Halftime: Dasmariñas 36 — Cebu City 20
The door to the Cebu City locker room slammed shut, the thud echoing the final, sickening beat of their humiliation. The room was silent. It was not the quiet of a focused, professional team. It was the suffocating, toxic silence of a funeral, of a public execution. The 'Cebu Machine,' the pride of the Visayas, the team that was supposed to walk to the national final, was down by sixteen points to a team of no-names from Cavite.
The players, the 'passengers'—Abella, Ramos, Chavez, Santos—slumped onto the benches, their faces pale, their eyes staring at the floor, the bright yellow of their uniforms feeling like a clown suit. They were afraid to breathe.
Their coach, a renowned, fiery veteran named Alforque, stood in the center of the room, his face a deep, mottled purple. He was vibrating, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. He didn't speak for a full minute, letting the weight of their catastrophic failure press down on them.
When he finally spoke, his voice was not a roar. It was a low, venomous hiss, which was infinitely more terrifying.
"Twenty. Points," he whispered, the words dripping with acid. "You scored twenty points in twenty minutes of basketball. Our regional average was ninety-five. You... are a disgrace."
He began to pace, a caged, furious animal.
"Do you understand what just happened out there? Do you have any idea? They didn't just beat us. They insulted us!"
He wheeled on his point guard. "Abella! You! You were 0-for-3, all of them layups! You had four turnovers! They dared you to beat them, 4-on-4. They let you be open. They left you on an island and you just... you drowned! You let their captain, a kid eight inches shorter than Emon, run your life! You made him look like the Mythical Five player!"
Abella flinched as if he'd been struck, his face crumbling.
"And you!" he roared, pointing at his big men, Ramos and Chavez. "You are just... props! You are screeners! You are passengers! You got one rebound. One! Between the two of you! Their bigs, who are smaller than you, are living in our paint! You are soft! You are playing soft, scared, cowardly basketball!"
He kicked a metal water bottle cart, sending bottles clattering and spinning across the tile floor.
"This is not just a loss! This is an embarrassment! You are embarrassing your city! You are embarrassing your school! And you are embarrassing me!"
His tirade went on, a brutal, systematic dismantling of every player. All while one player sat in the back corner, in the shadows, away from the team.
Emmanuel "Emon" Jacob.
He sat on the floor, his back against the cold cinderblock wall, a towel draped completely over his head, shielding him from the light, from the noise, from his coach's useless, pathetic rage.
He wasn't listening. The coach's yelling was just a meaningless, buzzing sound, the noise of a fly trapped in a jar.
Emon was in a different place. He was in a cold, silent, analytical void, replaying every second of the first half. He wasn't just angry. He was... insulted.
The Dasmariñas strategy... the "Dog Pound"... it was brilliant. And it was the single most disrespectful thing he had ever experienced on a basketball court.
They hadn't just tried to stop him. They had erased him. They had put a tenacious, sub-par player on him as a shadow, a gnat, a distraction. And then they had turned to his teammates, the other four players on the court, and said, with a stunning, arrogant clarity:
You don't matter.
You're invisible.
You're just waterboys.
That word... waterboy.
It hit Emon in a place that no one else in that room could ever understand. A deep, cold, dark place that he had buried under 20-point quarters and Mythical Five trophies. A place he had sworn he would never, ever go back to.
(Emon Jacob's POV)
The gym had a smell.
It was the first thing I ever learned about basketball. It wasn't the smell of popcorn or cheering fans. It was the smell of the practice gym at 11 PM. It was the smell of old sweat, floor wax, dust, and the faint, metallic tang of rusted-out bleachers. It was the smell of work.
I know that smell better than anyone. I grew up in it.
I wasn't born a "Machine." I was born in the slums of Mandaue, in a one-room shanty that backed up to an estero. I was the eldest of five. My father worked the docks when there was work, his hands scarred, his back perpetually bent. My mother washed the clothes of richer families, her own hands red and raw, the smell of bleach a permanent part of her.
Basketball wasn't a game to me. It was never "fun." It was a lifeline. It was the one, single, narrow path out of that miserable life. I saw the local barangay players who made it to a college team—how they were treated, how they could buy rice for their families. It was the only thing I ever wanted.
When I was 14, my Uncle Romy, a janitor at Cebu City High, the most elite private school in the province, got me a "job." I wasn't a student. I wasn't an athlete. I was the waterboy.
My life became a cycle of humiliation. I would wake up at 4 AM, take three jeepneys to the school, and prepare the gym for the 6 AM practice. I was invisible. A ghost in baggy, hand-me-down shorts. I was the kid who mopped up the star player's sweat after he took a charge. I was the kid who ran to fetch the water, who was yelled at if it wasn't cold enough. I was the kid who listened to them complain about their new Jordans being too stiff, while I wore a pair of five-year-old shoes with the soles held together by electrical tape.
I hated them. I hated their easy laughter. I hated their casual, arrogant talent. I hated that they had everything, and I had... this. I was their servant.
But I was also a student. I watched. I studied.
I watched our star point guard, the one before me, run his plays. I watched Coach Alforque, the man now screaming in this locker room, teach a high-release jump shot. I watched the footwork. The balance. The follow-through.
The team would leave at 8 PM, loud and laughing, on their way to dinner.
I would stay. My job was to clean up, to lock up with my Uncle Romy.
But he had a "bad habit" of forgetting. He would lock the front of the gym, but leave the back utility door open.
From 9 PM to midnight, every single night for two years, that gym was mine.
The lights were off, save for a single, buzzing security light over the center court. I didn't need light.
I ran the plays I had memorized. I came off imaginary screens. I shot, and shot, and shot, until my arms felt like they were on fire, until the cheap, old basketballs felt like they weighed 50 pounds. Swish... swish... swish... The sound echoed in the massive, dark, empty gym.
I didn't have a defender, so I played against perfection. I couldn't miss five in a row. Then ten. Then twenty. I taught myself to shoot in the dark, to feel the rim, to know the arc. I became a machine, forged in secret, in the dark, fueled by humiliation and rage.
One night, a rainy Tuesday, Coach Alforque came back. He'd left his playbook. He was walking to his office when he heard it.
Swish.
A two-second pause.
Swish.
A two-second pause.
Swish.
He told me later it was the purest sound he'd ever heard. He followed it, expecting to find a college player sneaking in practice.
He opened the gym door. He saw me. A skinny, 15-year-old kid, drenched in sweat, in the near-dark, rising up for another perfect jumper.
I froze. I was terrified. I was going to be fired. My family's lifeline, my Uncle's job, it was all over.
"I... I'm sorry, Coach," I stammered, the ball falling from my hands. "I was just... I was just cleaning..."
He didn't say anything for a long time. He just... watched me.
"Show me again," he said, his voice quiet.
"What?"
"The jumper. From the wing. Show me."
My heart was going to explode. I picked up the ball. My hands were shaking. I dribbled, pulled up from the wing. Swish.
"Again," he commanded. "From the corner."
Swish.
"Again. Off the dribble."
Swish.
He walked over and took the ball from me. He looked at my face, really looked at me, for the first time in a year.
"Who taught you to shoot like that, kid?"
My voice was a whisper. "You did, Coach. I... I just... I listened. When you were teaching the team."
He was silent. He looked at my taped-up shoes. He looked at my drenched, dirty t-shirt. He looked at the basket.
"Tomorrow," he said, his voice gruff. "Six AM practice. Don't bring the water bottles. Bring your shoes."
That was two years ago. Emon Jacob, the waterboy, had died. Emon Jacob, "The Machine," was born. He had devoured the starting spot, then the all-region spot, then the Mythical Five spot. He had earned his place. He was no longer invisible. He was the sun, and everyone else revolved around him.
...
Until today.
Coach Gutierrez's plan... it was a work of tactical genius, and a deeply personal, psychological attack. He had taken Emon's greatest strength—his individual brilliance—and turned it into a weakness. He had isolated him. He had, once again, made his teammates invisible. He had made them waterboys.
And Emon Jacob would not... could not... let that stand.
"...AND YOU ARE LETTING THEM DO IT!" Coach Alforque's tirade was winding down, his voice hoarse. "You are just... letting them... walk all over you! Emon! What do you have to say?! You have 20 points! And we are losing by SIXTEEN! What is the point?!"
Emon Jacob slowly, deliberately, stood up from the corner.
The room went dead silent. The players flinched. Even Coach Alforque stopped, surprised.
Emon pulled the towel from his head. His face was not angry. It was not panicked. It was a mask of cold, terrifying, analytical calm. The fire was there, but it was deep, it was controlled. It was the blue, hottest part of the flame.
"Coach," Emon said, his voice quiet, but it cut through the room like a razor. "You're wrong."
Coach Alforque's eyes widened. "What... what did you just say to me?"
"You're wrong," Emon repeated. "You're yelling at them for being scared. You're yelling at them for being passengers." He looked at his teammates, at Abella, at Chavez, at Ramos, who were cowering. "And that's exactly what you taught them to be."
"Emon, you—"
"You taught them that their only job is to get me the ball," Emon continued, his voice unshakeable. "You taught them that my shot is the only one that matters. And today... our opponents listened. They agreed with you. And they used it to humiliate us."
He turned his gaze from his coach to his four teammates.
"They are disrespecting you," he said, his voice low. "They are treating you like you don't belong on this court. They are treating you like... like you're just my waterboys."
The word hung in the air, filled with a poison only Emon understood.
"They think you can't shoot, Abella. They think you can't rebound, Ramos. They think you can't play. In the first half... you proved them right."
The players flinched, the shame burning.
"This half," Emon said, his voice dropping, "you prove them wrong."
He stepped into the center of the huddle.
"The 'machine' is broken. The system is dead. This half... we are not a system. We are a fist. We are going to fight. We are going to be physical. We are going to make them feel us. We are going to hit them, and we are going to hit them again."
He locked eyes with his point guard. "Abella. You are a fast, smart player. Stop being my servant. Be my partner. Attack. If you are open, you shoot. I don't care if you miss twenty. You shoot the ball. I will get the rebound. I will always get the rebound. But you shoot."
Abella, stunned, just nodded, a new, terrified fire in his eyes.
"Ramos. Chavez. Stop being screeners. Be monsters. You are big. You are strong. I want you to set screens that hurt. I want you to crash the boards like your family's life depends on it. I want you to make their bigs afraid of the paint. You are not my backup. You are my enforcers."
They nodded, their knuckles white.
"The plan is over," Emon said, his voice a blade. "We are going to play basketball. We are going to attack. All five of us. No more passengers. No more waiting. No more fear."
He turned and looked at his coach, his eyes cold. "We're ready."
Coach Alforque just stared at him. The player he had discovered in the dark, the kid he had built into a machine, had just... evolved. He had just taken his team.
The coach slowly, grimly, smiled. "Then go. Go... and break them."
Emon Jacob grabbed his jersey and walked toward the door, his teammates falling in line behind him, no longer a collection of nervous role players, but the silent, grim-faced entourage of a king about to reclaim his throne.