But in the corner of the screen, for just a second, two tiny numbers flickered—7 and 9—before vanishing forever.

The field warped. The goals shrank, then grew, then became mouths. The crowd that appeared in the stands had no faces—just hollows where eyes should be. And they weren’t cheering. They were whispering. Names. Dozens of them. Some Leo recognized. Pelé. Maradona. A local kid named Jamal who died of a brain aneurysm at sixteen, right after scoring a hat trick.

The figure gestured to the horizon. Beyond the floodlights, a vast black structure rose—made not of brick, but of frozen bodies. Children in old jerseys. Teenagers frozen mid-celebration. Their eyes were open. Their mouths were sewn shut with digital thread.

“You are no longer the player,” the figure continued. “You are the memory.”

The whistle blew—not a referee’s whistle, but the sound of a school bell. The final bell. The one that rings when the building is empty.

The heart-ball stopped beating.