Challenge Rewards

After rising from the dead and revealing my darkest secrets to a complete stranger on Monday, the rest of the week seems fairly tame in comparison.

It's weird, because things simultaneously move very fast and painstakingly slow.

I receive word from Officer Nolan that my fami—the Martin family—is picked up and taken to the police station barely an hour after I admit they're abusive assholes.

(Nolan is right. Fuck them. They're not my family. They're just the Martins. A fucked up trio who made my life a living hell.)

I also hear that Will, Andre, Matthew, and Zander are brought in, along with their parents, the Lakeridge Varsity Coach, and the principal.

According to Officer Nolan, Zander puked in the interrogation room when they spread out the evidence photos they took of me in the hospital. Then he broke down crying and told the police everything before they could even ask.

I don't know how I feel about that.

So I decide to feel nothing.

Andre apparently professed his own innocence for hours, until my dirty clothes entered evidence, and the lab matched Andre's cleats to mudprints left on my shirt. He also apparently didn't clean off all my blood.

It's nice to know my cleats weren't the only ones stained in the ordeal.

It's mortifying, telling Officer Nolan where he could find the clothes hidden in my gym bag, because they're disgusting and rank, and like, they're murder clothes, and murder clothes should be kept secret.

Or something.

I don't know.

My mind's a fucking mess, to be honest.

But I watch enough tv to know DNA's important, and murder clothes are evidence even if they're humiliating, and if I'm going to turn in the rat bastards who stole my life, I best make sure they go down for it. Can't be wussing out halfway through, now I've come this far.

And so all this happens very fast, so fast I'm winded.

But all that happens far away from here, and here, it's slow.

I'm moved into a room in the children's hospital with three other beds, though only one is filled.

Shawna is a seven-year-old recovering from a liver transplant. Her family comes by every day, a ton of them: parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, third cousins twice-removed, you name it, if they're in any way related to this cute little kid with a head full of braids, they show up in this hospital room some time during the week.

If I said I was jealous, that would make me a psychopath. This girl is teeny tiny and has already almost died and is now getting used to a dead person's liver. She deserves family who care about her, and who bring her flowers and toys and homemade food I don't think she's actually allowed to eat.

If I said I was jealous, that would make me a psychopath.

But I am, anyway.

To keep them from seeing it on my face, I take to sleeping (or feigning sleep) during visiting hours. Shawna's family stops trying to talk to me, but her mom still leaves plates of freshly-baked cookies on my side table, and her baby brother steals her flowers and toddles over to put them around my bed.

When visiting hours are over, and Shawna is alone, and I hear her crying, I give her the tapioca pudding from my dinner.

She stops crying, then.

No one can cry when they've got pudding. It's science.

When I wake up screaming and clutching my leg, looking for a phantom break that does not exist now, but did exist once, Shawna gives me her stuffed rabbit Flufflestiltskin.

I smile, then, and say, "Nice to meet you, Mr. Flufflestiltskin," because that's what you do when a seven-year-old loans you her favorite stuffed rabbit.

There are rules.

And I may have been recently raised by a family that did not know or care about or follow these rules, but they are rules all the same, and so, I know them.

Other than these small interludes of interaction, however, I pretty much just keep to myself and let nurses flutter about periodically.

Considering I don't have any broken bones, it all feels like overkill.

I have a feeling it's more that the powers that be in charge don't know what to do with me, and keeping me in the hospital is most convenient for the time being.

I might be more upset at being cooped up, if it weren't for the time it gives me to learn about the System.

Every time I go to sleep, as soon as three hours have passed, I dream-walk out of my REM cycle into the beautiful green field and too-blue sky of my System Space.

The System considers baring my soul to Officer Nolan as "finding help," and agreeing to testify so I never have to go back to the Martin house as "moving to an open space," so I receive the first Challenge Reward: [System Restore].

I also receive a Daily Reward every day I go down to the Physical Rehab room and exercise.

The trainers are super chill about it, which I appreciate, and they even show me a few stretches and techniques I'd never heard of that are supposed to help me avoid injuries in the future.

At least, sports-related ones.

The Daily Reward works with [System Restore]. Essentially, as long as I absolutely kill myself training in the System Space, my body will go into extreme-healing mode IRL, and I'll wake up refreshed.

Monday night, I don't have a Daily Reward, so "training" is in its simplest form. The System gives me a list of solo exercises for improving ball handling, shooting accuracy and power, body balance, etc, and provides shadow players who demonstrate proper technique.

It's intense, and though I don't gain actual muscle mass or anything from my time in the System Space, I do gain the muscle memory, so I can replicate the moves in the real world.

Don't get me wrong. This is amazingly awesome. But for the most part, I already know all the simple exercises, so it's pretty much just cramming another 5+ hours of practice into my day.

However.

Once I pick up the Daily Reward, shit gets real.

{Daily Reward: Choose from the list of General Skills. A related Specific Skill will be chosen at random for you to learn during a Master Class Session. Until you master the Specific Skill, all subsequent Daily Rewards will go toward further sessions related to this Skill.}

In other words, my first Daily Reward lets me choose what I learn, then I have to keep getting Daily Rewards to keep learning the skill. Once I've mastered it, the next Daily Reward will provide me with the list again, and I'll choose a new focus.

The first General Skill I choose is [Shake Off Defender - Solo].

(Another option is [Shake Off Defender - Team Passing], but since I don't know how long it might be before I have teammates to work with again, I figure I might as well focus on skills I can practice on my own.

There are no shadow players to team up with in real life.)

To my supreme excitement, the Special Skill randomly selected for [Shake Off Defender - Solo] is [Cruyff Turn Variants].

Hells to the yes!

The Cruyff Turn is one of the most famous football moves ever, and for good reason. When performed perfectly, it can shake off the best defenders, create a ton of space to work in, and it looks insanely cool.

You might not think that last bit matters, but sports are as much mental battles as they are physical.

Pulling off an awesome move in a clutch play can wreck defenders who might otherwise play better. It can turn the tide of the crowd, steal momentum from an opposing team, and elevate your fellow teammates so they can play at their best.

Looking insanely cool is legit a powerful skill all its own.

Plus, you get to look insanely cool, so.

You know.

*Shrugs*

Once the System announces my Special Skill assignment, the Master Class Session begins.

And I freak the fuck out, because instead of a shadow player...

THE GOD OF FUCKING FOOTBALL, PELÉ, MATERIALIZES ON THE PITCH.