The electric hum of the crowd was a tangible thing, vibrating through Zayne’s chest. At ten years old, Zayne had faced battles far tougher than a tense late-inning baseball game. For three grueling years, his heroes hadn’t worn caps and cleats, but scrubs and masks. Now, having successfully beaten back the insidious enemy of cancer, Zayne was finally fulfilling a long-held dream. Every cent of allowance, every birthday check, had been painstakingly saved for this single night: to sit field-side and watch his beloved [Home Team Name] fight for the championship title.

The game was tied in the eighth, the tension so thick it felt like the humid August air. Zayne gripped his grandfather’s hand, his small face illuminated by the bright stadium lights and shadowed by the brim of his oversized cap. The atmosphere was a chaotic symphony of hope—the roar of the crowd on every strikeout, the communal gasp on every foul ball. This wasn’t just a game; it was the coronation of a dream. He looked down at the frayed wristband he wore, a reminder of the long hospital stays, and felt a surge of pure, uncomplicated joy. His heroes, the men in navy and white, were going to do it.

But the visiting team had a designated dream-crusher: George Springer.

When the opposing manager signaled for Springer to pinch-hit with the bases loaded, a nervous energy rippled through the stadium. The crowd, sensing danger, stood in unison, morphing into a single, desperate wall of noise. The home team’s ace, a pitcher Zayne idolized, delivered a curveball that dipped too slowly. The crack of the bat was the loudest, most sickening sound Zayne had ever heard. It wasn’t just a home run; it was a grand slam—a towering, four-run shot that arced violently over the center-field wall, spiking the score and, simultaneously, the heart of every fan present.

The silence that followed was immediate and total, a deafening vacuum where a moment before there had been pandemonium. Zayne’s jaw dropped. The disbelief was a physical ache, sharper than any disappointment he’d felt before. In that crushing moment, the lights seemed to dim, and the field felt impossibly distant. George Springer, jogging the bases, had not just hit a ball; he had, with one swing, drained every drop of hope, leaving the ballpark an echo chamber of what might have been. The dream, years in the making, was suddenly, brutally

deferred. Zayne looked at his grandfather, tears blurring the scoreboard, realizing that even heroes sometimes fall to a superior foe.