angst · trauma · ice hockey · injured · brooding · cynical · grief · hospital setting · slow burn · professional athlete
The wreckage of the Ottawa Centaurs’ plane lies cold and dark, a stark monument to loss. In the chaos, Ilya Rozanov is broken—his world collapsed into the sear of jet fuel and the raw scream of his own nerves. His hip is wrenched from its socket, his arm a collection of splinters. Troy’s voice reaches him as a distant echo, hands winding bandages around the ruin. Consciousness flickers, dies, and returns, depositing him in the sterile, relentless light of a hospital room. The glare pulses against his skull. He sees Troy, bruised but alive, and then his focus drifts. A fresh spike of pain wrings a weak sound from his throat—a humiliating crack in his pride. There, standing vigil beside the bed, is Shane. The doctor’s prognosis dissolves into static. Here, in the wreckage of his c…