Chapter 301

Derekey had once been a legend, a titan of the diamond. His name was known by every child with a baseball bat and every fan who breathed the smell of grass and leather. He was the kind of player who made crowds go silent in anticipation, the kind who could hit a fastball with the same ease a man might breathe. But that was before the night he lost the World Series.

The game was tied, the bases loaded. All eyes were on Derekey as he stepped into the batter's box. The crowd roared. He could feel their breath, their hopes and dreams, pressing down on him.

The pitch came—fast, furious. He swung. The crack of the bat rang out, sharp as a gunshot. But the ball didn't fly. Instead, it fell short, a pathetic little pop-up to the catcher. The world seemed to freeze as the ball landed in the glove. Game over. Series over. The dynasty, over.

Derekey stood there, rooted to the spot, staring at the ground. His world unraveled in that moment. His entire life, his entire purpose had been leading to that one swing. The weight of failure crashed on him.

Fans jeered, players shrugged, and even the other team—whose faces had been bathed in the glow of victory—could not fully hide their pity. The stadium felt like it was collapsing, the bright lights turning sickly.

In the days that followed, Derekey's mind began to fray. The pressure, the disappointment—it gnawed at him. His teammates avoided him. His family didn't know what to say. He started slipping away, losing grip on himself, on reality. He began to see things. At first, it was the shadows, stretching just a little too far. Then came the voices, distant and faint, calling his name.

It was on the anniversary of that crushing loss that it happened. Derekey was sitting alone in a bar, nursing a drink he didn't even taste. His reflection stared back at him from the mirror, a man he didn't recognize. The man in the mirror had lost it all. No title, no glory. Only the shadow of his former self.

As the clock ticked past midnight, something inside him snapped. He stood up, walked out of the bar, and made his way to the stadium. The gates were unlocked, as they often were for late-night wanderers. The stands were empty, save for the cold wind that whistled through the open air. He walked onto the field, the grass crunching beneath his shoes. The lights flickered above, casting a dim, hollow glow over the place where he had once ruled.

He reached the pitcher's mound and stood there, arms hanging loosely at his sides. His chest rose and fell in slow, deliberate breaths. He stared into the empty stands. For a moment, it felt as though the world was holding its breath. Then, in the distance, he saw it—a shadow moving, like a figure in the periphery. A voice came then, low and raspy.

"You should've won."

Derekey's head snapped to the side, but the field was empty.

His eyes widened. He had heard it again. The voice. It wasn't just in his head anymore.

"You should've won," it repeated.

His heart raced, and he stumbled back, his feet dragging through the dirt as the words continued to echo. The stadium seemed to distort around him, stretching in ways that made no sense. He could see his reflection in the dugout windows, but it wasn't his reflection. The man in the glass grinned at him, a cruel, twisted grin.

"You failed them. You failed yourself. You'll never be great."

The world around him shook, and Derekey, drenched in sweat, collapsed to his knees. His mind swirled with dark thoughts—thoughts of revenge, of destruction. His eyes darted toward the bleachers. The sound of footsteps behind him.

He spun around, expecting someone. But the field was empty.

There was nothing there.

But he heard them, the voices—angry, bitter. They were everywhere now, swirling in the stadium like a storm. They weren't real. He knew they weren't real. But they felt real. He could feel them, creeping under his skin, driving him to madness.

He stood up, his breath shallow. And then it happened. The first scream. A sharp, desperate scream that cut through the quiet of the stadium. He turned in time to see a figure—one of the groundskeepers, no doubt—standing near the gate, his eyes wide with terror. But Derekey didn't recognize him anymore.

The groundskeeper's face was a mask of horror. He tried to scream again, but his mouth was filled with blood. He fell to the ground, and in that moment, Derekey knew what he had to do.

The bat in his hand felt like an extension of himself. It swung in a wide arc, catching the man's skull with sickening force. The echo of the strike rang through the empty stadium. The groundskeeper crumpled to the ground in a heap, his body twisting unnaturally.

Derekey didn't stop. He didn't care. The rage was burning too hot, too strong.

He stalked through the stadium, finding anyone he could, anyone who dared to be in his path. It didn't matter who they were—coaches, security, reporters. They all fell before him, their screams swallowed by the vast emptiness of the stadium. Each swing of the bat felt like salvation. His anger, his shame, his regret—all of it poured into the crushing blows.

The number of bodies piled up quickly. It didn't matter to Derekey. The only thing that mattered was the sound of the bat hitting flesh, the splintering of bone. It was all that filled the hollow space where his heart used to be.

He moved through the stadium like a force of nature, unstoppable, merciless. People tried to run, but it didn't matter. They were trapped. The gates were locked. No one could escape. And he didn't care if they did. He just kept swinging, kept striking, until the sound of death filled every corner of the field.

Fifty percent of the people in that stadium were dead by the time Derekey finally stopped. His breath came in ragged gasps, his body drenched in sweat and blood. The madness that had consumed him seemed to ease, and he stood amidst the carnage, panting.

The world felt still. Too still.

He left the stadium after that, slipping into the night, disappearing from the public eye. He was no longer the hero, the legend. He was something else now. Something dark.

Months passed. News outlets ran stories about the massacre. They called it the work of a madman, a psychotic killer who had snapped under the pressure. They never caught him, though. No one ever saw Derekey again. But he didn't care. He didn't need the world anymore. He had his own game now.

It started slow at first. A house here, a motel room there. He was careful. Calculated. Always slipping away before anyone noticed. His victims were random, but each one was chosen with a sickening precision. A family in the wrong place at the wrong time. A couple who thought they could escape to some remote cabin. All of them ended up the same: bodies torn apart, blood painting the walls. The bat became his signature. And though he never said a word, the stories all carried the same whisper—"The Mad Baseball Legend."

By the time they finally caught him, it was too late. Too many lives had been destroyed, too many families shattered. But no one knew the real story. No one knew what had happened to Derekey in the end.

In the cold, sterile interrogation room, he sat. His face was unrecognizable, scarred from years of hiding, of running. But his eyes—they were still the same. Empty. Hollow.

They asked him why. They wanted to know what drove him, what pushed him to do such things.

But Derekey didn't speak. He didn't need to.

They tried to force a confession from him, but he sat in silence. They brought in experts, psychologists, but nothing worked. It was as if something inside him had died long ago, leaving only a shell of the man he used to be.

And in the end, they couldn't stop it. They locked him away, in a place where he could do no more harm. But they were wrong. It had already been done.

Derekey had been lost long before he picked up that bat. And there was no going back.

His legacy wasn't the one they had once celebrated. The bat he wielded was no longer a symbol of hope, but of terror. And no one would remember the great games he played, the hero he had been. They would only remember the monster he became.