WHOOSH... CRUNCH!
The world dissolved into a symphony of screaming metal and shattering glass. For Leo, a 20-year-old whose greatest achievement was warming the bench for a third-division football team, it was a fittingly dramatic end to a spectacularly mediocre life. His last coherent thought wasn't of glory or lost love, but of the half-eaten bag of chips on his passenger seat.
So this is it? his mind whispered into the encroaching darkness. I can't even die without leaving a mess.
Then, nothing.
---
BEEP... BEEP... BEEP...
A rhythmic, electronic pulse was the first thing to infiltrate the void. It was steady, insistent, like a metronome counting down to an unknown event.
Heaven has a heart monitor? Leo thought, his mind fuzzy. Or is this the other place?
He tried to open his eyes. The light was blinding, stabbing into his retinas like shards of glass. He groaned, or at least, he tried to. The sound that escaped his lips was a dry, raspy thing.
"Mr. Valtieri? Can you hear me?" A voice, crisp and professional, cut through the fog. "Squeeze my hand if you can understand me."
Valtieri? The name echoed in his mind, unfamiliar and grandiose. Why were they calling him that? He was Leo Mears, the failure. He tried to form the words, to correct them, but his throat felt like sandpaper.
He forced his eyes open again, blinking against the sterile white light. He was in a hospital room, but it looked more like a five-star hotel suite. The walls were a soft, calming grey, and a massive window offered a panoramic view of a city he didn't recognize. The bed he was in was enormous and impossibly comfortable.
And then he saw his hand.
Resting on the pristine white sheet was a hand that was not his own. It was larger, the fingers long and elegant, with a faint scar running across the knuckles. A hand that looked like it knew how to command a football, to shape the destiny of a game. A champion's hand.
A wave of panic, cold and sharp, seized him. He tried to sit up, his heart hammering against his ribs—ribs that felt oddly solid and powerful.
"Easy, Mr. Valtieri," the nurse said, her hand gently pressing his shoulder back onto the pillow. "You've been in an accident. You're safe now. You have a concussion and some bruises, but you're incredibly lucky."
"L-Lucky?" Leo croaked, his voice a stranger's—deeper, with a faint, melodic accent he'd only ever heard on television.
"Considering the state of your car, yes, very lucky," a new voice said. A man in an impeccably tailored suit stepped into his field of vision. He had sharp, calculating eyes and carried a tablet. "The doctors say you'll make a full recovery in a week. The pre-season friendly against Juventus, however, is in ten days. We need to talk about damage control, Kaelan."
Kaelan.
The name hit Leo like a physical blow.
Kaelan Valtieri.
The name was a global brand. The "Phoenix of Football." The man who had won the Ballon d'Or twice before the age of 25. The player whose highlight reels were a form of art. The man Leo, in a moment of bitter frustration, had once called an "overpaid showpony."
He was lying in Kaelan Valtieri's hospital bed. People were speaking to him with Kaelan Valtieri's voice.
With a strength that felt both alien and terrifying, Leo shoved the nurse aside and stumbled out of the bed. His legs, strong and steady, carried him to the full-length mirror on the far wall.
The reflection that stared back was not his own.
It was Kaelan Valtieri.
The sharp, aristocratic jawline. The startlingly green eyes, now wide with panic. The trademark dark hair, tousled and streaked with gold. It was all there. He touched the face in the mirror, and the man in the reflection mimicked the action.
< < [System Shock!] >>
**<< Cognitive Dissonance detected at 98%. Risk of psychological breakdown: HIGH. >> **
The words flashed in his mind as if projected on a heads-up display. He stumbled back, collapsing into a plush armchair, his head in his hands—Kaelan Valtieri's hands.
"This can't be happening," he whispered, the rich baritone voice trembling. "This is a dream. A concussion dream."
"This is very real, Kaelan," the suited man said, his tone growing impatient. "I'm David, your agent. Or did you hit your head hard enough to forget me too? We have a crisis. The press is already circling. 'Valtieri's Reckless Joyride.' We need a statement."
Leo—no, he was Kaelan now—could only stare. A crisis? A statement? He was a imposter in a god's body. What about his own body? His own life?
"My... my car," he managed to say, grasping for a thread of his old reality. "The other car?"
David waved a dismissive hand. "Some nobody. A kid driving a rust-bucket. He got the worst of it. They say he's in a coma. Probably won't make it. Tragic, but it's not our concern right now."
A coma.
The words were a cold knife in his gut. His body was in a coma. The real Kaelan Valtieri was trapped inside Leo Mears's broken, failing shell.
He had somehow stolen the life of the best footballer on the planet, while the genius who owned it was teetering on the edge of death in the body of a failure.
The agent leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Listen, Kaelan. I need you to focus. The world is watching. You are Kaelan Valtieri. You are a champion. Now, put on a smile for the cameras outside. We need to show them the Phoenix is unharmed."
He was handed a club jersey—the famous sky-blue of Manchester City with 'VALTIERI 10' on the back. The fabric felt heavy with expectation.
He was a failure, a fraud, standing at the edge of a cliff with the whole world expecting him to fly.
As he was ushered towards the door, a single, terrifying thought echoed in the mind of the new Kaelan Valtieri, a thought that was both a confession and a curse:
The real Kaelan is in a coma... but when he wakes up...