Haunting Hallucinations

I hadn’t gotten any sleep lately with my string of nightmares. And tonight wasn’t any different. I went through my normal routine, before settling into my bed, what would the world give me tonight? Embarrassment, humiliation, getting ambushed, getting kidnapped, getting pranked, missing a key goal...what?

I was about to find out that it was the worst thing possible out of anything. A hockey player would never dream of doing this, but I, Nathan MacKinnon, did.

I closed my eyes, settled in and found myself on the ice. I was in motion though. I had dropped down to the ice, seeing the crowd on their feet, cheering. Something spectacular had occurred. Maybe for once I was having a DREAM and not a NIGHTMARE. I felt the icy surface glide, under my fingers, as I completed my celebration “dance.” All hockey players had one, whether it was subliminal, minor, a fist pump, jumping into the air or what. This “swooping, brushing the ice” was my move.

“YEAHH!” I heard myself shout as I skated past the bench. My gloves, helmet, and stick littered the ice surface, as I celebrated what I believed to be a goal in this overtime game.

Everyone including my linemates and Coach stared in shock. In one moment the puck was lost then it reappeared in the net! I was just so excited, as I jumped over the bench and skated over to my team as we all celebrated throwing our gloves high in the air and discarding our helmets on the littered ice.

We stopped our celebration as we watched the ref skated towards the center of the ice. Previous to that he was talking to the other refs, on most likely was about whether the goal was to be counted or not. I really hoped it counted because if it didn’t, our celebration would have been worthless and would make us feel down on ourselves.

I held my breath as he slowly kept skating until he stopped in the middle and faced the box. My body started to shake, my palms became sweaty, hell I was just nervous. We all waited for him to make the movement with his arm to announce it was a goal. He waited and waited and I for sure thought he was going to call it off. As my hopes began to dwindle the ref spun around and pointed his hand at the ice announcing it was a goal.

“HELL YEAH!” Gabriel Landeskog shouted, slapping me on the back in congratulations, as we all began to hug each other in one big mass of celebration. I couldn’t believe it. After three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals I had finally won the Cup!

We all skated over to the Pittsburgh players stood and began the ceremonial hand shake. It was like we were polar opposites. I spotted the captain and my idol, Sidney Crosby. He was skating in a circle, impatiently with his head down. Our heads were held high, where wide smiles crossed our faces, while their heads hung down low, like Sidney’s and they just shook our hands. Once in a while one would muster out a good game, but most said nothing. I knew how they felt. I had it happen to me two times before in the past three years. It wasn’t fun to be on that side of the fence.

I past by Sidney, who cleverly remarked, “Don’t drop the Cup, Kinny!” He had a sinister little smirk on his face, which I attempted to ignore. I pressed on, wondering why my idol and the once great man was being so selfish and snarky.

As we finished our line we all skated back to our mass group of celebrators as Pittsburgh walked off the ice. I heard Sidney cussing and barking remarks to the crowd, as he exited. Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz had to grab him and shove him out of the view of the Colorado crowd.

Meanwhile, we all waited and waited, high-fiving and yelling as the men in the white gloves brought out the best trophy in the world. The trophy passionate hockey kids dreamed about hoisting over their heads in their childhood. The trophy that weighed thirty five pounds, except when you were holding it above your head. Then it felt like a feather. It was Lord Stanley itself in glistening silver, shined to perfection.

When the cup holders put the cup down, Gabriel skated over and picked it up; throwing it over his head. He shouted as he skated by us all and we watched him skate all around us shouting and having a good time. His entire smile grew three times its normal size and you could tell he was excited, hell we all were.

“Kinny, you’re up, since you scored our winning goal to secure this for us!” Gabriel shouted, as he skated towards me.

I couldn’t believe it. After years and years, I was finally able to hoist the cup over my head. I extended my hands and he put the cup right in them. Everything felt right. I thought I might burst from the excitement I felt. But I controlled my inner kid and...

“WHOO!” I shouted, as I threw the cup over my head, like it weighed nothing at all. My entire life I wanted this and I never wanted it to end.

Unfortunately the moment did end for me.

At first, I was so caught up in celebrating and the joy and happiness that bursted from deep within me, that I didn’t realize the Cup had shifted in my grip. As I launched off for my lap, I suddenly became aware of it slipping and slowly sliding downward from my grip.

I tell you, one moment I had it and the next...it was scattered in pieces on the ice...I felt my heart tear in two. Silence quickly drowned out the noise of the celebration and cheering. I paused in my victory and stood, frozen in place, staring in horror at the broken Cup at my feet.

What had I done?

And right before things went black, I heard Sidney Crosby’s mocking voice echo in my ears, “Don’t drop the Cup.” It was so cruel sounding, so sinister and forewarning. It was almost a jinx.

The heartbreaking scene around me morphed into a new one. Now I found myself on top of a building. It was no ordinary building though. It was the Empire State Building in New York City. And I wasn’t just standing on it.

As I slowly became more aware of my surroundings, I found that I was immobilized. In fact, not only that, but I was bound to the highest point. I found that my arms were strapped together behind me, useless. What felt like a zip tie was holding my wrists together around some kind of pole. Around my ankles and upper body, I was trussed up with a thick, rough, and scratchy manila rope. It felt like dozens of cat claws raking across my skin...my SKIN?

I was mostly naked. I could feel my boxers on me, but that was it. Someone had bound me like this to a pole object and placed me up high in the air. The ground below me swayed and made me dizzy, as I seemed to rock back and forth in the breeze.

But who knew that I was afraid of heights? I had told no one this and yet, here I was, with my heart in my throat, panicking and sweating with nervousness.

I lifted my head up and spotted a blinking light above my head. What the hell was this? What was going on? Who had done this to me?

I attempted to scream and try and release all of my inner demons out...all of the pent up fear that was boiling inside of me. But I couldn’t. All of the sudden, I felt something sticky, pasting my lips together, making it difficult to do anything with it. I parted my lips with the complexity of the situation I was in. I only managed a pitiful whimpering noise.

What was going on? I wanted to know why someone had bound and gagged me and placed me here.

Turns out, someone was watching my struggle, they rounded me, unafraid of the heights and danger. As they came into my vision path, I instantly saw the jersey of a Pittsburgh Penguins’. It was Sidney Crosby again.

I was stunned and taken aback by his presence. I tried to voice my thought to him. Why was he here? Was he going to save me? Was he the one who had bound me? How did he know about my fear of heights? How had he gotten me up here? What was going on?

He smirked and answered half of my questions, by withdrawing a roll of duct tape. But it only added another question, why? Why was he doing this to me? Why was he evil to me? I looked up to him and thought of him as a talented man, but he was mocking me. And now he had tied me up.

“Kinny,” he spoke, his voice nice and deep. It sounded like a typical villain’s from any number of Bond films. “You dropped the Stanley Cup…”

I wanted to tell him it was an accident, but that pitiful low humming noise came out of me instead. He smirked like he was…..enjoying this.

Sidney stepped forward, as he quickly put his arm through the center of the roll and draped it around his arm. He then reached out and put his hand on my cheek. It was covered by a thin robber’s glove. “Oh, Nathan MacKinnon, you had such promise…” He brushed my cheek with the back of his hand.

I pulled against my bonds, trying to get free, grunting with my failed efforts. He stepped back and folded his arms across his chest, while he gave off a tsk tsk tsk noise with his teeth and tongue. It only made me try and jerk harder. But Sidney Crosby had the binding work of a supervillain and the knotwork of a Girl Scout.

That’s when he cackled. My blood ran ice cold and I halted in my movements, staring at him with wide eyes full of shock. The wind blew through my wavy golden blonde locks on my hair. He threw his head back giving the full villain effect and look. I heard a faint beeping noise….

….before I shot awake in my bed. I could still hear Sidney’s distorted laughter echoing in my ears. I felt my lip quivering, as my vision came back to the dark reality of my room’s interior and the night.

I glanced at the clock. 6:00 am. So much for sleep again. I didn’t dare close my eyes. I didn’t want to return to the dream...no, the nightmare. Instead, I clutched my blanket and pulled it up to my chin, holding it for comfort. I felt alone and like a little kid once more, terrified of the evening and the monsters under my bed.

I whimpered, thankful that at least it hadn’t been real and there wasn’t really any tape over my mouth or ropes binding around me. I was safe...just very, very panicked and tired.

Notes

Poor Kinny....
Sidney Crosby....damn! Leave him alone, you bastard!!
Well, as you can see this sounds similar to Perils, but alas, it is not and both this and Perils will be WAY different ideas in a little bit, coming up here.

Next up, back to Nichy and his emotional trauma. :(