The opponent—a faceless brute, pixels smearing into a blur of flesh and sweat—threw a wild overhand right. Young Leo slipped it. But as he slipped, he turned his head toward the camera. Toward the woman holding it. He mouthed something.

Leo’s blood went cold. He knew that voice. He hadn’t heard it in three years, not since the accident. Not since the night of the championship fight, when he’d taken a left hook to the temple that scrambled something loose inside him. The doctors said it was a subdural hematoma. They said he’d forget things.

Then the third round.

Because the man in that video—the southpaw, the one who loved her—died the moment the file finished encoding. All that remained was an XviD ghost. A 1.4 GB scar. And a left hook from nowhere.

Leo stared at the frozen last frame. His own face, half-corrupted by compression artifacts, stared back. He reached up and touched his left temple, where the scar was. He had always been told the punch came from his opponent. That it was a lucky shot.

A young man sat on a wooden bench, hands wrapped in white tape. He looked like Leo. Same sharp jaw. Same crooked smile. But younger. Hungrier.

He never would.