stay trapped in a cycle that destroys everything you touch, or fight for something better."
Javier's finger hovered over the glowing "YES" option. The weight of decision pressed down like physical force. Accept, and everything changed. Refuse, and he'd relive the same mistakes, watch the same friends die, and end up in the same burning car five years from now.
The choice felt heavier than four hundred million dollars in stolen cash.