Work Text:
Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about catching on fire: it only hurts until the flames reach the nerves, and it isn’t always the flames that get you so much as the smoke. So when the Hellmouth opens, it’s far more painful for Zack Sanders than it is for Miguel James.
Now, that isn’t to say it’s malicious on Miguel’s part, not at all. It is absolutely natural to panic in events such as an earthquake, or a landslide, or suddenly finding yourself made out of fire, all three of which occurred when the Hellmouth opened over Moab. And when one panics, it is equally natural to grab onto something around you, such as a stranger, acquaintance, or teammate. Unfortunately, when you grab onto someone and happen to be made out of fire, they tend to, well, burn.
So, in a moment of panic, Miguel grabs onto Zack, and as has been already established, this is completely understandable given the context. Now, human skin begins to sustain first-degree burns at around 118 degrees fahrenheit, second-degree at around 131 degrees, and by the time you reach 150 degrees fahrenheit, you will begin to experience third-degree burns, with skin being destroyed at 162 degrees. Flame that has a yellow hue generally sits at around 1832 degrees fahrenheit, meaning that when Miguel grabs onto Zack, she does far more than burn.
Did you know there are more than three degrees for burns? Fourth-degree extends into fat, meaning your nerves have likely been destroyed at that point, and then fifth and sixth move into muscle and bone. From this, it can be deduced that Zack Sanders experienced extreme amounts of pain at the point of contact for approximately 13.34 seconds before the nerves stopped receiving signal. As mentioned before, the cause of death in cases of burning rarely come from the flames themselves, but rather from smoke. However, we neglected to mention a third potential cause, which is shock. And in the case of Zack Sanders, that was, well, the case.
The thing is, you may be asking yourself what Zack and Miguel were doing together in the first place. And the answer to that is simple and lies in the reality that the then-named Moab Sunbeams were universally acknowledged as being, to put it kindly, quite bad. Miguel and Zack were no exception to that, though obviously not comparably to fellow Sunbeams pitcher Lars Taylor, or the entirety of the Chicago Firefighters’ rotation. So on Gods Day, in advance of the election, it might be reasonable to conclude that the two of them may be practicing in the leadup to the next season. While this is a reasonable conclusion, it would be more accurate to say they had attempted to practice, and were no longer doing so by the time of impact, and had in fact moved on to what could colloquially be called “fucking around”.
So, you have Zack Sanders and you have Miguel James and you have fire. And the fire to Miguel James is certainly a foriegn sensation, but it isn’t painful, not really. The fire to Zack Sanders is incredibly painful, and so this is where we find ourselves. The fire spreads from one to the other, as fires tend to do, and between the flames and the pain and the smoke and the aforementioned shock, there is only one reasonable conclusion to come to as far as what happened to the young Ms. Sanders, and that is: in between all the chaos surging through the town of moab as it was being consumed by an otherworldly being, Zack Sanders, no matter how briefly, died.
And you may say “But Zack Sanders is a pitcher for the Hellmouth Sunbeams! They can’t possibly be dead!”, and you would be right. Zack Sanders, by any reasonable estimation, does seem to be alive. The explanation for this all has to do with the Hellmouth itself, for upon seeing the destruction it wrought, began to use its powers in more ways than one.
And so we see a scene before us; Miguel James filled to the core with guilt and Zack Sanders dead on the floor. But what neither two notice (on account of one dealing with said guilt and the other being dead) is flower petals slowly emerging from the sides of Zack Sanders face, one by one. Not just any kind of petals either, very specifically they are sunflower petals. Soon we see roots and seeds joining in, trailing and traversing over the burnt skin until she appears to be more plant than human, and finally she takes one large, shuddering breath.
Many people died in Moab that day. Even the town itself, in a way, as it was swallowed by the Hellmouth and all its memories with it. But Zack Sanders, for whatever reason, whether it be fate or mistake or some act of mercy from the Hellmouth itself, did not die that day. She would go on to pitch another 22 seasons for the Hellmouth Sunbeams and 1 for the Philly Pies, and live a long and happy-ish life, given the circumstances of the ILB. She, however, would not remember this moment, and neither would Miguel James. This moment in its entirety would be lost to the Hellmouth, only remembered in the fingerprint of the environment.
So why are we telling this story, you may ask? Even the harshest moments do not deserve to be lost to time. So we will remember them, and so must you.