SANGRE DE CAMPEÓN (Sangre de Campeon) (Spanish Edition)

My brother was about to die, and it was my fault. We were at the club pool, a place where Riky always shined and I always faded into the background. He was the perfect son - agile, charming, brave - while I was the clumsy, resentful older brother. When he ran for the ten-meter high dive, I raced past him, determined to steal his moment of glory. But at the edge of the platform, a cold wind paralyzed me. “Just take a step and let yourself fall!” Riky laughed from behind me. Humiliation burned in my chest. As he prepared to jump, I grabbed him, and we struggled at the edge. My parents' frantic shouts rose from below. I gave a final, angry shove, sending him flying sideways, not toward the water, but toward the concrete deck. In the terrifying seconds he was airborne, I saw his funeral, my parents' inconsolable grief, a life in prison for me. He missed the concrete by inches, but the fall shattered our family's peace.

My punishment was to spend the last week of vacation painting the facade of our house. It was meant to be a time for reflection, a consequence for my actions. “Every act is a seed for a fruit that will sprout sooner or later,” my father had written in a letter he gave me. But my bitterness only grew, watered by the taunts of a rebellious new friend, Lobelo, who reveled in his own broken home. “If your parents were dead, you'd be happier,” he'd sneer. The dark thoughts took root in my mind. Then, true disaster struck. Riky, trying to secretly help me paint while I was inside, fell from the ladder on the roof. The sight of his unconscious, bloody form on the ground sent a strange shock through me; in the crimson pool, I saw a vision of weak, starving soldiers being torn apart by snarling monsters. The accident was a terrible twist of fate, for it was at the hospital that the doctors discovered the real reason for his months of fevers and pains: Riky had cancer in his blood.

My world became a blur of fear and confusion. While my parents spent their days at the hospital, I fell deeper under Lobelo's influence, getting into trouble at the sports club and a party where his dog viciously attacked me. My father, seeing my torn clothes and bruised spirit, sat me down. “Your problem, Felipe,” he said, “is that you bet too much in the game of self-esteem.” He explained that my self-worth was like a bank account of one hundred coins. I was betting all one hundred on every challenge, so every failure left me bankrupt and feeling like a total loser. “Take life more lightly,” he urged. “Your bank of self-esteem should always remain full, even when things go wrong.” His words were a lifeline, but Lobelo's cruelty was relentless. He and his friend cornered me at school, threw my papers down a grate, and locked me in the dark, musty basement to be forgotten over the weekend.

Trapped in the suffocating darkness, I screamed until my throat was raw. Just as I resigned myself to my fate, a soft voice called down to me from a grate. She guided me through a narrow, foul-smelling passage, past the flutter of unseen wings, to another exit. When I finally crawled out into the cool night air, she was there - a beautiful young woman with a radiant calm. She introduced herself as Ivi. I told her everything, and she listened with a deep, knowing sympathy. Before leaving me to sleep on the office floor, she gave me a small, polished wooden box. “Someone I love very much gave this to me,” she said. “It's full of valuable advice. I'm lending it to you.” The next morning, she was gone, and the school janitor had no idea who I was talking about. His own niece, he said, was the only young woman who lived there, and she was reclusive and unwell.

The small box became my guide. Inside were dozens of cards, each with a message that seemed written for the exact moment I read it. As my family faced the terrifying news that Riky needed a bone marrow transplant to survive, I drew a card about understanding and forgiving one's parents. The doctors tested everyone, including Lobelo's stepfather, Mr. Izquierdo, a menacing man my father had inexplicably hired as a temporary driver. When the nurse drew Mr. Izquierdo's blood, I had another vision, more terrifying than before. His blood was a writhing mass of demonic creatures, a portrait of pure evil. My own blood, I noticed, was changing; my inner soldiers were growing stronger, my monsters weaker. The fear that this corrupt man could be my brother's only hope was a chilling weight in my heart.

My life was a war fought on two fronts. At school, I had to contend with Lobelo's constant bullying. He framed me for writing a vulgar and threatening note, and I was nearly expelled. At home, I wrestled with the fear for Riky's life and the dark presence of Mr. Izquierdo. I was accused of being a liar when I reported Lobelo and his stepfather for a robbery, only to have the elderly victim fail to identify them in a lineup. In my darkest moment of accusation at school, I remembered Ivi's voice. She had appeared to me again, a vision of light and peace in the waiting room. “You have an enormous army of kind forces that defend you,” she told me. “Don't try to solve all your problems alone. Ask for help.” Following her advice, I wrote a letter to the principal, explaining everything. My raw honesty saved me. In that same hour, the clouds parted with a stunning revelation: after all the tests, a perfect bone marrow match had been found for Riky. It was me.

In the operating room, I lay on the table, ready to give my brother the marrow from my own bones. I thought of a story from Ivi's box, about a brother who ruined his hands working in a mine so his younger brother could become a great artist. I understood what it meant to sacrifice, to let yourself be broken so another could be made whole. When a complication with the anesthesia sent a blinding pain through my head, I thought I was dying. In that moment, I told the doctors I accepted it, if it meant Riky would live. I had traveled from a boy who would kill his brother out of envy to one who would die for him out of love.

The transplant was a success, but our ordeal wasn't over. One night, as my mother drove us home from the hospital, Mr. Izquierdo and his gang pursued us in a terrifying car chase through dark, unfamiliar streets. They cornered us, and we crashed, the car flipping onto its roof. As the four men approached with weapons, I thought we were finished. But then, an impossible thing happened. Lights flickered on in a dilapidated, abandoned building nearby, and dozens of large, silent men poured out, forming a protective wall around us. The thugs fled in terror. In the eerie silence that followed, I saw her one last time. Ivi stood bathed in an ethereal glow, no longer pretending to be human. She was an angel. “God loves children more than anyone,” she explained. “You can always be a child in your heart. Never stop believing.”

With the criminals captured and Riky on the slow road to recovery, life began to find its new rhythm. The magical box disappeared from its hiding place in the garden, but its lessons remained etched in my heart. For Riky's welcome-home party, my father and I, along with several of our friends and cousins, shaved our heads in solidarity with his hairless chemo-crown. Seeing his tearful smile, surrounded by family, I understood. Life is a beautiful, brutal, glorious fight. I had been given the weapons to face it: integrity, courage, and a family united by love. Standing in the yard under a brilliant sunset, I raised my hands in victory. I finally knew, deep in my bones, that I had the blood of a champion.