The flatline came during lane eight's final surge.
Darius Swift couldn't move his head to see the monitor. He hadn't been able to move anything below his neck since the car accident when he was three. But he knew the sound. He'd heard it twice before in this facility. Once two rooms over, once across the hall. The nurses always came running when it happened.
Not this time.
Because the 2024 Olympic men's 400m final was forty meters from the finish line, and Quincy Hall was making his move.
The laptop balanced on the adjustable tray over his bed showed everything. Lane eight. The American in the outside lane. He'd been fourth at 200 meters, still fourth at 300, and now he was charging.
"Come on," Darius whispered.
The words took effort. Everything took effort. His room at Riverside Care was small, sterile, decorated only by the track and field posters his mom had taped to the walls before she stopped visiting three years ago. Usain Bolt mid-stride. Michael Johnson's gold shoes. FloJo with her nails and that million-watt smile.
Twenty-two years of staring at those posters. Twenty-two years of watching other people run.
On screen, Hall was moving up fast. Matthew Hudson-Smith of Great Britain in lane six had led from the start, looking untouchable through 300 meters. Muzala Samukonga in lane seven ran in second. Kirani James in lane five held third. But Hall kept coming from the outside.
"His closing speed," Darius said to the empty room. His voice barely carried. "Nobody's ready for it."
He'd watched Hall all season. He knew his splits, his race distribution, the way he always held something back until the final hundred. Most 400m runners went out fast and tried to hang on. Hall did the opposite. He let them burn themselves out, then he hunted.
Thirty meters to go.
Hall was in second now, gaining with every stride on Hudson-Smith. The Brit was dying. You could see it in his shoulders, the way his arms were swinging wild instead of driving. Hudson-Smith had run the perfect first 300 meters and saved nothing for the finish. In lane seven, Samukonga was fading too.
Twenty meters.
Hall pulled even with Hudson-Smith.
Darius tried to sit up. His body didn't respond. It never did. The ventilator hissed beside his bed, breathing for him because his diaphragm had given up six months ago. Dr. Okafor said it was only a matter of time. The accident had damaged his spine, sure, but the real killer was the muscular dystrophy they'd found later. Two separate conditions slowly shutting his body down.
Ten meters.
Hall was ahead. Half a stride. Then a full stride.
"Yes," Darius breathed.
Quincy Hall crossed the line in 43.40 seconds. Olympic champion.
Then he collapsed.
Not just fell, but went down flat on his back on the track, arms and legs spread wide like he was making snow angels on the purple surface. The cameras zoomed in on him, completely spent, moving his arms and legs in celebration and exhaustion.
The monitor beside Darius's bed showed a flat green line.
He noticed it peripherally, the way you notice a fly landing on your arm when you can't feel it but you see the movement. His vision was starting to blur at the edges. Getting darker.
Weird.
On screen, Hall was still on his back, now just lying there, chest heaving. The cameras cut to Hudson-Smith, silver medal at 43.44, collapsed in his lane. Then to Samukonga, bronze at 43.74, hands on his head in disbelief. Jereem Richards of Trinidad and Tobago had taken fourth. Kirani James, the Grenadian legend, fifth.
Darius had watched thousands of races. Olympics, World Championships, Diamond League meets at 3 AM because they were in Europe and that's when they aired. He'd memorized splits and studied stride patterns and learned to see what the commentators missed. When you couldn't move, couldn't do anything but watch, you learned to really see.
That final hundred from Hall. That was poetry. Coming from lane eight, the outside lane where you couldn't see anyone, running your own race until the final straight when you came for everyone who thought they were safe. And then collapsing in pure joy and exhaustion, making snow angels on the track like a kid.
The darkness was creeping in faster now. Darius knew what it meant. He'd known since Dr. Okafor had that conversation with him two weeks ago. The one where she used words like "limited time" and "make arrangements" and "do you have family we should call."
He'd told her no.
His mom hadn't been back since he turned nineteen. His dad hadn't been around since before the accident. It was just Darius and the nurses and the TV showing him a world he'd never touch.
On screen, they were replaying Hall's final surge in slow motion. The way he lengthened his stride at 350 meters. The way his arms kept driving when everyone else's were flailing. Perfect mechanics under maximum fatigue. Then the collapse, the snow angels, the pure unfiltered emotion.
That's what made the 400m beautiful. It wasn't about being fast. It was about being fast when your body was screaming at you to stop. When the lactic acid was burning through your legs and your lungs were on fire and every instinct told you to ease up. The 400m was about pushing through pain that would make most people quit.
Darius had lived twenty-two years in a body that was nothing but pain. He understood that race better than anyone.
The darkness took the edges of his vision completely now. The monitor's flatline tone was distant. Like it was coming from another room.
His last thought before everything went black was that he'd never feel the blocks under his feet. Never hear the starter's gun. Never experience that first explosive push, the drive phase, the transition to top speed. Never get to collapse on a track in pure joy after giving everything he had.
Never know what it felt like to run.
Nothing.
No sound. No light. No pain.
The last one shocked him most. Darius had spent his entire conscious life in some level of pain. Muscle cramps, pressure sores, the constant ache in his neck from the position he had to sleep in. Pain was his baseline. His normal.
This was absence. Pure and total.
He had no body. No weight. No sensation of any kind.
Just consciousness floating in void.
Is this death?
The thought existed without a voice to speak it. Without breath to carry it.
This is... peaceful.
For the first time since the accident, Darius felt nothing hurt. He'd spent two decades dreaming about movement, about running, but maybe this was better. Maybe this quiet emptiness was the real escape.
The irony settled into him. He'd been obsessed with the most physical sport imaginable. Track and field. Pure human movement stripped down to its essence. Run faster, jump higher, throw farther. The body pushed to its absolute limit.
And he'd experienced all of it through a screen, trapped in a body that couldn't even scratch his own nose.
At least it's over.
A pinpoint of light appeared in the darkness.
Darius watched it. He didn't have eyes anymore, but he could perceive it. The light grew, expanding from a dot to a marble to a softball. Blue. Electric blue.
It pulsed.
What...
The light flattened, spread, became a rectangle. A screen. Text appeared on it in white letters.
[System Initializing....]
Darius stared at it. Or whatever the equivalent of staring was when you didn't have eyes.
No way.
He'd read web novels. Hundreds of them during the long nights when the pain kept him awake and the nurses wouldn't give him more medication. Stories about people dying and getting systems. Getting second chances. Reincarnating into new worlds with game-like abilities.
He'd always thought they were just escapism. Fantasy for people who wanted to believe in something more.
The loading bar filled slowly. Painfully slowly.
[System Initializing...50%]
Come on. Come on.
What if this was real? What if he actually got another shot? Not just at life, but at a life where he could move. Where he could run.
[System Initializing...99%]
The bar stopped.
Darius's consciousness froze. The number sat there. 99%. Not moving.
No. No, no, no.
This was cruel. Worse than cruel. To show him hope, real tangible hope, and then glitch out. To die watching Quincy Hall's comeback and then have his own comeback fail at 99%.
Please.
He didn't know who he was begging. God? The universe? Whatever force controlled systems in web novels? He just knew he couldn't take this. Not after everything.
The screen flickered.
[System Initializing...99%]
Still stuck.
Darius waited. He had no sense of time here, no heartbeat to count seconds by, but he waited. Because what else could he do?
Then the screen vanished.
The void swallowed him again. Complete darkness. Complete silence.
I knew it. I knew it was too good to be—
The screen reappeared. Different now. Fuller. Brighter.
A presence wrapped around his consciousness. Not physical, because he had no body, but undeniable. Like someone had draped a blanket over him, except the blanket was made of electricity and purpose.
[The user's desires and wishes have been determined...]
Darius's thoughts raced. It worked. It actually worked.
[The user wishes to run. To compete. To push the limits of human performance.]
Yes. Yes, exactly.
[The user wishes to experience what they could never experience in life.]
Every race he'd watched. Every split he'd memorized. Every technique he'd studied but could never attempt. All of it had been preparation for something he thought he'd never do.
But maybe that was wrong. Maybe it had been preparation for this.
[Analyzing user data...]
[Creating optimal path forward...]
[Solution determined.]
[The user will be granted a second chance at life.]
Darius's consciousness surged. If he'd had a heart, it would have been pounding. If he'd had lungs, he would have been gasping.
A second chance. Really?
[The user will be given a perfect body, optimized for athletic performance.]
Perfect. Not broken. Not dying. Perfect.
[The user will be given tools to achieve their greatest desires.]
[Loading...]
The dots appeared again. Darius watched them, terrified they'd stop at 99% like before.
[Loading....]
[Loading...]
The wait felt eternal. But Darius had spent twenty-two years waiting. He could handle a little longer.
After all, he thought, the best things in life take time.
The words felt true. Like something worth believing in.
[Loading...100%]
The screen exploded with light. Not harsh, not painful, just bright. Overwhelming. Beautiful.
[The Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) System has been created.]
Darius read the words three times. Four times. Making sure they were real. Making sure he understood.
GOAT. Greatest Of All Time.
Oh.
This wasn't just a second chance. This was a chance to be legendary.
The screen shifted. New text appeared.
[Welcome, User.]
[You have died.]
Yeah, I noticed.
[You have been selected for rebirth.]
[Your desires have been analyzed. Your passion has been measured. Your dedication has been recognized.]
[You spent your entire life studying athletic excellence despite being unable to participate.]
[This will not be wasted.]
Something in Darius's consciousness tightened. Recognition. Validation. Someone, something, understood. All those hours weren't pointless. All that watching and learning and memorizing had mattered.
[The GOAT System will guide you to achieve what you could not achieve in your previous life.]
[But first, you must choose your path.]
The screen cleared. A new interface appeared. Clean. Simple. A list of categories in white text against the blue background.
[Select Your Sport Category:]
- Motorsports
- Team Sports
- Individual Sports
- Combat Sports
- Water Sports
- Winter Sports
- Mind Sports
- Extreme Sports
- [...]
The list kept going. Dozens of categories. Maybe hundreds. Every possible athletic pursuit humanity had created.
But Darius didn't hesitate.
Individual Sports.
His consciousness reached for it. The selection glowed.
[Individual Sports selected.]
[Choose your discipline:]
Another list appeared. Longer this time.
- Track and Field
- Swimming
- Gymnastics
- Tennis
- Golf
- Cycling
- Triathlon
- Wrestling
- Boxing- [...]
Again, Darius didn't pause. He'd known the answer to this question since he was eight years old, watching Maurice Greene destroy the field at the Sydney Olympics.
Track and Field.
The words lit up.
[Track and Field selected.]
A new prompt appeared. Different from the others. More important somehow.
[USER HAS SELECTED TRACK AND FIELD]
['CONFIRM' 'CANCEL']
(NB: The choice is irreversible after confirmation.)
Darius's consciousness hovered over the options. This was it. The point of no return. Once he confirmed, whatever happened next would be permanent.
He thought about Quincy Hall crossing that finish line. About Hall collapsing on the track, making snow angels in pure joy. About twenty-two years of watching instead of doing. About every morning he'd woken up unable to move, every night he'd gone to sleep knowing tomorrow would be the same.
About what it might feel like to actually run.
Confirm.
[CHOICE CONFIRMED]
[TRACK AND FIELD SPECIALIZATION LOCKED]
[Preparing user initialization...]
The screen flickered. The blue deepened, became richer. More real.
[Loading...100%]
[Generating Abilities....100%]
[Creating the Perfect Body.....100%]
Progress bars filled one after another. Each one completing faster than the last. The system was building something. Building him.
[Assimilation beginning...]
The void around Darius started to shift. To solidify. He could feel it now, the edges of something taking shape. Not quite physical yet, but getting there.
This was really happening.
He was getting a second chance.
He was going to run.