The steering wheel felt greasy beneath Tre's palms. Twelve hours. Twelve goddamn hours of scanning packages, lifting boxes that corporate swore were "within acceptable weight limits," yeah, right, and dodging forklifts operated by dudes who probably shouldn't have passed their driving tests, let alone be trusted with heavy machinery. His lower back screamed. Chicago's evening traffic crawled like molasses in January.
Funny thing about exhaustion? It makes you philosophical. Or maybe just desperate.
A yellow school bus rumbled past in the next lane, packed with kids. Their faces pressed against foggy windows, some laughing, others zoned out on phones. Normal kids with normal lives, heading to normal homes where someone gave half a damn about their day. Tre's jaw clenched. Twenty-three years old and what did he have to show for it? A studio apartment that smelled perpetually like his neighbor's weed, a body that felt forty-five, and memories of bouncing between foster homes like a pinball nobody wanted to catch.
The bus's brake lights flared red. Those kids… man, they didn't know. They really didn't know how good they had it.
"If I could go back," he muttered, then stopped. Talking to himself, another fantastic habit he'd picked up from too many solitary dinners. But screw it. The car didn't judge. "If I could go back knowing what I know now? Different story. Practice basketball every single day. Make the right bets on games, Lakers in '20, Bucks in '21. Hell, throw some cash on Leicester City while we're dreaming big. Be a millionaire before I'm old enough to rent a car."
The fantasy expanded, filling the empty spaces in his chest where hope used to live. Not just rich, though. No, if you're gonna dream, dream properly.
His voice grew louder, more animated. Traffic wasn't moving anyway. "You know what? Alien god in the sky, if you grant me this wish I'll do anything! But don't just reincarnate me. I want to have limitless potential and be a genius in everything I do, whether it be basketball, football, soccer, math, reading, singing, any and everything!"
A Prius honked behind him. The light had turned green. Tre rolled forward ten whole feet before stopping again. Chicago, baby.
"After that," he continued, really feeling it now, "I want the potential to be at the top of humanity, like the 1%! I want to reach the limits of what a human can do… and looks, don't forget the looks!"
Lightning? Clear sky. Thunder? Nah, just his empty stomach. The universe, as usual, remained spectacularly unimpressed with his requests.
Then...
"What the hell is that?"
The woman in the SUV next to him had her window down, pointing skyward. Other drivers were doing the same. Brake lights everywhere as people slowed to gawk.
It looked like… a plane on fire? But planes didn't move like that. This thing carved through the darkening sky with purpose, trailing blue flames that hurt to look at directly. Not normal fire-blue. More like… how could fire be a color that didn't exist? Yet there it was, hypnotic and wrong, pulling at something behind Tre's eyes.
The thing, meteor, had to be a meteor, slammed into the highway maybe three hundred yards ahead. No explosion, though. No Michael Bay theatrics. Just this spreading pool of that impossible blue light, rippling outward like spilled paint that moved against gravity's rules.
Every car stopped. Not slowed. Stopped.
Tre's hands remained on the wheel but his mind floated somewhere else. The blue called to him. Whispered without words. Promised without language. Everyone must have heard it too because doors started opening. People stepping out onto the highway, drawn forward like moths to the world's weirdest flame.
No. No no no...
He yanked himself back, gasping. How long had he been sitting there, slack-jawed? Seconds? Minutes? The semi behind him wasn't stopping. The driver's face was blank, serene, still caught in whatever trance the blue thing cast.
Tre jerked the wheel hard right. Tires shrieked (when did rubber on asphalt start sounding like screams?) and his beat-up Corolla jumped the shoulder. The world tilted. Tree. Big tree. Very big tree getting very close very...
CRACK.
The airbag tasted like chalk and regret. Blood in his mouth. Door wouldn't budge. Window, then. He elbowed through it, glass singing its sharp little song across his arms. Out. Had to get out. Had to get away from...
The blue thing pulsed.
Distance meant nothing near it. He ran but stayed in place, like those nightmares where the hallway keeps stretching. Physics had checked out, gone for cigarettes, wasn't coming back. His legs pumped uselessly against air that felt thick as water.
The semi that hadn't stopped earlier? It hadn't stopped now either.
Time stretched like taffy at the moment of impact. Tre saw everything: the driver's peaceful expression, a pine tree air freshener swinging from the mirror, his own reflection in the chrome bumper, eyes wide, mouth forming an "oh" that would never finish.
Then the weight. The crushing. The snap of things that shouldn't snap.
But also… golden light? Tiny orbs, beautiful and warm, flowing into him even as everything else flowed out. They felt like apologies. Like promises. Like...
Warm.
Everything was warm and close and wrong-shaped. His thoughts moved through thick honey. Where… what…
A face. Beautiful face, but huge, like looking at the moon if the moon had perfect cheekbones and exhausted eyes. She was holding him. Holding him?
Wait.
Wait wait wait.
The hands holding him were massive because he was… his own hands were… tiny. Pink. With those little creases that babies have, like they're wearing gloves two sizes too big.
Bus. They were on a bus. He could hear the engine, feel the vibration through this woman's (his mother's?) arms. She was humming something, maybe Beyoncé, maybe just tired-mom freestyle. Didn't matter.
I'M A BABY!
The thought exploded through his mind like fireworks on the Fourth of July. He tried to laugh but it came out as a gurgle. His mother (mother! He had a mother!) smiled down at him, adjusting the blanket.
I'M A BABY! YES, this is what I wanted!
RIP to everyone in that pile-up. Genuinely, rest in peace, that was horrible. But also, and he couldn't help this selfish surge of pure joy, he got his wish. The alien god in the sky, the universe, whatever cosmic lottery system handled these things, had come through clutch.
My new life…
The possibilities unfurled like a red carpet to everywhere. He could be a boxer, imagine knowing every great fighter's moves before they invented them. Or music! Drop Beatles songs in the '50s, be bigger than Elvis. Bitcoin when it cost pennies. Amazon stock when people thought selling books online was stupid. Buy Google for pocket change. Walmart before it conquered America.
No.
Boxing was cool but… basketball. That's where his heart lived, even in this tiny new body. The game. The flow. The moment when you're in the zone and every shot drops like the hoop is the size of a swimming pool.
I'm gonna be the best basketball player ever.
LeBron? Jordan? Kobe? They'd be arguing about who deserved to be mentioned in the same conversation as him. He'd make the game look like poetry written by someone who'd never heard of gravity. Every record, every championship, every "did you see what he just did?" moment.
The bus hit a pothole. His mother adjusted her grip, murmuring something soothing in… was that Spanish? Korean? Didn't matter. He'd learn. He'd learn everything. Genius in everything, that's what he'd asked for.
This wasn't just a second chance.
This was the universe saying, "Our bad about round one. Here, have some cheat codes."
His tiny hand wrapped around his mother's finger. She smiled again, and for the first time in either life, Tre felt like maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be more than okay.
It was going to be legendary.