Archive of Our Own ^beta

their first game against jaylen came early in the season. some mumbled rumors had percolated down to the talkers - the mints had played her in her first game back, and more than one of them seemed distinctly unwell afterwards. ziwa didn’t pay much attention to gossip, and no one could really say what was wrong, just that jaylen had hit them with pitches and now something... wasn’t right. it could’ve been anything. a psychosomatic response to fear; a physical response to what were apparently some pretty nasty hits. (dot had talked about jaylen more than once to ziwa; it was the closest they seemed to get to genuine nostalgia, recounting how ferociously quick her pitches were. if someone could throw a ball well enough to impress dot, ziwa sure didn’t want to be in that ball’s path.)

still, the morning of the game wasn’t particularly memorable. it wasn’t something ziwa expected to be an event like some others might have. on the mound, jaylen looked exactly like she had in the picture on her tlopps card; hair swooped across one side of her face, skin dark against her muted-blue uniform, fingers glistening in the sun. ziwa barely had a moment to see her during their first at-bat - they hit a ground out on their first swing - and then they got distracted in the dugout trying to talk to cerveza without staring at the ferret too much. (the ferret always had this look like it knew an unpleasant secret that someone else was about to find out. it gave ziwa the creeps.)

when koch got beaned in the second inning, ziwa didn’t notice until he was back in the dugout. even then it took a moment - after the switch, the new koch had always been hard for them to read - but his swooning collapse onto the bench was clear enough. ziwa barged over immediately, grabbing a water bottle from greer on the way, along with a still-wrapped hamburger poking out of eugenia’s side. koch came back pretty quick after a good slug of water and a couple bites of food. he said, “forgot to eat breakfast today,” and chuckled; ziwa shrugged it off.

when eugenia got hit, ziwa was looking. cerveza had just brought them back up to a tie after a few innings down (the ferret seemed to whisper in his ear for a moment before he swung; ziwa wasn’t sure whether this made the ferret more likeable, creepier, or both.) so ziwa was watching the field when jaylen’s eyes flickered. not like, her eyelids - her actual god-damn eyes flickered fiery red for a brief moment and sputtered like static. she wound up. she smiled.

eugenia winced as the ball slammed into her with a deep echoing jello-wobble sound. she moved even more slowly than usual towards first base. fish was up after her & knocked out a quick single; eugenia shuffled on to second; haley stepped up for his turn at bat. eugenia - for absolutely no reason at all - began slumping towards third. jaylen lobbed the ball, almost tauntingly slow, to allison abbott, who scowled as she tagged eugenia.

eugenia’s eyes as she approached the dugout were glazed and hazy. the water-and-food trick didn’t work so well on her - her eyes focused again, but she still seemed feverish, mumbling to herself occasionally. (in fact, the only thing she managed to accomplish the rest of that game was catching one ball, and even that was at the very end of the 12th inning when the garages knew they’d won and had gotten lazy.)

when elijah got hit late in the game, he actually took it pretty well at first - he promptly stole second, and even made his way to home without any trouble - but once he had a moment to sit down, it was as if invisible cables that held him upright had suddenly snapped. the team limped through the last couple innings and back into the locker room.

—

the rest of the week wasn’t quite as rough as that first day, but the three were visibly off-balance for awhile. none of them could articulate what the feeling was exactly: not pain, not exhaustion. a few days later they played the thieves, who had just played the mints; workman and haley went over after the game to catch up with beasley and lachlan, and came back with a word-of-mouth update.

workman was the one who told ziwa about it directly: “the mints who got beaned felt fine a few days later. no lasting effects as far as they can tell. apparently they had the same kinda thing our people have been describing - not sick, at least not in a way the team doctors could see, just kinda... unstable for a bit.”

workman seemed genuinely reassured by this news. ziwa wasn’t as certain, but they had learned long ago to trust workman’s instincts. workman navigated the world with clear, unwavering eyes, as precisely as they hit balls or ran drills in practice.

when eugenia, elijah, and koch all came into practice a couple days later and reported that they felt back to normal, ziwa was grateful to let the matter slip from their mind entirely.

the next couple weeks went by. ziwa tried to let themself fall into the rhythm of the games. they lost a few in a row to the wings; they won one. they lost a couple to the tigers; they won one; they lost another; they won again, and ziwa started to feel the return of their scrappiness, that team solidarity that got stronger when they’d been down for a bit.

then it was that tuesday.

—

it was a good morning. fish and ziwa went for a pre-dawn jog; morse brought bagels in with the usual round of coffees for everyone. on the field, richmond stepped up to the plate for the first pitch and waved like he always did before lifting his bat. ziwa let him steal second and snuck in a quick hug while he was there. the tigers scored a couple runs right away, but they were able to tie it up in the bottom of the first; when the tigers scored again in the second, ziwa could sense the team knitting together more tightly, wanting the win more now, everyone awake and hyper-aware. next time richmond was at bat, ziwa snapped to catch the ball without even considering it. they knew richmond was just as happy to see ziwa make the catch as he would’ve been to make a solid hit.

in the third, moody cookbook went. the crackle of lightning was familiar - the acrid smell of smoke - but in the clearing haze, ziwa saw elijah, who’d been catching that day, crumple to the ground. elijah, who’d been nearest moody at the moment of incineration.

a voice boomed overhead, its origin invisible: 

A DEBT HAS BEEN COLLECTED.

ziwa watched elijah waver back to his feet, and felt sick to their stomach.

they lost their places for a moment. let the tigers sneak another run in. by the bottom of the fourth, though, they were starting to rally; bates seemed more adept at dealing with the instability after having done it once before, and managed to hit a triple. going into the fifth they were only down one. it wasn’t unsalvageable.

in the bottom of the sixth, ziwa hit a triple themself. bates stepped up next. he gave ziwa that wobbly, dorky grin he wore sometimes, and hit a sac fly. they were jogging over to fist-bump him on the way back to the dugout when it happened.

later, ziwa would not be able to remember what anything looked like. they remembered screaming elijah’s name like a biblical lament. they remembered the voice booming out again. they didn’t remember seeing yazmin over on the tigers fainting, her slender ankles giving way beneath her. ziwa didn’t remember scorpler going at all. or tony suddenly rattling as if he was going to collapse into a heap of individual pieces.

they wished they could remember that solo homer tony hit in the next inning, even with his jitters.

they really wished they remembered the last inning. or... anything at all about kiki. later, this became one of ziwa’s deepest shames; they never told anyone, of course, and learned about her almost compulsively since. but it was like trying to remember a historical figure from centuries ago: all second-hand at best. the two of them must have interacted - hell, morse once told ziwa they were such a good captain that they were able to help kiki feel at home, even in her brief time there. but the truth is that ziwa couldn’t remember a damn thing about her.

ziwa wished they could. it was her and workman who hit for the final run that won them the game. they’ve been told it was beautiful.

it wasn’t even that the win particularly mattered - that wasn’t what ziwa wanted - none of them wanted to beat the tigers any more than both teams had already been beaten by the gods. but ziwa would’ve liked to remember that brief moment of glory.

they did hold onto the memory the next day. waking up and walking like they wore lead boots. everyone else was the same as they filed into the stadium. some days, some games, glowed golden with the type of victory epic poems were written about.

everyone knew this wasn’t going to be one of those.

when kiki went - perfectly stable, perfectly nice, brand-fucking-new kiki - in the first fucking inning, ziwa stared for a moment before burying their face in their hands. they bit their lip as hard as they could. their shoulders shook. invisibly to the rest of the team, ziwa laughed hysterically until their eyes and lungs hurt as if they’d been crying after all.

ziwa did remember when tony went. they carried the memories of the cracking noises. the way his jaw quite literally dropped off. the horrific scent, recalled from dentists’ offices, of scorched bone. the voice so loud it made ziwa’s eardrums throb inwards. despite their best efforts, they remembered every infinite second of it.

—

after that game, things slowed down. mooney had picked up the instability when tony went, but she navigated it with eerie grace for the couple days it affected her. the new players were shy at first - hesitant to intrude on the team’s grief with their introductions. ziwa took the chance to throw themself into the messy emotional work of team-building again. they played therapist when koch broke down one day in the bathroom, sobbing why wasn’t it me instead of elijah. they sat in silence with dot staring at the night sky together; they taught everyone else the spot to scratch under beans’s chin to make them purr; ziwa swam laps with fish, hid crumbles of sourdough in quack’s locker, took up chewing gum just to spit it at eugenia.

over those weeks, as they stayed distant from the trail of fire that followed jaylen, many things flared up and died out inside ziwa, or burned down to smoldering coals: the anger. the sharp sense of loss. the guilt and the shock.

one thing did not burn out. one thing turned from fire into something else entirely: cold steel, sharp glass. a weapon. a signpost.

ziwa knew exactly who was to blame.

—

still - there was one thing they couldn’t quite explain - and at first they chalked it up to weather patterns, same as how the mints scraped by, when the next few to get hit by jaylen came through it fine. when dom marijuana went, though, ziwa spent the next few days glued to their phone between every inning, certain another wave would follow. instead, there was a trickle: murray pony three days later. seb telephone, five days after that.

“i don’t understand,” they said that night at dinner. 

they were at the end of the table across from greer; sometimes ziwa liked talking to greer best, since she never felt obligated to be present, let alone respond. “it’s almost like... i don’t know, maybe this will sound crazy to you, but it feels kinda like we got targeted. you know? and like - listen, i know that it was the tigers who got hit and we were just bystanders. and even if jaylen could do that kind of 4-D chess, which i don’t think she can, i don’t know why she’d be targeting us - “

greer’s teeth glinted suddenly, making ziwa jump. “you’re kidding, right?”

ziwa felt a flush spread across their cheeks. “sorry, i know it’s silly - “

“no, not that, dipshit.” greer sounded... confused? “you really can’t think of one reason we might be due for some cosmic punishment?”

ziwa almost laughed. “i mean, cosmic punishment, sure. but that’s... that’s big-scale stuff, you know? that’s - cosmic! i’m talking about jaylen. she’s not, like, our divine punishment from the gods. she’s just... a person.” ziwa looked down at their plate, picked at the remnants of their salad. “she’s a fuckin psycho, but she’s still just... someone who‘s like that for some reason. y’know?”

it took awhile before ziwa realized greer had left again.

four days later: yazmin mason went, followed promptly by her replacement, whose name ziwa never learned to spell.

four days after that: they played against jaylen again.

—

this time, as they walked onto the field, ziwa stayed alert. their eyes scanned the other team purposefully. jaylen was easy to pick out - tall, reserved, angular (except for the fingers). this time, ziwa did not maintain their usual awareness of the talkers around them; they let that radar drop, fixed their eyes on jaylen’s face and focused in. they waited for her to look back.

jaylen’s eyes bounced restlessly across the sky, the stands, the scoreboards. she swept a glance across the players - her eyes caught on ziwa’s - and she smiled.

it wasn’t like she sneered or anything. just a bright, wide smile. ziwa’s breath caught; they blinked, and then jaylen had turned away. morse tugged gently on their elbow. ziwa followed him to their dugout without consciously realizing it.

the first innings breezed by as they considered this smile. the audacity of its sincerity. the cruelty of it. a sick acid churn began in their stomach as they considered it; they shook ever so slightly, as if overcaffeinated. ziwa’s thoughts split off in a dozen directions, turned, twisted back on themselves. what the fuck is jaylen’s problem?

right before their second at-bat, ziwa took a deep breath and closed their eyes. they imagined paring away all the excess strands of thought. pared it down further, beyond even words, down to the bare, raw anger.

at the plate, jaylen flashed them another quick smile. ziwa smirked back.

they hit the ball out of the fucking park.

from there it started to feel like a good game. ziwa had brought them to a tie, and in the next inning, koch hit a triple and eugenia and fish both hit homers. fish hoisted up the other two, one in each arm, to celebrate. ziwa laughed; they rode the adrenaline wave. jaylen was indeed a fucking psycho, but she was also a pitcher, and clearly not as good a pitcher as they’d been told.

that didn’t mean they had the game wrapped up, of course. a couple innings on,  dot threw an uncharacteristically soft ball, and the garages scored two runs off that; in the 8th, dot did it again, and they were back to a tie. as the game stretched on into overtime, jaylen and dot both seemed to sharpen up. ziwa began to see what dot had always tried to describe to them. their hatred sunk beneath the surface. they relaxed into the gentle rhythm of a long blaseball game between two very good pitchers. it felt like playing tennis as a kid - keeping the ball going back and forth became a pleasure almost finer than winning.

in the sixteenth inning, ziwa was turned sideways on the bench so eugenia could braid their feathery hair-fins. they were so relaxed that their eyes had nearly slipped shut entirely when a prickle of red glanced off the corner of their eye. a luminescent electric red. ziwa turned sharply, barely feeling the pain as they yanked their hair from eugenia’s hands. on the field, workman was making a slow, stately walk towards first; they held one hand before them in a fist, staring at it. ziwa recognized the gesture - workman had taught them one morning after a particularly raucous partytime - “see, you tuck your thumb in and squeeze it tight. just focus on doing that and you won’t puke. i promise.”

ziwa whipped back around to face the team. “okay, this is bullshit, we’ve gotta fucking finish this. now.” the rest nodded, and for a brief moment ziwa thought they were all on the same page, that everyone else was ready to resolve this jaylen thing before one more person burned.

then the others remained seated a beat too long. ziwa realized: they think this is a pep talk. that it’s just the game we need to finish. like that makes any of us safe.

they mumbled a couple platitudes about team spirit, thinking, if hobbs were here he’d have known what i meant. hobbs understood that sometimes you had to take decisive actions to save the ones you loved, instead of playing the same stupid fucking game as always.

sometimes ziwa wondered, later, what the world would look like if they’d followed that thought to its conclusion. if they’d gone for it. if they’d been braver, or stupider. if they’d just fucking hauled off and hit jaylen in her smug fucking face.

but in the moment, ziwa felt lost - cut adrift from the safety net of the team, floating in the dark ocean - and hobbs was only a distant inspiration. they froze. they missed the moment of possibility. koch went up to bat next, struck out looking; ziwa sat on their hands. it took another three miserable innings for the garages to break the tie and put the talkers out of their misery. 

—

that was their last game against the garages for awhile. ziwa was grateful - they didn’t think they could keep their restraint around jaylen again.

their next series, against the mints, felt comparatively meaningless. the weather stayed clear; the team played well enough; workman was still unstable, but true to form, showed no outward signs. ziwa checked the weather forecasts compulsively and chewed their fingernails. on the morning of the last series game, when workman again stopped ziwa to say simply, “still unstable”, ziwa grabbed their shoulder.

“hey. if the weather gets bad - if things get risky - “

they cut ziwa off. “you know that doesn’t change how i play.”

“i’m saying, maybe you shouldn’t play at all.”

workman snorted; the cloud above their head spat drizzle in all directions. “when you figure out how to skip a game, mueller, fuckin’ let me know.”

there was a long pause. workman sighed. the cloud lightened its shade of gray. “i know you worry. just... whatever happens... don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

ziwa snapped, “i don’t know what the fuck you mean by that,” and turned away. they didn’t look back.

that night boyfriend monreal invited the team on a date to celebrate the talkers winning the series; ziwa normally skipped out on boyf’s invitations, but that night they felt restless and decided to tag along at the last minute. at the bar, ziwa leaned against the wall, stirring the little straw in their drink perpetually without actually sipping from it. boyfriend fluttered around the room between people, leaving a trail of chatter and giggles in their wake. after awhile they slipped out of the crowd and made their way towards ziwa.

“long time no see, sweetheart!” boyfriend held their arms wide. ziwa was briefly surprised by how comforting their embrace was. it had been a long time, hadn’t it?

“it’s really good to see you.”

ziwa knew this conversation had probably happened half a dozen times already that evening, but when boyfriend exclaimed “you too!” and blushed, ziwa could tell they meant it. boyf laced the fingers of one hand with ziwa’s. “so how are you doing, babe?”

“honestly?” ziwa tipped their head back against the wall. “i feel like shit.”

“you want to tell me about it?”

“it’s... i don’t know. i just don’t - how is everyone going on like things are normal? who else is next? why aren’t we fucking doing anything about it?”

boyf pushed at a bit of their bangs, revealing one eye glancing sideways at ziwa. “the beans?”

ziwa nodded.

boyf thought for a moment. (that was a thing ziwa liked about them - that they actually thought about what they said.) “i’m not surprised you’re hurting so much. it’s been a bad season for everyone, but it’s been really bad for you, hasn’t it? but i promise you, sweetie, no one thinks this is okay. i think a lot of us just don’t know what we could do.”

ziwa’s heart knew the answer. had been ruminating on that answer since the second they screamed elijah’s name. ziwa’s heart had been honing itself into a razor-sharp blade and it was now screaming for jaylen’s throat.

the mints hadn’t lost anyone. ziwa couldn’t find words that wouldn’t sound ridiculous or gruesome. they tossed the little straw from their drink onto the ground, slammed half the glass in one go. “i’ve been keeping it together, y’know? but i - if workman, too - i mean, fuck, boyf, i don’t know what i’d do.”

boyfriend kissed the top of ziwa’s head. their eyelashes fluttered like a million moth wings across ziwa’s scalp.

“you’d do what workman would want. you’d do the right thing.”

ziwa didn’t know if that was true. then again, they weren’t sure that the right thing was always the same as the necessary thing.

—

they played more empty games - against the magic this time. the morning of the last game, ziwa opened the curtains to see an ominously blue-black sky. they picked at their cuticles all the the way to the stadium. workman found them lacing up their cleats. ziwa purposefully did not lift their head - they were afraid of what they might see (or not see) in gloom’s eyes.

“still unstable.”

ziwa drew in a deep, slow, shuddery breath. by the time they could exhale and look up, workman was gone. their cloud had left a trail of fog in its wake.

at the time, ziwa felt the passing of each minute with acute pain. they barely watched the plays at all, even while in the outfield. they kept their eyes fixed on gloom. in memory, though, those first innings have collapsed into snapshots - hours compacted to fit a frame. even the last time gloom was at the plate, just before, even the crackling sky -

ziwa liked to believe this was to make extra space for what they did remember clearly. the fireworks show that sparked off as workman’s bat connected with the pitch; the ball on fire, tracing a perfect arc of light across the sky and out of the stadium; the formless incandescence that streaked around the diamond. the golden glow that spoke of epic poetry, of a story to pass down.

—

workman’s hat didn’t burn. they saved it to give to beasley.

everyone said, it’s how they would’ve wanted to go. everyone talked about how they’d be talking about this moment again in the future. ziwa didn’t say, why are you assuming we’ll get to the future? everyone talked like it was a natural disaster. an act of the gods. ziwa didn’t say, there’s one person that did this. there’s one person who keeps doing this.

their next series was against the mints again. after the first game, ziwa rushed to shower and put on real clothes; they were waiting in the parking lot when boyfriend walked out into the sunshine. ziwa launched themself at boyfriend without even saying hello. they buried their face in boyfriend’s hair. it smelled like herbs and cucumber and running water.

“i’m doing what gloom would’ve wanted,” ziwa whispered, breath catching on the beginning of sobs. “i’m - it’s just - it’s so fucking hard, boyf, i’m tired, i don’t know how long i can do this - “

boyfriend ran one hand slowly up and down ziwa’s spine. “yeah,” they whispered back. “i know, baby. you’re doing really good though. i’m really proud of you... i think workman would be too.” and for that moment, as they bawled into boyfriend’s shoulder, ziwa finally - for the first time all season - forgot about jaylen entirely.

—

for awhile it was quiet. ziwa let themself believe the storm may have passed; they let themself think that maybe they were doing right by workman. that the best honor to their memory was for ziwa to just... keep playing. to let everything else fade away. the new kid who replaced workman didn’t seem to need much help getting started - if anything, he needed someone to temper his ego - but morse seemed happy enough to take that task on. so ziwa tried to focus on the basics again: bat, ball. swing, catch, run. the minuscule internal adjustments of angles and speed calculations. for awhile, that worked.

they played the garages once more before the end of the season, but jaylen wasn’t up in rotation for any of the games, and she didn’t seem to be hanging around the stadium anywhere. ziwa was perfectly fine with that. (it was still pretty weird seeing the rest of the garages at all - ziwa couldn’t comprehend how they could let her get away with everything, let alone keep playing with her - but ziwa thought about workman and bit their tongue.)

then, fifteen days after gloom, boyfriend monreal went.

eleven days later, in the championship semi-finals, miguel wheeler was the last of the season to go.

in all, twelve players left that season because of jaylen. ziwa etched that number into the knife their heart had become.

—

they left town over the season break. drove down the coast to charleston alone. didn’t tell lachlan they were coming; booked a hotel way out in the swamp, where no one would run into them.

they slept all day and wandered the sunken expanses all night. skipped stones out into the infinite. thought about jaylen. thought about what was wrong with jaylen.

everyone else seemed so convinced that she wasn’t doing anything herself. that she was just a helpless puppet like the rest of them, except with a nastier god’s hand up her ass. it was a nice story. it was one that meant no one else had to make the choice mike townsend made. it let them pretend jaylen was herself and worth the loss, instead of a monster they unleashed or made themselves. it wasn’t a story ziwa believed.

where they kept getting stuck was: okay, so i don’t believe it. what next? if the bulk of the league wasn’t on ziwa’s side, even after a dozen incinerations in one season, they would have to figure out something else. something that only needed a few people to pull off. a thought itched at the back of ziwa’s head: something like how she got back here in the first place. like what hobbs and mooney had done one night, with francisco preston from yellowstone and some number of the garages, while ziwa paid it all no mind.

they got in the car that night to drive back home. at every rest stop, they dialed hobbs’s number and hung up when they heard the machine again.

—

their first stop back in halifax was mooney’s lab. mooney looked genuinely shocked to see them. “well, well. mx mueller. what brings you to my door at this hour?”

(it was four in the afternoon.)

ziwa cleared their throat. “can i come inside?”

mooney’s glasses went opaque briefly. “one moment.” she closed the door; ziwa heard metallic clanking noises and damp shuffling sounds; a door slammed inside, and mooney reappeared at the front door a moment later. “please do come in.”

the “kitchen” looked more like a high school science classroom; ziwa looked around for anything except lab tables and backless stools, and found only metal racks full of glass containers. they shrugged & hopped up onto one of the tables to sit, leaning back against the wall. mooney began washing a set of beakers. after a long moment, ziwa understood they’d just have to get down to it.

”what did you do wrong?”

“i’m sorry?” mooney raised her eyebrows sharply over her round-framed glasses. “not only do i not make mistakes, i haven’t a clue what mistake you incorrectly think i made.”

“the ritual. jaylen.” ziwa drummed their fingertips against the cold slab of the tabletop.

mooney shook her head once, decisively, and went back to scrubbing the glassware. “i told you. i don’t make mistakes.”

ziwa rolled their eyes. “well, clearly something went wrong, sorry i thought you might know something about that - “

“you think that an unpleasant result is a failed experiment?”

“i - un - “ ziwa nearly choked on the word in their anger. “un-fucking-pleasant?” they leapt to the ground, landing harder and louder than they intended. “that’s what you call unleashing a fucking murderer on us?”

“we knew that there would be unforeseen consequences when we - “

“unforeseen my ass!” ziwa was screaming now. “you’re the fucking scientist, you - you’re the one who’s supposed to know things, if you can’t do that then maybe the mistake was fucking including you!”

“ziwa, that isn’t how - “

they didn’t stick around to hear anything else mooney had to say.

—

for the first time since they started calling in charleston, ziwa left hobbes a message. they said, “i need to know about the ritual. i need to know if you think anything went wrong. like, anything, even the tiniest, stupidest thing - “

they said, “please, hobbs. please. i think we can fix this - “

they cried into the answering machine until the tinny voice announced that ziwa’s message had reached the maximum allowed length. the voice advised: to re-record this message, press 8. to delete this message, press 9. to deliver this message, hang up, or press the pound key.

ziwa hit the pound key, hung up, and threw the phone at their bedroom wall.

—

hobbs didn’t call back.

the night before the next season began, ziwa sat on a dock near the arena, an open can of live worms next to them. occasionally they tossed one or two out into the water and watched them disappear in the dark.

hobbs had never talked about his relationship with the leviathan, but ziwa had noticed little things here and there - the way he casually avoided speaking about her when others brought her up. richmond’s half-remembered stories from his childhood with hobbs. how the leviathan rarely showed off for fans during games anymore, but if one thing always got her arcing overhead like a great twisting whale, it was hobbs hitting a dinger. 

ziwa knew hobbs hadn’t just stumbled into necromancy all by himself. so they sat just above the surface of the water throwing treats, as if the leviathan were as easily lured as a stray cat, waiting to learn the secrets he had learned.

it was a moonless night. the water was so still that ziwa could almost detect the faint ripples when the worms hit the surface.

the worms were cool in their fingers. the can grew emptier. ziwa watched the horizon until their eyes burned. they reached into the can and their fingertips scraped metal. they dug the last couple worms out of the edges of the tin and flicked them out into the ocean.

the water stayed still. thin spidery clouds scuttled across the sky. ziwa brushed their hands against their pants and stood slowly.

“i don’t know if you can hear me.” they spoke neither loudly nor quietly. “i don’t know if you’ll talk to me. but i... i think hobbs might have made a mistake.”

no sounds but water and wind.

“he won’t talk to me. i don’t know - maybe he’s scared to admit it - maybe he thinks it’s his fault...” ziwa closed their eyes. “i just... we gotta fix this. we gotta fix her. jaylen, i mean. there’s something wrong with her, and we gotta fix it so - “

they left the last words waiting at the back of their throat. so that next time this doesn’t happen. 

ziwa waited a long, long time. a foghorn groaned in the distance. a sliver of the horizon became lighter, more distinct from the sea. it spread up like a slow blush. ziwa picked up the empty can and walked away.

—

the first few days back were concerningly quiet - not just for the talkers, but across the league. ziwa took advantage of it: they stayed up late trying to figure out where to even start on their own. most everything online was dead ends (crackpots, urban legend, grifters). access to books was tricky in non-sunken halifax - mass-market paperbacks were easy enough to find, since no one much cared if they disintegrated from moisture in a couple years, but anything obscure had been lost or moved years ago.

they were scheduled to play a series against the magic soon; ziwa decided to talk to francisco preston then. in the meantime, they wandered the coastlines at night, swimming between bits of land. they talked to the darkness and tossed worms, just in case.

on the fifth day of the season, jaylen pitched her first game and whipped a ball into marquez clark’s thigh. word got around the league quick: this year the effects of her hits were visible. clark had started flickering. slipping in and out of sight, staticky like an old TV. he said he felt fine, if a bit disturbed by randomly not being able to see himself.

a couple days later, they went to yellowstone. ziwa didn’t have a chance to talk to preston the first day - the elevation change from halifax was always surprisingly intense, and ziwa fell asleep almost before making it into their sleeping bag in the away team tent.

the next day, though, they managed to catch preston’s burly arm in the shuffle between innings. he looked down at them and smiled. “hey! mueller, right?” ziwa nodded. “what’s going on?”

“can we talk after the game?”

ziwa had expected some confusion, but preston just clapped them on the shoulder. “sure thing, kid! i’ll come by the tent later tonight.” he jogged away to catch up with his teammates.

they were just walking out to meet the team for dinner that night when preston seemed to step out from inside a knotted cluster of pines just in front of them. he was holding a cooler in one hand and a half-eaten hot dog in the other. “sorry!” he mumbled through his full mouth as he spotted ziwa. “got hungry on the way!”

“uh - no problem.”

“c’mon, let’s walk. i know somewhere nice we can eat not too far from here.”

ziwa was still disconcerted by preston’s total lack of curiosity; his worn, bearded face was friendly enough, but after mooney and hobbs, ziwa didn’t expect anything to go easily. they followed him in silence down the trail, then off into the woods on what seemed like a random zigzag between trees. a raptor circled overhead. they stepped around piles of dried dung.

then - just when ziwa was starting to doubt preston knew where he was going - the trees thinned out and the view ahead opened up so majestically that ziwa almost felt sick to their stomach. the canyon walls below them were jagged and immense; scrubby trees clung to some outcrops, dusting them with green. late afternoon sun painted the rock in gold and copper. they didn’t dare walk close enough to the edge to see the river at the bottom, but they realized that they could hear it - had been able to hear it for some time, in fact, and had just mistaken it for the hum of insects.

preston grinned. “nice, right?”

“i... wow. yeah. wow.” next to them, preston knelt down and began unpacking the cooler; ziwa was too distracted to notice the surprising volume of food he pulled out from the small box. “y’know how many times i’ve played you guys? and - and this was here all the time - and no one told me?”

he laughed and cracked open a can of beer. “did you ever ask?” ziwa chuckled and shook their head. “sit down, let’s eat while it’s good and hot.”

ziwa was hungrier than they’d realized - they demolished two burgers and an ear of grilled corn before even thinking about their original reason for the visit. they picked at a second ear as they considered how to raise the subject, popping individual kernels into their mouth with their fingers.

preston glanced over. “so what’s up, kiddo?”

ziwa took a deep breath. “i... need to know how you did the ritual. the, um - procedure. whatever it was you did - “

for the first time since they started walking, his serene look flickered off his face, replaced with a brief frown. “... with jaylen?”

“yeah. with jaylen.”

he sighed a bit, put the last couple bites of his hot dog down, and leaned back with his palms bracing him in the dirt. he looked at the sky for a long moment. “i’m sure you’ve got a reason to ask, and i’m sure it’s a good one.” he spoke very carefully. “we had a good reason to try too.”

“no, i know, i just - something went wrong, right? i mean - jaylen is obviously fucked up, and if we can just figure out where it went wrong, we could - “

preston placed one warm, broad hand on their shoulder. “i don’t think that idea leads anywhere good.”

“so then how do you suggest we fix this?” ziwa’s hands flailed in the air as if attempting to trace the size of it all. 

“maybe it isn’t something we can fix. maybe it’s just part of the world now, and trying to ‘fix’ it would make things worse.”

ziwa stood up. “that’s a shitty answer.”

he looked at them for a moment with the faintest hint of disappointment. then he turned to pack up the leftovers; ziwa picked up a rock and threw it over the edge of the cliff. they listened to it clatter down the canyon.

before they parted ways back at the main trail, preston gave them a quick hug, nearly lifting them off the ground with his strength. “listen,” he said, “don’t do anything stupid without talking to me first, okay?”

“yeah,” ziwa lied. they pretended not to notice that disappointment again.

—

two days later, hobbs was incinerated.

—

ziwa saw the leviathan for the first time in a long time that day. she was howling as she  went, thrashing in and out of the water with her sobs, barely swimming so much as heaving herself out to sea to grieve alone. 

they watched her and thought, what a good idea. on the way home they bought a bottle of gin. they turned off the phone and fell asleep exhaling alcohol fumes.

—

they went through the motions.

they said the right things. they cried at the right times. they provided a shoulder to lean on. they kept showing up to the games.

all of it was happening somewhere else, while the real ziwa sank into the muck of their own head, luxuriating in the sheer relief of not feeling anything.

time jumped and skipped like a flat stone over water. news came and went. sophia patterson got hit and started flickering one day; the next, a feedback storm touched down precisely where she stood. outside-ziwa agreed with the others that jaylen was less dangerous now, that she wasn’t their biggest threat. inside, ziwa wondered abstractly about what the words danger and safety meant. they discarded the words and rested in the infinite gray space of the pre-language mind.

later, they played the garages again. ziwa watched jaylen stare straight at eugenia, wind up, and hit her smack in the nose; it looked deliberate enough, but that didn’t seem to mean anything anymore. eugenia flickered. she didn’t go anywhere.

at night, ziwa would go for long aimless walks through the twisting corridors underneath the arena. they made erratic loops through the hallways, climbed and descended stairs. they walked until their ankles swelled and their eyes ached for sleep, and walked on. sometimes in the mornings they woke early and went wandering then, too.

days went by. they faced jaylen again. ziwa tried to remember the hate they used to feel for her, the certainty that whatever was wrong with her was a singular mistake, that she must be mended or erased. instead they found only the dried husk of their past desires. they watched in silence as jaylen ricocheted a ball off the side of eugenia’s head and giggled. she threw a clean line drive to quack’s kneecap. ziwa made worried noises, pretended that distance between the living still meant anything. oh i’d be so sad to see you go. oh we’re like a family here. ziwa thought of the ashes of the one who had been their family, and for the first time since she’d left, ziwa did not ache to see her return.

at some point around then, quack got caught in the feedback and went to the garages; when ziwa saw him later, he looked nothing like their memories. in return, the talkers received a guy named cedric, with a mess of curly hair spilling from under his hat and a still-lit joint burning evenly between his fingers. ziwa shook his hand stiffly as a mannequin and let him move on to meet the members of the team who were still people.

a couple days after that, still flickering, eugenia darted into a feedback storm during a game against the thieves; lachlan emerged in her place, looking exactly the same as he had when he’d left. ziwa’s face smiled and their arms reached for a perfunctory hug as he approached the dugout. to their surprise, lachlan paused to inspect their face before returning the hug. he whispered in their ear, “you look like shit.” ziwa burst into unexpectedly real laughter.

“i feel like shit,” they said.

lachlan gave them a lopsided smile. “it’s nice to be back.”

ziwa was surprised to find they mostly meant it when they said, “it’s nice to have you back.”

it was only a couple innings before eugenia stumbled into another patch of feedback and came back to them. this time, haley took her place. ziwa closed their eyes and felt time pick up pace around them again, like a full stream after a storm. 

they thought of the photo they kept in their wallet: the team at the beginning of their first full season. ziwa imagined standing still there, at one side of the group, watching a time-lapse of the team. people disappearing, walking away, walking back, weaving around their motionless form. they wondered when they would be the last one in the picture.

days went by.

—

the rest of the season passed in stutters of time separated by indeterminate stretches of emptiness.

the last time ziwa had felt so frozen - so internally hollow and insensate - was the first days after they joined the team. (after there was an empty space on the team.) the time before that, ziwa didn’t think about anymore. the past wasn’t a place they liked to visit.

days went by; nights were harder. they paced dizzy circuits through the hallways of hotels at away games. at home, they went for long-distance swims in the ocean, eyes always skimming the horizon for a hint of the leviathan. they bought a small bottle of gin every tuesday night; they sipped it straight, warm in its plastic bottle, over the next few evenings. by friday it was gone, and then they would not drink again until the following tuesday.

ziwa could have continued that way for months longer, but near the end of the season, the team went to yellowstone again. they were playing late at night - time was funny like that in yellowstone, sunrises overslept and then rushed out the door at noon - when what looked like a fireworks display or a mass of shooting stars exploded across the southeastern sky. ziwa almost took it as a normal event for yellowstone until they saw the magic players in their dugout burst into activity. one of them ran onto the field, yelling to the talkers closer infield; ziwa watched with detached curiosity as koch and vapor began running and screaming too, and then almost the entire field was coming to sweep up the last couple of them in the outfield. eugenia was the first to reach ziwa, tackling them with an upsettingly gelatinous hug and screaming: 

“THEY KILLED A FUCKING UMP!”

ziwa couldn’t comprehend the words.

eugenia kept shrieking anyway, almost giggling with adrenaline. “they killed an ump, ziwa! the dale - that fucker tried to kill whitney - leal fucking hit the lightning back, he fucking zapped that bitch ass motherfucking - “

ziwa started screaming then too, and then both of them were jumping and screaming wordlessly and laughing and holding onto each other to keep from falling down, while everyone else on the field did the same things in little clustered embraces. through the tears that prickled up in ziwa’s eyes they could see others crying, too.

we aren’t the only things in this world that can be killed. they aren’t the only things that can kill.

a flower with a thousand petals was opening up. ziwa could see, nestled into each one, a different possible future.

—

the rest of the season played out peacefully for the team; they were well past a shot at playoffs, so they‘d already started treating it like the last week of elementary school even before the league erupted into one giant celebration.

ziwa was grateful for the relative calm. their rocket back into reality had left them shaken - that first night after the umpire died, they’d lain awake in bed jittering their legs, awash in endless waves of thoughts. they had tried to pick through them, sort them into haphazard piles labeled “fighting back” and “the team” and “jaylen” and “tyler” and “the impossible” and “the possible”. instead, they merely bounced between the ideas, thoughts doubling back on themselves in spaghetti tangles.

so ziwa resolved to focus in on the closest thoughts and comb those out first: the team. as they’d stood on the field watching the others through their tears, ziwa had realized with a jolt how badly they’d become disconnected from the beating heart of the moist talkers, the collective entity itself. they barely knew half the people who ran past and stopped to hug them or high-five. it occurred to them that there was no point wishing anyone back if there wasn’t a team to return to.

that night, as the team ate dinner, ziwa stood up and tapped their spoon against their water bottle (the noise was dull & quiet, but them standing up seemed to catch everyone’s attention well enough.) they looked down the table, eyes passing over each face individually.

“hey, so... i, uh, i just wanted to say that - i know i’ve been a shitty captain this year - “ a small murmur of protest rose, but ziwa gestured it away impatiently with one hand. “no, c’mon, don’t bullshit me. i haven’t been - you guys deserve the best. and i haven’t been that. so, i’m sorry.”

“not like we did so hot this season anyway.” greer’s laugh always sounded a bit like a witch’s cackle. ziwa smiled.

“well, that’s what i’m saying. next one’s gonna be better.” they lifted their water bottle up in a toast. the stars in the yellowstone sky were numerous and bright enough to see by; the team’s faces glowed silver as they raised their own drinks. “to the talkers getting our shit together!”

the rest of them repeated it through peals of laughter that echoed off into the trees. ziwa closed their eyes and tried to hold onto the sound in their head for as long as possible.

—

over the off-season, they spent their days playing social butterfly. it felt good to stretch those wings out after having been cocooned in their own misery for so long - more than one person commented on how energetic they’d suddenly become - and if they hadn’t had a nighttime project to occupy some energy, they might’ve gone fully manic.

but ziwa did have that dormant project to pick up again: necromancy done right. the threat from jaylen had decreased but wasn’t eliminated. they still didn’t know exactly why she’d come back so fucked up in the first place, or how to prevent it from happening again. so at night, they walked the lower levels of the arena once more, this time opening stuck doors and peeking under dusty tarps. the place had so many secrets - they were confident something, somewhere, would point in the right direction.

and during the day, they began putting the team back together. they started with the new members, the ones they knew least (if at all) - ziwa was still waking back up, not yet prepared to face those who’d seen their facade most clearly for what it was.

they stopped by vapor’s place a couple times a week under the pretense of seeing his dog buddy. sitting on the single camping chair in his apartment, scratching buddy’s flank, they listened while vapor  at his “gaming station” chattered about what ranks he’d supposedly obtained or speedruns he’d supposedly beaten.

ziwa ran little errands for mcblase - picking up her dry-cleaning (and successfully keeping it dry on the way back), dropping off documents at city hall - and stopped to pet beans each time they passed through the lobby. they went shopping with alston, watching him pick through a fan of silk pocket squares before precisely selecting one. 

he talked about how he used to go shopping with elijah sometimes. how no one else on the team, not even mcblase (who was definitely a sharper dresser than the rest of them), really appreciated the beauty of a perfectly tailored inseam. he ran his fingertips along the lapel of a velvet blazer and sighed. ziwa looked down at their scuffed converses and suddenly felt incredibly selfish. for all the time they’d spent wearing the face of someone who cared, they’d never considered the others’ grief to be... quite as real as their own. ziwa reached out impulsively and pulled alston into a quick hug. he tipped his head against theirs, and for a moment, ziwa felt capable of being the person they’d pretended to be for so long.

they avoided cedric. the garages were a set of landmines ziwa wasn’t ready to risk setting off yet.

but in the meantime, they worked out with fish and had them come over once a week to meal prep together; they got coffee with morse and donair with lachlan, quick reunions that didn’t leave space for extensive conversations. ziwa began to feel the individual threads of each person more distinctly again, and how they might knit together most tightly. 

they mentioned to vapor that jenkins also played overwatch, and “that one all the kids like” (vapor looked physically pained as he said, “do you mean fortnite, you fuckin boomer?” ziwa just grinned in response.) when mcblase talked about being part-fish and part-human, and how she felt disconnected from both sides, ziwa told her that koch sometimes mentioned feeling the same way.

at night, they explored the depths of the submerged stadium. brushed cobwebs away from signs, tapped walls in case any were hollow. went searching for the remnants of deep magic they knew must be somewhere.

the off-season sloped gently down to its end. it was time to play again.

—

their first couple games felt, to ziwa, like sliding into a perfectly warm bathtub. the weather was clear; richmond came by their dugout before the first game began to give everyone hugs; they beat the tigers twice in a row, which seemed like a good omen for a shot at the playoffs. 

the morning of their third game, ziwa stepped outside their apartment building to find morse’s battered old pickup idling at the curb. he waved from the driver’s seat, smile visible through his graying beard. when ziwa climbed into the passenger’s seat, they found he’d already picked up the team’s coffee; they found their cup and took a sip to test its heat. “so what did i do to earn a ride this morning?”

morse chuckled as he shifted into drive and pulled out into the street. “maybe i just wanted to spend some time with my friend before today’s game.”

ziwa had known this conversation was coming for awhile now; they took a breath and jumped in. “i wasn’t such a good friend last year, was i.”

“you weren’t, no.” he said it kindly. “but we’re all glad you’re doing better lately.”

“thanks.” ziwa sipped their coffee, the sweetness of it making their back teeth tingle.

“so... what happened?”

they shrugged and looked out the window. early morning sun glinted off patches of water. “hobbs...”

morse glanced sideways at them. “you hadn’t been doing so great before that, either.”

he’d always been more sensitive to that sort of thing than most of the talkers. ziwa tried to find something to say that wouldn’t open up the dam that held everything back. the sunlight flickered patterns through the trees. finally, they said, “we lost a lot even before that.”

morse nodded thoughtfully and said, as if it were a direct response, “mooney told me that you asked her about the ritual.” ziwa winced. “trust me,” he continued, “there isn’t a day i don’t wish...”

his eyes were dark and liquid, and for a moment ziwa thought they would spill over with tears. outside, wind whistled around the truck and through the gaps in its paneling. morse picked up again: “but the team we have now is the team that needs us. we can’t gamble their well-being in the hopes of maybe helping the others.”

ziwa knew he meant well. knew that, on most any other subject, they’d find his tone wise and fatherly. in that moment, though, they gazed out the window and thought: they aren’t ‘the others’, you condescending prick. they’re us, and they haven’t stopped needing the rest of us. she’ll never stop needing me. 

i’ll never stop needing her back.

after a long while, they remembered they hadn’t responded. they said, “i won’t let the team down.” morse seemed to take that as the answer he was looking for; he hooked an arm around ziwa’s shoulder and pulled them close.

“you do a lot for this team. if there’s anything we can do for you - let us know before it gets that bad again, okay?”

ziwa tipped their head against his, feeling the bristles of his hair on their cheek. they half-smiled sadly. “yeah. thank you, morse.”

they didn’t say, none of you will do what i need, and that’s okay now. however long it takes - i’ll figure this out myself.

—

they played more games. they won some and lost more than that. ziwa helped mcblase trim beans’s claws; they sat with koch at the back of the team bus and played word games. they still tried to avoid mooney (and spliff, although the guy’s name was pretty accurate to his laid-back nature, and he had remained friendly towards ziwa since his first day.)

morse wasn’t the only one who had decided it was time to have a real conversation with ziwa again. one evening, as they were doing some cool-down stretches in the gym, fish summer walked in and made a beeline for them. by the time ziwa realized fish had left their boombox next to the door, unlike their usual routine, fish was already sitting down on the mat and folding themself into a neat cross-legged pose. their spine was ramrod straight.

“it is good to have you back.”

“you say that like i went somewhere.” ziwa’s laugh wasn’t particularly convincing.

“you did. you were not here for a long time.” fish’s eyes were surprisingly large and perfectly black. “what brought you back?”

fish has this way of asking questions that knock ziwa off-balance enough that they accidentally respond automatically. “started hoping again.”

“yes. i am hopeful now too.” the only way ziwa could tell that fish was looking at them more closely was a slight forward incline of the head. “what are you hoping for, ziwa mueller?”

ziwa reached one arm over their head into a lat stretch, bending towards the opposite leg, turning their face away from fish’s. it felt cruel to say what they’d been hoping for. as if the living weren’t enough. (never mind that they weren’t, that nothing would ever be enough without her - )

they eased back upright and said, “i hope we never have another situation like jaylen again.”

fish frowned slightly, an expression ziwa had learned indicated confusion for them. “of course we will not. no one would provoke the gods that way again.” ziwa raised their eyebrows.

“didn’t take you for the superstitious type.”

fish’s frown deepened. “you do not believe in the gods?”

“no, i’m not - ugh, i’m not stupid, i just...” ziwa propped their chin on the palm of their hand. “there’s still - there’s logic to the world, y’know? gravity still works, two plus two is still four, like - that kind of shit. they don’t control everything.”

“i think they control jaylen. sometimes.”

ziwa snorted. “that’s a pretty good excuse for her. if you’re superstitious.”

fish’s frown returned to neutral. they unfolded their legs and stood in one fluid gesture before crossing the room to the dumbbell rack. ziwa sighed and headed for the showers.

—

the tunnels beneath the arena held a lot of secrets. ziwa found: old photos of strangers, bloody towels, a number of full oxygen tanks of the type used by scuba divers, a screwdriver, an empty suitcase, four folding chairs, candle stubs, an empty window frame. a rusted typewriter. loose lightbulbs. empty soup cans.

they did not find anything that meant anything to them. no torn-out pages with ancient spells scrawled on them. no chalk circles on any floors.

the next time they faced jaylen, she’d moved to the pies. they didn’t know any of the pies well enough to read their faces, couldn’t tell what they thought of having her around. ziwa certainly wasn’t about to go make small talk with any of them. the thought of exchanging empty niceties about hobbs was too much to bear.

the early game wasn’t bad. most of the hate ziwa previously felt had ebbed with time and then succumbed to the long internal ice age’s numbing. most of what ziwa felt, at that point, was a mixture of determination and a certain... scientific curiosity. in place of the desire to slit her throat, there was a metaphorical desire to cut jaylen open and examine her, find where she’d rotted and how.

ziwa didn’t play well against her - struck out promptly on their first at-bat - but that was just jaylen being a damn good pitcher. even so, enough of the team was awake and firing away: beans stole home in the second inning, alston hit a home run in the fifth. vapor had hit the sweet spot of his monster energy intake and couldn’t seem to make a wrong move.

not long after that, though, the pies brought it back to a tie game. for another couple innings both teams made feeble efforts to break it in their favor. in the bottom of the eighth, ziwa stepped up to bat, telling themself this time i’m gonna hit the goddamn ball. jaylen tucked her hair behind one ear. her eyes glinted in the sunlight.

something punched dead-center into ziwa’s chest, knocking the breath out of them. they stumbled back coughing; for a moment their ears rang and the sky dipped sharply to the left. through the dizziness they heard jaylen call out, “sorry!”

the world re-focused. ziwa took a hesitant step towards first. they were surprised to feel their foot make contact solidly with the ground - their body was suddenly... buzzing? no, that wasn’t right - humming. a strange submolecular hum. they held one hand out flat; it didn’t tremble in the slightest. they took a deep breath and began walking again, doing their best to shove down the sense of walking on a boat at sea. ziwa remembered the trick workman taught them and clenched one fist around their thumb.

they paused briefly at first base, looking back towards home, where cedric was tapping his bat against the toe of one shoe. for a split second, ziwa came unstuck in time: cedric’s soft, scruffy face morphed into workman’s smooth, angular one; the sky shifted colors overhead; ziwa’s heart skipped three beats in panic and they took off running.

buckley from the pies tapped ziwa’s shoulder with the ball. they snapped back to the present: they were out, and supposed to go sit down now. the sky was still bright blue and cloudless. they walked slowly and deliberately back to the dugout, trying not to focus on the internal humming. it felt as if each individual cell of their body was being whipped around inside a centrifuge.

moving to the outfield and then back in was easier, if not more comfortable. blessedly, ziwa only ended up having to bat once more, and managed to make contact with the ball right away; when benitez caught it, they slumped back to the dugout in relief.

after that game, time moved in strange loops for a little bit. the others seemed, whenever ziwa returned to the present, to understand that they were not themself in a different way than last season. although that wasn’t quite it - it was more like ziwa continued to be themself, but at earlier points in time. one morning they woke in their childhood bed and lay completely still for nearly an hour before returning to their apartment. eugenia gave them a hug one day, and for a split second she became richmond. somehow ziwa never slipped into a moment where they saw tyler full on, though; it was always her shadow around the corner, the sound of her singing behind a closed door.

even when they were in the present, their thoughts seemed constantly recursive. jaylen’s name alone was enough to set off a firework shower of emotions. ziwa‘s heart ran back through the past years each time - through the fear and anger and the murderous certainty of jaylen’s evil (whether inherent or implanted by accident on her way back from the grave.) ziwa considered it all over and over again, tried to jiggle the various pieces around like a metal puzzle toy, held it up to inspect from different angles. no matter what, the universe refused to align into a straight path to bringing tyler back safe.

then one morning ziwa woke up with a throbbing headache and absolutely nothing else wrong. their body moved as a cohesive unit instead of a swarm of minuscule bees.

morse had been picking them up in the mornings, and he arrived that day before they could let him know they were up for walking again. ziwa warmed their hands on their coffee cup and watched birds flying in the distance as they drove. at a stoplight, they caught morse looking at them, brows furrowed.

“i’m okay now,” they said.

“yeah?”

ziwa shrugged. “yeah. just... tired of waiting till the next time i’m not, again.”

—

the team’s fragile weave held together, grew stronger. greer’s pitching seemed to be getting better with extra practice - it didn’t make up for dot not being able to play, but it was better than having the cutout around creeping out half the team, and greer seemed to be enjoying the attention she got for actually throwing the damn ball herself. ziwa found they were able to smile sincerely at cedric when they passed each other and fist-bumped. (they still never spoke to mooney alone, but mooney seemed perfectly content that way, so ziwa didn’t push it.)

at a game in charleston, ziwa sat on the dugout bench while morse pitched one of his long slow innings. they took off their cap to let eugenia play with their hair for the first time in a long time. the sun warmed the top of their head.

eugenia said, “do you remember when workman got hit? we were sitting like this.”

“yeah. i didn’t know you remembered.”

eugenia leaned forward and pressed her warm, soft body against ziwa’s back. her normally raspy voice was surprisingly tender, so much that it made ziwa completely forget how terrible she smelled that close up. “i’ll remember everything about you guys forever.”

—

another game against jaylen. she was back with the garages. the team wasn’t having a great day - they were getting hits off jaylen, sure, but they couldn’t seem to put those hits anywhere except straight into the garages’ gloves; mooney was pitching like she was trying to float the balls across the plate as gently as possible. so many of the garages’ hits went straight for the fences that ziwa was briefly tempted to just sit down and pick buttercups, like the old days goofing off in practice with richmond.

when a pitch bounced off fish’s blunt nose at the very end of the last inning, they barely seemed to register it. still, ziwa felt an obligation to pull them aside as the rest of the team headed back to the locker room (and maybe a bit of residual guilt from how their last conversation had ended.) “how you feeling?”

fish shrugged. “i am fine.”

“yeah?” ziwa looked sideways at them. “i know what those hits feel like, y’know. not fun.”

“well. no. but i am not hurt.”

ziwa held back a sigh. fish could be... difficult to talk to at times. “right, i just meant... last time i got hit, i didn’t - it wasn’t like it hurt, either. but i did feel... dizzy? i guess? so. just wanna make sure you’re okay.”

fish frowned and tipped their head slightly to one side, as if listening to something. then they nodded sharply. “yes! i see what you mean. it is hard to stay here. i keep spinning backwards. but i am okay.”

“huh. well... let me know if that changes, okay?”

whenever fish smiled it was deeply unnerving. “you care about all of us very much, ziwa mueller. i appreciate that about you.” the sensation of being hugged by them - cool rough skin, frame like steel beneath - was even more disconcerting.

somehow, ziwa didn’t feel any less guilty or less like a shitty captain.

—

more nights went by as ziwa chased the ever-receding dream of understanding what went wrong with jaylen. more days went by with their eternal games. ziwa began to develop the sense of splitting in two, of separating into distinct roles and not an integrated person: someone who could bring tyler back, and someone who could keep the team together until she got there.

they were picking up stray balls around the field after practice one night when they spotted greer’s cutout propped against a wall. at first ziwa thought she’d left it behind accidentally - it wouldn’t have been the first time - but as they approached, they caught the acrid smell of cigarette smoke.

“y’know those things will kill you,” they said, nudging the cutout aside to keep it from burning.

greer pulled down one eyelid while rolling both eyes up. “nooooo way! i had no idea!”

“don’t be gross.”

she belched loudly. “don’t make me show you gross, kid.”

ziwa laughed despite themself. for a moment, they both stood in silence, leaning against the wall and squinting into the evening sun. the wind made the cutout tap erratically against the wooden boards it leaned on.

“what made you start carrying it around?”

greer flicked a greasy lock of hair over her shoulder and exhaled heavily. “oh man, i love this question.”

“sorry, i - “

“i don’t go around asking people why they can’t wear full-length shirts or why they’re stuck in a peanut shell or why they’ve got a giant fuckin chip on their shoulder cause some people died, once.”

“jeez, i said sorry, fuck you.” ziwa kicked one foot against the wall and used it to propel themself forward. they’d gotten most of the way to third base when they heard greer’s voice calling out.

“it’s cause i do shit like that.”

ziwa turned around. greer was staring at the ground, cigarette burning down between her fingertips.

“it’s not cool of me to do shit like that. this makes it harder for me.”

ziwa watched her finish the cigarette and stamp it out with her heel. when she finally looked up, ziwa smiled and waved goodnight. greer didn’t wave back, but the light reflecting off her teeth was definitely a smile.

—

things ziwa found exploring gleek arena (addendum): a dog’s leash and harness, with one strap chewed clean through. a pile of acorns. a highway road sign, still neon yellow and reflective. a silicone cupcake tray. a harmonica. five and a half rhodesian shillings. a handheld silk fan with its bamboo ribs cracked. three cordless drills. a pillow ripped open, its down spilling out in damp grayish clumps.

they thought about all the people who had left these things behind, and why, and where they’d been headed, and where they’d gone to. ziwa wondered how long the arena had existed. if anyone had played here before the talkers, and how long they would play here now. did ziwa know anyone who had left something here? who else wandered around at night, and why?

still: no crystals or glass vials of herbs. no leather-bound tomes. no beakers or test tubes, even. if it weren’t for jaylen, ziwa wouldn’t quite believe something like raising the dead had happened there.

days went by. so did the nights.

they came up against jaylen again.

—

it was upsettingly normal when she tossed a ball straight at eugenia in the second inning. (eugenia herself mimicked brushing her shoulders off and grinned at them.) it certainly wasn’t fun watching the garages rack up points over the next few innings, but that was just another thing that made it all feel... almost ordinary. like any other game.

ziwa had just sat down in the dugout for the talkers’ turn at bat in the seventh when it happened. morse was there even though jenkins was pitching for the day - he showed up pretty much every game, just to bring everyone’s coffee and cheer them on - and ziwa was hoping for a bit of a pep talk from him. they were settling down next to him when the sky began to glow an eerie neon pink. a feedback storm spun up just outside the stadium and came crashing down onto the field; ziwa had barely realized that it was moving purposefully when it reached its destination and made contact with the field, where it touched:

jaylen,

who was replaced on the mound with a baffled ortiz,

who was no longer next to ziwa -

things began to go in very slow motion. ziwa jerked back in shock, opened their mouth as if to scream, found themself as speechless as in dreams. jaylen seemed to mistake it for surprise; she began to laugh, and then she said “sorry, hey, i’m jaylen,” and ziwa realized with a creeping fury that jaylen was reaching out to shake their hand -

“i know who you fucking are!”

the punch landed before ziwa’s mind recognized that they were moving.

the talkers around both of them all began yelling at once; lachlan and eugenia held ziwa’s arms, which only made ziwa angrier and more determined not to be held still; spliff was at jaylen’s side offering a tissue, although jaylen looked content to let her nose bleed and eye swell up as she stared at ziwa. when she spoke, her voice was clear and polished as glass, cutting through the chaos.

“that was your hit. hope you got it out of your system, cause you don’t get another.”

now ziwa was trying to get at jaylen for another hit. “you better be fucking kidding - after everything you - i’ll fucking kill you - “

“i didn’t do shit!” jaylen was yelling back now, one of cedric’s hands on her shoulder as a symbolic gesture of restraint. “you don’t have to fuckin’ marry me, just get it together, you fuckin’ psycho!”

“i’m the psycho?” ziwa tried to yank their arms free. “do you even fucking know how many people you murdered - “

“i told you i didn’t fuckin do that!” jaylen slapped cedric’s hand away; she stepped towards ziwa. the others around them had fallen quiet. up close, her skin was warm-toned and her eyes deep brown. a handful of small acne scars littered her cheeks like freckles. her voice became smooth and precise again. “i promise you. i feel exactly enough fucking guilt about what my body was used to do. but it’s not my fault you dipshits decided to raise me from the fucking dead.”

ziwa glared at her, still trying to shrug off the others. “even if you didn’t - you can’t even say you’re fucking sorry! and you’re the one they brought back - “

“oohwee, is that it?” jaylen hooted and clapped her hands together. “you’re still bitter you didn’t get to pick who it was?” ziwa hated how quickly their face heated up in response. “well, let me fuckin’ tell you something.”

jaylen stepped even closer. ziwa held their breath. for some reason, they noticed that she only had one of her ears pierced.

“whoever it was? they’re lucky it wasn’t them. fuckin’ respect them enough to let them rest.”

ziwa spat in her face.

there was another moment of collective scuffling as the others pulled them apart again; ziwa let themself hang limp this time. jaylen wiped her face once with the back of her hand. she spat on the ground. “let ‘em go.” a pause. “c’mon, seriously.”

ziwa felt the others move back tentatively, raised themself up to a standing position again. they watched jaylen uncertainly. somewhere, beyond the field, a bird was singing. jaylen spread her arms open.

“you think you can make me suffer more than i have already? fuckin’ go ahead. i would love that.”

she looked straight into ziwa’s eyes and didn’t blink. for a long moment, the two of them held perfectly still, balanced at opposite ends of a scale. then ziwa jumped the dugout fence and took off running.

—

eugenia found them fully clothed in a shower stall in the locker room, crying beneath the pounding water. she sat down next to ziwa and said, just loud enough to be heard, “jaylen left. she doesn’t want to mess up the rest of the game for us.”

ziwa made a noise that was somewhere between a snort, a laugh, and a sob.

“i know, right?” eugenia tried to smile. “but we’re kinda stuck here till we finish, so...”

“yeah.” ziwa sighed and took one more moment to let the hot water beat at the knots in their neck. they stood up and turned the shower off. “okay, let’s go.”

back on the field, it was hard to tell if morse was pitching soft on purpose, or just pitching as badly as normal. the others seemed to take comfort in joking as he walked one of them after another; they cheered louder than usual for stolen bases and singles. ziwa felt like they were repeating again. stuck in a loop, back to the disconnection of last season.

by the ninth, the rest of the team had dragged the score back up until they were only a point down from the garages. they already had two outs when ziwa stepped up to bat. morse’s smile seemed crystal-clear, even at a distance. ziwa watched three balls go by - one of them through the strike zone - before knocking one into the ground at right field, where summers pony promptly scooped it up.

ziwa didn’t stick around to hear the others tell them it was okay.

—

they went swimming.

out past the farthest spits of what had been high ground, once upon a time. past the buoys that designated the boundary of halifax. they swam until the lights on the horizon were impossible to distinguish from the reflections of stars. then, finally, they let their body relax. they floated on their back, eyes closed, listening to the waves overlapping each other.

ziwa spoke to the leviathan out of nostalgic habit more than any particular belief in her hearing: “i fucked it up.”

the same rhythmic slaps, whistling wind. the scent of brine.

“i thought... i don’t know. i thought there was a way we could’ve made it work. if we just tried harder - if i had tried harder - “

the wind picked up; fat dark clouds swept across the sky. a drop of rain hit their face.

“but instead i - i just fucked it all up, huh? jaylen was right. tyler’s lucky my dumb selfish ass couldn’t bring her back.” ziwa’s throat ached. more raindrops sprinkled their cheeks and forehead. “it should’ve been me instead of any of them. workman. tony. hell,” they hiccuped out a laugh, “bates would’ve been a better fucking captain, even, i don’t wanna do this anymore without them, i’m - “ they were crying now - “i don’t want to outlive any more of my fucking friends, i don’t wanna go back if it’s gonna be like this,” their tears and the steady rain streaming down their temples to mix into the ocean, “i can’t be the last one left, i can’t,”

and the ocean collapsed beneath them.

—

ziwa was in the deep somewhere. without any sense of directionality - no up or down, no surface or submerged earth to orient by. it was pitch black and so quiet their ears almost hurt.

the black began to lighten.

it creeped towards deep amethyst, plum, royal purple. it happened everywhere at once - not a light source emerging, but the water itself changing, shifting through shades. then indigo. then lilac. then

violet

ziwa floated in the color and did not ask questions. time stopped meaning anything for awhile. they were not alone. the silence ceased to hurt; it became white noise, and in the static ziwa was able to hear her singing again. they were able to listen for as long as they wanted.

eventually - finally - ziwa closed their eyes and let go.

—

the ocean lifted up from beneath them: the sinkhole that had dragged them down reversed. ziwa shot upwards, riding what they thought was a massive jet of water, until the surface drew into sight and ziwa realized there was in fact something massive propelling them upward.

the leviathan breached the surface with ziwa clinging to its back and breathless.

the ocean beneath them had returned to its deep blues and blacks. ziwa looked up instead. so far out from electric lights, the stars painted the sky in streaks of glitter. they remembered workman’s last run. the glow of the deep felt suffused into their veins; they imagined trailing faint lavender sparks behind them, a pale mirror of the ones they loved who were now gone.

the leviathan soared across the water in long arcing jumps. ziwa stroked her back, hand small against her great bulk. the stadium lights came into view in the distance. home. the two came to a gentle stop just outside the stadium. standing on the leviathan’s back, ziwa was just level with a top row of seats, close enough to jump over.

they kissed the fingertips of one hand, then knelt to place that hand against her head. the leviathan made a deep, slow rumble like an immense cat purring.

“i’m sorry,” ziwa whispered. “i’ll do better for you, too.” 

then they climbed into the arena. by the time they turned around, there was nothing but ocean below. they turned back to face the open, glimmering field; from so high up, it was easy to imagine how they looked to the gods. an anthill that invented stick-and-ball sports. little pixels in a simulation. from up there, the deep secrets were invisible - all the artifacts in the tunnels below, the leviathan’s home, the invisible strings that knotted the team to each other.

something occurred to them. on a hunch, they pulled their wallet from their back pocket and opened it. sure enough, the team photo they’d carried was gone.

no - not gone. just... somewhere else now. in the labyrinth for someone else to find. a single piece of the bigger story.

ziwa thought, it’s probably time for a new picture of us anyway.