Leandro's eyes flew open and he sucked in a deep breath. His lungs burned like he'd been drowning underwater for too long.
White ceiling and paint appeared in his sight, along with a slow-spinning fan that squeaked with every rotation. He blinked hard three times to register what he was seeing.
"Where am I...?"
His heart hammered against his chest like it was trying to escape. As he pushed himself up, a wave of dizziness slammed into him from the side and his vision swarm. He groaned and clutched the edge of the bed to steady himself.
The bed was narrow and surprisingly familiar. The mattress sagged in the middle from years of use, and the sheets were thin and worn but clean.
"This isn't a hospital or a hotel room in Indonesia..." he paused, "This is — no. This is my room back home in Brazil"
His gaze shot around wildly, taking in every detail. The small wooden desk pushed against the wall, the stack of school notebooks with bent corners, the laptop, and the poster of Ronaldinho celebrating a goal that was half peeling off the wall because the tape had given up.
The wardrobe with the broken handle that you had to lift and pull at the same time, the small windows with iron bars on the outside — the kind every house in his neighborhood had.
Every single detail was burned into his memory from years ago.
"No... no, no, no..."
It was then he noticed the words that came out of his mouth sounded way younger and extra clear.
He stumbled to his feet. He legs felt strangely light as he rushed across the room to the mirror hanging crooked on the wall.
The boy staring back at him made his heart stop. He was so much younger and thinner. His shoulders hadn't filled out yet.
There was no sight of the faint scar on his chin from that training accident last year when he'd collided with the goalpost.
He had messy black hair that stuck up in every direction and wide dark eyes that looked too big for his face. Skin smooth and face still soft with youth. He was exactly seventeen years old this year.
Leandro's breath came in short, sharp bursts that sounded loud in the quiet room. He pressed both his hands flat against his chest to feel his heart racing and pounding hard against the inside of his ribcage.
"I died?"
The memory of the car crash hit him all over again — flashes of the heavy rainfall, headlights cutting through the storm, the impact, shattered glass, and the brief, brilliant flash of pain before everything went dark.
"I fucking died...!"
He should be dead, but here he was standing in his childhood bedroom. In his seventeen-year-old body.
He had gone back in time before Indonesia, the 9-0 defeat, the years of drifting from club to club, the slow grinding decline into mediocrity and obscurity, and before everything went wrong.
His legs gave out and he sat down hard on the edge of the bed. The springs squeaked as he stared at the floor between his feet.
His mind raced trying to make sense of all this fairytale bullshit that made no sense. The whole concept of rebirth, time travel, second chance, hallucination, and a coma dream, were all pure unfiltered madness to him.
But it all felt real.
The rough texture of the bedsheet under his palms, the faint sound of traffic outside, and the way his stomach growled because he hadn't eaten. All of it felt completely, undeniably real. Whatever this was, it was happening in 4k.
A warm, tired and achingly familiar voice called out. "Leandro?"
His entire body went rigid. He hadn't heard that voice in a — How long has it been? In his first life, how many years had passed since—
He couldn't finish that thought as tears blurred his vision. His voice was stuck somewhere deep in his chest that he couldn't answer.
The footsteps came closer and stopped just outside his door.
"Leandro? You awake?" The voice was softer now, concerned in a way only she could. "You've been sleeping since yesterday. Are you sick? Should I call someone?"
Leandro's hands started trembling, but he wiped his eyes quickly with the back of his hand and tried to steady his breathing.
"I'm... I'm okay," he called back. His voice cracked in the middle, sounding like a kid.
Mariana paused from the other side of the door. "You don't sound okay." She said, then opened the door slowly and stepped inside.
She looked in her early twenties. Maybe twenty-three or twenty-four, with dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. Tired eyes that carried too much weight for someone her age. She wore an old grey t-shirt with a faded logo and jeans with a small tear in one knee. This was her work clothes, and she must have just gotten back from her shift.
She looked at him with that expression she'd always worn his entire childhood, where she looked worried but was trying not to show it. Trying to be strong.
"You look really pale," Mariana said. She crossed the room and pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. Her hand was cool and rough from work. "No fever though. That's good."
Leandro stared up at her. In his past life, he had taken her for granted. Had let her carry all the weight while he floated through his career, wasted time, and failed slowly.
She had worked two jobs, sometimes three. And had to skip meals so he could eat. She had believed in him when top scouts rejected him and everyone else gave up on him, including himself. And he had repaid her with eleven years of mediocrity and disappointment that slowly broke her heart.
"Leandro?" Her frown deepened. "Seriously, you're scaring me. What's wrong?"
He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. What could he possibly say?
'I died in Indonesia eleven years from now. I wasted my entire career. I wasted your sacrifices. But now I'm back and I won't make the same mistakes again.'
He couldn't say any of that. Instead, he just shook his head slowly.
"Nothing," he said quietly. "I just... had a really bad dream."
Mariana studied his face for a long moment. Her eyes searched like she was trying to read something written in a foreign language. Then she sighed and reached out to ruffle his hair.
"You've been stressed about tomorrow's game, haven't you?" She smiled faintly, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Just take it as a normal match, Leandro. You don't have to put so much pressure on yourself."
'A game? There is a game tomorrow?!'
His mind kicked into gear and he focused instantly, trying to remember. What month was this? What day? What year, even?
Then it all clicked and all the pieces fell in place.
This was it. The match where everything had started going wrong the first time around.
Vila Nova's reserve team were having a local friendly match against a team from the next town over. Though it was called friendly, that was only in name. It was something far more important than that — a scouting game where multiple club scouts would be present, including foreign scouts from Europe.
In his pat life, Leandro had been on the bench that day. He hadn't played a single minute. The coach had looked right through him like he was made of glass. After that match, something had changed significantly. The coaches stopped considering him and including him in important matches. He became a modern background art piece that people ignored.
That friendly match had been the beginning of the end.
But now... Now he was here again with a chance to change it, before it all happened.
Leandro looked up at his sister. His jaw tightened and his hands curled into fists on his knees.
"I won't overthink it," he said. His voice came out steady and firm this time.
Mariana raised an eyebrow. "That's a first. You always overthink everything."
He let loose a smile. This time, he wasn't going to waste a single second of training or a single opportunity to improve himself, even if he lacked in the talent department. Even if he had nothing but his own two legs and a ball, he'd make up for it with hard work and pure gritty determination.
He had something far more valuable than any of that so-called talent. He had the match experiences and the memory of failure.
The weight of eleven wasted years. The terror of ending up back in that disappointing lifestyle in Indonesia, with a cheap car and rain hammering the windshield and nothing significant to show for his life.
That fear would drive him harder than any talent ever could.
Mariana said something about breakfast being ready on the table. She told him not to skip it this time and reminded him that training started early. Then she left the room, pulling the door closed behind her with a soft click.
Leandro sat there on the edge of his bed in the early morning silence.
He looked at his unscarred hands. They were of a young seventeen years old. The calluses hadn't built up yet from years of training.
He clenched them slowly into fists.
"Never again," he whispered to the empty room. The words were a promise to himself. A vow to never become worthless again in life.