The asphalt bit cold through Marko's jacket. Rain mixed with blood, forming dark pools that reflected fractured streetlight. His hand pressed against the wound, fingers slick and warm. Each heartbeat pushed more life from his body.
The alley fight was over. Viktor's voice echoed somewhere distant, calling his name. Footsteps scattered in different directions. Car doors slammed. Engines roared to life.
Marko tried to push himself up. His arm shook, gave out. The world tilted sideways.
His breath came in shallow gasps. The metallic taste filled his mouth—copper pennies and regret. Rain drummed against his face, each drop a small shock of cold.
The present began to blur.
Memory crashed over him like a wave.
Liis at seven years old, pigtails bouncing as she chased pigeons in Kadriorg Park. Her laugh bright as summer bells. The way she grabbed his hand when they crossed busy streets, trusting him completely.
"Marko, watch this!" she'd called, balancing on the park fountain's edge.
The car had come from nowhere. Blue sedan, license plate he'd never forget. The driver checking his phone, not watching the road. Liis stepping into the street, chasing her friend Anna that escaped her grip.
Time had slowed then too. Marko diving forward, shoulder catching his sister's small body, throwing her clear. The impact as the sedan's bumper crushed his right hand against the curb. Bones snapping like twigs.
The emergency room. White walls. Antiseptic smell. Doctor's words floating through morphine haze: "Extensive damage to the metacarpals and radius. I'm sorry, son. You'll never box again."
His mother's face crumpled. Liis sobbing into his hospital gown, apologizing over and over. His boxing gloves hanging on the bedroom wall like a monument to dead dreams.
The memory shifted.
Maarja in the kitchen before dawn, flour dusting her work dress. Her hands kneading dough with practiced efficiency. The smell of fresh bread mixing with her cheap perfume.
"You could still go to university," she'd said without looking up. "Smart boy like you."
But Marko had already stopped listening to possibilities. The streets called louder than textbooks. Anger burned brighter than hope.
Another flash.
Coach Sasha in the dim gym, heavy bag swaying from the impact of his fists. Salt-and-pepper beard, eyes like winter sky. Voice rough from decades of shouting instructions.
"Keep your guard up! Footwork, boy! Move like you mean it!"
The gym smelled of leather and sweat and dreams. Afternoon light slanted through dirty windows, catching dust motes that danced like golden snowflakes. The ring where Marko had planned to make his name sat empty now, ropes sagging with disappointment.
"You had the hunger," Sasha had told him after the accident. "That matters more than talent."
But hunger without hands was just starvation.
The memories came faster now.
Reimo laughing at some forgotten joke. Krista's fierce concentration as she worked the speed bag. Argo's cocky grin before their first sparring session. The weight of possibility in those early morning runs through Tallinn's sleeping streets.
All of it gone. Traded for brass knuckles and territory wars.
The faces of his gang members blurred past. Kids he'd recruited from the same poverty that bred him. Aleksei at seventeen, desperate for belonging. Viktor with his scarred knuckles and quiet loyalty. Men who'd followed him into violence because he promised them purpose.
What had he given them except a different kind of cage?
His breathing grew shallower. The rain felt colder.
A car door slammed nearby. Quick footsteps splashed through puddles. A woman's voice cut through the night.
"Jesus Christ. Get the kit from the van!"
Hands pressed against his wound. Professional, urgent. The pressure sent lightning through his chest.
"Sir? Sir, can you hear me? What's your name?"
Marko tried to focus. A paramedic knelt beside him, dark hair pulled back, green eyes intense with concentration. Her partner was setting up equipment with practiced efficiency.
"Stay with me. Look at me. What's your name?"
His lips moved but no sound came. The world kept tilting, sliding away from him like water through cupped hands.
"We're losing him," the second paramedic called. "Pulse is thready. Significant blood loss."
The woman's hands worked with desperate precision. "Come on. Stay with me. What's your name?"
Marko's throat felt full of cotton. He managed a whisper, barely audible above the rain.
"Liis..."
The paramedic leaned closer. "Liis? Is that your name? Liis, look at me. Stay awake."
But Marko was already drifting. The present world grew thin as tissue paper. Liis's face filled his vision—not the child from his memories, but the woman she'd become. Disappointed. Distant. Afraid of what her brother had turned into.
When had she stopped visiting? When had her calls become duty instead of love?
The monitoring equipment beeped frantically. The paramedics worked with increasing urgency, but their voices sounded like they were calling from the bottom of a well.
Marko's vision tunneled. The edges went dark first, then the center began to fade.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang. Deep and resonant, like the one at the old gym. The sound that marked the beginning and end of every round.
The memories collapsed into a single moment of perfect clarity.
He was sixteen again, standing in Vana Tallinn Boxing Club for the first time. Coach Sasha sized him up with those winter eyes. The heavy bag waited like a test. The ring beckoned like a promise.
"You want to be a fighter?" Sasha had asked.
"Yes."
"Then show me your hands."
Marko had extended both arms, palms up. Strong hands. Unbroken hands. Hands that could have carried him to championship glory if fate hadn't demanded a different sacrifice.
What if he'd chosen differently? What if he'd let Liis learn the world's hardness on her own? What if he'd kept his hands whole and his dreams intact?
The questions burned brighter than the pain in his chest.
The bell rang again, closer now. Calling him to one more fight.
His heart stuttered, stopped, then beat once more—weak but determined.
The paramedic's voice faded completely. The rain stopped falling. The world went silent except for that distant, impossible bell.
Then light exploded behind his eyes.
Pure white light that erased everything—the alley, the blood, the years of violence and regret. Light that felt like possibility.
Marko gasped.
His eyes snapped open. No pain. No blood. No rain.
Sunlight streamed through familiar curtains. The smell of breakfast cooking drifted from the kitchen. His mother's voice hummed an old Estonian folk song. Liis laughed at something on the radio.
Marko sat up in bed, heart hammering against his ribs. His hands—both hands—flexed without pain. Young skin, unmarked by scars. The body he'd lost decades ago.
The boxing posters on his bedroom wall showed fighters frozen in moments of triumph. Championship belts gleamed in faded photographs. Dreams waited on every surface.
This was his room. His life. His chance.
Marko rose from bed on legs that remembered being young. His reflection in the mirror showed a face unmarked by violence, eyes that still held hope instead of calculation.
The world was new. He was sixteen. And this time, nothing would stop him from reaching the ring.