"You think we're gonna win this one, Marcus?" Francine said, rubbing his back.

"Since when did our team lose a game, it felt like forever since that happened," Marcus said.

"Maybe before I came on the team, but not now." she chuckled, clutching onto her hockey stick as she headed out to the ice.

Francine skated through the ice rink, looking out to the crowd she could only see the flashing of cameras, the screams, and cheers drowning out all other sounds. She has been playing hockey for a while, mainly playing for her school, but she didn't start taking it seriously until recently.

"Look at that Francine go! Have you seen anything like that before?" the announcer narrated.

"Young but mature as the fans say, maybe a bit too mature for my liking." the other announcer comments.

"Wonder why she changed her mask though, all those weird holes cut out of it"

The hockey player was blocking the shots from left to right, coming from all directions. But something distracted her, a man in the audience wearing a red jacket, silky brown hair sculpting his face.

"Holy crap, Francine watch out!" Marcus shouted.

"Huh-" A hockey puck came flying out of nowhere, hitting Francine dead in her eye.

-Thud-

She fell backward onto the ice, everything going black.

—-

When Francine woke up, all she could see was the fluorescent lights from the ceiling. She had a headache creeping up on her, slowly piercing the right side of her brain. A warm, plush bed replaced the cold of the ice.

"Where's my jersey," she pat herself down. "Where's my gear!?"

"Calm down, kid, you'll be fine. Just got into a little accident, that's all."

The hockey player turned to look at the figure next to her bed, the captain.

Francine lay back down, staring at her captain. Her body is growing cold as the headache gets worse.

"How could this happen? I was doing so well that I got distracted.." she whispered, eyes glazed over.

"Oh Francine, don't be so hard on yourself, this happened to plenty of people before you. See," the captain rubbed Francine's head with his head. "Not much pain now, but you'll have to sit out."

"Hmm."

The captain walked away and headed toward the door.

"If you need anything, just call, ok?" the captain said.

"'Kay.." she said.

Francine reached over to the table on the right, gifts overflowed from top to bottom. She grabbed a handful of cards and some boxes from the table. Laying them on top of herself, she goes through them individually.

"Dear Francine, you've always been my favorite player. I have all your merchandise, some of it even signed. I want to play hockey too, but I'm disabled and don't have a leg. Do you think I'll make it into the big leagues like you? :)"

Francine furrowed her brows, her lips turning into a wicked simile. She looked over to the table again, picked up a notebook and a pen, and started to write.

"What a dumbass, how the hell is someone supposed to skate without a leg? Looks like this kid is disabled in more ways than one." Francine chuckled to herself, pens furiously writing a sickly sweet letter back to the fan.

Just as Francine finished writing the letter, there was a knock on the door, and one of the doctors opened the door—a clipboard in hand, standing over her with sadness in her eyes.

"Lemme guess, I can't play for the rest of the season.." Francine states.

The doctor nods

"You suffered from a severe blow to your eye, we can't risk one of our patients losing her eyesight," The doctor took the pen from Francine's hands. "Even something as simple as writing."

Francine rolled her eyes, she never liked going to the doctors for appointments, let alone in the situation she was in right now.

"Fine, I'll just sit here and do nothing," Francine said, crossing her arms.

As the doctor was taking her vital signs, Francine's mind wandered off to the man again. Those eyes pierced into her soul, something about him wasn't right.

"Looks like everything is good Francine, just don't do anything taxing on your body." the doctor said, leaving the room after.

The only thing that Francine could do without getting scolded again by the doctor was to watch the TV. She grabbed the remote and put it on the sports channel.

"I look so small on the screen…, and why do they have to say that I had an accident…, it wasn't that… bad…" Francine trailed off into a deep sleep as the TV kept going.