Football singularity

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[Four days later, Date: 23/02/2020, Time: 10:12 AM – TitanFit Performance Pool, Orlando, FL]

The water shimmered like polished glass, broken by the ripples trailing Rakim's submerged limbs. He stood waist-deep in the centre lane of the anti-gravity pool, neoprene compression shorts clinging to his frame, arms outstretched to the foam balance bars. "Focus on your gait—heel to toe, one clean transfer at a time," the instructor reminded, walking alongside the pool's edge with a digital tablet in hand.

Rakim nodded, exhaling slowly as he raised his right leg through the resistance of the water. His ankle, still wrapped in a waterproof stabiliser, throbbed faintly but held firm. The sensation was strange, not painful, just heavy, reminding him of the system's Green Slime Potion.

He spotted his mother on the second floor, watching from behind the glass partition that overlooked the swimming pools. He waved at her to which he received a smile before continuing with his exercises. The focus was on mobility: 10 slow, deliberate strides forward, 10 back, then side to side.

In theory, it wasn't so hard, but the water jets would kick in beneath him, creating calibrated turbulence. Still, he gritted his teeth and followed the trainer's instructions to a T, not willing to give his body a reason to slow his recovery. It took him 30 minutes to complete 3 sets of these simple exercises, which wouldn't have been much trouble 7 days ago.

However, now he found himself struggling to breathe through the pain and sweating like an Eskimo in the Sahara desert. By 10:45, they had moved on to the next set of exercises, which was lateral resistance walking. As Rakim slid his right foot outward, the jets fired again—this time from the side—nudging against his stabilised ankle like a tide trying to tip him off balance.

He widened his stance instinctively, engaging his glutes and core to hold form. "Good," said the instructor, tapping the screen. "Try to exaggerate the movement now. That ankle's going to need to relearn range and control at the same time."

Rakim nodded, his breath steady. "One more set." He reset to a neutral stance, side-stepped, returned and again and again. It quickly became representative, but he didn't mind and pushed himself to the limit. Above, the sound of his mother's voice filtered through the intercom. "You're tilting slightly to your left hip on the recovery step; no need to build bad habits during recovery."

He simply threw up an Ok sign and slowed his pace, lightly putting much more emphasis on his posture and execution. By 11:20, Rakim was kneeling on the underwater recovery bench, letting the jets massage his calves and thighs. The water was now calmer, its surface broken only by the soft whirlpooling around him.

The pain had dulled, no longer a sharp stab but a distant throb as he calmed his mind. "Alright," the instructor said, setting down the tablet. "You've earned a cool-down set. Ten minutes of gentle cycle—no jets. You can float if needed."

Rakim didn't argue and immediately leaned back against the submerged headrest. The ceiling lights refracted on the pool tiles below, and for a moment, he closed his eyes. In his mind, the system's voice chimed.

[Ding: Hydrotherapy (Stage I) – Completed. Mobility Score: 62%][Projected Recovery Trajectory: On Schedule]

'Hmm, looks like all that pain is being channelled correctly,' He thought to himself as he remembered what he had gone through after arriving here. His days started off with Cryo-Compression Therapy at 08:00 before going through a light yoga session with his mother and father.

Following his mother to her gym, he would undergo Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation (NMES) sessions for short. What followed was that day's physical therapy menu he would have to go through before lunch. Laser therapy from one of the trainers, part of the recovery and wellness section, to make the most of that day's work, followed. It was only after lunch that he was free to enjoy the day, which consisted of him terrorising servers on 2KBall, CTD, GranTreasonAuto, Madden, EA Football and Fortnite on both Xbox and PlayStation.

Sigh, he continued to float with his arms outstretched along the surface, listening to the calming lull of the water. He wasn't the only one in the water, but they had reserved this section for his session so it was somewhat calm. The instructor, a lean man with dark locs tied neatly behind his head and a stopwatch dangling from a lanyard knelt at the poolside and clapped his hands to get his attention.

"That's your ten, champ," he said. "Dry off, hydrate, get some electrolytes, then we move to post-session recovery."

~~~

[15:35, Rose Isle, Orlando, FL, Rex household,]

Rakim leaned back in the racing-blue gaming chair, his booted foot propped on a velvet ottoman. Zeus—half asleep—had his massive head on his other calf, only the dog's ears flicking whenever the sub-woofer rumbled. He didn't care, though, as his gaze remained focused on the ultrawide monitor. Tilted Towers was half-crumbled, ringed by the storm's violet crackle.

The player count read 10 remaining as his fingers flashed on his PS4 controller. The HUD pinged, and through the speakers on his chair and his headset, the sound of footsteps resounded. Rakim twirled his gold-trim combat SG and slid behind a brick wall he'd quick-edited seconds earlier.

Building a quick set of stairs, he vaulted over a fence, tossed a grenade back and then hopped into a window. An annoying voice resounded from behind him as a player in the backpack kid's skin was chasing after him. "Bro, you literally suck!" he whined in a high-pitched nasal voice dripping with annoyance, clearly that of a kid high on sugar. "I'm gonna crank nineties on all you bots!"

(Boom) A short explosion resounded below as the backpack kid was thrown backwards. Rakim didn't care though as he quick-edited a slit in the brick and peek-pumped the Backpack Kid skin. Chips of masonry burst outward; the pellet spread slapped for 118 white.

"Yo, that's wack! You're literally cheating!" the kid squealed through proximity, voice cracking louder than a dog whose tail had been stepped on. He panic-cranked a shaky 1×1, layers of mismatched wood and metal blooming like a crooked flower.

Rakim rolled his thumb: reset, replace, cone, wall. A single ramp phased through the kid's structure and dumped him onto street level. Another shotgun blast—elimination. [You eliminated SweatySkittle91] splashed across the kill-feed.

[9 left. Storm closes in 0:45.]

High above, on the broken hotel roof, a ghillie-wrapped GrandpaGaming72 exhaled into his push-to-talk. Through his scope, he locked onto the figure of JohnWick with the Rex22 gamertag, quick looting the player he had just killed, "Wind's clean, 400 meters. Respect the drop." The muted clap of a Heavy Sniper followed; its round whistled past Rakim's ear and cored the taco shop wall behind him.

Rakim immediately sprinted behind a wall, scadadaling out of the situation after the missed shot. Grandpa had other problems, though, as the sound of footsteps resounded behind him. "Nice shot, grandpa," a player named TrueFort exclaimed as his Default remastered character quick-edited tunnelled along the second-floor windows. "But you just burned your one-bullet mag."

Grandpa immediately switched to his secondary in response as a gunfight ensued. Pumps and Hand Cannon got to sparking, and bullets got to dumping as they tried to simultaneously dodge and attack. TrueFort, with the element of surprise, had the upper hand, but Grandpagamer was no slouch either. However, just as both their health trickled past the halfway mark, a third party entered.

Sparkplug with the Gamertag CloutKingTV exclaimed as he fired off a round of rocket fire from a nearby roof. "My viewers paid for this dub—get outta my montage, peasants!"

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To be Continued...