When Alexis came to, he found himself on a hospital bed. He was about to start panicking when he saw his mom enter the room. She came over to him and hugged him.
"Are you okay?" She whispered.
He nodded slightly. At the moment he couldn't feel his left leg. He couldn't decide whether that was good or bad given the amount of pain he felt when he was freshly injured.
"What did the doctor say?" Alexis asked immediately. That was what he was most concerned about, how long he would be out for.
Normally, he would've guessed that he would be out for a couple of weeks but what he felt was significantly more painful than any of the other minor injuries that he had gotten before. He felt that he was being generous guessing that he would be out for a couple of months.
"The doctor, he said... um.."
Alexis furrowed his brows. Even if reality exceeded what he had estimated, it shouldn't be by that long. "How long would I be out for?"
"It's not a matter of you being out". His mom said after Alexis pestered her. "If you were right footed then it would've been better. But you tore your left anterior cruciate ligament. To recover alone is going to take you about a year but you might not be able to play football again". His mum said. As soon as she finished talking, she dragged him closer to her expecting him to break down.
The opposite of what she expected happened. Alexis remained calm.
"The doctor's full of shit. It's my left leg that has the problem right? Not my right leg ". Alexis asked.
"I don't know. We'll have to ask the doctor". His mum whispered.
After a long discussion with the doctor who was occasionally harassed by a string of questions from Alexis, Alexis understood that he would still be able to play football... He just won't be able to play as well as he could.
He wouldn't be as fast as he was, he wouldn't be able to shoot as well as he could, he wouldn't be able to control the ball as well as he could. Basically, he would be a shell of his former self.
Alexis had a calm expression on his face as he heard everything that the doctor said. Even though he didn't show a reaction, he was breaking down inside.
Right from he was six, he had started training himself. All his coaches at different age groups has told him that he was destined for great things, and he knew it. He was absurdly talented.
When he was ten years old, he tried out to enter the Real Stars academy and as soon as he joined, it was obvious that he was better than most kids in his age group.
He was taken into the under twelve team when he joined the Real Stars academy. Normally a ten year old entering that age group would be on the bench but Alexis established himself as a starter right away.
When he was twelve, he was promoted to the under fourteen age group. He barely spent a year there before he was called up to the under sixteen age group.
Scouts from professional clubs were already contacting Real Star academy over some sort of a transfer. Even though he didn't like saying it, he knew that he was supposed to be the next big thing... As far as local football was considered at least.
All of a sudden he started crying. His mom didn't even know that he was crying until she felt her clothes dampen. She opened her mouth to talk but she couldn't find any words to say. She didn't have it in her to lie to him and tell him that it was all going to be okay, because she knew it wasn't.
The doctor came in a few minutes later and started discussing when he was going to have his surgery. After a date was scheduled, he left the room.
***
Alexis used his crutches to climb the stairs at his front porch. He struggled a bit but he managed to get in.
As soon as he entered his house, he went over to his room and laid on his bed. Immediately, tears started leaking from his eyes. It was as if everything that was happening was a dream and he was waiting to wake up. Now, he realized that he wasn't going to wake up because everything was real.
"Fuck". He muttered under his breath. He looked around his room. All of a sudden, the portraits of famous footballers, framed knock off jerseys, everything that reminded him of football was like a dagger piercing his heart.
After crying for a little while, his eyes coldened. He wiped his tears and stood up. At that moment, he didn't care what the doctor said, he was still going to play football.
He may be slower than he used to be, clumsier on the ball, less clinical with his shots than he would like but it didn't mean that he couldn't redevelop himself.
He was a talented person. While others had to go through multiple training drills to master skills, it came to him naturally. That was how scary his talent was. To him, this injury just meant that he had to work as hard as the others.
Of course, that was just his childish interpretation of the situation. In reality, even if he worked ten times harder than the others then he still wouldn't be as good as the people he was comparing himself to.
After Alexis had made up his mind, he decided to take a quick bath and was soon feeling tired. Crying a lot tended to do that to people.
Alexis laid on his bed and just as he was about to go to sleep, be heard a loud bell chime. He was about to call for his mom when he heard some words inside his head.
"Initialization of the Infinite Potential System done. Project football... Begin!"