Fame doesn't knock.
It kicks the door in. Shatters the lock. Floods the house with strangers and expectations. By morning, my name was everywhere. Every timeline, every notification, every news feed carried clips of me stumbling during sparring — the moment my timing faltered, the punch I didn't see coming, the brief lapse that made me human.
The world had a new headline: Prophet or Pretender?
The analysts dissected my every move, turning uncertainty into entertainment. Fans debated. Commenters mocked. Sponsors murmured into phones. Some whispered quietly about dropping me. Others waited, eager for the fall.
The noise followed me everywhere, even to the gym. Cameras lingered in corners. Phones were raised in anticipation of the next collapse. Faces were hungry—not for a fight, but for failure.
Training that morning was ugly. Brutal. Honest. No grace. Just sweat, relentless correction, the sting of leather against skin. My fists moved mechanically, my footwork forced. I tried to push the panic down, the images behind my eyes, the knowledge that the Sight had never failed me like this before.
And then it struck.
Not a punch. Not an opponent. Not a fight.
A vision.
I was in a hallway. Concrete walls, dim flickering light. Footsteps behind me. A shadow. A knife. Cold metal.
I dropped to one knee. My stomach churned. Breath ripped through my chest. Heart hammering like a drum in a war song. This wasn't the ring. This wasn't sparring. This was personal.
The vision shattered as quickly as it came. I blinked and found myself in the gym, every wall familiar, every sound mundane. But my chest ached. My palms were slick with sweat. Every instinct screamed: that wasn't imagination. That was warning.
I didn't go home that night. Not to my apartment of glass and chrome. Not to the solitude that had been my sanctuary since the first time I saw the future.
The hallway waited for me — ordinary, cruel, indifferent. Concrete walls, flickering fluorescent lights. The smell of dust and decay. Silence except for my heartbeat, loud, relentless, accusing.
"Relax," a voice said behind me.
I froze. Every muscle tensed. Breath hitched.
"If I wanted you bleeding, you'd already be there."
He stepped forward. Calm. Steady. Dangerous. The kind of danger that doesn't need to scream. It just exists. Shapes a room. Occupies space. Pulls attention like a magnet.
"Who are you?" My voice was tight. I couldn't tell if it was anger or fear.
"Someone who learned early what you learned late," he said. His eyes glinted with something I didn't recognize. "Seeing the future doesn't make you safe. It makes you interesting."
I studied him. Every movement precise. Every gesture deliberate. He smiled — faint, almost courteous — and then faded into shadow, leaving me alone with the echo of his words.
"We'll talk again. The ring makes liars honest," he said, voice lingering like smoke in the air.
I remained standing long after he disappeared, the adrenaline still humming in my veins. My fists itched. My mind replayed the scene, over and over. A prophet is never safe.
Not from the crowd. They loved you when you were perfect. They turned when you faltered. They watched for mistakes. Hunger for failure is louder than cheers for victory.
Not from the future. Seeing it isn't protection. It's exposure. Every move you make becomes an invitation, every advantage a target. The Sight doesn't shield. It informs—and sometimes, it warns too late.
And not from men who walk toward it with open eyes. Some know what it means to see the outcome before it happens. Some have studied the patterns. Some have waited patiently, with knives and patience sharper than any blade you hold.
I walked home slowly. Every shadow seemed to breathe. Every streetlight flickered like a warning. My apartment, empty and cold, offered no comfort. I sat on the edge of my bed, fists in my lap, thinking.
The fight with Adebayo had been routine. Predictable. Easy. And yet, even then, the Sight had faltered, irritated, offended. That was the first warning. This hallway was the second.
Blood doesn't lie. Pain doesn't lie. And neither does fear.
I clenched my fists tighter. Tonight, I didn't feel like a champion. I felt like a target. A prophet in the ring—and a man in the dark, hunted by someone who knew how to read the future as well as I did.
The city outside my window carried on. Cars. Neon lights. Life oblivious to the danger threading itself through mine. And somewhere, in the shadows between the street and my building, he waited. Or someone like him. Or many of them.
The ring had always been my sanctuary. The place where every lie and every illusion fell away. Where the only truth was muscle, will, and timing.
Now, the ring was just another room. And outside it, the world had teeth.
A prophet is never safe.
Not from the crowd. Not from the future. Not from men who walk toward it with open eyes.
And now, I understood: not even my own Sight could save me