Perils

Brandon Saad blinked awake. His eyelids felt heavy, like he was super tired and struggling to wake up for the day. Eventually he managed to get them open and when he got them wide enough, to see his view, they shot open at once. He jerked backward, as he saw that he was up high in the air. If there was one thing Brandon Saad absolutely loathed and was petrified of...it was heights!

He attempted to move, but found his arms immobilized behind his back. wait, they were BEHIND his back. He moved his head, swiveling it around, trying to see what was going on. As he did, he saw a pole that raced upward. And when he gave sharp jerks forward, he concluded that his wrists were bound together with ropes and that the pole was the only thing holding him from toppling over the side to his death below.

He squeezed his eyelids closed. Go to a happy place, I’m back in the UC, safe and not bound to some tower! He tried the only instinctive thing he could think of in his panic. He screamed. He screamed at the top of his lungs, only to hear nothing but a faint buzzing noise come out.

He snapped his eyes open once more and now felt the presence of some kind of uncomfortable feeling in his mouth. As he thought about it and felt it with his tongue with difficult, it felt familiar. Suddenly it hit him like a ton of bricks….it was a hockey puck.

Somehow a puck was jammed in his mouth and a bandana or some kind of clothy material was wrapped around it, holding it in place. Who was doing this to him? What was going on?

Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a black figure moving into his line of vision. Soon he was standing before him on the edge. He raised his hands up and removed the hood from his head to reveal the face of Sidney Crosby.

“Sidney Crosby?” Brandon attempted, gagging on the puck that was in his mouth.

“Save your breath you pathetic excuse for a forward!” the Penguin snapped, flicking his cape behind him. The wind caught it and made it appear to flap in the air freely. He looked like a superhero...or rather...supervillain, as he stood on the ledge with his cape flying behind him.

Brandon could feel his jaw pleading with him from the strain of being forced open at an uncomfortable angle for so long. He attempted to toss his head about and get the cloth and disk out, but neither budged. In fact, if anything the motion made him hurt more. He stopped realizing this and whimpered. Tears welled in his eyes.

Why was Sidney Crosby doing this to him?

Sidney stepped forward, reaching out toward the scared Blackhawk. He yanked the bandana down, so it came to drape around his neck like jewelry. Then he pulled out the black object and tossed it over the side of the building. “Don’t really need that. It’s more of a symbolic thing anyway. Like the puck, your career will fall to its death. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Sid, why are you doing this?”

Sidney smacked the forward’s cheeks with his hand. The villain then reached up and wiped his eyes with his thumb. “Brandon, Brandon, Brandon….do you really wanna know the answer to that?”

“YES!! Tell me!”

“I never imagined you as a beggar type, Saader. Come to think of it, I was shocked to learn that your fear, was a fear of heights!” He snickered at the amusement of the shocking discovery fact.

“Please, let me go and untie me, I won’t tell anybody, just let me get down!”

“Oh, I’ll let you down, alright!” Sidney cackled, throwing his head backward. He then raised the red bandana back up and inserted it into the helpless winger’s mouth. Brandon tried to jerk his head away, but the Penguin was faster. He made sure that it was fit in his mouth, between his lips, so that they formed around it. He pulled it tightly into place, retying the knot firmly into place, behind his head.

When that was set and Brandon was whimpering and grunting in helpless distress once more, the Penguin patted him on the head and bid him farewell. He vanished once more, cackling as he walked off.

The next thing the poor Blackhawk knew, was that the pole he was attached to made a thunderous and horrible cracking noise, gradually leaning toward the edge. Before long, he was dangling over the edge of the building and if he wasn’t tied to the pole, he’d certainly fall to his death below.

The Blackhawk screamed into the bandana cloth. His heart-wrenching and pitiful cried echoing in the air, but alerting no life. In the streets below cars raced about like ants, unaware of the helpless man high above, barely clinging to his life.

But that was just the beginning. He heard the ominous snapping noise of a rope. Something was frying the ropes around him, slowly cutting them and when all of them snapped….down went Brandon Saad, plummeting to his death below.

There was one hope: a passing plane or helicopter or someone would see him before it was too late!

Notes

Damn Sid, you need to join Kesler in that class for getting some serious help, man. Geez you are one despicable bastard!

Here's peril #2: Brandon Saad!
What's gonna happen? Will the heroes be able to arrive in time to save the Blackhawk winger or is he good as dead?

Next up: The daring rescue!