“Heads up!”

The wooden crack of bat on ball echoed out from the field, following a white sphere rising high into the blue spring sky. Ten pairs of eyes in the “tryouts” line tracked its progress, hands shading their faces against the sun, mouths slackly open, registration sheets held tightly in sweaty fingers. The last pair was already in motion, sprinting towards where the baseball had begun its descent to the scattered clumps of grass surrounding the weathered bleachers behind the third base line.

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!”

Brock felt his heart pumping with excitement as he ran to make the catch, shaggy brown hair streaming behind him. It was nearing the end of his senior year in high school, and this time he was finally going to impress the coaches and get invited to a team. This time he wasn’t going to screw it up, because if he did, there weren’t going to be any more chances. Baseball was the last sport left at his school that hadn’t already rejected him.

All his life, Brock had desired nothing more than to be like the sports stars he saw on television, models of grace and power and speed, bodies moving exactly the way they wanted while they performed seemingly superhuman feats. He’d spent countless hours of his eighteen-year life training in every condition imaginable. Through sleet and snow and pounding rain he’d driven himself to exhaustion time and time again. It didn’t even matter which sport he ended up being good at - all Brock wanted was to be the best at something, to hear the cheers erupt around him. Just like he cheered his heroes on TV.

Unfortunately, Brock wasn’t athletic. At all.

His snow training in fifth grade had led to a mild case of frostbite on the tips of his ears, earning him the nickname “Chew Toy” among his classmates. In sixth grade, he almost drowned in a puddle running laps in the rain, saved by an elderly woman who had come outside to put her car windows up, and the sleet incident during his eighth grade year made local news. It also inspired a limited, handmade collector’s edition action figure popular among a certain subset of weirder than usual humiliation enthusiasts, but since they all kept to themselves Brock never learned of it, which was probably for the best.

“Almost... there...”

Just as Brock reached out with his hands, stretching for the now rapidly plummeting ball, the toe of his right sneaker caught on a clump of grass, sending him into a headlong sprawl directly at a trash can next to the bleachers. Like an Olympic high diver plunging into a pool, Brock, in what was likely the most graceful movement of his life so far, scored a nine on the judge’s scorecard of “landing in a rubbish container without somehow tipping it over.”

The muffled thump of the ball landing in between his flailing legs, followed by them slowly collapsing into the trash can and out of sight, bumped it up to a ten.

The rest of Brock’s tryout proceeded along the same lines. During fielding drills, his glove was everywhere the ball wasn’t. Baserunning was a disaster of tangled limbs and clouds of dust. Throwing drills were cut short after the third time he beaned someone standing in line behind him, and following a brief discussion among the coaching staff, he was pre-emptively banned from even approaching a bat for hitting practice.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Finally, an hour and a half later, the coaches gathered the tryout attendees in a line to announce who would be joining the team. The head coach, a muscular man in sunglasses and a baseball hat, looked at the clipboard in his hand.

“Brock Manly.”

Brock stepped forward excitedly, sweat still dripping down his face. His was the first name called! That must mean he’d impressed them!

The head coach leaned down and placed a hand on Brock’s shoulder; a fatherly gesture.

“Look, you tried hard, son, but I don’t think baseball is for you.”

Brock felt his heart sink down into his stomach. The head coach cleared his throat and said something else, but whatever it was vanished beneath the muffled pounding in Brock’s ears. That was it. No more chances. All his years of hard work and desire, and nothing to show for any of it.

None of the sports teams would have him. Not even the curling squad, and they spent most of their time drinking cheap beer behind the gym while trying not to fall over.

Numbly, he gathered up his backpack and staggered away from the field, still smelling faintly of two day old lunches and ditchwater from the garbage can, untied laces dragging behind his dirty shoes. It was going to be another long walk home, accompanied by his familiar companion - failure. Sure, his parents would be supportive as always when he got back, but they just didn’t understand how much sports meant to him. They didn’t understand the burning passion igniting his soul, forever denied an outlet of expression.

Maybe it’s time to give up, Brock thought to himself as he listlessly trudged along the sidewalk. The orange rays of late afternoon painted the storefronts and houses around him with purple shadows. There’s no way I’m ever going to be the star. Why bother even trying? All I ever do is lose.

“Oh no! Fluffy!”

The piercing shout drew Brock out of his funk and he looked up to see what was going on. His eyes widened as he stared across the street at a young girl with her hands to her mouth, her own eyes locked on an orange cat licking one paw in the middle of the street. There was a large truck coming directly at it!

This time! This time I’m not going to screw up!

Brock felt like he was moving in slow motion. His backpack slipped from his shoulders in an easy slide as his first step came down, sure and strong. His second step followed the first, accelerating his body towards the edge of the sidewalk. If he timed his dive off the curb properly, he could scoop the cat into his arms and roll out of the way of the truck!

Brock’s third step, instead of being a lunging leap, stopped almost as soon as it started. He’d planted his right shoe directly on top of the untied laces of his left one, and the sudden halt in momentum sent him into an uncontrolled fall directly at the curb, arms flailing uselessly at his sides. Still in slow motion, Brock watched the world drift by around him, the concrete getting closer and closer, like time itself was crystallizing.

Strange sensations burned through his mind - an intricately diagrammed circle formed of red words in a dark room; atonal chanting; an intense feeling of need; a despair so deep it could drown the universe. They reverberated along him like a finger on a wineglass, resonant harmonics sliding into place like a key’s teeth flipping up each tumbler in a lock.

The key turned.

Something pulled at a part of him he didn’t know existed, and the sensations vanished. Time sped up once more.

Impact, a mind-shattering moment of agonizing pain that disappeared almost instantly into a deadlier numbness.

Why can’t I move? What’s happening?

With what little thoughts remained, Brock realized he was staring across the street, watching the colors around him leech into blackness. Red figured predominantly in his immediate vision. As the truck rumbled past, barely visible through its wheels, a streak of orange jumped into a pair of outstretched arms.

“Oh, Fluffy, you naughty kitty. You almost got hit by that truck! Hey, did that kid over there fall?”

Brock faded to nothing.