Capítulo 2: Abilities

Edited by Deputy

My name is Eazy, a 50-year-old man with kids and a wife. Throughout my life, I had many regrets and wanted a do-over. Well, guess what I finally got one.

One day I went to sleep and woke up in my mother's house, confused. I quickly ran to the bathroom to see a handsome young me, African American, no facial hair 5'2 in height with black dreads reaching my shoulders. Wait. That's me? Why am I young again? I have no clue what's going on. As I gawk at myself in the mirror, I try to remember what happened last night. Unfortunately, my memories are a blur. Suddenly, I was torn from my introspection, and whatever fleeting memories I was holding onto dissipated back into its fog. I see words in my mind telling me that I have three special abilities. I grip onto my forehead. The feeling is like a flashlight is blinding my eyes. As my mind recites the abilities, I cringe. The first ability is that I can't miss when I take shots in basketball. The second ability is I can't get tired when I'm playing sports with unlimited stamina. The last ability is to slow down time for three seconds.

At this point, I'm going crazy. I try not to panic as I think more about these abilities. As my mind raced, I couldn't help but sigh in relief. My eyes aren't hurting anymore. I'm way too overpowered now, but I don't care if it's a gift. Who… Gave me this gift? Does this have something to do with me becoming a ten-year-old boy again? Whomever it was from, I won't turn it down. All of this had to be for a reason. I regain my composure after mulling over my new abilities, and I go down to the basketball court to see if it's true. The court is about a mile away, so I ran to it, and I was tired. It seems that the unlimited stamina only works while I'm playing. I tried to slow down time by holding my breath and pushing my mind to its limits, but that didn't work, so I put it aside for a later time. I walk to the free-throw line and take a shot and make it.

Then I step to the three-point line and make it again. I'm not shocked because in my previous life… I could make three-point shots all the time. Confidently, I go to the half court and take another chance and make it once again. At this point, I'm brimming with happiness. However, I noticed that my arms felt weak after making the half-court shot. I promptly assessed that I would only be able to do that once a game for now. I subconsciously rub my arms for a few moments before I lean down to pick up the basketball once more. My mind began to wander back to the idea of my previous life.

Anyways, I shrug off the underlying thoughts about my previous life and go to the other side of the court and throw it like a football. I come up short due to not having enough strength to make that throw. Since I was quite satisfied at my time experimenting at the court, I quickly went home to start planning how I want my next moves to be. Thank God it's a Saturday. I can have time to myself. I begin to think of things I want to do with these new skills I've gained. Will I only play sports or maybe play the lottery?

Too bad I don't remember any of the winning numbers. Oh! Maybe I would invest in companies I know will be successful in the future such as amazon-- or perhaps become a songwriter -- but I think I'll stick to sports for now. I know the position I will be playing is shooting guard because all I'm going to be doing is shooting. If I can't miss, then why would I pass the ball? Besides, I can't play any other prominent positions because I'm only 5'2 now.

Once I'd made up my mind to play the shooting guard position, I headed downstairs to let my family know the good news. I called my big brother and sister to come to the house because I also wanted to let them know the good news. My mom was preparing breakfast, so I asked her to make some for Rasta and Flo. At first, she was agitated, but I told her I got good news and wanted to celebrate with everyone. My younger sister Opal came downstairs, confused as to why I was so happy, but I'm not spilling the beans until everyone gets here.

Rasta tried to make an excuse about having work that morning, but I told him to take time off. It's vital. He decided to come because he always supported me in whatever I wanted, which made me happy. After all, it wasn't like that in the future. I'm thinking about the future again… Why can I remember everything else except for how I got turned back into a ten-year-old boy?

When everyone came, we all ate breakfast. While we were eating, I was preparing to tell them the good news. "Everyone, everyone-- I have great news! I've decided on what I want to do in the future and… It's going to the NBA!" I smiled triumphantly as I exclaimed my goal. Opal immediately let out a guffaw and said, "you can't be serious." I felt my body tense involuntarily.

I snapped back, "I'm very serious and going to sign up for the basketball team at my school just to prove it to you guys. Since we are in October, the season should be starting soon, so next month I will go for tryouts." Rasta had a stern look on his face. He appeared to be unconvinced and said, "OK, let's play one on one to see if you are serious." My mom started crying, and I told her not to worry and that I will be OK. Soon she won't have to work for anybody anymore.

Flo wished me good luck as she prepared to leave, upset that she wasted gas to come from school just to hear what I told her. "At least I got free breakfast," she quickly said and left, her annoyance hadn't subsided. We headed out to the court after saying our goodbyes to the rest of the family. My first one-on-one match after coming back is against my brother, so I ask him to put $20 on it since I'm pretty confident I'll win, and I'm super broke at this point, so he agrees. "Shoot for the ball," I say, and he goes to the three-point line and shoots it and misses. Rasta groans and says, "I'm a bit rusty, cut me some slack." Mind you; this guy is 6'3 and way taller than my 5'2 self.

I get the ball and shoot it and make it, of course, which surprises him. "Make it take it" is the rules, and we were playing to 10 outside shots that were 2pts. I quickly check it up and take the chance for two points. He laughs and says I got lucky, checks it up again, and is still not taking me seriously. I take another two and make it now. I'm up by six shots with my arms starting to ache.

He gets a little dangerous, but as he's getting the ball and checks it from a distance, I take the shot before he reaches me now. It's 8-0. He gets frustrated and gets in my face now. I dribbled it around, frantically looking for an opening, but since he's faster and taller than me, I have no choice but to fake a shot, which causes him to jump in the air to block. I duck under his legs since I'm short enough and run to the other end and shoot my shot for the win.

Rasta starts jumping up and down the court, delightfully laughing like a mad man, exclaiming, "We are going to be rich!'' I just shook my head at him and smiled smugly as I watched him fool around and said, "So you do believe me now." On our way home, Rasta is asking me so many questions, but I can't tell him I'm from the future and has been granted three special abilities. Even I don't know everything about the events that transpired between last night and this morning. I don't have it all figured out yet. I shook away the thoughts again, and I told him to look into tournaments for me because I wanted to figure out how to unlock the time freeze ability soon to make my defense better. I need to hone all of my skills as quickly as possible. When we reach home, Rasta tells everyone he lost, and Opal has the worst face of them all. She was astonished.

She still doesn't believe me and says Rasta let me win, so I let it go. Sometimes you have to show people rather than just talk. While my brother left to look for tournaments for me, I went over to John's place to play the Sega Dream cast with him. I ring the doorbell, and his father comes to answer the door. I greet him and ask if John's home, he says yes and tells me he has tickets to watch the wizards and if I wanted to come.

I immediately say yes and thank him because of the games tomorrow, what perfect timing. After playing some games with John, I told him to call up everyone so we could play some basketball. John and I ran a game before everyone came together. I could say we are tied in the win-loss ratio in our games, but this time he didn't even get a chance to touch the ball as I made every single point I shot. He was surprised and said, "You must be feeling it today; in that case, I want to be on the same team as you," I smile and agree. I didn't mind whenever we teamed up. John and I were an excellent duo.

We started a game once everyone got together. The other team's captain was called Shawn, he was a high schooler at the time playing football, but he was built to play any sport and always bullied us. He had a very fit and vast body on the e-court. Shawn was a great friend that trained and played with us. They started with the ball, and of course, Shawn bulldozed his way into the paint and made the first layup to give them a 1 point lead.

His teammates were all shooters and were slowly putting up points. We were playing to 11 points, and at this point, we still hadn't got the end while they were at 9. I was still trying to activate my third skill, but still wasn't working, John shook me and told me, "It's time to make a comeback." We double-teamed Shawn, he tried to pass the ball, and it got stolen by one of my teammates, and they scored right after, so now the score is 1-9. I requested my team to give me the ball every play because I'm hot today, and they looked at me funny, but I calmed them down and told them I would prove it by making the next point.

I got the ball, and the defender gave me some space and I took the two points. We run the next play the same way, and I made another two points making them get serious and start to play better defense. John sets a pick for me, and I launch another two from behind him, making the score 7-9. Everyone is shocked at this point, and they start to team me double. John was open behind the three-point line, so I passed it to him, and he tied up the game.

Shawn then said switch and decided to cover me. I'm having a hard time getting a shot, so I ran to the half-court. Shawn didn't follow and just watched me get ready to shoot the ball from there. I used whatever strength I had left and lounged it up, and it went straight through the basket, shocking everyone. Then suddenly, I remembered everything. How I got here, and why I was a child again.

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