Rof was awake. Not out of fear, but rather, due to the peculiar anticipation that comes the night before a brawl with Silas. It felt akin to standing before a self-crafted door, aware that what waited on the other side would forever alter your appearance, and deciding to open it regardless.
He sprawled on his mattress, eyes fixed on the ceiling, and allowed his mind to quieten. Not empty, just quiet. Two vastly different states. Emptiness is the absence of everything. Quietness, on the other hand, is the acceptance of everything. He had learnt that distinction somewhere, but he couldn't quite place where. He couldn't remember a lot of things.
At the stroke of midnight, his father tapped on the door frame, twice. A ritual that had remained unchanged since Rof was twelve - a discreet check-in to ensure he was still breathing.
"I'm still here," Rof replied.
The sound of his father's receding footsteps echoed down the hall. Rof closed his eyes.
His mind turned to Silas's voice on the other end of the line. The words, "You're the first man I've had a genuine question about," rang in his ears. He pondered the implications of a man like Silas - someone who had spent years boiling people down to predictable patterns - being intrigued by Rof Leon.
It would've been flattering if it didn't feel so ominous.
Because Silas wasn't cancelling the fight. He wasn't frightened. He was eager. There's a stark difference between a man who respects you and a man who wants to dissect you. Silas was unmistakably the latter. His curiosity was not comforting, but rather, clinical.
Rof reached under his mattress and brought out a photograph. Even though it was too dark to see, he knew what it depicted. A smiling boy, white walls, a hand. Three visits. Three days he couldn't recall.
He tucked the photograph back under the mattress.
He remembered something his father had once said to him at sixteen, after a brutal street fight that had culminated in a call to the police. His father hadn't raised his voice. Instead, he had sat across the table from Rof and said calmly, "Son, whatever God put in you will either save people or destroy them. That choice is no longer God's. It's yours."
Rof hadn't grasped it then. But he understood it now.
He sat up, feet touching the floor. His cross necklace slid forward, and he caught it reflexively. It was a practiced motion, almost automatic.
He said a short, concise prayer. "I don't know what I am. But I know what I'm doing it for. Keep that clean. Keep that clear. Whatever happens in that ring - keep it clean."
Afterwards, he rose and headed to the kitchen for a drink of water. He gazed out the window at the city of Philadelphia doing its 2 AM things - the distant wail of a siren, the barking of a dog, the blue glow from a TV in a nearby window.
His thoughts strayed to Clara at the laundromat, and how she had turned her back to him when he admitted he couldn't get eggs from Morris Street. He had known exactly what to say to fix things, yet he had remained silent.
That bothered him more than Silas.
He didn't dwell on why. Some truths are best left unexamined, especially when the answers come with a price you're not ready to pay.
Returning to his room, he put on his cross necklace, letting it dangle outside his shirt. He didn't always wear it this way, but tonight, he wanted the cross in his line of sight - a reminder, an anchor, whatever it needed to be.
Settling back on the mattress, for the second time since the tournament began, he felt it. The edge of the speed. Not the speed itself, just the periphery. It was akin to feeling the warmth before seeing the flames. A sensation at the base of his skull, where thoughts end and something else commences. For a fleeting moment, it was there — expansive, calm, and incredibly swift — and then it was gone.
He remained still for a while afterward, heart pounding.
Whatever had been implanted, stimulated, or built in him was surfacing. Like a deep-sea creature sensing a change in pressure and beginning to ascend.
Tomorrow, it would respond to his call. Or Silas would reach his breaking point first.
Rof lay back on his bed.
"Either way, tomorrow I find out what I am," he thought to himself.
He closed his eyes.
Down the hall, his father coughed once, then again, before falling silent.
Rof listened until the quiet returned.
Then, finally, he slept.