Sliding I navigated the ice, shuffling, slipping, and gliding as fast as possible. But it didn't feel fast enough. I wasn't beside him. I needed to feel his warm skin pressed to my cold face, to feel his soft breath against my neck as I gathered him up and confirmed he was still here, still beside me.
My breath left in a choppy gasp as I pumped my legs across the ice, drawing closer to my goal. I was almost there.
The sickening crunch of bodies colliding echoed in the rink. Stunned I looked up, searching, but found not skaters, but a recording, the jumbotron, playing the accident, frozen on the moment of collision.
Yuri had been clobbered by another skater while skating backward at full speed.
The jumbotron slowly moved shot by shot passed the collision, replaying the rest of the accident.
The skaters fell gracelessly, feet flying as they went, and then my stomach sank to my feet.
Worse. A rolling nausea assaulted me, sapping me of every ounce of strength I had. It was worse than just a collision.
I watched as the blades of the other skater grazed Yuri's head and neck -slicing.
Oh God.
Blood shot from him in a spritz, sprinkling the ice, and then he landed. Head first, he hit the ice and bounced, and then he didn't move.
Weakness flooded me. I was going to be sick. I was going to be visible sick all over the ice, right here.
The rumble of the all-call filled the arena again thrumming through me with its' surety, "All Skater's off the ice." But I wasn't a skater.
Unthinking, I pushed myself forward, fighting the weakness, the illness, the dread, focusing my gaze on the small figure curled on the ice, not but 10 feet from me.
He had to be okay. My throat convulsed with anxiety as I came within speaking distance of Yuri. His small body still unmoving on the ice.
But what if he wasn't?
My heart sputtered, skipping beats.
….."Yuri?"