Chapter Text
A lot of things flash through Ziwa Mueller’s head all at once.
A moment before it happens something makes their spines stand on end, and almost as if instinctually, they look to the umpire standing just a little back from third base, see those eyes starting to glow white hot as they stare a worm-haired player down.
Their first thought is horror, and their second anger, igniting with the umpire’s flame as the first Moist Talker calls out. It’s too late, it’s always too late by the time you see the flame but Ziwa finds themselves jerking to their feet, as if they’re going to be able to run down there and stop it, do anything.
The flame roars across the field, and the player is ablaze.
There’s one more moment where Ziwa’s thinking of something. In hindsight, maybe that something should have been their life, in what, in the aftermath, becomes a neat before-and-after. In the before, there’s their music, the band that’ll take off any day now, their little room in the group house they share with roommates who mostly aren’t too annoying, the life they built for themselves, a life they’re proud of.
They can’t stop looking at the flames, not until they burn down into ash.
In the after, there are legs that propel them almost mindlessly, intuitively, down the stairs. They vault over the barrier, land awkwardly in the knee-depth water, nearly fall into it face-first, but they catch themselves. Behind them, the crowd is still far too quiet, hushed with something approaching respect, though Ziwa can already hear the whispers. They’ll bray for more blood again soon, Ziwa knows.
It’s only once they’re down on the field that the thought crosses their head that nothing is ever going to be the same ever again. They ask themselves later why they did it, but even years later, they still haven’t come up with an answer, not really.
Ziwa Mueller is not someone who has ever believed in destiny, but when they reach their hand out for a brand new Moist Talkers jersey with a dead woman’s number, in that moment everything feels as inexorable as if it had been written in stone.